Simon Bridges has wondered out loud if anti semitism stopped the Government from sending a senior representative to a Holocaust memorial in Israel. Interestingly National apparently did not send representatives to two earlier events. They have not commented on this failure or what conclusion should be drawn from it.
The thinking in National’s ranks seems to be that since claims of anti semitism worked in the United Kingdom to undermine Jeremy Corbyn why waste a good scandal and why not recycle it here?
I could never understand the way it became an issue in the United Kingdom. The left was the strongest opposers to Nazism. It takes a whole lot of chutzpah to somehow suggest they are holocaust sympathisers.
And I could never understand the rationale. The logic seemed to be that if you are pro Palestine you are an antisemitic.
But Simon Bridges is living up to his persona of being a dirty little street fighter and will it appears use any tactic as long as it works.
From Zane Small at Newshub:
Simon Bridges is questioning if anti-Semitism is behind the Government failing to send a senior representative to a high-profile Holocaust memorial in Israel.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem held the World Holocaust Forum last week to mark 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz – but no New Zealand officials attended.
Bridges, leader of the Opposition, said he would “like to be generous and say it’s incompetence” that led to the Government’s failure to send someone – but he said he couldn’t help but notice a rise in global anti-Semitism.
“You look at the Labour Party in the UK – they have had very significant problems with anti-Semitism,” Bridges told Magic Talk. “I hope none of that is part of the Labour Party’s calculus – that has no place in New Zealand society.”
The UK’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – who is standing down after failing to win the recent election – has been bogged down by allegations of anti-Semitic sentiment, with several members of his party resigning over of it.
And he is borrowing from the Donald Trump blindly pro Israel line for some strange reason.
Bridges said he regrets that, under the previous National-led Government, New Zealand signed a United Nations resolution that deemed Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal.
“I’ve been pretty blunt about that – that didn’t come to Cabinet. If it had, I can’t say for certain, but I feel pretty sure it would have been a different result,” Bridges said. “It was the Foreign Minister who now accepts he didn’t bring it to Cabinet – he should have.”
Funnily enough National opposes the UN Migration Pact which when you think about it would have been very helpful to Jewish people escaping pogroms in the 1930s and 1940s. Of course such apparent contradictions are given little weight by National strategists.
The case involves as clear a breach of International Law as you can imagine. The United Kingdom supported it, the Obama Administration decided to abstain thereby letting the resolution through. Even Murray McCully supported it and this resulted in something quite unique, praise for him from the Standard. National subsequently backed away after Israel accused New Zealand of committing a declaration of war.
Of course Bridges swings heavily from making accusations of antisemitism to cosying up to actual nazis.
The question has to be asked. In the pursuit of power how low will Simon go?
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