On Wednesday Tony Greenstein put up a piece on his blog, once against criticism the fake campaign against anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. This has zero to do with really defending Jews from abuse and assault from genuine anti-Semites and Nazis, like those of the youth terror group, National Action. No, it’s really purpose is to unseat Jeremy Corbyn because he stands up for the rights of the Palestinians against Israeli oppression, and because he threatens to destroy the forty-year reign of neoliberalism that has wrecked this country’s economy, made its working people paupers dependent on food banks, and killed the disabled.
In his piece, Greenstein described how the Labour party had gone along with British imperialism, which disguised its exploitation of its subject nations by presenting it as for their benefit. Hence the Labour party’s support in turn for Zionism, which was similarly presented as beneficial. He makes it clear that Richard Burgon, who was forced to apologise and recant his statement that Zionism was the enemy of peace, was actually quite right. And he gives a list of the viciously repressive, murderous regimes Israel has supported. Greenstein wrote
But it’s not only within the Middle East that Israel has been a threat to peace. It has consistently supported the most repressive and genocidal regimes abroad. It actively aided the genocide in Guatemala where up to 200,000 Mayan Indians were slaughtered. It supported the death squad regime in El Salvador. Shipped weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras when the US Congress cut them off. It supported Pinochet in Chile (Israel’s Supreme Court recently refused to allow the files to be opened on ‘national security’ grounds). It armed the neo-Nazi Junta of Argentina between 1976-1983 when it murdered up to 3,000 Jews and of course more recently it armed the Burmese regime as it committed genocide. Israel was also of course the main arms supplier to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, including nuclear weapons.
See: http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-to-create-anti-semitism-in-2-easy.html
These are horrific regimes. The atrocities committed by the Fascist death squads in Latin America, which involved not only mass murder, but torture, rape and sexual mutilation, are so horrific that I cannot decently describe them in this blog. By supporting these regimes, Israel was complicit in acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
It also isn’t just Greenstein, who has argued that Burgon was right in his initial comment about Zionism. The Israeli expatriate historian Ilan Pappe says the same in his book, Ten Myths about Israel. Pappe argues very persuasively that Israel and its politicians have never been serious about making peace with the Palestinians, and have instead sought ways of provoking conflict while at the same time making it look as if they are the victims, not the aggressors. This is also argued by another book I’ve read, which stated that the real danger to Jews was Zionism.
Richard Burgon was absolutely right in his view that Zionism is a threat to peace. And it is absolutely disgusting that the Israeli state has supported utterly monstrous regimes across the world, which have tortured and murdered innocents in the tens and hundreds of thousands. And that any criticism of it for this is immediately condemned by the British establishment, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, as ‘anti-Semitic’.
Tags: 'Ten Myths About Israel', Abuse, Amerindians, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Apartheid, Assault, Congress, Death Squads, Deaths, Food Banks, General Pinochet, Genocide, Ilan Pappe, Imperialism, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, Middle East, Murder, Myanmar, National Action, Neoliberalism, Nuclear Weapons, Palestinians, Richard Burgon, Supreme Court, the Disabled, Tony Greenstein, Torture, Working Class, Zionism
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