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Weaponising Anti-Semitism
“For five years Jeremy Corbyn was portrayed as a bigot leading an anti-Semitic Labour Party. This important book makes the case for the defence.” —Peter Oborne
“A story that needs to be told.” —Chris Mullin
“Winstanley tells this explosive story without fear, favour, or frills.” —Roger Waters
Meticulously researched while reading like a fast-paced thriller, this explosive new book details the way the Israel lobby deployed charges of anti-Semitism to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for power as leader of the Labour Party.
In an electrifying account, investigative journalist Asa Winstanley shows how Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis was manufactured by pro-Israel groups. Despised and feared by Israel and its allies because of his long-standing support for the Palestine solidarity movement, Jeremy Corbyn became a target of enemies determined to abort his left-wing project.
Drawing on new interviews with many of those victimized in purges the Labour leadership claimed were necessary to tackle anti-Semitism, Winstanley exposes a plot by the Israel lobby, in alliance with the Labour right and Israeli and British intelligence agencies, to prevent a socialist entering Downing Street.
An essential historical corrective, Weaponising Anti-Semitism shines light into the murkiest corners of the British state and those who work with it.
“A story that needs to be told.” —Chris Mullin
“Winstanley tells this explosive story without fear, favour, or frills.” —Roger Waters
Meticulously researched while reading like a fast-paced thriller, this explosive new book details the way the Israel lobby deployed charges of anti-Semitism to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for power as leader of the Labour Party.
In an electrifying account, investigative journalist Asa Winstanley shows how Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis was manufactured by pro-Israel groups. Despised and feared by Israel and its allies because of his long-standing support for the Palestine solidarity movement, Jeremy Corbyn became a target of enemies determined to abort his left-wing project.
Drawing on new interviews with many of those victimized in purges the Labour leadership claimed were necessary to tackle anti-Semitism, Winstanley exposes a plot by the Israel lobby, in alliance with the Labour right and Israeli and British intelligence agencies, to prevent a socialist entering Downing Street.
An essential historical corrective, Weaponising Anti-Semitism shines light into the murkiest corners of the British state and those who work with it.
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2023
33 people are currently reading
494 people want to read
About the author
Asa Winstanley
2 books15 followersAsa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who lives in London and who has been writing about Palestine and the Israel lobby since 2005.
Originally from south Wales, Asa Winstanley began visiting Palestine at the end of 2004, volunteering with the human rights defenders of the International Solidarity Movement. He ended up working in the occupied West Bank until 2007 and has returned many times since.
Media coordinator for the ISM, he later wrote for the Palestine Times, the first Palestinian English-language daily newspaper published in the occupied West Bank.
He has been an associate editor and reporter with the award-winning website The Electronic Intifada for more than a decade and is co-host of The Electronic Intifada podcast.
He is the author of the bestselling book, Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2023).
He is regularly invited onto podcasts and YouTube channels to talk about Palestine, the Israel lobby and geopolitics.
Appearances have included BreakThrough News, The Chris Hedges Report, Danny Haiphong, The Katie Halper Show, By Any Means Necessary, The East is a Podcast, Unauthorized Disclosure, Ben Norton, Not the Andrew Marr Show and Palestine Declassified.
He’s written for many other publications over the years, including Declassified UK, Middle East Monitor, Middle East Eye, The National, and Jacobin.
He is a member of the National Union of Journalists.
He authors a Substack newsletter titled Palestine is Still the Issue.
Originally from south Wales, Asa Winstanley began visiting Palestine at the end of 2004, volunteering with the human rights defenders of the International Solidarity Movement. He ended up working in the occupied West Bank until 2007 and has returned many times since.
Media coordinator for the ISM, he later wrote for the Palestine Times, the first Palestinian English-language daily newspaper published in the occupied West Bank.
He has been an associate editor and reporter with the award-winning website The Electronic Intifada for more than a decade and is co-host of The Electronic Intifada podcast.
He is the author of the bestselling book, Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2023).
He is regularly invited onto podcasts and YouTube channels to talk about Palestine, the Israel lobby and geopolitics.
