This is another video from Middle East Eye that’s been posted on YouTube. It shows mobs of Israeli rioters attacking shops and businesses owned by Palestinians. You can see these thugs waving the Israeli flag. It’s an absolutely chilling sight, especially as it brings to my mind Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht, when the Nazis attacked and smashed Jewish owned businesses. This is very much the kind of video the Board of Deputies of British Jews does not want you to see. Peter Oborne, a deeply principle journalist, who previously worked for the Torygraph, made a video over ten years ago for Channel 4’s Dispatches on the Israel lobby. He interviewed Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Groan, and Avi Shlaim, an Oxford expert on the Middle East. Rusbridger described how, when his newspaper ran stories about Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians and their allies, the president of the Board would turn up with his pet lawyer in tow to complain that the story would increase anti-Semitism. The Board also denounced the Beeb as anti-Semitic because its highly respected correspondents on the Middle East, Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin, also reported Israeli atrocities, including the massacre of Palestinian refugees by their allies, the Christian Phalange. Shlaim stated that the Beeb’s reporting was actually overwhelmingly factually correct, although there were a couple of minor faults, according to an independent review body.
It is Israeli Fascist violence like this that Jeremy Corbyn opposes, not Jews. As have any number of pro-Palestinian Jewish activists – Jackie Walker, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Tony Greenstein and veteran thesp Miriam Margolyes. Nearly ten years ago Margolyes condemned the attacks on Gaza as ‘a proud Jew, and an ashamed Jew’. It is because of their activism on behalf of the Palestinians that these people have been foully smeared and reviled as anti-Semites.
It’s time this stopped. Terrorism by anyone is wrong, and I don’t agree with the Palestinian attacks either.
But its time the Israeli attacks on Palestinians ceased, Netanyahu condemned for his barbarous treatment of the country’s indigenous Arabs, and the Board condemned for seeking to cover up such racist barbarity.
Trump movement of the American embassy to Jerusalem has caused widespread protests. Palestinians in Gaza have gathered at the enclosing fence to protest. 59 of them have been killed by Israeli soldiers, and something like a further 200 injured.
In this short video from RT, the protesters state exactly why they are against the movement of the embassy. One young man says its because Jerusalem is a contested city, where 35-40 per cent of its occupants – the Palestinian Arabs – are under occupation. A young woman says that Trump is gambling with the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, which he has no right to do. The journo then asks Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli parliamentarian, what he thinks. Tibi responds by stating that it is a licensed demonstration, but immediately it began they were attacked, he was attacked, because of the Palestinians, and they were pushed back. He states Jerusalem is occupied territory. It should be the capital of the state of Palestine. The video then shows someone pushing Tibi back, while a woman states that they have tried to arrest the head of the Palestinians in Israel. She goes on to say that they will not allow this, and goes on to insist on their right to protest.
Mike has written a superb piece about the shooting of Palestinian protesters by the Israelis, and the shameful attempts to excuse the Israeli state by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Labour Friends of Israel. He calls out the Beeb for remaining silent and not condemning this atrocity. And he puts up Tweets from ordinary people, including those whom the Board would probably describe as ‘the wrong type of Jews’, who have condemned the Israeli armed forces. He also shows footage of Israelis also protesting the move and the IDF shooting of Palestinian protesters.
Mike explains, despite the probability that the Israel lobby and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism will find this yet another reason to smear him, why Gaza can fairly be compared to a concentration camp. He talks about the Nakba, the Palestinian term for their persecution, massacre and ethnic cleansing when Israel was set up, and that the Israeli state is engaged in a campaign of genocide against them. And he cites and shows various Israeli politicians, who have not minced words and talked about the killing of Palestinians in very bloody terms. One of these is a female politico, who talks about not only killing terrorists and demolishing their homes, but also about killing their entire families. This has sparked condemnation from the people Mike follows on Twitter, which include not only Muslims like Aleesha and Nadim Ahmed, but also Jeremy Corbyn, Craig Murray, who compares the shooting of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers to the Yemeni kids killed by British bombs, as well as Tom London, Shlomo, David Clarke and the comic actor, David Schneider. A number of Labour and SNP MPs also stood outside Parliament in support of the Palestinians, though this is a mere handful compared to the larger number, who kept their mouths firmly shut.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and Labour Friends of Israel both issued statements blaming Hamas for putting the people of Gaza and the Palestinians up to protesting, thus causing them to get shot. These are nasty, weasel words. Others, including Tony Greenstein, long ago despatched that nasty excuse for Israeli atrocities. Palestinian society is split between a number of political factions. Hamas doesn’t have the absolute totalitarian control to move 40,000 people to the fence enclosing Gaza. What is driving the Palestinians is the simple fact that this is another assault on them, their national identity and their right to their ancestral homes. The Board and LFI also took those statements down when they found they weren’t convincing anyone, but people have taken screenshots of them.
