Another piece I put up recently was on anti-Semitism and racism in the interwar Conservative party, in which I pointed out that at the time ‘alien’ nearly always mean ‘Jew’, and strongly implied that they had left-wing sympathies. There was some suspicion at the time that Margaret Thatcher may also have held these views, not least because she denounced Socialism as ‘an alien creed’.
Part of the allegations of anti-Semitism directed against Ken Livingstone come from Leninspart’s statement that there was a pact between the Nazis and the Zionists to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel. Livingstone was vigorously attacked for this, but nevertheless, it was true. Hitler and the Zionists did sign the notorious Haavara agreement to allow some Jews to escape Nazi Germany to flee to Israel. It was highly controversial on both sides. There were also other areas in which the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, such as in armed opposition to the British in Palestine.
Both these subjects are tackled in Robin Ramsay’s column, ‘More Notes on the Right’ in Lobster 13, p. 17. He writes;
One of the things anti-Semite watchers in this country must be waiting for is the arrival of anti-Semitism close to the leadership of the present Thatacherite faction in the Tory party. When it comes, if it comes, it will be coded. It may have already happened. Just before Christmas Mrs Thatcher expressed her hope for a third term in office to enable her to rid this country of Socialsm “an alien creed“. [emphasis in the original]. This use of ‘alien’ is very curious, for ‘alien’ used to be international (and British) code for ‘Jew’. Further, one of her senior parliamentary supporters, John Biggs-Davison (now Sir John: she knighted him) recently wrote of Marx and Engels as “false Hebrew prophets”.
What does this mean? Has the American far-right’s obsession with the Wall St Jews-financed-the Russian-Revolution been implanted here? Does Mrs Thatcher read the John Birch Society’s American Opinion? I hardly think so: our Tory party eats, drinks and sleeps with the City of London, and could hardly bring itself to believe in the ‘Jewish banker conspiracy’. These remarks are curious, nonetheless. Mrs Thatcher’s equivalents in the US are a pretty dotty bunch. Reagan and Weinberger, and probably others, are waiting for the Old Testament ‘Apocalypse’ to arrive. Why should we expect much more from their British counterparts?
The US has come a long way since the days when Richard Nixon’s choice for the Supreme Court, Judge Carswell, was rejected by Congress, essentially because he was stupid. Among some of the upper echelons of the Republican Party, Carswell would be a giant among pigmies.
And undeniable upsurge of anti-Semitism in Europe and America is underway. Yet we have a right-wing Israel, an ‘ally’ of the ‘West’ – i.e. the Americans. Life is complicated still further by the existence of anti-Zionism, and the claims by some Jews that anti-Zionism is simply anti-Semitism in light disguise. While this is obviously true in some instances, is it always true? What are we to make of Jewish anti-Zionists? it will not do to simply dismiss such people – as some Jews do – as ‘self-hating Jews’. These (barely relevant) thoughts have been provoked by the furore surrounding the Jim Allen play Perdition which didn’t quite make it onto the stage of London’s Royal Court Theatre. What struck me reading some of the recent articles describing the Israeli’s states dickering with some of the most obnoxious, neo-Fascist regimes in the post-War world is why anyone should be surprised to discover that some Zionists collaborated with the Nazis during WW2. Shits are universal and it would have been remarkable indeed if some Jews hadn’t collaborated: members of almost every other ethnic-national group which encountered the Nazis did. (I have to write ‘almost every’ because I have never heard of gypsies collaborating’).
Writing this section I am acutely conscious that this Lobster is full of material critical of the Israeli state and thus I/the Lobster run the risk of being labelled ‘anti-Semitic’. Well, so be it. If anyone wants to get into the extremely complicated and superheated area of Nazi-Zionist collaboration, they could try Nazi-Zionist Collaboration, a largish pamphlet produced by BAZO (British Anti-Zionist Organisation) which I was sent some time ago. I know nothing about BAZO but can report that Gill Seidel includes BAZO in a section on ‘left anti-Semitism’ in her recent Holocaust Denial, reviewed in this issue. If BAZO is, in fact, anti-Semitic, it is either well concealed in this pamphlet, or I just am not able to ‘read’ anti-Semitism yet. (Or both).
Tags: 'American Opinion', 'Nazi-Zionist Collaboration', 'Perdition', 'Wall Street', anti-semitism, Anti-Zionism, British Anti-Zionist Organisation, Caspar Weinberger, City of London, Congress, Conservative Party, Friederich Engels, Gill Seidel, Haavara Agreement, Holocaust Denial, Jews, Jim Allen, John Biggs-Davison, John Birch Society, Judge Carswell, Ken Livingstone, Lobster, London, Margaret Thatcher, Marx, Old Testament, Palestine, racism, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Royal Court Theatre, Russian Revolution, the Apocalypse, World War II, Zionism
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
Leave a comment