For the Money, not the Jew

Tony Blair was in the news last week, wondering whether the Labour Party can ever be recovered from its present hijacking by the far left.

The Guardian reported that he did not think the anti-Semitism row would have taken place “in the Labour party that I joined...I can’t imagine that we have had three to four months debating over something where we have profoundly insulted the Jewish community in our country”.

The British Labour Party has an inspiring record of fighting racism and standing up for the weak and marginalised. Far left groups which, under Jeremy Corbyn, seem to now wag the Labour dog, have allowed their derision of the Jewish state in Israel to cause 40% of British Jews to consider emigrating should Labour win the next election. It is lamentable that a party, once founded on broadly Christian principles, should cause the physical descendants of Abraham to fear. Labour, be warned; to Abraham and his descendants, God said:

“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:1-3

Despite Corbyn’s shameful toleration of anti-Semites in his party, Tony Blair is no paragon of virtue himself. His Tony Blair Institute received up to $12 million in donations from subsidiary companies of the Saudi government. Amnesty International reports events in Saudi this summer:

In July, the families of 14 men sentenced to death for protest-related charges learned by telephone that their relatives’ sentences had been upheld. Court documents showed that the 14 men were subjected to prolonged pre-trial detention and that they reported having been tortured and ill-treated during interrogation in order to extract “confessions” from them. In sentencing, the SCC appeared to have relied mostly on the “confessions” for evidence against the men and failed to investigate their allegations of torture.

Blair might preach social liberalism and hand-wring his party’s intolerance of Israel, but he will gladly receive money from people who are hardly any better.