Appearances have included BreakThrough News, The Chris Hedges Report, Danny Haiphong, The Katie Halper Show, By Any Means Necessary, The East is a Podcast, Unauthorized Disclosure, Ben Norton, Not the Andrew Marr Show and Palestine Declassified.
He’s written for many other publications over the years, including Declassified UK, Middle East Monitor, Middle East Eye, The National, and Jacobin.
He is a member of the National Union of Journalists.
He authors a Substack newsletter titled Palestine is Still the Issue.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 29, 2023
Well researched and referenced. A case of foreign interference in UK politics.
Entirely consistent with my own experience as a labour member predating Corbyn and as a Constituency Party Secretary for the last couple of years.
Telling the truth is no longer allowed if you are a member. A despicable bunch of liars and bullies at the head of the party and in its bureaucracy sold themselves to foreign donors and employed the weapon of false accusations of racism to protect an apartheid regime. You can’t make it up.
Entirely consistent with my own experience as a labour member predating Corbyn and as a Constituency Party Secretary for the last couple of years.
Telling the truth is no longer allowed if you are a member. A despicable bunch of liars and bullies at the head of the party and in its bureaucracy sold themselves to foreign donors and employed the weapon of false accusations of racism to protect an apartheid regime. You can’t make it up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 20, 2023
This book is an essential read. As the former Labour MP and author of A Very British Coup, Chris Mullin, says, this account of how the Israel lobby brought down Jeremy Corbyn is “a story that needs to be told”. Given the current events in Gaza, the story that Asa Winstanley tells in this books 300+ pages is quite simply staggering, illuminating and frightening in equal measure. Meticulously researched and impeccably sourced and referenced, Weaponising Anti-Semitism is as unputdownable as it is essential. It is a must read.
August 5, 2024
The most important and most brilliant book I have ever read — literally totally utterly gobsmacked’th 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
August 21, 2023
A very important and meticulously researched book from Asa Winstanley that dives into the Labour party within the past eight years. At its core is the antisemitism crisis that took hold during Corbyn's four years in power. For anyone interested in Corbyn this is a vital book to read as it focuses on the cases of Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, etc. that covered the media during Corbyn's spell.
The only thing I would say is that this book could have benefited from a more linear narrative structure as it does tend to jump around quite a lot. Overall, it's a refreshing take amid a time that's been clouded with so much controversy and it highlights how the Labour party has been pushed further to the right under Starmer and attacks anything remotely left wing and pro-palestinian.
The only thing I would say is that this book could have benefited from a more linear narrative structure as it does tend to jump around quite a lot. Overall, it's a refreshing take amid a time that's been clouded with so much controversy and it highlights how the Labour party has been pushed further to the right under Starmer and attacks anything remotely left wing and pro-palestinian.
March 24, 2024
A non-Jewish person writing a book about how antisemitism is being weaponised is in itself antisemitism. Writing a book about Zionists (just jews really) like a murder mystery, is distasteful and doesn’t help at all. Anyone who read this and bought this premise has already fallen into the trap that Zionists/jews are controlling the narrative for their own gain which is already bordering a very famous antisemitic conspiracy theory. No one argues that any other ethnic group weaponises bigotry against them, but it’s okay to do that for Jews.
January 14, 2024
Very well written, thorough, referenced and convincing Why is any intelligent, left-wing person who wants a better world still in the UK Labour Party?
September 26, 2023
How was the former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn brought down, by whom, and why?
In this very important book Asa Winstanley explains how Corbyn was laid low by a carefully orchestrated attack and destroy campaign based on false accusations of antisemitism, exacerbated by Corbyn's own gentle reasonableness (or as Winstanley puts it, his lack of a "killer instinct").
Following Corbyn's election as Labour Leader in 2015 a wide-ranging campaign to wreck his chances was immediately set in train by the "Israeli Lobby" (the term used in an Al Jazeera documentary) not only against Corbyn himself, but all the other key political thinkers on the Labour Left, on local Party officers, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary members.
It consisted of amassing evidence, all of it circumstantial when not completely spurious, to create a misconception that under Corbyn's leadership, the Labour Party had all of a sudden become infested with antisemitism because it was pro-Palestinian.