And those trying to defend Israel have also brought back the old excuse that ‘Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East’. There are two answers to this. The first is that it isn’t. Lebanon is also a democracy. It’s different from Israeli and Western democracy, in that the various sects and religions are also guaranteed particular places in their parliament, according to the size of their population in a system known as consociality, but it’s still a democracy. The other argument is that it may be democracy for the Israelis, but it isn’t for the Palestinians. Yes, there are Arab members of the Knesset, and an Arab party is represented, but the Palestinians themselves live under an oppressive system of apartheid. And it shouldn’t matter whether a country is a democracy or not, atrocities are atrocities and the state or government which commits them is just as guilty as any other.
Mike makes it also clear that he feels the reason why no-one in the media is condemning these atrocities, or worse, they’re actually giving their support, is because they’re afraid of being libelled as anti-Semites. He states that these cowed journos shame us all. Mike’s a journalist, who prizes fairness and integrity, for which he was greatly respected by the people in local government when he was a local hack.
And he’s right about this. Norman Finkelstein has said in one of his videos that the Israel lobby has been smearing the country’s critics as anti-Semites since the 1980s. In fact he called them ‘a machine for creating anti-Semites’. And years ago, when the Israeli state started bombarding Palestine, a book came out entitled The Political Uses of Anti-Semitism. It was a volume of essays highly critical of Israel, half of which were authored by Jews. I also remember that one of the people, who spoke out against that was the thesp Miriam Margolies, who said she spoke as ‘a proud Jew, and an ashamed Jew’.
Shlomo, one of peeps on Twitter Mike has reblogged, urges everyone not to believe that Jews are somehow enemies within, who support Netanyahu 100 per cent, and that Jews are as British as anyone else. Shlomo isn’t the only Jewish Brit, who feared that Israel and its actions would result in British Jews being suspected as dangerous foreigners in their own country. Samuel Montague, in his famous memorandum, objected to Balfour’s decision to back the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine for precisely this reason.
As for Jerusalem, the UN resolution that recognised Israel stated that it should be a free city. As al-Quds, it’s the third holiest city in Islam, and so its occupation by the Israelis was bound to be bitterly resented. More than that, the Israeli paper Haaretz published an article a years or so ago reporting that hostility by the Israeli inhabitants against Arab residents was increasing along with calls for them to be expelled. The reporter was appalled at this, and called for a little more tolerance.
Mike’s statement that the Israeli state’s campaign of persecution against the Palestinians is genocide may well draw the ire of people like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, but he isn’t alone in describing it as such. One of those, who includes the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians with other forms of genocide is the Israeli professor at Hebrew university in Jerusalem, who wrote a whole book entitled Genocide. This includes the Holocaust, naturally, though the Israel lobby hate anybody comparing the two. I’ve got a copy of the book on my shelf.
As for the Beeb’s silence, Lobster years ago commented that the corporation ties itself in knots trying to convince itself and others that it’s biased reporting is, in fact, impartial. Peter Oborne, in his Despatches investigation into the Israel lobby stated that off the record, many of the journalists and researchers in the Beeb’s news team complained that there was considerable pressure from management not to criticise Israel. This brings to mind the case of Danny Cohen, a very senior member of BBC management, who shot off to Israel a few years ago complaining of rising levels of anti-Semitism in Europe. Jews weren’t safe, and so should move to Israel. Which is the standard line of the Israel lobby. He’s since come back to Britain, which indicates that anti-Semitism can’t be that rife in Britain.
