Margaret Hodge:

Do read the wiki entry on her. She has a long history of damaging incompetence in all the roles given to her, of inconsistency apropos of Labour foreign policy (she railed against it often, yet voted for the invasion of Iraq, etc), of providing unwarranted publicity which greatly boosted the BNP, of extremely dubious expenses claims, among the highest during the scandal, of massive tax avoidance by her close family, and of lying about Jeremy Corbyn. Fine, quote her in support of your cause 'til the cows come home, but, frankly, she is not the kind of person I'd ever want to listen to.

Israel and racism:

When Israel came into being in the late 40s, three quarters of a million Arabs, that is, men, women, children, not soldiers or politicos, were either forced to flee or were actively driven out of their homes in what we now call Israel to make a homeland for Jews, many of whom were immigrants. Is that racist? I should say so. Am I antisemitic for making that accurate assessment of the events of that time? No, I am not. Should I be prevented from expressing that view? No, I should not. Feel free to argue the point. But include in your argument the current received wisdom that the NEC caveat is out of order. No it isn't, and to assert otherwise would be a naked attack on freedom of speech. Argue until you're blue in the face about what a bad tactic you think it was. But it is principled. Sod tactics.

So should Israel be wiped off the map?

No, never. Israel is a state of eight or nine million people, three-quarters only of them Jewish. Men, women, children. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, we are where we are and we have to make the best of what started as a very bad job (don't you just love cliches?) The history of mankind is littered with examples of stolen land making new countries or expanding existing ones. We live with that and, if we are really trying to be civilised, we try to reconcile historical differences and treat all citizens equally as fellow human beings. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in Israel. In almost every regard, non-Jews in Israel do very badly compared with Jews. That is well-documented and unarguable. I've given details several times in the past, gleaned from reputable sources only, and it's easily checkable. By any measure, that amounts to the perpetuation of the state of Israel as an institutionally-racist endeavour. Not only that, Zionists insist on calling Israel a Jewish state, ignoring the fact that a quarter of its citizens, the ones discriminated against, are not Jews. Applied to any other state, let's say apartheid South Africa or Iain Smith's Rhodesia, and you would never even think of arguing that they weren't racist states. It is very important that we are allowed to state these things with your having the protective umbrella of calling us antisemites for saying so. We are not, because not once have we ever said that these things are done by Jews because that's typical of what Jews do. Never, never, never!

Note that I don't say that Jews are institutionally a racist ethnic group. They are not. Ordinary Jewish people are just the same as ordinary Christian people or ordinary Muslim people. They are who they are by accident of birth and, like everybody else, they listen to, are influenced by and are swayed by their leaders. Like everybody else. No different. Like everybody else. Just like us in the UK, a bit thick on the whole when it comes to politics, not their fault (cf. brexit vote...), therefore rather easily manipulated. There are millions of racist Jews in Israel just as there are millions of racist Brits and even more millions of racist yanks. There's nothing special or exalted about Jews. As a matter of fact, when I take my old mum to Prestwich, where there are thousands of Jews, and do a spot of people-watching from the caff, I can't tell who's a Jew and who isn't. And I don't bloody care. I sort of like that. My mum is always trying to guess, trying to Jew-spot, but she's hopeless at it and I have to remonstrate with her every time we go. Oh, and by the way, that caff is thoroughly Jewish, best coffee in the north, and I gave it five stars on Trip Advisor, and I'd take the lovely lady owner 'ome any day if I could get away with it wi' Mrs Steve!