An "antisemitism crisis", manufactured by the Lobby, began in 2016 with a staged confrontation (making sure the television cameras were present) between two Labour MPs: the right-wing John Mann (operating on behalf of the Lobby) and the left-wing Ken Livingstone at which Mann accused Livingstone of being a "Nazi apologist" for having stated a historical fact: that during a period in Hitler's Germany, before the 1942 Wansee Conference and the "Final Solution", the Zionists had negotiated and collaborated with the Nazis to facilitate the removal of Germany's Jews to Palestine.
This added fuel to a debate about the nature of antisemitism and a carefully orchestrated series of events and denunciations designed to undermine Corbyn's Labour. One of its effects was to create a lexicographical fog about the meaning of the term antisemitism and its conflation with anti-Zionism. It enabled all kinds of accusations to be made that were impossible to refute and was exploited by the Lobby to identify supposed "antisemites" everywhere in the Labour Party.
Despite this, under Corbyn hundreds of thousands of new activist members had joined Labour and enabled it to achieve an outstanding result in the 2017 General Election: not enough votes to win power but enough to politically cripple the Tory Prime Minster Theresa May. So the plan was intensified to make sure Corbyn would be destroyed before another general election could take place. And sure enough two years later in 2019, when Theresa May's successor Boris Johnson called another General Election, the ground had been prepared and Corbyn lost - badly.
By manipulating the flow of information via the mainstream television news media and the most widely read national newspapers, a perception had been created in the mind of the average voter, and particularly among Jewish voters, that Corbyn and Labour had been completely corrupted by antisemitism.
There were other factors in the destruction of Corbyn but as Winstanley explains, it was this almost complete control of the news agenda by a foreign power (as the leader of Unite, Len McCluskey, put it) that led to his downfall. Since then. this foreign power, which is still active, has made sure that the truth remains hidden from the general public.
That's why this book is so important. Winstanley has set out the correct narrative here, placing the responsibility on the "Israel Lobby" and/or its agents (including a fifth column within the Labour Party itself), but not overlooking Corbyn's inability to stand up and fight them.
Winstanley is wise not to speculate what the future might hold now for the hundreds of thousands of Labour Party members who joined Corbyn's "surge", many of them very young and getting active in politics for the first time, inspired by a political vision that would have transformed Britain into something they felt was worth fighting for.
So his book is the history of a defeat. It is very detailed and may therefore not, unfortunately, attract non-specialist readers who are not passionate about politics or who are not already au fait with the ins and outs of British Labour Party politics.
It overlooks, or delberately leaves out, some aspects of the anti-Corbyn conspiracy that are only now becoming evident, so it may prove to be not the last word on these matters.
Winstanley emphasises many times, particularly in his closing paragraphs, that a kind, gentle, reasonable man like Corbyn simply did not have it in him to take command and fight.
We are left to ponder that thought.
ADDED LATER: interesting YouTube video, on this subject, by Chris Hedges:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIWPz...
In this very important book Asa Winstanley explains how Corbyn was laid low by a carefully orchestrated attack and destroy campaign based on false accusations of antisemitism, exacerbated by Corbyn's own gentle reasonableness (or as Winstanley puts it, his lack of a "killer instinct").
Following Corbyn's election as Labour Leader in 2015 a wide-ranging campaign to wreck his chances was immediately set in train by the "Israeli Lobby" (the term used in an Al Jazeera documentary) not only against Corbyn himself, but all the other key political thinkers on the Labour Left, on local Party officers, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary members.
It consisted of amassing evidence, all of it circumstantial when not completely spurious, to create a misconception that under Corbyn's leadership, the Labour Party had all of a sudden become infested with antisemitism because it was pro-Palestinian.
An "antisemitism crisis", manufactured by the Lobby, began in 2016 with a staged confrontation (making sure the television cameras were present) between two Labour MPs: the right-wing John Mann (operating on behalf of the Lobby) and the left-wing Ken Livingstone at which Mann accused Livingstone of being a "Nazi apologist" for having stated a historical fact: that during a period in Hitler's Germany, before the 1942 Wansee Conference and the "Final Solution", the Zionists had negotiated and collaborated with the Nazis to facilitate the removal of Germany's Jews to Palestine.
