Antisemitism in Political Parties

Fergal McEntee

2019: Green Party parliamentary candidate for Putney

2018: Green Party candidate, Roehampton and Putney Heath ward, Wandsworth Borough Council

Incidents

  1. On 1st June 2018, Fergal McEntee shared a video on Facebook which featured the controversial musician Roger Waters speaking to the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network in February 2018. Mr Waters, advocating that musicians should boycott Israel, alleged that anyone who did so would be “[entertaining] the people who shot the feet off Palestinian footballers.” He continued: “There’s two kids, 18 year olds, they’ve been to the local football stadium to train, dreamed of playing one day for Palestine. And some IDF soldiers decided to…They shot one kid 7 times in one foot and four times in the other. So obviously they’ll never play soccer and they’ll never walk again.”

    Mr Waters appears to have been referring to a 2014 incident which prompted a letter to The Independent, signed by, amongst others, Baroness Jenny Tonge and Mr Waters himself, but in which the facts appear to have been significantly distorted with regards to both the circumstances in which the incident occurred and the extent of the young men’s injuries.

    A commenter wrote: [a] “Racism is racism, hiding behind the word ‘Anti-semite’ [sic] confers some kind of special privilege, as if oppressing Jews is somehow worse than oppressing any other race or religion. [b] Certain people use this as a smokescreen to obscure the disgrace of the inexcusable abuses of human rights in Palestine. Constantly disgusted by the bowing and scraping to these sentiments in the press when Palestine has been effectively the worlds largest concentration camp for decades and there [sic] suffering is endless. Happy when anyone stands up to this.” Mr McEntee ‘liked’ this.

  1. On 29th September 2019, a statement was published in the London Green Left blog, to which Mr McEntee was a signatory. The statement included the following accusation against Campaign Against Antisemitism: “CAA is a campaign which systematically makes accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestine activists (esp. Jewish ones). To take up this complaint would be to collude in an anti-Palestinian agenda that would also discredit the Green Party. It is astonishing that the Party could fall for such a tactic, unwittingly or through lack of political courage.” It further asserted: “The IHRA definition poses a serious threat to academic freedom and freedom of expression by conflating opposition to Israeli policies with antisemitism…A complaint which now exploits the definition, without the backing of conference, in order to frame allegations against a member is itself evidence of this threat. For the Green Party to sponsor a politically motivated external campaign against one of its own spokespersons is an affront…”

Analysis

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis is that Mr McEntee’s actions and statements amount to breaches of the International Definition of Antisemitism and qualify as antisemitic discourse according to our methodology.

By endorsing a statement in which it is suggested that Jews consider oppression against them to be in some way more significant than that perpetrated against “any other race or religion”, conferring “some kind of special privilege” [1a], he was endorsing a statement which was “making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews…”

By endorsing a statement in which it was alleged that antisemitism is used “as a smokescreen” to shield the State of Israel from criticism and suggesting that the press was “bowing and scraping” to accusations of antisemitism at a time when antisemitism had been a focus of media interest, given how many members of the British Jewish community had been protesting about antisemitism in the Labour Party [1b]; and by signing a statement which accused a Jewish charity fighting antisemitism of being a “politically motivated external campaign” enacting an “anti-Palestinian agenda” by “systematically [making] accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestine activists” [2], he was endorsing the deployment of the so-called ‘Livingstone Formulation, by accusing Jews who cite evidence of antisemitism of lying, conspiring or having deceitful motives in doing so, when there is clear evidence that there have been breaches of the International Definition of Antisemitism. This further constitutes “making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews…”

Outcome

In August 2020, Campaign Against Antisemitism put this matter to both Mr McEntee and the Green Party: Mr McEntee did not respond, and the Green Party told us they were unable to comment on individual cases lest it prove prejudicial to any future disciplinary proceedings.

At the time of writing, on 24th August 2020, it is not known whether any action has been taken by the Green Party against Mr McEntee.

Rating

Campaign Against Antisemitism has rated the Party’s handling of this matter as “bad”. Our rating system is explained in our methodology. This case was last updated on 16th September 2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has rated the Party’s handling of this matter as “unsatisfactory”. Our rating system is explained in our methodology. This case was last updated on 1st Monthember 2019.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has rated the Party’s handling of this matter as “good”. Our rating system is explained in our methodology. This case was last updated on 1st Monthember 2019.

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