Former footballer John Barnes embroiled yet again in scandal relating to antisemitism
The former Liverpool and England footballer John Barnes has become embroiled, yet again, in a scandal relating to antisemitism.
In a Twitter tirade, Mr Barnes asked: “What COLOUR not RELIGION …. and what NATIONALITY were the jewish people that hitler tried to exterminate?? white europeans …. no??”
Responding to a tweet by another Twitter user that said: “Jews aren’t white. No one went to war to save the Jews. Quite the opposite. US and UK didn’t do anything for them – didn’t consider them white/European/WASP enough”, Mr Barnes wrote: “You’re right no one went to war to save the Jews, but they were considered European so MORE worthy of our empathy, the allies PLAYED the white card to garner acceptance, where the reality was to stop German expansionism and nothing else.”
He added: “Obviously all Jews are not white, but the European Jewry who suffered the Holocaust were, had Hitler left the European Jews alone and went to Ethiopia and committed the same atrocities to the black Falasha Jews, I doubt WW2 would have started.”
Mr Barnes previously expressed a similar sentiment in his 2021 book, wondering, “Can you racially abuse Jewish people?”, he asks, explaining that “if the Jewish people are a race, what race does a black Jewish person belong to?”
In recent years, Mr Barnes has been politically outspoken. In 2019, he appeared on BBC Question Time, and, whilst commending the Labour MPs who left the Labour Party in the previous week over “what they believe,” and recognising “it’s about antisemitism in the Labour Party,” he also took it upon himself to decide on behalf of Jewish people what is and what is not antisemitism.
On the issue of antisemitism, Mr Barnes asserted that “there is a difference between that and anti-Zionism…getting mixed up” and correctly pointed out that “you can criticise the state of Israel without being antisemitic.“ But he then turned against the view of the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community in saying that he thought that “from the Labour Party’s point of view, as much as Zionists may want to say it’s one and the same I don’t think it is. It’s a bit like saying all racism is the same, because it isn’t, for example the Jews, in my opinion, whilst it is a religion they aren’t necessarily a separate race of people. I think they get mixed up in that respect.”
Last year, the actress and television personality Whoopi Goldberg was widely criticised and suspended from her programme after asserting that the Holocaust was not about race.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “John Barnes is rehashing Whoopi Goldberg’s staggering ignorance of history. For the Nazis, the Holocaust was all about race, and it does not belittle anyone else’s experience of racism to recognise that. Instead, Mr Barnes, who has previously tried to dictate to Jews what antisemitism is and is not, has inserted himself in the ugly but familiar debate over Jewish whiteness, where Jews are too white for some and not white enough for others. He is in very poor company there, and the longer he remains, the more tarnished his reputation will become.”