This added fuel to a debate about the nature of antisemitism and a carefully orchestrated series of events and denunciations designed to undermine Corbyn's Labour. One of its effects was to create a lexicographical fog about the meaning of the term antisemitism and its conflation with anti-Zionism. It enabled all kinds of accusations to be made that were impossible to refute and was exploited by the Lobby to identify supposed "antisemites" everywhere in the Labour Party.
Despite this, under Corbyn hundreds of thousands of new activist members had joined Labour and enabled it to achieve an outstanding result in the 2017 General Election: not enough votes to win power but enough to politically cripple the Tory Prime Minster Theresa May. So the plan was intensified to make sure Corbyn would be destroyed before another general election could take place. And sure enough two years later in 2019, when Theresa May's successor Boris Johnson called another General Election, the ground had been prepared and Corbyn lost - badly.
By manipulating the flow of information via the mainstream television news media and the most widely read national newspapers, a perception had been created in the mind of the average voter, and particularly among Jewish voters, that Corbyn and Labour had been completely corrupted by antisemitism.
There were other factors in the destruction of Corbyn but as Winstanley explains, it was this almost complete control of the news agenda by a foreign power (as the leader of Unite, Len McCluskey, put it) that led to his downfall. Since then. this foreign power, which is still active, has made sure that the truth remains hidden from the general public.
That's why this book is so important. Winstanley has set out the correct narrative here, placing the responsibility on the "Israel Lobby" and/or its agents (including a fifth column within the Labour Party itself), but not overlooking Corbyn's inability to stand up and fight them.
Winstanley is wise not to speculate what the future might hold now for the hundreds of thousands of Labour Party members who joined Corbyn's "surge", many of them very young and getting active in politics for the first time, inspired by a political vision that would have transformed Britain into something they felt was worth fighting for.
So his book is the history of a defeat. It is very detailed and may therefore not, unfortunately, attract non-specialist readers who are not passionate about politics or who are not already au fait with the ins and outs of British Labour Party politics.
It overlooks, or delberately leaves out, some aspects of the anti-Corbyn conspiracy that are only now becoming evident, so it may prove to be not the last word on these matters.
Winstanley emphasises many times, particularly in his closing paragraphs, that a kind, gentle, reasonable man like Corbyn simply did not have it in him to take command and fight.
We are left to ponder that thought.
ADDED LATER: interesting YouTube video, on this subject, by Chris Hedges:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIWPz...
January 6, 2024
Americans, with their naval-gazing self-preoccupation, are nearly unanimously oblivious that the UK has undergone the same crisis of "anti-Semitism" now wracking the political and academic landscape in the US. Britain's Jewish Lobby, in both parties and in Jewish civic groups, banded together to oust Jeremy Corbyn from his leading role in Labour, along with other Israel critics like black Jewish activist Jackie Walker.
As in the US, academia was a special target of Lobby wrath. The Israeli embassy accused Oxford University students of anti-Semitism and witch-hunted student leader Max Shanley into blackmailed capitulation. Peddling smears against critics of Israel, or pro-Palestinian advocates, the intellectual bludgeoning only went so far before the public drew back in disgust.
But even with Corbyn ousted, the movement went on to dominate Labour (as it now does the Conservatives.) "Telling the truth," as longtime Labour and Palestinian rights activist Asa Winstanley concludes, "is now incompatible" with membership in any of the main UK parties. The root question is why and how this was allowed to happen.
The answer lies in Israeli intelligence operating through its embassy, and the "revolving door" between it and native pro-Israel advocacy groups. The funding for such interference comes from the Israeli government, Winstanley notes, but he stops short of the funding even behind that, which is the billions in fungible aid dollars coming from the United States. Keeping both the UK and US secure for Israel is, perhaps, also the last safety net: the "New Zion" when Israel finally implodes and its leaders are themselves refugees from, like Samson, blindly pulling down the pillars of their own temple.
Highly prophetic foreshadowing of the whirlwind to come but a few months after publication.