And then there are the geopolitical reasons, which might influence the Beeb’s culpable silence. Comparisons were made between the creation of Israel and the establishment of Northern Ireland by the Ulster Protestants, and it was suggested at the time that the British government was trying to create a little Jewish enclave amongst the Arabs in the same way that one of Ulster’s cities was a little Protestant enclave amongst the Roman Catholics. Which implies that behind this lies more British imperialism. Especially as Britain’s foreign policy in the region relies on two allies, the Israelis and the Saudis. The Beeb’s the state broadcaster, and it seems to me that it’s reporting reflects long term establishment views. And so they’re not going to be critical of the Israelis, in order to avoid alienating a valuable ally in the region.
And so, despite the horror of ordinary Brits and people across the world, the mainstream media remains silent about these atrocities.
Looking through some of the on-line back issues of the parapolitical magazine, Lobster, I found a brief review of four books attacking Israel, its ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, and its extensive lobbying network in America and the EU by Tom Easton in issue 60, for winter 2010. The books reviewed are
If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew , by Michael Marqusee, (London and Brooklyn: Verso)
‘This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, by Norman Finkelstein (New York: O R Books)
War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America, by James Petras, (Atlanta: Clear Day Books)
Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation, by David Cronin (London: Pluto).
Easton begins his review by pointing out that many of the people now criticising Israel for its imperialism and gross violations of human rights are Jews, people of immense courage who are bitterly attacked for their opposition to Zionism. he writes
One of the more heartening developments in this chilly political climate is the growth of Jewish groups and individuals speaking out and organising against the policies of Israel. Some are prominent figures like Miriam Margolyes, who
recently used her fame as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter series to publicise the living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza. Her self-description as ‘a proud Jew and an ashamed Jew’ is one that disarmingly cuts through the bile and bluster of those who routinely reach for the ‘anti-Semite’ smear.
Two of these authors have suffered that fate. Mike Marqusee recounts a moment is his teens when his father abused him as a ‘self-hating Jew’. The occasion was when the young Marqusee first measured the behaviour of Israeli forces
against the humane, Judaism-derived principles of his liberal family in New York.
Norman Finkelstein has long been targeted by the US lobby for Israel, most famously losing his battle for a tenured teaching post after a campaign of vilification led by Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard professor of law. Dershowitz doesn’t just go for people like Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors. As several of these authors point out, he also led the charge against the United Nations report on the Gaza conflict led by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone. (James Petras’s book contains some striking images from
Operation Cast Lead.)
He points out that Israel’s supporters are finding it increasingly difficult to justify the country’s policies, but makes it clear that its efforts to overcome them will be ‘increasingly forceful’. Easton also praises Cronin’s book as one of the best surveys of the Israel lobby in Europe. He states that Israel now enjoys a status in the EU on slightly short of that of a member state. Cronin’s book also describes the various occasions in which the EU failed to intervene in cases where it had interests and responsibilities. He also lists the various lobbying groups and organisations Israel has in the EU, some of which promotes the country’s interests in other, less obvious fashions. He also informs the reader that there are politicians in London and Brussels, who are firmly in the country’s pocket, and names some of them.
Easton gives the last word to Finkelstein, who notes that Israel can no longer automatically count on the support of Jews around the world, because the public is now better informed. The historic myths that the country used to justify its existence have been dispelled by historians, human rights organisations have revealed its abuse of the Palestinians and there is now legal-diplomatic consensus that the settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians should uphold the latter’s human rights.
The reviews, and much else, can be read online at Lobster’s web address at http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk. This is to magazine’s site as a whole. You can then select the individual number you want to read from the list provided.
I’ve put this up, as one of the significant factors behind the anti-Semitism smears directed at many of the Corbynites is the attempts by the Zionist lobby in the Labour party and Britain as a whole trying to discredit the country’s critics, many of whom are supporters of the Labour leader. This has led them to smear decent women and men, who are committed opponents of anti-Semitism and racism, including many Jews and people of Jewish heritage, such as Jackie Walker. It would be interesting to see the names of some of those politicos Cronin lists as being part of the Israel lobby in London, as I suspect that many of these would be the same people making these accusations.
Earlier today I posted up a piece about an article Michelle had sent me a link to an article by Tony Greenstein. Mr Greenstein’s another Jewish member of the Labour party, who had been suspended as an anti-Semite because he had criticised Israel. As have so many others. And Mr Greenstein, like so many of them, was most certainly not. He was a member of the Jewish Socialist group in the Labour party, and like the others has fought against racism and Fascism. The root of these allegations is the desire of the Israel lobby in Britain, the US and elsewhere, to demonise any criticism of Israel and its 70 year old policy of ethnically cleansing the indigenous Palestinians.
This piece from Secular Talk shows what Mr Greenstein and his fellow critics are protesting against. It was posted up on the 6th August 2016, and is about the Israelis bulldozing an illegal Bedouin village. This resulted in a confrontation, in which three cops and a civilian were injured. However, the Israeli state’s own double standards are shown by the fact that at the same time they were razing this village, they were giving tax breaks to illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank.
Secular Talk’s host, Kyle Kulinski, is not an outright opponent of Israel, who wants to see the state erased. He states he is talking as a friend, and that Israeli has a right to exist as it has done since 1945. But he warns that there is no way that treating the Arabs like this will not cause more violence. He describes how the Palestinians approached the Israelis through Jordan in the UN, and said that they would recognise Israel if the pre 1967 borders were adopted. Both Israel and Palestine would share Jerusalem. Israel flatly turned the proposed peace deal down. The Palestinians then respond with violence. The Israelis meet this by saying that they won’t deal with terrorists. But when the Palestinians approach them peacefully and try to negotiate a deal that will give them their own state, Netanyahu flatly refuses. And so the cycle of violence begins again. Kulinski states that there is are alternatives to violence, such as the BDS movement – Boycott, Divest and Sanction, which campaigns to boycott all Israeli products and firms in the occupied territories. He’s not totally in favour of everything BDS does, because he says they’re against the existence of the Israeli state. But they’re an alternative to the violence that will erupt if Israel carries on treating the Palestinians as it does.
This is the reality of life for the Palestinians in their own land under Israeli occupation. And the people who are campaigning against this are not anti-Semites, but include many Jews. There are rabbis in Israel, who have laid down in front of the bulldozers coming to raze Palestinian homes. There are Jewish organisations in America against the Israeli persecution of the Palestinians. The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians has been documented by the Jewish historians Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe. The latter is an Israeli, who has been forced out of his homeland because of his forthright condemnation of this. The BDS campaign includes many Jews, and one of its vocal supporters was a young American Jewish woman, who debated the issue with Norman Finkelstein in a video I posted up a few weeks ago here. One of the critics of Israeli maltreatment of the Palestinians is our very own Miriam Margolies, who condemned the Israeli bombardment of Gaza ‘as a proud Jew, and an ashamed Jew’.
This is what the people making these spurious accusations are afraid of: not that the critics of Israel are anti-Semites, but the fact that in so very many cases they are the exact opposite. They are severely normal people, including Jews, who campaign against all forms of racism and Fascism, and who have dared to object to Israeli racism as part of their campaigning.
Finkelstein and Baltzer also differ on whether the solution to the problem of Palestinian emancipation is the two state solution, articulated by the UN, or a dismantling of the mechanism of the systematic persecution of the Palestinians, so that they become part of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Israel, such as occurred in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. Baltzer favours the single state, post-Apartheid solution. Finkelstein supports the two state solution.
Finkelstein notes that the creation of a separate Palestinian state following the borders of the pre-1967 settlement is the solution favoured by the United Nations and international law. He argues that you may not like it, but you have to abide by it. He states that this would involve an exchange of about just over 1 per cent of land between Israel and the new Palestine. This would allow the Israelis to retain about 60 per cent of the settlements in the West Bank. He also describes how crestfallen Tzipi Livni, the Israeli minister in charge of this question, was when she was confronted by the Palestinians who proposed it. She seemed particularly dismayed looking at the maps they had produced, because, says Finkelstein, she found them convincing and didn’t know how to argue against the proposal. So she tried picking on some of the details. She would say, ‘What about that town?’, to which the Palestinians replied, ‘We know about that. You can build a bridge.’ ‘What about that village?’ ‘We know about that too. You can build a road here that’ll take you past it’.
He also disagreed with following the model of post-apartheid South Africa, because of the way the apartheid state had founded the Bantustans – special statelets for the indigenous tribes, which were officially recognised by the UN, despite the fact that they were part of the infrastructure of the apartheid ideology of ‘separate development’. I think Dr Finkelstein could be rather confused here, as this would seem instead closer to the idea of the two state solution.
Finkelstein also has some trenchant criticisms of the leadership of the mainstream American Jewish organisations, particularly J-Street. He says quite openly, ‘Their leadership is horrible. No, it really is. They think Tzipi Livni, who laughed about the conflict in Gaza, is a liberal’. This is a slight paraphrase, but it’s more or less what he said. He felt, however, that J Street’s grassroots membership were quite different, and said that they could reach out to 2/3 of them and win them over into a third party supporting the Palestinians.
Baltzer also said that the growing movement for the liberation of the Palestinians was diverse, and should include everyone. Finkelstein said that it shouldn’t, so she corrected herself, and said that racists weren’t welcome. It should be obvious, but unfortunately it does need to be said. There are real anti-Semites and Nazis, who attempt to gain a specious legitimacy by passing off their comments and stance as mere anti-Zionism. They shouldn’t be allowed entry into a genuinely anti-racist movement.
They also disagreed on the nature, extent and goals of the BDS movement. Both support it, but Finkelstein believes that the movement’s successes are about getting firms and individuals to sever links to the occupied territories, rather than about Israel generally. He also makes the point that their Zionist opponents were celebrating the fact that Daniel Barenboim, the Israeli conductor and founder of the East-West Divan Orchestra, had been refused entry to Qatar because he was a ‘Zionist’. Hence Finkelstein’s opposition to the use of the term.
At times the discussion got quite heated. Finkelstein himself made the point that no-one should go away from the event thinking that he and Baltzer were not friends, as they were, and he had immense admiration for her. After the talk had formally ended, and the three are packing up to leave the podium, Finkelstein turns and offers his hand to Baltzer. He can be heard saying, ‘I’ve got to offer my hand to you, otherwise people will go away thinking we’re enemies’.
It’s natural that on such a profound and emotive topic there should also be profound differences of opinion. Nevertheless, both sides of this debate need to be heard. Baltzer’s idea for a single state solution is shared by Ilan Pappe, while Finkelstein’s preferred solution is that of the UN and associated international bodies. What the reality will be, remains for the Palestinians and the Israelis to decide.
And there are also young Israelis, who are impatient with their nation’s failure to find a lasting, just peace with the Palestinians. Over a decade ago the Independent reported a series of protests held jointly by Israelis and Palestinians against the Israeli government and Palestinian authority. This took the form of ‘tea and cake’ parties. The participants issued a call for the British to come and take over the country’s government, as their own peoples were making such a terrible hash of it. And they chose tea and cake as the typical British meal to symbolise this.
Of course, they didn’t really want us back. It’s partly due to our misgovernment of the country and its seizure through the Mandate that Israel and much of the Middle East is in the terrible state it is. But it was heartening to see young Israelis and Palestinians meeting in peace and friendship, to demand a lasting people against the intransigence and incompetence of the politicos.
I have absolutely no doubt that one of the reasons why the Israel lobby – BICOM, the Labour Friends of Israel, and the other associated groups in Britain, and AIPAC in America – are actively trying to conflate Jewish identity with Zionism and criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is because they are acutely aware that that neither are necessarily the case. But they need them to be in order to deflect any and all criticism of the way Israel treats its indigenous people. I therefore believe that as time goes on and support for the Palestinians increases, more people are going to be accused of anti-Semitism, and more Jews attacked for being self-hating, even when they obviously aren’t. Miriam Margolies, the great British thesp, was one of those of who joined the criticism of Israel during the bombardment of Gaza. She described herself as ‘a proud Jew, and an ashamed Jew’. Baltzer and Finkelstein in this debate remind us how many others like her there are, often severely normal people, who are horrified at a gross violation of human rights. It ain’t just celebrities and actors.
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