As in the US, academia was a special target of Lobby wrath. The Israeli embassy accused Oxford University students of anti-Semitism and witch-hunted student leader Max Shanley into blackmailed capitulation. Peddling smears against critics of Israel, or pro-Palestinian advocates, the intellectual bludgeoning only went so far before the public drew back in disgust.
But even with Corbyn ousted, the movement went on to dominate Labour (as it now does the Conservatives.) "Telling the truth," as longtime Labour and Palestinian rights activist Asa Winstanley concludes, "is now incompatible" with membership in any of the main UK parties. The root question is why and how this was allowed to happen.
The answer lies in Israeli intelligence operating through its embassy, and the "revolving door" between it and native pro-Israel advocacy groups. The funding for such interference comes from the Israeli government, Winstanley notes, but he stops short of the funding even behind that, which is the billions in fungible aid dollars coming from the United States. Keeping both the UK and US secure for Israel is, perhaps, also the last safety net: the "New Zion" when Israel finally implodes and its leaders are themselves refugees from, like Samson, blindly pulling down the pillars of their own temple.
Highly prophetic foreshadowing of the whirlwind to come but a few months after publication.
May 4, 2024
Very informative book. Most of my tabs on the book had to do with character names and different organizations which I am not familiar with due to the fact this all takes place in Britian. I guess one of the few names I could identify before reading the book was Jeremy Corbin. The politics is quite disgusting, but no more so than the politics here. I think I do see the same thing or similar things happening here today. From both parties. Basically, we have antisemitism being weaponized to protect Zionism and Israel from accountability. Some of the main participants are certainly the political parties and the corporate media. This subject is important to understand because it is like being in the middle of a coup d'état and not knowing it is actually happening. You can read the book or watch the Labor Files on YouTube. I did both. Ultimately, I would agree with those that say Corbin didn't fight hard enough and that is too bad because I think Britian is left diminished politically.
November 12, 2024
Outstanding Exposé of Operations of the lIsraeli-Zionist Destruction of the British Labour Party
Literally chapter and verse and footnote to all the shenanigans and skulduggery of the Zionists of Britain supported and funded etc by the Israeli Embassy and staff - to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and destroy the British Labour Party. The Party is no more - now it’s a Starmerite Zionist puppet party.
Literally chapter and verse and footnote to all the shenanigans and skulduggery of the Zionists of Britain supported and funded etc by the Israeli Embassy and staff - to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and destroy the British Labour Party. The Party is no more - now it’s a Starmerite Zionist puppet party.
May 19, 2023
This is a great book and needs to be read if you want to know how and why a good honest man was vilified and lied against. There's not a single anti-semitic bone in Jeremy Corbyn's body, but the establishment was terrified of a moderate socialist gaining power in the UK. Ignore the right wing critics, this is a thoroughly researched and well balanced book.
January 27, 2024
Very well written and revealing
I was puzzled by what seemed to be the rapid exit of Jeremy Corbyn when he had seemed to be so popular and had increased the membership of the Labour so dramatically. As a Winstanley has presented a clear explanation which is indeed unsettling.
I was puzzled by what seemed to be the rapid exit of Jeremy Corbyn when he had seemed to be so popular and had increased the membership of the Labour so dramatically. As a Winstanley has presented a clear explanation which is indeed unsettling.
June 29, 2023
A very well researched study of how support for the Palestinian cause and legitimate criticism of Israel by a lifelong anti-racist socialist was conflated by the media and others ( including the right-wing of the UK Labour Party) with anti-semitism. An important read.
December 31, 2023
This was haaaard to read. Maybe because I remember a lot of the headlines but also because it’s just sooooo twisted. All of the reporting things which aren’t true and then that taking the public’s opinion by storm and the apology or the retraction that comes/came later completely ignored/unknown.
August 6, 2023
Accurate but nothing new. Very narrow focus. Publishing this now is just crying over spilt milk, given it lacks any suggested way forward.
October 13, 2024
Disconcerting report on the influence of Israel and its foreign proxies in undermining Jeremy Corbyn: a warning to everyone.
November 17, 2024
A depressing but necessary read.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews