This post originally appeared on Socialist Unity
7 February, 2008
ANTI-SEMITISM IS A REAL PROBLEM
As regular readers of this blog will know we have taken a strong line against anti-Semitism, and particularly have sought to expose the anti-Judaic bigotry of Gilad Atzmon.
There is a divergence of opinion of how significant anti-Semitism is as a political influence in British society today. My own view is that it is marginal but showing worrying growth. The danger is it can become socially acceptable.
In September 2006, a parliamentary enquiry heard of a sharp increase of attacks on Jews since the war in Lebanon had started. The Times reported Mark Gardener of the Community Security Trust saying: “In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984.” In 2000 the monthly average was between 10 and 30 incidents. … The July incidents “were more dispersed than usual … It is usually a small number responsible for a large number of attacks, but these were very widespread across the country and included graffiti attacks on synagogues in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The attackers, when visible, are from across society, he said. “When it’s verbal abuse, it’s just ordinary people in the street, from middle-class women to working-class men. All colours and backgrounds. We hardly ever see incidents involving the classic neo-Nazi skinhead. Muslims are over-represented.” In hate-mail to senior Jewish figures, ordinary Jewish people were being blamed for the deaths of Lebanese civilians. “There are also references to the Holocaust, saying that Hitler should have wiped out the Jews.”
The huge success of Mel Gibson’s “Passion of Christ” reveals the large audience for the traditional Christian interpretation of the Gospels, that the Jews killed Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate “took water, and washed his hands before the [Jewish] multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.” This may be a deeply unfashionable interpretation for trendy Anglicans, but it is believed by millions of Christians around the world.
Over the last few years, as an activist campaigning against the Iraq and Afghan wars, I have several times been offered the explanation that the wars have been orchestrated by Jews, along with “revelations” that various members of the British government are Jewish.
For example, this Tuesday in the pub after our local Stop the War Coalition meeting there was a discussion about the US presidential elections, and one well respected socialist activist expressed the opinion that Israel decided who the US president would be, and a member of the Green Party agreed that Jews still controlled most of the world’s money. Of course other people, including myself, challenged these views.
The individuals concerned would be horrified to be called anti-Semitic. Indeed I am sure they are not prejudiced at all against individual Jews, but they have bought into anti-Semitic narratives. The worrying thing is that so much of the left seems to ignore this problem.
I don’t actually think, however, that this is the same thing as the pre-war anti-semitism, which was a counter-revolutionary demonology, not just a form of racism. Which is what made it doubly potent.
Part of the reason why reasonable people accept these views is that, from the point of view of empiricism, there appears to be at least a modicum of truth in it. There is a strategic alliance between the United States and Israel, there is a quasi-McCarthyist witchhunt in the US against even bourgeois figures who question that alliance. Special priveleges are granted to pro-Israeli lobbyists in the United States, and also to a significant (though lesser) extent in Europe.
The material reasons for this is that the US seeks to dominate the most important energy reserves in the world, and Israel is, as the British governor of Palestine, Storrs, once said, the ‘loyal little Jewish Ulster’ that is now helping the US (with the UK now reduced to junior status) to dominate the Middle East.
There vociferous pro-Israel lobby in the United States contains Jews and non-Jews. Many of the Jewish elements have direct ties to Israel, which is hardly suprising since Zionist ideology posits Israel as the Jewish state. It also suits the pro-Israeli dominant wing of the US ruling class, which is mainly WASP, to stay a little bit out of the limelight in this regard and allow the Jewish component of the pro-Israel lobby relatively more prominent. This is called hedging your bets, just a bit, and keeping a scapegoat in reserve in case things go wrong. Nothing particularly conspiratorial about this, just cynical realpolitik.
But to empiricists, it appears that a priveleged, Jewish layer is exercising an undue influence on US foriegn policy. This is bound to be reflected in popular consciousness to some extent. The only antidote to this is Marxist analysis, not moralising.
But this cannot be equated with the ideology that led ultimately to the WWII genocide, when wide sections of the privelged classes of the advanced countries (though not all) believed that Jews represented some kind of subversive threat and a danger of “Western civilisation”, and were prepared for massive repression, and even mass slaughter, of the Jews. *That* ideology is dead. It only survives today in fragmentary, incoherent and electic ramblings among those subjected to oppression by the West and Israel.
The corresponding ideology today is subtly different, it involves the defence of ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’, a phrase that crops up time and time again in the current anti-Muslim discourse.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Socialists should act against any manifestation of anti-semitism, including from those thinking they’re supporting the Palestinians. Here in Oz I’ve occasionally comes across it: only at the receiving end from a couple of the more obnoxious upper class twits at the upper class twit school I did the last two years schooling at (on a scholarship I always hasten to add); mainly since living in the regions from nutty old farmers who were probably associated with the once sizable rural-based far right outfits, but also a few times the sort of unconscious attitudes that Andy’s related from younger leftish people.
However it’s all too often necessary to distinguish between actual anti-semitism and what Zionists claim is anti-semitism, for the purposes of deflecting criticism of the Israeli state. In an open letter by Green Left Weekly to such a slander by an Australian Zionist organ http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/710/36878 there was a useful definition of actual anti-semitism viz Israel. It was pointed out:
“In the same issue of your journal [that slandered GL], Israeli academic Dina Porat argues that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic ‘when it attributes Jewish qualities to Israeli military and political behaviour’. We agree and you will search completely in vain in the so far 709 issues of GLW for a single reference to any essential ‘Jewish nature’ of the policies of the Israeli state that we certainly criticise, or any use whatsoever of derogatory stereotypes of Jews”.
Of course in practice this journal and a lot of Zionists have a much broader definition of anti-semitism.
Comment by Nick Fredman — 7 February, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Ian, your remarks make uncomfortable reading.
Your claim seems to be that right-wing anti-Semitism is a reactionary force so should be opposed, while left-wing anti-Semitism is essentially a progressive force; that it’s understandable that empiracists (that is, people who believe what they see) would be anti-Semites.
This is not a million miles away from one strand of marxist thought that sees traditional (that is, pre-Nazi) anti-Semitism as essentially a progressive manifestation of class consciousness.
Comment by unseen — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Good, I’m glad my views make our cowardly, anonymous troll ‘uncomfortable’. I’ll leave it up to honest people to judge whether I said that any sort of anti-semitism is ‘progressive’.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Ian Donovan - “The corresponding ideology today is subtly different, it involves the defence of ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’, a phrase that crops up time and time again in the current anti-Muslim discourse.”
I’m not buying this. It’s the parallels between pre and post war anti-semitism that give it away: Ideas that Jews run the banks, run US foreign policy, etc. And if a specific group do wield influence, then you have to identify them properly, and not lump them together with an entire ethnicity.
I concur with Andy with regards to the spread of anti-semitism, I’ve come across more often these days from people I would consider ‘reasonable’.
Comment by Alex Naysmith — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
“And if a specific group do wield influence, then you have to identify them properly, and not lump them together with an entire ethnicity.”
Indeed, that is the whole point of Marxist analysis.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
I am very uncomfortable with Ian’s points here.
Firtsly, I think our threshold for taking a form of bigotry seriously shouldn’t be to wait for it to reach levels of nazi germany!
Secondly, I am worried about the “empiricism” and the “modicum of truth”, This is just as falaicious as saying that anti-black racism is informed by lower eductaional acheivement and higher rates of criminality among blacks.
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
ian donovan’s piece should be seen for what it is - naked anti-jewish bigotry! If the US in such a strong grip of the ‘jewish lobby’ how come the US has such good relatins with the reactionary feudal muslim state of saudi arabia? (a sworn opponent of the very existence of the state of isreal) He mistakenly asserts that the kind of anti-semitism that resulted in the holocaust no longer exists. Well he clearly hasnt read the stuff being spewed out by the fascist theocrats of hamas and hizbollah, who openly talk of the annihilation of the state of isreal and who regularly cite the forged protocols of the elders of zion as fact!
Comment by leigh — 7 February, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
Its not about levels, i.e. a quantitative relationship. Its qualitatative. Some kinds of bigotry have simply died out, as the historical grounds of their existence have changed in some way to make them untenable. Like the bigoty against Protestants in France that produced St Bartholomew’s. The old anti-Catholic hatred that produced penal laws and the like in this country is also pretty well dead.
Frankly, the only thing that sustains suspicion of Jews in the advanced world today, is Israel and its outrageous racist acts committed in their name. The counterrevolutionary demonology is however dead - since their is little in the world more counterrevolutionary than Israel. So the suspicion is of a different type. Marx’s remarks about history repeating itself, tragedy and farce spring to mind.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
And ‘leigh’ obviously cannot read since I didn’t talk of a Jewish lobby, but rather a pro-Israel lobby composed of both Jews and non-Jews. His method of argumentation is that of Josef Goebells - the big lie.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
Andy, you’ve captured exactly the point I was trying to get at, though I didn’t phrase it quite so well.
I don’t like the idea that we should only really worry about racism when it’s reactionary and counter-revoluntionary, or the suggestion that contemporary anti-Semitism is basically an understandable misplaced anti-imperialism that can be easily fixed with a quick dose of critical theory.
I think Ian sums up a feeling of a lot of the Left at the moment - being aware of anti-Semitism in the movement on some level but just thinking that it isn’t particularly bad or particularly important. It’s the Lindsey German “main form of racism” argument: that because Islamophobia is widespread and is strongest on the Right, the Left should worry less about anti-Semitism which isn’t really a big deal. It’s certainly not worth upsetting your comrades and allies by calling them racists.
Better to keep your mouth shut when they talk about Zionist Occupied Governments or Jewish Power while you try to build a broad front around (eg) opposing attacks on Iran, rather than risking splitting the movement. After all, the Iran campaign is simply more important than anti-Semitism right now.
Comment by unseen — 7 February, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Andy #7
‘Firtsly, I think our threshold for taking a form of bigotry seriously shouldn’t be to wait for it to reach levels of nazi germany!’
Reply:
I agree with you completely, Andy, which is why we need to confront Zionism and Israel’s racist and brutal treatment of the Palestinians before it descends to that level. I wrote a piece for the MStar recently, which I posted on here, pointing to the fact that the Holocaust was the culmination of a decade-long process of demonistation of the Jews and their religion and culture, preparing the ground for the horror that took place thereafter.
But to allow supporters of Israel to constantly use the calumy of antisemitism in order to frighten off anyone who dares protest or speak out against Israel today is a monumental mistake and, worse, political cowardice of the worst sort.
Currrently, I am being skewered by the good folks over at the Engage forum for my pro-Palestine articles and activism. I am now being labelled antisemitic. I posted on here a letter I wrote on behalf of the SPSC to East Renfrewshire Council protesting their endorsement of a pro-Israel event, a letter containing hard historical facts with regard to Israel’s ehtnic cleansing and apartheid, and the only comment on it was to the effect that the SPSC are antisemitic.
Pander to this kind of McCarthyism and you end up politically castrated. Anti-Zionism does NOT equate to antisemitism, much as Israel’s apologists try to make out. Yes, Atzom and his ilk constitute a degenerate current that must be challenged, but be careful that in so doing you don’t lose sight of the burning issue of Israel’s illegal, immoral and brutal theft and occupation of Palestinian land.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
Jon W, I’ve just read the Engage piece you pointed me to.
They are indeed attacking you. But they’re attacking you for linking to (among other things) “the Committee for Open Depate on the Holocaust” to justify your point
Comment by unseen — 7 February, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
Unseen, could you please give a shred of evidence for the existence of one strand of marxist thought that sees traditional (that is, pre-Nazi) anti-Semitism as essentially a progressive manifestation of class consciousness?
Comment by Ken MacLeod — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
Linking to CODOH was a bad move. But for David Hirsch to throw it in John’s face after he’d apologised and claimed ignorance of the nature of the site was ungracious, to say the least. And what are we to make of an argument like this:
Here Wight translates his own antisemitic paragraph into a language which is not evidently antisemitic. But the paragraph has the same meaning. Anyway, John Wight thinks it has the same meaning.
Surely if you challenge someone for using what you perceive as anti-semitic language, and they not only disclaim any anti-semitism but rephrase what they were saying in terms you don’t find offensive, the reasonable conclusion is that you got them wrong the first time. By contrast, Hirsch’s logic seems to be that Wight used what Hirsch saw as anti-semitic language, therefore Wight’s intended meaning must have been anti-semitic - therefore expressing the same argument in language that isn’t anti-semitic is still evidence of anti-semitism! A bit hard to get off that particular hook…
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
Ian- I think you’re wrong to make a distinction between pre-war and post-war anti-Semitism.
I agree that the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Nazis is on a different scale to other less violent forms of anti-Semitism. However, the truth is that in its 2,000 year old history anti-Semitism like all other forms of hatred and bigotry has existed on the level of a general dislike of Jews, danagerous falsehoods about Jews and sporadic outbursts of violence against Jews. It would be foolish in the extreme to look away as the forces of hatred gain in strength.
Anti-Semites have always believed that they are telling the ‘truth’ about the Jews, those who ignored anti-Semitism have always thought there was a “modicum of truth” about anti-Semitic slurs.
Anti-Zionist discourse from the left is identical to far-right hate literature. This should alarm true socialists.
When Jews complain about anti-Semitism they are accused of being part of an overarching conspiracy to silence ‘the truth’. This ‘defence’ against charges of anti-Semitism itself is grounded on known anti-Semitic slurs that Jews lie in order to advance their own interests and that they do so in an organised and conspiratorial fashion.
Why is it that the ideology of Zionism has acquired every negative stereotype of the Jew?
Zionists control the media
Zionists control international finance
Zionists secretly conspire to rule the world
Zionists start proxy wars for their own benefit
Zionists kill children
Zionists are greedy
How anyone can look at this and fail to recognise that anti-Semitism has crept into the debate on the fate of Palestine/Israel?
No-one serious says that Israeli govt policy is closed for criticism, yet when the criticism is dressed-up in anti-Semitic imagery then Jews and true anti-racists are right to call the issue. To deny the facts is to conflate criticism and bigotry; one is necessary the other is not.
Comment by Stephen — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
That’s a powerful and well argued contribution. I dont have time to fully respond to it now, I’ll do so later when I’ve given it more thought.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
Where did John Wight get the phrase “International Jewry” from,if not from neo-Nazi literature?
Comment by Mikey — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
John W
“Currently, I am being skewered by the good folks over at the Engage forum for my pro-Palestine articles and activism.”
This is simply not true John. The reason you are getting stick is because of the anti-Semitic things that you say. That you simultaneously criticise Israeli policy is irrelevant; don’t conflate criticism and bigotry.
When you say that, “The state of Israel is a hydra-headed monster, …. Arrayed against this monster are the forces of human progress.” or you talk of “international Jewry”, its not surprising that people may think of you as an anti-Semite. This language is strikingly similar to the kulturkampf notion found in Nazi ideology.
When from amongst the sources you link to to back up your information there appears a far-right holocaust denial site, it again makes one wonder why you are looking at sites like these to verify the truth? I know you have apologised for this on the grounds of ‘lazy research’ but the fact that you didn’t notice it was a far-right website because fascists say the same things you do isn’t a very convincing defence. When left, anti-racist discourse is identical to far-right hatred this demonstrates there is a problem. Yet whenever this is pointed out it is dismissed as an unpleasant coincidence. Ask yourself this; if you found that your views on African immigrants were identical to that of fascists such as the BNP or NF would you also dismiss this as an unfortunate coincidence?
I don’t suppose for a moment you are a conscious or intentional anti-Semite but you do say anti-Semitic things and in doing so you legitimate a discourse which permits Jew-Hatred to flourish. Violent Anti-Semitism (that is attacks on Jewish people and property) is rising throughout the world and you are helping to make the problem worse. Not because you criticise Israeli government policy or support the Palestinians. It is because some of the things you say are racist.
Of course you could fall back onto further anti-Semitic tropes in order to convince yourself that all the flak is part of a global conspiracy to silence you and other ‘critics’. Or you could take the problem seriously and work out how to build some effective arguments which criticise Israeli policy without having to rely on anti-Semitic language and imagery. Surely its not that difficult?
Comment by Stephen — 7 February, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
I’m shocked that someone in the Scottish PSC should write all these things,knowing that the SPSC has been accused of acting as a haven for anti semites.
Comment by Patrick. — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
“The state of Israel is a hydra-headed monster, …. Arrayed against this monster are the forces of human progress.” or you talk of “international Jewry”, its not surprising that people may think of you as an anti-Semite.
I can’t see anything anti-semitic in John calling the state of Israel by any rude name he pleases. As for the reference to ‘international Jewry’, what John was saying was that a lot of Jews around the world sustain the state of Israel and that he hopes they soon stop doing so.
I don’t suppose for a moment you are a conscious or intentional anti-Semite but you do say anti-Semitic things
No. He’s made anti-Zionist arguments in terms which were perceived as anti-semitic, and when called on it he’s apologised and rephrased them in terms which weren’t anti-semitic… but were still anti-Zionist. I’m not sure anti-semitic language is the real problem here.
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Did he link to an Aryan Supremacist site and use it as a source.
Not even spotting it?
Comment by Patrick. — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
The time has passed when it was possible to write off concern about antisemitism by use of the “Livingstone Formulation”.
http://www.z-word.com/on-zionism/antisemitism-and-anti-zionism/anti-zionism-and-antisemitism%253A-decoding-the-relationship.html?page=2
If there is a concern about antisemitism we need to use our judgment to see whether the concern is justified. Simply screaming that concern about antisemitism is expressed in bad faith by “Zionists” in order to de-legitimize criticism of Israeli human rights abuses, isn’t any longer enough.
Comment by David Hirsh — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
But the phrase John W used was “international Jewry.” You can interpret it which way you want but it was the language of Nazis and is the language of neo-Nazis.
Comment by Mikey — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
The more familiar you are with the history of anti-semitism, the more you’re struck by the reappearance of the same collection of themes presented in the barest of “anti-Zionist” disguises. The issue is not that Israel is being criticised, but that — from some sources — the criticisms have been selected to mirror the canonical imagery of anti-semitism, to mirror them so remarkably that coincidence alone fails to explain it and another cause comes into view.
In some cases, that resemblance is deliberate. Atzmon in particular has a cottage industry of, by design, refurbishing these medievalisms in smart new fashions.
Comment by goodwin sands — 7 February, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Ian
I would like to add something else for you to think about while you consider your response to Stephen’s comments.
I agree with you that antisemitism in the first half of the 20th century was counter-revolutionary, whereas now it is not. I invite you, though, to consider the next step in this argument: that antisemitism today is most likely to be found in revolutionary movements, whether that is the anti-imperialist far left or radical Islamist movements of the Arab and Muslim world. It is not relevant for ordinary Jews that the people who today believe in a Jewish conspiracy tend to be from oppressed minorities rather than ruling elites; but it does have a serious impact on the ability and willingness of many people on the left to recognise and oppose this antisemitic discourse.
Before you say it, I know that few people today talk about “Jewish” conspiracies - most substitute the word Zionist, or neo-con, instead. If you visit a few far right websites you will find that even there it is Zionists, not Jews, who are blamed for all the world’s ills. You may also recall that the original Nazis used “West Coast bankers” and Stalin’s antisemitic purges were directed against “cosmopolitans”. There will always be a euphemism that can be used to attach a “modicum of truth” to what is essentially an antisemitic charge.
Your empiricist argument is just nonsense. People who see a connection between Jews and neo-cons are quick to list Abrams, Wolfowitz and Perle, but always ignore Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Tam Dalyell detected a “Jewish cabal” around Tony Blair and named three people: Lord Levy, Peter Mandelson and Jack Straw. Of these, only one is Jewish. When Dalyell was criticised, Paul Foot sprang to his defence by clarifying that he meant “Zionist”, not Jewish. Does substituting the word Zionist for the word Jewish remove the antisemitic meaning from what Dalyell said? Of course not. To say it does is to give a free pass to every antisemite who knows which code words to use. Anti-racists need to be a bit smarter than that.
I am intruiged by your explanation that “Many of the Jewish elements have direct ties to Israel, which is hardly suprising since Zionist ideology posits Israel as the Jewish state.” Try, for a moment, to put your political theories to one side and consider this at a human level. The reason that many Jewish organisations in America - and every other country, for that matter - have links to Israel is because the vast majority of ordinary Jewish people have a visceral, emotional connection to Israel. Not because “Zionist ideology” tells them to, but because they feel it as a core part of their identity. Yet in your formulation you dehumanise this relationship and ascribe it to some abstract, unidentified force.
I would suggest that if you want to engage with antisemitism in a meaningful way, you need to take it out of the context of power politics and consider it at a human level. Ordinary Jewish people in this country are much, much more concerned about antisemitism today than they were ten years ago. This is because they are much more likely to have suffered an antisemitic attack, or to know someone who has; they are much more likely to have read something antisemitic in their newspaper or heard it on a radio phone-in. They feel it because it is their personal experience, not because some mysterious Zionist superstructure has told them to feel it.
As for John Wight…he is here as a case study of what Andy is talking about, nothing more. To visit a far right, Holocaust Denial website, read what it has to say about Zionism and not detect the whiff of antisemitism takes some doing.
Comment by Dave Rich — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Phil, you’re free to be an anti-Zionist that’s NOT the problem. The problem is as you well know; anti-Zionist arguments dressed-up in anti-Semitic language. Out of interest I’d like to know what you mean by Zionism?
Would you have a problem with the tyrant Mugabe being likened to a gorilla? Despite the obvious allusion to negative stereotypes about Africans; would this simply be criticism of his regime? Or maybe just calling the President of Zimbabwe any old rude name of my choosing?
John didn’t just use any old insult he used an insult reminiscent of Nazi anti-Semitism. Is it merely coincidence that the Jewish state and its ideology has acquired all the negative stereotypes of the ‘Jew’?
In addition to this John didn’t apologise for the Nazi-inspired imagery- he stood by it and then gave a more detailed explanation of what he meant by his choice phrasing. Using the term ‘international Jewry’ in this day and age requires a great deal of malice, stupidity or ignorance. The point is that using language like this and then recoiling in shock when people assume anti-semitism is idiotic. What’s more is its so obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of anti-Semitism.
Whether people are doing this consciously or otherwise it is is a problem. Surely its not that difficult to come up with decent arguments against the State of Israel without demonising it via allusions to Nazi anti-Semitism?
I don’t envy your position- having to defend or apologise for the use of racism to further a political agenda. You might even find more support for Palestinians in their struggle if their leaders and other anti-Zionists didn’t reach for anti-Semitic slurs at the first available opportunity. Palestinians suffering in the West Bank, Gaza and assorted refugee camps can perhaps be forgiven for indulging in anti-Jewish hatred. Scottish anti-Zionist activists who call themselves socialist should expect to encounter a less forgiving response.
Comment by Stephen — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
Someone above reminded me of a formulation I’d long forgotten: “The main form of racism”. Credited to Lyndzee G of the SWP.
It is this *tactical* orientation on the issue that has allowed the left to let anti-semitic small talk go. Either at the pub or in mass rallies…
What groups like the SWP, and individual members of them, have thoroughly forgotten is that hostility toward racism ain’t a tactic. It makes for incredibly uncomfortable relations with your collaborators - but it don’t half make for Respect in the long term!
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
As far as I know ‘Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’ were none of them Neo-cons (I’m unsure about Cheney). Small empirical point.
Comment by johng — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
It has been interesting to follow the continued skewering of myself on this thread, carried over from the pro-Israel and avowed Zionist Engage site, almost as if a baton has been passed. In any of my articles, including the one recently published in the MStar, I challenge anyone to point to anything which even smacks of antisemitism. This is the article that gave rise to the original thread in Engage, which they claim points to antisemitism on the Left. The aim of Engage is to muddy the waters, to direct attention away from Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. In the course of the exchange that followed on their site, amongst others, I indvertently posted the url of a far right site devoted to Holocaust Denial. I didn’t even open the link to the site, as I was looking for the site: Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism (CODOZ) and instead ended up on (CODOH). This was an honest mistake, which Engage, and certain contributors on here, have sought to capitalise on. I offered an immediate and unreserved apology for this mistake, which I fully admit was a case of intellectual laziness on my part.
However, their purpose is clear: to silence any and all voices that are raised in support of the Palestinians. I have never denied the Holocaust in the entire time I have been active in politics. I do not believe in any Zionist conspiracy, nor do I subscribe to the belief that the Zionist lobby in the US governs US foreign policy. I so however subscribe to the view that Zionism is a racist ideology, that it has been a disaster for the Jewish people, and that it is the cause of the unremitting suffering of the Palestinians and a major contributory cause of the dislocation - social, economic, and political - that has been visited on the Middle East since its formation. Israel is a hydra-headed monster comprising US imperialism, Zionist expansionism, and collaborationist Arab regimes, each intertwined around the dollar. It is a US strategic asset and as such must be confronted. I believe ultimately in a one-state solution in which Arab, Jew, and Christian exists under the principle of universal human rights. I have the onerous distinction of being listed on Redwatch for my impacable opposition to the BNP and the far right and their poisonous ideology of racism and antisemitism. I have repeatedly denounced the degenerate current represented by people like Mr Atzmon and will continue to do so. I will also continue to exert as much energy as I have in support of the Palestinians.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
One of the principal reasons for the growth of “left-antisemitism” is because it dovetails with the complete failure by much of the left to offer socialist solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
But the argument that simply by fighting for Palestinians, it will go away, doesn’t hold water.
We’re talking about two seperate phenomena that are entangled together, but have a different history. They require specific strategies.
A variety of reactionary social forces are prepared to use anti-semitism and are known to diseminate it.
1) Neo-nazis
2) Traditionalist elements in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church, including the Russian section of it.
3) German Americans and Isolationists in the USA (think of the number of people descended from families who may have had members interned for membership of the German-American Bund)
4) Islamic Chauvinists
The influence of all of these people should be fought by the left in all of the movements they take part in. They are widespread on the internet and on the alternative media and have played a major part in poisoning discourse there.
Although they remain on the fringes, the horizontal nature of the modern media gives them a lot of influence, because people increasingly distrust official sources. But that doesn’t make them right.
If there is a serious recession, as I expect there will be, this problem will get worse. But ignoring it won’t make the left’s job any easier. It will make it much, much harder. Which is why it’s so important not to give any political credence to people who adopt these arguments.
I offer one small example:
A few years ago I was in discussion with a group of Muslim youth and one Somali claimed “the Press was controlled by Jews and Rupert Murdoch is a Jew”.
I just laughed at him and said “No he’s not, he’s an Australian Catholic”
After quite a lot of discussions with him and his mates, he realised he was wrong. He even started spending time looking at Marxist websites.
He’s a very intelligent guy, now doing an engineering degree.
Transplanted from Somalia to London with all the contradictions that involves.
He could go either way. He also thought the Janjuid in Sudan were “warriors”
I found it quite amusing sometime later when he and his Egyptian mate started singing “Hava Nagila” when they spotted me. Quite amusing, but a little sinister too.
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
John W continues with antisemitic imagery with his comments about being “intertwined around the dollar.” He really has spent too much time on those neo-Nazi sites.
Despite John W reading the criticism of his words here and on Engage, he continues to peddle this filth.
Comment by Mikey — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Mikey:
Fact:
Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world’s population and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes.
Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid. Saudi Arabia receives US military hardware and expertise, the main aim of which is to protect the regime from its own people.
The dollar is currently the international reserve currency, without which the US economy would collapse.
Now, please refute any of the aforementioned facts and tell me how my previous statement was incorrect.
Now, let me ask you a question.
1. How many UN Resolutions has the State of Israel violated or ignored with respect to the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours since 1948?
2. Did the Nakba take place and were 750,000 Palestinians forcibly expelled from their homes?
3. Does Israel have the right to keep 1.5 million Palestinian civilians locked up in the open prison otherwise known as Gaza?
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
Thanks for this post Andy
Ian Donovan “*That* ideology is dead. It only survives today in fragmentary, incoherent and electic ramblings among those subjected to oppression by the West and Israel.”
Sure , there are no Nazis around anymore. I remember going to a student AFA meeting 20 years ago when somebody said we shouldn’t worry about antisemitism because most Jews are rich - at least that person recognised that Nazism still existed though unlike Donovan who thinks it’s dead.
Is the poster John W the same guy who can’t tell the difference between antizionism and antisemitism (or maybe he can and doesn’t care).
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1627
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Why has the Scottish PSC become polluted by people like this.
Is there a substantial difference in the tolerance of hate groups and Aryan Supremacist web sites for a reason.
Comment by Patrick. — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
1. John Wight says that Engage is an “avowed Zionist” site. He cannot give the reference where Engage avows its “Zionism”.
I don’t deny the charge of “Zionism” - when it is made by an antisemite. But it is another example of Wight’s (avowed) intellectual laziness when he says that we call the Engage website “Zionist”. We don’t.
I disagree with Wight that Zionism is necessarily racist - I think that Zionism is a form of Jewish nationalism which was itself a response to half a century of antisemitism and to the Nazi project to sweep Europe clean of the Jews. All forms of nationalism have within them racist potentialities but are not essentially or necessarily racist. Zionism was, historically, a nationalist movement of the oppressed - with all of the contradictions and potentialities for harm that such movements always embody. Personally, I am not a political nationalist of any sort.
2. Wight offers an explanation of why he thinks we characterize his words and actions as antisemitic. He might be right or wrong as to why we do so. But what he hasn’t done is to rebut the characterization. That’s the point, isn’t it? If it was a charge made in bad faith it would be no less or more important to show that it was untrue.
3. The fascists allege that Jews or Zionists are so powerful across the world that they can suppress an honest discussion of the Holocaust.
Wight’s “campaign for an honest discussion of Zionism” alleges that Jews or Zionists are so powerful across the world that they can suppress an honest discussion of Zionism.
Both are allegations of a Jewish or Zionist conspiracy which controls the media. I am not surprised that Wight got confused which was which. The reason is that they both allege a Jewish or Zionist conspiracy to suppress free speech.
I’ve published a piece of work on the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It is available online here: http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/hirsh/index.htm
Comment by David Hirsh — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Socialists don’t use phrases such as “international jewry” or “hydra-headed monster”. Right wing antisemites do. I ggogled “international jewry” but i wont post a link to it here as it was too offensive in what it brought back. However i knew what it would bring back because i’m aware enough not to use these kind of phrases.
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Could I just focus on one of the phrases being discussed here? ‘International Jewry’. Phil tried to clarify:
“As for the reference to ‘international Jewry’, what John was saying was that a lot of Jews around the world sustain the state of Israel and that he hopes they soon stop doing so.”
Well, if John was saying that, then I think you’ll find that the phrase ‘international jewry’ is not the one he needs! International Jewry has meant and still means to those who usually use it (which is actually how meaning is defined) the fact that Jews as a whole and in co-operation with each other operate internationally for the benefit of Jews. As a phrase it doesn’t hold for any exceptions. All Jews are implicated. If John would like to say that Zionism is an idea that has the support of a majority of Jews around the world, then say it. (it also has the support of most right wing and centre right governments of all cultural backgrounds, so I guess you would have to think why you’re singling out Jews as the most significant supporters of Zionism. It’s just possible that they’re not the most significant section, isn’t it? In which case, Israel would be sustained not by ‘international Jewry’ but by ‘global capitalism’ or some other formulation.
Is there a question emerging here in the ‘I’m not antisemitic’ debate about whether Ian, Phil, John and others feel that there is actually a problem with all Jews in the world today? In other words, it’s not just there is an Israel lobby, not that International Jewry is having its own way with the world (ie running the show its own way) but really the problem is with Jews. If so, is this genetic? Habit? Have they all just got very good at running things while everyone else has been lulled and gulled into taking up secondary roles behind the Jews? How did that happen? And when?
And then there is the big one. If all these comments and analyses about ‘International Jewry’, the Israel lobby controlling US foreign policy, Jewish power running the world etc etc are true then clearly something must be done. But what? And how? How should action be taken against ‘International Jewry’? How should these Jews be targeted? All of them? Some of them? And what will we be replacing these people with? Or will the revolution just ensure that they melt away?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
Incidentally, people should know that the charge that Jews benefit from antisemitism - that Jews use antisemitism in an instrumental way to increase their power - is an old one. It was articulated in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claimed, in Protocol 9, that the world Jewish conspiracy had said the following:
“Nowadays, if any States raise a protest against us it is only PRO FORMA at our discretion and by our direction, for their anti-semitism is indispensible to us for the management of our lesser brethren…”
Comment by David Hirsh — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
Richard:
Socialists don’t use phrases such as “international jewry” or “hydra-headed monster”.
Reply:
Socialists use whichever term is apt according to the facts. Israel, I repeat, is a hydra-headed monster responsible, in conjucntion with US imperialism and collaborationist Arab regimes, for the economic, social, and political dislocation which has been visited on the entire region.
International Jewry means the Jewish diaspora. It says what it means. Is there or is there not a Jewish diaspora?
In response to David Hirsh, please consider the following quotes from various Israeli primie minsters and officials down through the years and repeat your assertion that Zionism is NOT a racist ideology:
1. Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff.
From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978:
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
2. David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1978, p. 99:
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
3. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Interview with The Times of London, 1969.
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”
4. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘Beasts,”‘ New Statesman, June 25,1982:
“[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”
5. Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz):
“The Intifada is the Palestinian’s people’s war of national liberation. We [Israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities.. we [Israel] established an apartheid regime.”
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
“The aim of Engage is to muddy the waters, to direct attention away from Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians ”
Funny isn’t it, how John W repeats the (antisemitic) myth that “you can’t say a word against Israel because you will get labelled an antisemite”,when, of course the fact of the matter is, as the above quote shows, that is precisely the tactic John W adopts.
He links to a far-right group, (and, along with others - defends the use of the term “international jewry”). Gets caught in other words, red handed, flirting with antisemitism and what’s his response? “They’re out to get me because they are Zionists”. It seems from this thread that more and more people are getting increasingly irritated and embarased at the politics John W represents. Just surprising it took so long.
Comment by Saul — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
So if ‘international Jewry’ is the ‘Jewish diaspora’… (by the way, John some of us dispute whether there is a diaspora, as it concedes too much to the idea that we’ve come from Israel, but no matter, if you want to keep going with that one, so be it)…does the Jewish diaspora act as one? Are all the individuals in your Jewish diaspora (ie the Jews) implicated in all this? What about half-Jews and ex-Jews? Are they in it, or out of it? I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. I’m trying to find out if ‘the Jewish diaspora’ and/or ‘international Jewry’ is ‘the Jews’? And if so, it would seem logical to expect you to fill in the theory that explains what it is about ‘the Jews’ that has brought this about. Otherwise, it’s all a bit mysterious isn’t it? And you seem to be someone with Marxist answers for things like this…
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
John Wight, I disagree with you about the question of the relationship between Zionism and racism. I also think that if people google your quotes they will find evidence that they are manipulated, de-contextualized and fabricated. I also think that such quotes from Israeli Prime Ministers, even if they were true, would not give the whole truth of the history and complexity of Zionism. But this is a side-issue.
I note that you did not rebut my other points. The points which relate to antisemitism.
Comment by David Hirsh — 7 February, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
JOhn - I am sure you are feeling a bit got at.
Firstly, it is true that some Zionists use the argument that all criticsm of Israel is anti-Semitism.
There is a blogger, “Modernity” who continually insuates that I am anti-Semitic.
But it is also true that some arguments against Israel are informed by anti-semitism.
Some people commenting here are obvioulsy hostile to you and out to discredit you, there are others of us who are your friends and comrades, and we are just arguing you need to think a bit more critically about this.
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
Ken Macleod “Unseen, could you please give a shred of evidence for the existence of one strand of marxist thought that sees traditional (that is, pre-Nazi) anti-Semitism as essentially a progressive manifestation of class consciousness?”
Ken , i don’t think that Marxism itself does , but there have been people on the left and people who have called themselves Marxists who have fallen into the trap of antisemitism. This shouldn’t be used against socialism or Marxism (in the same way that Marx’s racist description about Lasalle shouldn’t be used to show that Marxists are racist).
Steve Cohen covers the subject here
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/ressources/funny/chap2.html
in his book
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/ressources/funny/
I was with Steve a while ago. We discussed antisemitism and Steve agreed that one could believe in a one state solution with regard to Palestine / Israel and still be very concerned with the ammount of antisemitism on the left today.
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
Michael
No, the Jewish diaspora does not act as one. However, individuals such as Norman Finkelstein, Illan Pappe, Howard Zinn, and groups such as Jews For Justice For Palestine, are labelled ’self-hating Jews.’
The influence which the Pro-Israel lobby exerts in the US is well known and documented. Israel would not exist without this influence, currently at its zenith with the Bush administration, though it is a relationship based on mutual benefit in which the US ruling class is the dominant partner. Zionism, I repeat and maintain, has been a disaster for the Jewish people. Israel was meant to offer a safe haven for the Jews in response to Jewish pogroms that took place intially at the turn of the last century and was given added impetus by the Holocaust. However, in the case of Israel, and as has often occurred in history, the oppressed have become the oppressors.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Richard: “one could believe in a one state solution with regard to Palestine / Israel and still be very concerned with the ammount of antisemitism on the left today.”
That would be me.
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Is there a question emerging here in the ‘I’m not antisemitic’ debate about whether Ian, Phil, John and others feel that there is actually a problem with all Jews in the world today?
Frankly, I’d be insulted if the idea wasn’t so ridiculous. If your reading of my defence of John leads you to think that suggestion’s even faintly plausible, then your reading of my defence of John is wrong.
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
Anti-Semitism today is not a mainstream or state form of racism. It is a marginal phenomenon and prejudice and noone should take anything the Community Security Trust says, other than with a hefty pinch of salt. See my articles on the Guardian CIF site.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_greenstein/2007/07/a_war_on_rationality.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_greenstein/2007/05/vetting_in_practice.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_greenstein/2007/04/an_attack_on_free_speech.html
They are an explicitly pro-Zionist body. I would suggest to Andy that the Parliamentary Inquiry into anti-Semitism was no such thing. It was a group of right-wing MPs, John Mann and Dennis McShane, pro-war all of them. They did indeed in their report seek to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. And they did this to legitimate their pro-war agenda. Their statistics were equally suspect as their political motives.
For David Hirsh, defender of Richard Littlejohn’s ‘anti-racism’ to come here all innocent is what those of us who are Jewish call a chutzpah. He above all has been responsible for conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. And that is the rub. Zionists like him have so confused the debate that many genuine supporters of the Palestinians are now buying into anti-Semitic arguments.
Ian Donovan has a point but fails to understand what it means. Yes, there is absolutely no comparison between the horrific anti-Semitism of pre-war Eastern Europe and what today is a marginal prejudice. None whatsoever. The cold blooded murder of men, women and children because they were Jewish, the savage pogroms that the Nazis organised in Lithuania and Latvia bear no comparison to today’s poring over the meaning of sub-texts.
Why then do I say that anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic arguments should be taken seriously? For this reason. Jews have little to fear in this society, which doesn’t mean that things might not deterioriate if and when the West abandons Israel. That is a real possibility.
Mark Elf, a good comrade, thinks I’m obsessing about Atzmon and his fellow creatures. Others have said this too. But the main reason why I concentrate on him and his ilk is because the main danger of their argument about Jews, Jewishness etc. is that it is a danger to the cause I hold dearest above all. Palestine. Ian Donovan is a relative newcomer to all this but I have campaigned for 30 years on a subject where there few supporters in Britain when I began and when you could count the number of Jewish anti-Zionists on the fingers of one hand. And I say in all seriousness that those who put forward anti-Semitic arguments thinking they are doing the Palestinians a favour are doing the exact opposite. They are building support for Zionism.
I don’t take Hirsh, Mikey or the others seriously. They aren’t in the least concerned about anti-Semitism. If they were they would turn their attentions to Zionists who have told me that when I was circumcised they cut off the wrong bit or it’s a pity Hitler didn’t get me etc. The most virulent anti-Semitism comes from Zionists who hate the Galut (Jewish diasporah) and that is where Atzmon’s anti-Semitism derives – the traditional Israeli/Zionist hostility to Jewish communities outside Israel. But these two are only concerned about Israel. That is why when some of us moved to organise and campaign for a Boycott of the Israeli State, just as we did over apartheid and before us over the slave trade, Hirsh & co. cried ‘anti-Semitism’ when, as the Board of Deputies of British Jews conceded, the most prominent people involved in it were Jewish!
Mikey, a reactionary from Harry’s Place, is in even less of a position to criticise anti-Semitism anywhere since he is a collaborator and drinks partner of Atzmon and regularly contributes to Mary Rizzo’s PeacePalestine sewer. In particular he has worked with Atzmon to attack me, which is fine, because Zionists and anti-Semites are really two sides of the same coin. E.g. on Rizzo’s site the following appeared:
‘Mikey, can you provide us with the criminal record of this Bugger-Rance. Is he on spent conviction like greenie l or is he just an ordinary liar?
Gilad Atzmon | 03.12.07 - 8:00 pm | #
I have been very busy digging up stuff on Tony Greenstein - Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.
Mikey | 03.12.07 - 8:53 pm | #
‘Mikey, I hope you do not mind me saying that, but your contribution for the pls solidarity movement is priceless. It is crucial that we all know about the racist record of this Greenpiss, a man who was banned time after time for being a racist and an anti Semite!
I really want to believe that this revolting violent man will feel some shame and take some time off to think about it all. But I doubt it.’
Gilad Atzmon | 03.04.07 - 10:46 am | #
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/thecutter/117192641046077827/
Does anymore need be said about this freak?
Yes of course Andy the main supporters of Zionism in the USA are not Jews, who are quite liberal on the issue, but the Christian Zionists who flocked to Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. They want Israel so that the battles on the Plains of Armhaggedon can be fought and when the Jews are all killed then Christ will come back! Of course being astute fellows the Zionists count on there being no such second coming and therefore take the advantage now!
Ian Donovan phrases everything wrong. Yes anti-Semitism in pre-war times was counter-revolutionary. It still is. There is no such thing as ‘left-anti-Semitism’ though some sections of the left, in particular the German KPD made appalling concessions to it in the absurd hope they could win over the ‘left’ wing Strasserites to their politics. However the anti-capitalism of the SA was a reactionary form of anti-Semitism, half-lampoon half myth, as Marx said of feudal socialism. But today anti-Semitism is not progressive either. It can only serve the interests of imperialism by reinforcing Zionism and US imperialism. If you read Atzmon carefully, like his nonsense article on the Bund, he ends up saying the Zionists were right, only the formation of a national state could preserve the Jews. Of course he mixes this up with his anti-Semitism and his notion of an essentialist ‘Jewishness’ but then he would.
Anti-Semitism was a fundamental core of Nazi, i.e. fascist ideology. It was the glue that bound the Nazi party together. It was the concession to ‘anti-capitalism’ of the brownshirts. In fact anti-Semitism was not a popular ideology, even in Germany, because the material conditions for it were disappearing (read Ian Kershaw’s 2 excellent books – The Hitler Myth, Popular Dissent). In fact Ian Donovan is wrong – the ideology today is much the same it is the material roots underpinning it that has changed, hence why this talk of Jewish conspiracies seems so ludicrous to most people.
And the quote that Ian Donovan cited was from Sir Ronald Storrs, who was Military Governor of Jerusalem from 1920-6 not British Governor of Palestine. He said, and it is worth quoting in full from his book ‘Orientations’ that:
“Enough [Jews] could return, if not to form a Jewish state … at least to prove that the enterprise was one which blessed him that gave as well as him that took, by forming for England ‘a little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” This was the basis on which the ‘socialist’ Zionists colonised Palestine – under the protection of British bayonets.
Nick Fredman is therefore quite right to say that we should make a sharp distinction between the ‘anti-Semitism’ that Zionists go on about and the genuine thing. It is this that Ian Donovan’s apologestics fail to come to terms with.
I agree with Andy about the ‘empiricist’ explanation of anti-Semitism. There is nothing empirical about saying that the Jews had forewarning of 9/11 and therefore escaped. This is a problem of the backward nature of political consciousness today amongst many, not least in the third world. Lacking explanations of how the multi-nationals and finance capital operate they look for an easy explanation – and Jewish manipulations and Israeli power are easy to understand. Within this orbit of course the idea takes hold that far from the USA using Israel to further its imperial ambitions, it is Israel that controls the USA and that it is Jewish communities who control Israel. A completely topsy turvy understanding of the world which Atzmon has taken to his heart.
Ian says that ‘the only thing that sustains suspicion of Jews in the advanced world today, is Israel and its outrageous racist acts committed in their name.’ Maybe that is true, certainly in the West, but surely that is all the more reason to make a careful distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? Because if you anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are polar opposites. You cannot be both, anymore than you can be both a racist and anti-racist at one and the same time. Yes the Zionists spread anti-Semitism by claiming Israel’s war crimes in the name of all Jews. And David Hirsh is happy to go along with this. Which is all the more reason we shouldn’t.
Leigh is wrong to speak of the ‘fascist theocrats of hamas and hizbollah’. They are not fascist and whether we like it or not they are the chosen representatives of their people. After all Israel brought Hamas into being quite consciously as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian nationalism. And Hizbollah was brought into being by the genocidal Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hizbollah waged a courageous struggle against the odds when Israel did the same 2 years ago and I for one salute them for their heroic resistance to not only Israel but US war plans. Because as Seymour Hirsh showed, Israel’s attack on Lebanon was a dry run for an attack on Iran.
My advice to John W is not to post on Engage. They deliberately distort and smear. When I was smeared as saying Zionists and Nazis are the same, Hirsh refused to allow me to correct this. Hence why I e-mailed the whole of the academic faculty at Goldsmith, at which point he did post my response! If John did use the term ‘international Jewry’ he was wrong but for Mikey to get worked up about this is the ultimate hypocrisy. Do we not have a World Zionist Organisation? Do Zionists not say that being Jewish and Zionist is one and the same thing? The fact is that Zionists do their best to prove that the Protocols are true. They are a caricature of everything the worst anti-Semites ever said about Jews. They talk themselves of a ‘Jewish lobby’ and talk of unseating or choosing candidates according to Jewish interests, i.e. Zionist ones. So for them to complain about what John said is the height of hypocrisy. John is clearly not an anti-Semite. The fact that he used a phrase that is borrowed from anti-Semites and Zionists is proof positive that the Zionist campaign, led by Hirsh, to associate Palestine solidarity with anti-Semitism has had some successes.
John Rich writes that ‘The reason that many Jewish organisations in America - and every other country, for that matter - have links to Israel is because the vast majority of ordinary Jewish people have a visceral, emotional connection to Israel. Not because “Zionist ideology” tells them to, but because they feel it as a core part of their identity.’ This is both right and wrong. The fact that Jews have this emotional connection to Israel is in itself a product of the Zionist movement and its ideology. More than that it is a product of the disappearance of a Jewish working class and the move to the right among western Jews. It is a fact that for many Jews Israel is at the centre of their Jewish identity, so they perceive attacking Israel is attacking them as Jews. Just as Northern Ireland Protestants saw support for a united Ireland as an attack on them. In so far as there is this Jewish/Zionist identity, predicated upon the oppression of the Palestinians it must be opposed and criticised. We should always be clear that there are negative Jewish identities (Israel/Zionism) and positive (anti-racism/Bund). We should argue that Israel represents the worst manifestation of Jewish identity, it has literally turned the Jewish religion into a form of idolatory, state worship, as the late orthodox scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz (winner of the Israel prize!) said.
I’m surprised at Stephen, if it is Stephen Marks should talk about the ‘2,000 year old history anti-Semitism like all other forms of hatred and bigotry has existed on the level of a general dislike of Jews…’ As Abram Leon wrote in The Jewish Question – A Marxist Interpretation’ ‘Zionism transposes anti-Semitism to all of history and saves itself the trouble of understanding it.’ Anti-Semitism did radically change throughout history, indeed for much of that history there was no anti-Semitism. Most of what was called anti-Semitism was antagonism to Jews because they were the oppressors of the peasantry. That is a fact. Of course anti-Semitism changes. What was a genocidal and mass counter-revolutionary movement now exists as a form of prejudice. It is not a form of state racism. Of course many of the same ideas still persist.
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
Andy:
Some people commenting here are obvioulsy hostile to you and out to discredit you, there are others of us who are your friends and comrades, and we are just arguing you need to think a bit more critically about this.
Reply:
It goes with the turf Andy. Better men and women than me have come under far worse for speaking up for Palestinian human rights. As for thinking critically, be careful that you don’t pander to these supporters of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in allowing them to frame the debate. I stand by my words. They know that I am not antisemitic, but they ARE anti-Arab. Not one has answered any of my questions in previous posts with regard to quotes I have posted from previous Israeli prime ministers of officials. Not one has answered the 3 simple questions re the Nakba, Gaza, or the number of UN Resolutions violated by Israel since its formation.
This says it all.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
Andy - I don’t want to turn this into a Palestine / Israel debate so i’ll hopofuly pick up on this again. Anyway thanks for this piece , i’ve just emailed it to a friend who is convinced that Marxists don’t take antisemitism serously.
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Phil, you’re free to be an anti-Zionist that’s NOT the problem. … Out of interest I’d like to know what you mean by Zionism?
I’m free to be an anti-Zionist, just as long as I can prove to your satisfaction that I’m not an anti-semite. Riiiight.
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
John, thank you for telling me about Finkelstein et al and yes, I am aware that some zionists call them self-hating Jews. I’m not sure what this has got to do with what you’re saying, though. So, I’ll ask you if you think Finkelstein et al are part of ‘international Jewry’? I note that you don’t want to help me out with finding out if there is something coincidentally or essentially Jewish about all this and yet you seem to be implying that there is. What is it about these Jew people that they do this shit?
the ‘well known and documented’ biz, isn’t really good enough. Take a look at Lenin’s Tomb on ‘israel and the discontents’ or some such (sorry can’t remember, it’s a few threads down on the front page)and you’ll see a lengthy repudiation of the argument that Israel calls all the shots. If you’re going to talk about ‘relationships’ between nation states or between pressure groups then we need a sense of proportion don’t we? Who’s the big guy here? Are you saying it’s ‘international jewry’ ? Or are there other players? Who are these other players and are they under the spell of International Jewry eg the oil industry, or the armaments industries? Are they in hoc to IJ in some way?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
John, are you serious about saying that no one has answered your questions? I mean ‘no one’? Or do you mean the Engage people who are here? I think you’ll find that some of us have been saying that zionism is a form of racism for something like thirty or forty years and, in my case, my father and mother were saying it for the thirty or forty years before that.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
John, “The Israel Lobby and its discontents” is here, if you want to stick to your idea that it’s all ‘well documented’ etc.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/01/israel-lobby-and-its-discontents.html
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Michael
You know exactly what I’m saying. Does AIPAC exist? Does it not exist to influence US foreign policy with regard to Israel? Does not the US ruling class view their strategic interests in the Middle East as inextricaby linked to Israel? Is this not why Israel is by far the largest recipient of US aid of any nation in the world?
Are the Palestinians occupied illegally under international law? Has Israel violated more UN Resolutions than every other UN member-state combined? Are the various quotes I posted an accurate account of the black heart of racism and ethnic cleansing which beats under the cloak of liberal democracy that is Israel? Did an event known as the Nakba occur in 1948, during which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their homes and their land? Do you subscribe to the Zionist myth that Palestine was a ‘land without people for a people without land?’
Please answer these questions.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
Do I subscribe to the myth that Palestine was ‘a land without people for a peole without land’???!!! Why do you think I speak on platforms with Palestinians? why did I renounce my right of return? Why have I signed one-state petitions from Palestinian organisations? Why did I used to perform Palestinian poems and Deir Yassin Remembered? (before I felt it had become compromised by what Paul Eisen was saying and doing etc etc)Why have I turned out for PSC and the now defunct Campaign for Palestine etc etc? Why did I support Vanunu from day one of his arrest?
Of course all those lobbying interests exist, but repeating it over and over again doesn’t prove that the lobby runs the show. I plead with you to have a look at Lenin’s Tomb on this.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Michael,
I am reposting a previous post, which I hope will answer you question re my views on Israel’s relationship with the US and on the recent assault from the supporters of the Engage site. This will be my final post on the issue. Before I go, I have to compliment Tony Greenstein on his interventions, which was exemplary. It has been a fruitful discussion.
The way ahead is clear: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
It has been interesting to follow the continued skewering of myself on this thread, carried over from the pro-Israel and avowed Zionist Engage site, almost as if a baton has been passed. In any of my articles, including the one recently published in the MStar, I challenge anyone to point to anything which even smacks of antisemitism. This is the article that gave rise to the original thread in Engage, which they claim points to antisemitism on the Left. The aim of Engage is to muddy the waters, to direct attention away from Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. In the course of the exchange that followed on their site, amongst others, I indvertently posted the url of a far right site devoted to Holocaust Denial. I didn’t even open the link to the site, as I was looking for the site: Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism (CODOZ) and instead ended up on (CODOH). This was an honest mistake, which Engage, and certain contributors on here, have sought to capitalise on. I offered an immediate and unreserved apology for this mistake, which I fully admit was a case of intellectual laziness on my part.
However, their purpose is clear: to silence any and all voices that are raised in support of the Palestinians. I have never denied the Holocaust in the entire time I have been active in politics. I do not believe in any Zionist conspiracy, nor do I subscribe to the belief that the Zionist lobby in the US governs US foreign policy. I so however subscribe to the view that Zionism is a racist ideology, that it has been a disaster for the Jewish people, and that it is the cause of the unremitting suffering of the Palestinians and a major contributory cause of the dislocation - social, economic, and political - that has been visited on the Middle East since its formation. Israel is a hydra-headed monster comprising US imperialism, Zionist expansionism, and collaborationist Arab regimes, each intertwined around the dollar. It is a US strategic asset and as such must be confronted. I believe ultimately in a one-state solution in which Arab, Jew, and Christian exists under the principle of universal human rights. I have the onerous distinction of being listed on Redwatch for my impacable opposition to the BNP and the far right and their poisonous ideology of racism and antisemitism. I have repeatedly denounced the degenerate current represented by people like Mr Atzmon and will continue to do so. I will also continue to exert as much energy as I have in support of the Palestinians.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:39 pm
#55 John W to Rosen: “…Please answer these questions”
Mike Rosen has spoken in support of the Palestinians in Trafalgar Square and called for a Palestinian state. I saw him myself.
You on the other hand are requiring *what* before he’s acceptable to you and your dubious cronies?
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
John W: “I believe ultimately in a one-state solution in which Arab, Jew, and Christian exists under the principle of universal human rights.”
Confirming what I deduced when I debated with you before.
You’re a supporter of the bourgeois democratic revolution as a solution to the national question. Which means:
1) You’re a utopian, because 13 million people cannot exist in 10,000 square miles of land, of which about one fifth is arable, without an economic disaster within months.
2) You’re likely to make alliances with all sorts of reactionaries from the Middle East and elsewhere.
3) As a result you make political concessions to their politics.
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
That’s John W’s usual tactic. Ask someone to answer a question and if they dont’t threaten them with insults. John W seesm to spend an inordinate ammount of time on these blogs. He needs to get a real life and realise he is influencing nobody with at times his made up words and phrases some of wich I not realise existed. All he is doing is getting a repuation as a nutter and discrediting some very worthwhile causes. If I did not know better I would say he’s a plant.
Comment by RedRooster — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
No Tony, I am not the person posting earlier as ‘Stephen’!
Comment by Stephen Marks — 7 February, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
The original piece was about Andy’s concern about antisemitism on the left , about “one well respected socialist activist expressed the opinion that Israel decided who the US president would be, and a member of the Green Party agreed that Jews still controlled most of the world’s money. Of course other people, including myself, challenged these views.”
It was about antisemitism. When people said antisemitism , John W cried “Israel”.
John W - you say something which debunks the theory that the “lobby” is responsible for US poilicies (in particular foreign policy) which is something which is used in arguments today when you say “Does not the US ruling class view their strategic interests in the Middle East as inextricaby linked to Israel? ”
Well if that’s the case and their interests are inextricably linked then there’s no need for this lobby.
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Thanks John. If you pop back, and I’m not here, it’s because I’m having a chat with International Jewry.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
Michael “Thanks John. If you pop back, and I’m not here, it’s because I’m having a chat with International Jewry.”
Don’t forget to keep all the best bagels for yourself (that’s the real Jewish conspiracy !)
Comment by Richard — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Prianikoff
You’re a supporter of the bourgeois democratic revolution as a solution to the national question
Reply:
I’m a supporter of a solution that is in the interests of the international working class. The State of Israel is a US gendarme in the Middle East. Ending that role is of vital importance to all socialists and Marxists with an understanding of US imperialism as the common enemy of humanity in our time.
Reactionaries?
Any contradiction within Arab liberation movements between progressive and regressive tendencies are there as a result of the devastating impact of western imperialism. Hezbollah has called for an alliance with secular and anti-imperialist forces internationally in the struggle against US imperialism and Israeli expansionism. Hamas calls for the very same. Both organisations have filled a vacuum created by the exit from the stage of Arab history of secular resistance movements, due to their own mistakes in combination with a determined effort by US imperialism and Israeli security forces to purge them. As such, at this juncture, we have common interests with them in resisting US and US sponsored imperialism.
Communists and socialists the length and breadth of Latin America have forged alliances in the past with proponents of liberation theology within the Catholic Church.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
What good does it do the Palestinian cause for you to morph into age old anti Semitism and far right language John?
Comment by Patrick — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
Red Rooster:
‘John W seesm to spend an inordinate ammount of time on these blogs. He needs to get a real life’
Reply:
You are absolutely correct. Any suggestions? How about I invent an avatar for myself, perhaps a name with the prefix Red in it, and post under that instead?
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
Stephen:
Would you have a problem with the tyrant Mugabe being likened to a gorilla?
Yes. I’d also have a problem with Jewish stereotypes being applied to Israeli politicians. That’s very much my point - that criticising a nation-state is a very different thing from criticising an individual or a group of people.
John didn’t apologise for the Nazi-inspired imagery- he stood by it and then gave a more detailed explanation of what he meant by his choice phrasing.
If you assume that John genuinely didn’t believe it was ‘Nazi-inspired imagery’ this becomes a lot easier to explain.
Using the term ‘international Jewry’ in this day and age requires a great deal of malice, stupidity or ignorance.
I think it was a bad choice of phrase. I don’t see any reason to assume it was any more than that - and if it wasn’t any more than that I don’t see any reason to shout about it.
(Incidentally, Michael, I read John’s original comment about ‘international Jewry’ to mean that it would be a good thing if all the Jews in the world turned anti-Zionist, because this would make it hard for the Zionist state to carry on in the same way. I don’t see that this is a wildly problematic statement.)
I don’t envy your position- having to defend or apologise for the use of racism to further a political agenda.
Thanks for the sympathy, but no thanks. If I felt I had to apologise for the use of racism to further a political agenda, then that agenda would stay undefended.
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
Red (in the face) John W
I’ve heard you would rather be more “annonymous” than that. You really can reach the masses with words like avavtar!
Comment by RedRooster — 7 February, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
then that agenda would stay undefended.
Or ‘unfurthered’, even.
Comment by Phil — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
Andy Newman is right.
It is ironic, I think, that his comrades in RESPECT Renewal include a number of those on the Islamist Far Right who subscribe to and openly rehearse precisely the analysis which Andy finds shocking. Moreover, it is his party which has done so much to bring these views from the pariah-fringes into the socialist mainstream.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2008/02/05/socialist_unity_on_atzmon.php
I have posted on this article here:
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2008/02/07/international_jewry.php
I haven’t opened comments on the thread at my blog. I’ve made it clear that if anybody posts abusive or trolling material on your blog, they’ll be banned from mine as well.
Comment by David T — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
Gosh, what nonsense Tony Greenstein is coming out with. He dismisses the Parliamentary report into antisemitism because MPs associated with it, including Labour MPs such as John Mann are “right-wing” and the only reason that they prepared such a report was “to legitimate their pro-war agenda.” What a load of codswallop. It is too much for Greenstein to accept that Members of Parliament may legitimately be concerned about antisemitism so he events another reason why they researched the matter.
It is not just MPs that Greenstein suggests are writing about antisemitism for the wrong reason, but he includes the likes of David Hirsh and myself with his comments that we “aren’t in the least concerned about anti-Semitism.” This is plainly ludicrous.David Hirsh has been a long time campaigner against antisemitism and I personally have campaigned against antisemitism and demonstrated against organisations such as the National Front since the 1970s.
I do not know what planet Tony Greenstein is on for him to make the following extraordinary comment: “The most virulent anti-Semitism comes from Zionists who hate the Galut (Jewish diasporah).” Zionists certainly do not hate the Jewish diaspora, Greenstein has simply made this claim up.
Now Greenstein argues that I “collaborate” with Atzmon because in the course of my research into extremists, I met Atzmon in a pub. I have also attended Jews Against Zionism meetings, does that make me a “collaborator” with that group? It is a simply illogical and bizarre argument from Greenstein.
Greenstein poses the following question, “Do Zionists not say that being Jewish and Zionist is one and the same thing? ” The answer is a resounding no. However Greenstein, in order to justify John Wight’s use of the term “international Jewry” poses a different question, “Do we not have a World Zionist Organisation?” I put it that it is Greenstein himself who is conflating Judaism and Zionism!
Greenstein has forgotten much of what he learnt in his own upbringing with his following erroneous observation, “The fact that Jews have this emotional connection to Israel is in itself a product of the Zionist movement and its ideology.” What he has clearly forgotten is that Jews have been waking up in the morning for thousands of years and said the words “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” in their morning prayers. Greenstein has also forgotten that at the Jewisn festival of Passover, Jews say “Next year in Jerusalem.” Again these words have been said for thousands of years. The fact that these prayers etc predate Zionism as a political idea by centuries is, I guess, something that Greenstein is reluctant to admit, even to himself.
Comment by Mikey — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
“…in the course of my research into extremists, I met Atzmon in a pub.”
Liberal. I would have gone for his niagaras.
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
John W “Communists and socialists the length and breadth of Latin America have forged alliances in the past with proponents of liberation theology within the Catholic Church.”
Yes I know. Who’s arguing with that exactly?
The point being that they were trying to win them over to socialism.
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
Mikey, some zionists say to Jews who are not zionists, ‘You can’t be Jewish’ or ‘You’re not Jewish’ or, as was said to me, ‘You’re an animal.’ It’s not a necessary part of zionism to claim that anti-zionist Jews can’t be Jewish. It just so happens it’s what some of them say. When I was on a phone-in for Spectrum Radio, several callers rang in to claim that I couldn’t possibly be Jewish if I expressed my opinions. Some zionists hold to the idea that one of the defining characteristics of a Jew is that he or she should regard Israel as the Jewish homeland. If you renounce that, then you can’t by Jewish, they say. You are in effect, an ex-Jew. If you care to dig around in old threads at Harry’s Place, several posters made this clear to me at the time. I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove otherwise and anyway it’s no big deal. If I was a zionist, I’d probably think anyone who was an antizionist Jew should go hang, just as people who ran the British Empire thought that Brits at home who attacked the Empire were traitors and locked them up. Antizionism is a form of treachery and some of the antizionist Jews who I know accept that. I for one am not demanding that I belong to ‘Jewry’ (hi JohnW). I just say that I was born into a family with parents who understood they were Jewish. I don’t see why I should disbelieve them just because some zionists (not all, by any means) say that I’ve lost my membership card.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
#49 Tony Greenstein ‘Most of what was called anti-Semitism was antagonism to Jews because they were the oppressors of the peasantry. That is a fact.’
More of a selective fact than a fact.
Quote me one example where there weren’t feudal Barons in the leadership of anti-Jewish in which any significant group of peasants took part.
In every one I’ve ever looked at in Britain that was the case.
It was also the case during the Crusades, instigated by the Papacy, led by bands of armed knights and supported by separate bands of millenarian peasant-paupers.
It was the case in the Khmelnytsky revolt in the Polish Ukraine, in which the Cossacks collaborated with Tatar slavers to create an independent Ukrainian feudal state.
Yet when a genuinely independent peasant uprising broke out against the Poll Tax, only 90 years after the expulsion of the Jews from England, prominent amongst Wat Tyler’s targets were the higher Clergy and lower nobility. (Unfortunately they thought the King was neutral)
Objectively, they were aiming to destroy the feudal system, not consolidate it and deceive the peasantry. That’s what I call a popular uprising.
Comment by Prianikoff — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
Could anyone tell me why the Scottish PSC ( as opposed to south of the border) seems to be infected with this stuff,Atzmon,Perdition and now this
Comment by Patrick. — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
Michael,
But where does your argument lead to the conclusion of Greenstein that Zionists hate the Disapora? As many Zionists quite happily live in the Diaspora and are happy to participate in civil and communal organisations in the countries where they live, I find it ridiculous that anyone can conclude that Zionists hate the Diaspora.
I would be interested in anyone who actually made the following claim that you allege:
“Some zionists hold to the idea that one of the defining characteristics of a Jew is that he or she should regard Israel as the Jewish homeland. If you renounce that, then you can’t by Jewish, they say. You are in effect, an ex-Jew. If you care to dig around in old threads at Harry’s Place, several posters made this clear to me at the time.”
It is a bizarre comment to make. It ignores sections of the ultra-Orthodox Jews who are opposed to Zionism. However, they are opposed on different grounds to Marxists.
Had I seen any of those comments on Harry’s Place, and I have not, as I would remember it, I would argue against.
Despite this I do think it is fair to say that many Jews get very annoyed with Jews who stand up and oppose Zionism and do so “As a Jew” in groups such as “Jews Against Zionism” when they have no connection with Judaism as a religion and /or Jewish life in say the United Kingdom over an above using their credentials of being Jewish to say “As a Jew” and denouncing everything that most Jews believe in.
Comment by Mikey — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
Prianikoff:
‘Yes I know. Who’s arguing with that exactly?
The point being that they were trying to win them over to socialism.’
Reply:
Well, I hardly think that when a people are hanging on to their lives and their national identity by a thread in Palestine that it’s the appropriate time to arrange an exegesis of the Communist Manifesto.
Do you?
We convert more people to our ideas through our actions, not through paternalistc dissections of the beliefs of those who are existing at the sharp end of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. BDS.
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
Dear Chief Executive,
On behalf of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), I am writing to you in response to your letter replying to our original email to East Renfrewshire councillors requesting that East Renfrewshire Council re-think its decision to endorse and support an event to be held this May celebrating the 60th anniversary of the formation of the State of Israel.
Israel, as a state founded on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population in 1948, holds a unique place in the world. As such, it cannot be compared to Pakistan or any other state currently in existence, as you have attempted to do in your letter. Further, given the facts of the matter – taking into account all of the historical and empirical evidence – neither can this be construed as simple matter of a conflict between two warring tribes each with a just claim. This is clearly and unequivocally a struggle between a state committed to apartheid and ethnic cleansing on one side, and those committed to a world based on the principle of universal human rights on the other.
In 1948 the State of Israel was created on 78 percent of historic Palestine. An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their villages and towns in the so-called War of Independence which followed. These villages and towns were then razed to the ground, their existence purged from the map, and Israeli towns and settlements built in their place complete with different names. Thereafter a concerted attempt has been made to wipe the Palestinians, their history and their culture, from history.
To date, the State of Israel has violated or ignored more UN Resolutions since its formation in 1948 with regard to the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours than every other member-state of the UN combined. This onerous record is broken down as follows: 28 Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (which are legally binding on member-nations), and almost 100 Resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (which are not binding, but represent the will and understanding of the international community). Further, Israel is now in violation of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 2004, condemning the separation wall Israel is building throughout the occupied West Bank.
More specifically, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights has continued in violation of UN Resolution 242 since 1967. Recently, one of our members visited Gaza in the aftermath of the break-out from what to all and intents and purposes is an open prison, where mass misery and deprivation visited on a civilian population of 1.5 million Palestinians masquerades as a security measure. He relayed to us two things: 1. the savagery and cruelty of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in what can only be described as an act of illegal and immoral collective punishment, and 2. the courage and resilience of a people who have more or less been abandoned by the international community.
Please be assured that this is not a case of anti-Semitism, as supporters and apologists for Israel have levelled at people, like us, who campaign for Palestinian human rights in order to muddy the waters.
Both in our organisation, and around the world, there are many Jews who share our revulsion at the barbarity of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and who utterly reject the notion that Israel be granted an opt-out of international law and all norms of human decency.
Recently, I wrote an article on the Holocaust that was published. In it I made the following crucial point vis-à-vis Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
‘the Holocaust was not the starting point of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Europe. Rather it was the culmination of a process which took place over a decade. It began with the slow but steady demonisation of the Jewish religion and culture, then government sanctioned attacks on their communities, businesses, and places of worship, then the implementation of apartheid laws, followed by ethnic cleansing and the forced removal of the Jews to specially designated ghettoes. The logical conclusion of this process was the Holocaust.
It is an irony of history that today the Palestinians are being subjected to much the same methods of oppression by the State of Israel that were visited on the Jews by the Nazis throughout the 1930s. It is an irony that takes on the form of an ominous portent which we ignore at potentially catastrophic cost.’
And lest you are remain unconvinced of our case and by extension the Palestinian cause, I ask you to consider the following quotes from various Israeli prime ministers and government officials down through the years:
1. Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff.
From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978:
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
2. David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1978, p. 99:
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
3. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Interview with The Times of London, 1969.
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”
4. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘Beasts,”‘ New Statesman, June 25,1982:
“[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”
5. Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz):
“The Intifada is the Palestinian’s people’s war of national liberation. We [Israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities.. we [Israel] established an apartheid regime.”
Finally, in the report carried in the Jewish Telegraph on 19 October 2007, Philip Mendelsohn of the Jewish Representative Council is quoted thus: “I am delighted that the Council has agreed not only to assist the community in its celebrations, but also agreed formally to mark the event with a public ceremony.” The full report can be read via our website at: http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2095&Itemid=408
Could you confirm whether or not the extent of the Council’s participation as claimed by Mr Mendelsohn in the report is accurate? If it is accurate then it contradicts the statement made in your letter in this regard.
Sir, on behalf of the Palestinian people, the SPSC once again urges you to give consideration to your endorsement of this event.
Kind regards
SPSC
c/o Peace & Justice Centre
2 Princes Street
Edinburgh EH2 4BJ
www.scottishpsc.org.uk
Comment by John W — 7 February, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
Phil
“I’m free to be an anti-Zionist, just as long as I can prove to your satisfaction that I’m not an anti-semite. Riiiight.”
1) You have no need to prove you are not an anti-Semite in order to continue holding an anti-Zionist position. I see no reason why my consent can alter the contents of your mind or limit your freedom in any way. Unless of course I have Jewish magical powers, or I’m part of an organised conspiracy to silence ‘the truth’? Since I don’t suppose you believe in either of those anti-Semitic myths, I really don’t know what you’re getting at here.
2) I can’t grasp why the issue of Anti-Semitism is so easily dismissed. If I used language which the vast majority of the African/Caribbean community considered offensive or racist I’d be horrified, I’d want to understand why. Ultimately, even if I found that I disagreed with the answers given, I’d stop using that kind of language out of simple respect.
There are ways to criticise Israel and Zionism without using imagery and language closely related to the Nazis. Why don’t people use these? Why do so many on the left feel the need to supplement their arguments by appealing to racist language and imagery?
John W
You “challenge anyone to point to anything which even smacks of antisemitism”
Lets start with your ‘defence’ against the idea that the language and imagery you use is itself Anti-Semitic (e.g. you referring to the state of Israel in way which alludes to Nazi anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews, or your use of the phrase ‘international Jewry’). Your defence is that Jews raise the this objection in bad faith. That is, when making a claim that certain language or imagery is anti-Semitic, Jews knowingly bring up an objection that they consider to be false. They do this in order to silence and intimidate.
Your very ‘defence’ is itself grounded on anti-Semitic notions of Jews lying in order to further their own interests, myths of Jewish power and myths of Jewish conspiracy.
The conspiracy aspect is crucial to the coherence of the ‘Jews lie about anti-Semitism to silence critics of Israel’ argument; without this the whole argument falls apart. So we have a defence against anti-Semitism which rests largely on the myth of an organised Jewish conspiracy which has the power to silence and intimidate critics of Israel. How you can make use of this and in the very next sentence claim to “not believe in any Zionist conspiracy” defies logic.
I am curious as to one thing- in what ways does the demonisation of Jews further the Palestinan struggle for liberation?
2) You misquote the Zionist phrase it was “a land without A people for a people without a land”- quite different from your rendition which suggests the absence of people altogether, rather than the implication that Palestine contained no distinct nationality of its own. This is in fact fairly uncontroversial- in every forum which gave them the possibility to express an opinion, the leadership of the Arabs of Palestine stated that they were Arabs or Syrians and definitely not Palestinians.
Tony G
No need to pick out individual passages- your post is packed full with anti-Semitism in entirety.
Comment by Stephen — 7 February, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
I think it is necessary to acknowledge the disjuncture between mediaeval anti-Judaic bigotry from modern forms, but also recognise that these represent deep wells from which modern day bigots can draw.
In the same way that we should see nothing particularly unusual about the emergence of Zionism - as during the nineteenth century a number of nations were invented in popular consciousness - and the two “destinies” of those nations were either assimilation or political seperatism. Difficultiues of assimilation for Jews (see Dreyfuss for example) gave credibility to political nationalism, and therefore the transformation of a religious and lingusitic community into a self-identifying political one.
(Interesting BTW that during the 1860s German nationalist Richard Boeckh, in creating the myths of shared language for german nation building, argued that all ten million Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe were therefore ethnic germans.)
I would therefore argue that Zionism is no more inherently racist than any other form of nationalism - and it also includes elements of being a response to anti-Semitism. (The obvious similarities in language and ideals between Zionists and rastafarians is striking, except there is no rastafarian state. You could speculate what would have happpened had rastafarian settlers in Ethiopia made a determined effort to really create a homeland there)
The actually and historically specific existing state of Israel is the problem, not the fact that some (many/most?) Jews self-identify themselves now as being a nation, and want a national state. That aspiration is shared by most of the world’s popuation (even some English people want a state of our own!) So unless you say that all people who have national consciousness and identify with a nation state are racists, then you cannot say that all Zionists are racists, or that Zionism is an inherently racist project.
The difficulty is that the historicaly contingent and actually existing circumstances that created Israel, and its sixty year war of occupation has created a racist dynamic and colonist mentatilty. The interesting thing of course is that the fundamentalist settlers are unpopular in israel itself.
The question here is that there can be no solution for the palestnians wiothout a change of political will within israel, and anti-Semitism makes that less rather than more likely.
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 February, 2008 @ 10:08 pm
Mikey, some zionists say to Jews who are not zionists, ‘You can’t be Jewish’ or ‘You’re not Jewish’ or, as was said to me, ‘You’re an animal.’ It’s not a necessary part of zionism to claim that anti-zionist Jews can’t be Jewish. It just so happens it’s what some of them say. When I was on a phone-in for Spectrum Radio, several callers rang in to claim that I couldn’t possibly be Jewish if I expressed my opinions. Some zionists hold to the idea that one of the defining characteristics of a Jew is that he or she should regard Israel as the Jewish homeland.
I have no doubt that you will find people who say this sort of thing. Some may well have incorporated an attachment to an ethnic state into a religious worldview: although as you know, that’s not what anybody but a minority current of religious Zionists (not all of whom are jewish, as you know) think.
It is difficult to know how to react to somebody who advocates the immediate absorbtion of a state containing a majority of jews, into a larger state which would contain a majority of arabs, would be a recipe for oppression and genocide. That is so, particularly if somebody supports such an outcome, and then goes on to express support for Hamas, which has an open policy of genocide in its foundational constitutional document. The same was true of those who supported Fatah, pre-Oslo.
When I hear somebody advocating such a view, I usually assume that they are an ideologue with an astonishingly counter-intuitive understanding of what will happen if you tried to forge a single state out of two semi-militarised and mutually antagonistic peoples.
I think that what you’re getting from jews you encounter on phone-in programmes is this. By and large, they don’t understand that your central sense of yourself is as a revolutionary socialist. You have a particular view of the form of society that you think is the best possible. You probably also think, because you are a revolutionary socialist, that the creation of such a society is worth a little pain: but that it will inevitably emerge.
Because your listeners don’t understand how central your messianic belief in international socialism is to your understanding of the world, they just see you as a man who, unaccountably, favours a political outcome in the middle east which would in all likelihood result in the massacring of jews.
I’m not a supporter of Zionism. I think revolutionary socialism is an absolutely terrible idea. Rather, I’m in favour of nation states self determining, self-governing in accordance with democratic principles, adopting a constitution and laws which embody respect for the principles of equality between persons, liberty, and fundamental human rights. I would like to see those states federate, willingly, pooling sovereignty by choice, and creating common citizenship rights, opening borders and enhancing social protection. This is an excellent model. Unlike revolutionary socialism, it has both worked, and produced a period of absolutely unprecedented prosperity and longevity. In Europe.
Central to the notion of federation, are the notions of choice and consent. Peoples can freely choose to open their borders and create a common citizenship. You can change your nationalism, and keep it at the same time. I am a European citizen, and also a British one. I do not see that as a diminution of my identity. In other words, I am not a supporter of ethnic nationalism. I think that there are many reasons for people to open their borders and federate. That goes for every country in the world, including Israel and Palestine.
But although I am a supporter of regional federations, I don’t want them to be imposed on the most unwilling of populations, merely to suit my own ideological vanity.
Comment by David T — 7 February, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
But Andy, isn’t the *point* of socialist activity and propaganda to break down, or at least expose the contradictions in a “national consciousness” whenever it pops its ugly head above the parapet?
When you dig into relationships with progressive nationalists (and yes I do still see that as being an appropriate label for some), like the ones I had the honour of forming with south african or palestinian activists in the past, there is *always* a stopping point in challenging their assumptions as to *what* the essential characteristics are that define their aspiration/s.
You’re bound to, if you are committed to a universality of common interest among people unbound by their respective patch of dirt. No?
So although it’s obviously true that antisemitism makes any changes to the political will inside Israel less likely, that isn’t the principal plank upon which socialists oppose it.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 7 February, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
Interesting that for all the rhetoric between here and Engage, Andy and David Hisrh basically say very similar things about anti-Semitism.
Comment by unseen — 7 February, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
Mikey said
a) would be interested in anyone who actually made the following claim that you [ie me, MichaelRosen] allege:
“Some zionists hold to the idea that one of the defining characteristics of a Jew is that he or she should regard Israel as the Jewish homeland. If you renounce that, then you can’t by Jewish, they say. You are in effect, an ex-Jew. If you care to dig around in old threads at Harry’s Place, several posters made this clear to me at the time.”
and then Mikey said:
b) Despite this I do think it is fair to say that many Jews get very annoyed with Jews who stand up and oppose Zionism and do so “As a Jew” in groups such as “Jews Against Zionism” when they have no connection with Judaism as a religion and /or Jewish life in say the United Kingdom over an above using their credentials of being Jewish to say “As a Jew” and denouncing everything that most Jews believe in.
Mikey, I don’t know whether you find it difficult to concentrate or perhaps you don’t get out very much. But your comment b), I suggest is citing ‘many Jews’ in a sympathetic light, perhaps including yourself in this category. These ‘many Jews’ get ‘very annoyed’ do they? Well, what is the content of their annoyance, not the form of it? Yes, I have seen many times (see the thread by Lynne Segal at Comment is Free, where several posters dismiss Independent Jewish Voices on account of the fact that the Jews who signed (not me, by the way) don’t fit the bill of what a Jew is or should be eg someone like Eric Hobsbawm. Perhaps you (or these ‘many jews’ who get ‘very annoyed’ of which you may or may not be a part (!)) have some special right to decide what is appropriate Jewish behaviour. and this is ‘doing something in the Jewish community, it would seem, from comments on CiF and ones I’ve heard many, many times and yes, the other one is support for Israel. This is what’s called ‘normative behaviour’. Such people are trying to define the norm of what is a Jew. If you fall outside of that norm, then you risk being the equivalent of being called an apostate, a heretic, an excommunicated one or a non-Jew or even a non-person. Go back to Harry’s Place and you’ll remember perhaps that someone from Israel said that if I held the views I held I was not only not a Jew, I was an ‘animal’. David T rebuked him for it.
I don’t know why you’re expressing surprise or indignation about this. You will know of countless examples of Jewish families refusing to speak to members in their family because that person ‘married out’. It’s no rarity for some Jews to decide that other Jews aren’t Jews.
There is also an absurd implication in what you and the CiF zionists are saying, which seems to suggest that you would take Jewish antizionists more seriously if they did all the other things that Jews are supposed to do. And if you want to raise the matter of the ‘ultra orthodox’ Jews who oppose Zionism, then I suggest once again you return to Harry’s Place where I raised the very same matter with the people trying to prove that I was no longer Jewish. To which I got a stream of posts telling me first of all to look at what Naturei Korta stand for and others telling me that they’re not really Jews, they’re just madmen. I said, I wasn’t particularly interested in what they believe in, I just simply and only raised the matter of whether it was theoretically possible to be a Jew and to be antizionist. Over and over again, there were posts from people saying that NK had put themselves beyond the pale. It was over a year ago, I think. I’m sure David T can direct you to the thread. But if you don’t want to believe that, then find out why I was banned from talking to the children of Simon Marks School in Hackney. Please note, I’m not complaining. It’s just that I was invited to do my show there, but a group of parents (who later boasted about it on the web) got me banned. Quite right, I would have banned me too, if I was them. I’m so not the kind of Jew they want anywhere near their school, it’s better to make me the non-jew, ie disinvite me. I’ve cited Spectrum Radio to you (who also banned me after that). Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking on any doors to get in. It’s just that occasionally when people invite me and I state what I believe in, I get a torrent of stuff explaining to me it’s not possible for me to be Jewish if I believe what I do. If you want to imagine some other cosy world where Jews don’t behave like this, then that’s nice for you, but it’s rubbish. Please yourself
Your question to me about Tony Greenstein’s claim that zionists hate the diasporists is a question for Tony. Tony made the point. I didn’t. But you’re asking me about it? Do you have a problem in keeping focus? In public I have stated over and over and over again, I have a completely different angle to this matter: it’s not that zionists hate the diaspora but that most zionists in the world ARE the diaspora. They live in it and not in Israel. They much prefer living in the diaspora. But if you want to raise this matter, then there’s someone you could address it to. He’s called Tony Greenstein. He’s not called Michael Rosen. If you can’t follow that, give me a shout and I’ll try and clarify it.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 7 February, 2008 @ 11:50 pm
Andy
After a relatively short period of arguing about Islamism, you get pretty good at separating those who are merely rather doctrinaire about their secularism, and those who are yer actual anti-muslim bigots. In between the two, though, are people who, usually properly, don’t regard themselves as anti-muslim bigots, but who slip easily into the tropes of Islamophobia. Because this renders them blind to racism, it is these people who create an intellectual atmosphere in which bigotry is allowed to flourish.
A similar thing happens when you argue about Zionism, which I’ve done for some time too.
You’re finding this out for yourself.
That is why the SWP is unable to cut its links with Atzmon. And that is why RESPECT-Renewal has far right Islamists who propagate a conspiracist vision of the power of International Jewry, because they actually believe it to be true.
Comment by David T — 7 February, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
You have no need to prove you are not an anti-Semite in order to continue holding an anti-Zionist position. I see no reason why my consent can alter the contents of your mind or limit your freedom in any way. Unless of course I have Jewish magical powers, or I’m part of an organised conspiracy to silence ‘the truth’? Since I don’t suppose you believe in either of those anti-Semitic myths, I really don’t know what you’re getting at here.
What I’m getting at is that your statement that my anti-Zionist views weren’t a problem was immediately followed by a request that I define what I mean by anti-Zionism - which clearly implies that some anti-Zionisms are less legitimate than others, and that you’re reserving the right to judge which variety I adhere to.
2) I can’t grasp why the issue of Anti-Semitism is so easily dismissed.
The issue of anti-semitism is very easily dismissed in my personal case because I’m pretty damn sure that I personally am not an anti-semite, and don’t believe I’ve given anyone any grounds for concluding otherwise.
As for minority communities’ sensitivity to potentially discriminatory language, I’ll give you an example. When I was very young there was a counting rhyme which everybody knew, which included an offensive word beginning with N. My children have learnt a different version of the rhyme, and over time I imagine the offensive version will be forgotten. This is absolutely appropriate. For Black British people to object to the word ‘niggardly’, on the other hand, or the word ‘picnic’, would not be appropriate, and if I came up against these objections I’d object right back.
There’s something very similar going on here, with the complicating factor of a nation-state’s amour propre. If anyone talks about the Jews controlling the media, we’ll know what we’re dealing with and I’ll be denouncing it along with you. But if someone talks about the power exerted by Zionist groups, well, that could be anti-semitism, or it could be someone who’s done some research and found that Zionist groups are exerting power. As a rule of thumb, if what someone’s criticising is ‘Jews’, I think talking about anti-semitism may be in order (’may be’, not ‘is’). If not, not.
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Michael Rosen
I shall firstly start at the end, you seem to be complaining that I was commenting to you but writing about something Tony Greenstein said. The reason for that is that your post to me was in response to my earlier comments to Tony Greenstein, so I do not see why you are complaining. To use your own words, “If you can’t follow that, give me a shout and I’ll try and clarify it.”
The complaint against IJV is a similar complaint and that is that they stand up “As a Jew” when they are not in the main involved in Jewish communal life. Let us say I were to stand up and say the following: “As a Jew, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable to eat a bacon sandwich. These laws against pig meat were made at a time when hygiene and medical standards were not so high, but the word kosher literally translated means ‘clean’ and people do not get ill from eating a bacon sandwich. A bacon sandwich is clean and hence it is kosher.” If I made that statement, I would expect to widely criticised by the Jewish community for my comments. By using the first few words, “As a Jew,” what I would be trying to do is to legitimise the rest of my statement, which other Jews would tell me is an incorrect statement. It would not make any difference if I went to synagogue regularly and was a Board Member of a Jewish charity, my comments would be viewed as nonsense. To the ill informed my “As a Jew” comment may well sound like I know what I am talking about, but to anyone who knows anything about Jewish dietary laws, they could tell you it was nonsense. Other Jews would be rightly annoyed at my use of the phrase “As a Jew” as well as the fact that I am wrong in the substantive point that I was trying to make.
You comment on accusations about “normative behavior” and I think the accusation (without reading the specific comments but just your words) have some legitimacy. Being a member of “Jews for Jesus” and acting in an Jesus is the Messiah evangelical way is not the normal for Jews and nor is “Jews against Zionism.” They are both tiny fringe sects whose views do not represent that of the Jewish community in the UK.
If someone made an accusation that you are a non-Jew because oppose Zionism, I would also rebuke someone for it and so I believe would any Rabbi or anyone who understands how a Jew is defined. For those who may not be aware, a Jew is defined (in Jewish law) as someone who has a Jewish mother. It is pretty much as simple as that. But this does not mean a Jew cannot be an antisemite. It seems that even Jews Against Zionism argue that Gilad Atzmon is an antisemite.
You are correct that there are examples when a Jewish family has excommunicated another member of their family for marrying out, but I am not sure of the point you are making. The person that is married out is still regarded as Jewish and under Jewish law that person will still be regarded as Jewish, would be entitled to be a member of a synagogue (even if the spouse would not be) and would be entitled to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. In fact, if it is a Jewish woman that has “married out” under Jewish law, the children would be Jewish and fully accepted as such.
On the subject of Neturei Karta, yes they are Jews and anyone who says anything different would be talking nonsense, but they are exactly an example of a group that has been excommunicated. It is interesting to note that the Satmar sect have a similar view of Zionism to Neturei Karta but they completely reject the idea that Neturei Karta stand up, and shout about it and in doing so they make friends with some of the worst antisemites. A clear example was the attendance of Neturei Karta to the Iranian Holocaust Denial conference at the end of 2006. As such, it is not just mainstream Jews who believe that Neturei Karta are beyond the pale, but also Satmar, despite the fact that Satmar use the work of the Grand Satmar Reb Joel Tietlebaum as a basis for much of their argument.
Regarding you being “banned” by a Jewish school, I would not complain too much, I have been banned from commenting on Mark Elf’s site. Personally I am not in favour of bannings as I am quite pro freedom of speech and I believe I share the view of David T of Harry’s Place that racists and extremists should be argued against as opposed to banned. What surprises me is that on the one hand you want to boycott Israeli academics but on the other hand you are quite prepared to speak at the Jewish Book Week that is sponsored by a Zionist charity. It seems to me hypocrisy of the worst order.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:45 am
I feel that Mike Rosen and John W are arguing past each other. Mike is a sincere and dedicated anti-Zionist. A bit too much in the SWP’s orbit for my liking but noone can doubt he is an anti-Zionist and a principled comrade.
John W is not anti-Semitic or anywhere near it. He has used unfortunate phrases like ‘international Jewry’ though it is not unknown for many people to use such phrases, not least Zionists, the question is what the context is. The WZO certainly sees Jewry as one international body. It certainly tries to present Jewry as one political grouping. The Board of Deputies does the same here, excluding non and anti-Zionists from its membership.
As I explained on another post I have no interest in increasing the number of anti-Semites. The Zionists do that except they class anyone as an anti-Semite who opposes the Israeli state.
I wouldn’t personally have used the ‘multi-hydra’ analogy because it does imply that power resides in Israel rather than in the US and imperialism. Israel also has its own interests which diverge from that of the USA, a subject little talked about. E.g. the US doesn’t have a great interest in settlements in the West Bank, but Israel does and the US goes along with that because of Israel’s strategic usefulness to them. It’s called a trade off. It is a complicated relationship and of course the Atzmonites subsume everything in the idea that Israel is the controlling factor.
I’m baffled by Prianikoff’s comments. I support a unitary, democratic secular state in Palestine. Am I a bourgeois nationalist? I guess so. And if I opposed 2 states in South Africa would I have also been one? And a united Ireland? Is that bourgeois nationalism? Get real. Fact is that 2 states is a utopian chimera as it ignores the underlying reality of Israel as an expansionist state which will not allow anything other than a client statelet which would make Northern Ireland seem like an oasis of independent government.
Richard is wrong. Just because there is a congruence of interests between the US and Israel it doesn’t mean that Israel doesn’t press hard on the things that concern it but not the US, like settlements for example. We should not be reductionists in this. AIPAC doesn’t control US foreign policy BUT it can influence it in directions which are inimical to the Palestinians.
Mikey is his usual dishonest self. It’s one thing to have a drink with an ‘extremist’ i.e. racist. It’s another to collaborate in targetting someone who is anti-racist BUT also anti-Zionist. My quotes from Atzmon and the dialogue between Mikey and Atzmon demonstrate it wasn’t just a drink Mikey was after. I notice he hasn’t commented upon Atzmon’s compliments to him. Can’t imagine why?
Mikey says that ‘Zionists certainly do not hate the Jewish diaspora, Greenstein has simply made this claim up.’ This just demonstrates that Mikey, who thinks he is some kind of academic researcher, knows nothing about the Zionism he defends.
Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky spelt out his views on the Galut (Jews in Exile thus):
‘I have no doubt that I am a Zionist because the Jewish people is a very nasty people and its neighbours hate it and they are right. (S. Avineiri, p.162. Ktavim)
And the person who can be credited with being the founder of modern political Zionism, Moses Hess, subscribed to the Jewish blood libel myth. I kid you not.
‘For example, Hess writes that the Children of Israel were originally idolaters whose principle god, Moloch, demanded blood sacrifices… In the course of time, he maintains the Jews passed from blood (dam) sacrificesto money (damin) sacrifices. Shlomo Avineiri, ‘The Making of Modern Zionism - The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State’ p.41,Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1981. Is there any better example of Jewish self-hatred than these Zionists?
Or Jacob Klatzkin, editor of the Zionist main weekly, Die Welt between 1909-11 and one of the founders of the Encyclopedia Judaica. This is what he wrote about Jews outside Palestine:
‘Galut can only drag out the disgrace of our people and sustain the existence of a people disfigured in both body and soul - in a word, of a horror. At the very worst it can maintain us in a state of national impurity and breed some sort of outlandish creature in an environment of disintegration of cultures and of darkening spiritual horizons. The result will be something neither Jewish nor Gentile - in any case, not a pure national type…. some sort of oddity among the peoples going by the name of Jew. Arthur Hertzberg, ‘The Zionist Idea’ pp. 322/323. Herzberg was Deputy Chair of the American Jewish Congress and an ardent Zionist.
Or his most infamous statement that ‘If we do not admit the rightfulness of anti-Semitism we deny the rightfulness of our own nationalism… Instead of establishing societies for defence against the anti-Semites who want to reduce our rights, we should establish societies for defence against our friends, who desire to defend our rights. (B. Matovu, “The Zionist Wish and the Nazi Deed’ Issue, Winter 1966-7. Uri Davies, ‘Utopia Incorporated’ p. 17)
Or this, from the World Zionist Organisation’s own web site: http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1320
Zionism and Myths of Assimilation
By: Robert S. Wistrich
‘The Zionist movement from its inception regarded assimilation as one of its central enemies, as a morally degrading position for any self-respecting Jew to adopt.
Like other national movements it tended to decry assimilation as an expression of weakness of character rather than to perceive it as a historic process with its own logic and momentum. Thus Zionists all-too easily overdramatized the “spiritual slavery” of the assimilationists, producing a mythical image of Western Jewry in particular, that bore little relation to the realities of Jewish existence in the more open, pluralistic societies of the West. “Assimilationists” found themselves branded as self-hating Jews or traitors to their people even when they were no longer religious, had little knowledge or connection with Jewish tradition and their self-definition as part of the Jewish people made little sense in the general context of liberal, 19thcentury European society….
Yet, according to Jacob Klatzkin, the greatness of Herzl as a human being lay in his ability to recognize the “moral collapse” of assimilation and its disgrace. Herzl considered it to be something immoral and also unaesthetic lacking authenticity and human dignity. Hence he came to Zionism not through a Jewishness from which he was wholly alienated but as a Mensch who was saying to the assimilationists -let us begin by creating human beings out of the Jews!’
So did I make it up? I have reams of this stuff but Mikey, being an ignoramus knows nothing and learns nothing. But thanks Mikey for making The Times cough up £1,000 for your libelous comments about me on Aaronovitch’s blog!!! You helped to fund a Palestinian student scholarship for a year. Well done!!
And as for praying next year in Jerusalem, this was a pious hope, a millenarian dream common to all peoples of dreaming for a Zion. But when faced with a choice, of the 2.5 millions who emigrated from Czarist Russia between 1850 and 1914, less than 2% went to Palestine!
I don’t understand Patrick’s comment. Scottish PSC are the most advanced politically and there is no comparison between Atzmon and Perdition. Perdition describes in a theatrical form the role of the Zionist movement in Hungary where the Zionists under Kastner did a deal with the SS and in the process concealed the news of Auschwitz. That is an established fact. Atzmon was invited to speak to Scottish PSC once and got a hostile reception. It’s called ‘never again’!
Yes many Jews do live in the diaspora and that is one of life’s contradictions. What it means in practice is that there is a contradiction between the interests of Jews living here and the interests of the Israeli state. It is a living contradiction and it is something that Zionism cannot overcome other than by attrition. The reality is that Zionism is parasitical on diaspora Jewry and is bringing anti-Semitism in its wake. And if anti-Semitism did ever rear its ugly head again Israel would be no refuge as Argentina demonstrated.
Where I would disagree with Andy is that Zionism wasn’t just another form of nationalism of the oppressed. From the very start it allied itself with the oppressors of the Jews. Herzl parleyed with them all, including the leader/founder of French anti-Semitism, Eduord Drumont. His meetings with von Plehve, organiser of pogroms in Czarist Russia brought down on his head the condemnation of the Bund, which was a mass party in Russia. He was collaborating with the murderers of Jews in order to obtain a charter for Palestine. Zionism was not a mass national movement of Jews. The Bund was if anything this and its nationalism was focussed on where Jews lived not Palestine. Zionism was seen by most Jews as a quisling movement and when Herzl wanted to hold the first Zionist Congress in Munich, the local Jewish community petitioned the authorities against this anti-Semitic assembly, as they saw it. The following are citations from a reputable Zionist, not anti-Zionist source:
The French Radical Right: From Anti-Semitic Zionism to Anti-Semitic Anti-Zionism
Pierre Birnbaum The Journal of Israeli History Vol. 25, No. 1, March 2006, pp. 161–174
‘Edouard Drumont, the author of La France juive, suggested getting rid of the Jews, “sending them all back to Palestine,” and, a little later, was highly complimentary about Theodor Herzl’s recently published book, Der Judenstaat, stating at a conference: “Dr Herzl wishes to restore a Homeland to this people that is a people; and I see nothingwrong in this as long as thisHomeland is not mine . . .. I have seen with great pleasure in the Archives israe´lites the full-page advertisement by the Jewish National Society . . . the Zionist movement represents the democratic element in Jewry.” By 1903 Drumont was congratulating Max Nordau on his nationalist arguments, writing: “The Jew who aspires to reestablish a homeland for himself is worthy of esteem. The Jew who wishes to have a flag is a decent Jew. . . . Is not having a homeland the most critical of all duties? France for the French! Palestine for the Jews.”
In this way, Drumont—the inventor of political anti-Semitism, the man who made anti-Semitism into an organized mass movement fromwhich theAustrian and German anti-Semitic movements would draw their inspiration—pursued a formidable line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, declaring himself openly in favor of the Jews’ departure for Palestine, which would restore France’s authentic nature.’
Or another article from the most prestigious of Zionist academic journals. ‘The Journal of Israeli History’ Anti-Semites on Zionism: From Indifference to Obsession, Derek J. Penslar 01 March 2006
‘A decade later, as the Zionist movement appeared to shake off the lethargy that had gripped themovement sinceHerzl’s death in 1904, Drumont devoted considerable energy to drumming up anti-Semitic support for Zionism. At the time of the Eighth Congress in 1907, Drumont wrote that Zionism represented the “future of the Jewish Question and, consequently, the future of humanity as awhole.”Were the Jews removed fromEurope to Palestine, “this Jewish Question, which . . . dominates all human affairs, including the SocialQuestion,would be resolved, at least for the timebeing, and theworldwould finally know a period of calm and relative security.” Drumont even expressed admiration for Zionists, whom he contrasted unfavorably with their opponents: The Jew who aspires to reconstitute a homeland is worthy of esteem. The Jew who destroys the homeland of others is worthy of every kind of scorn….’
Need I say more?
This argument that Zionists question who is a Jew because they are not part of the Jewish community or religious really reflects the worst practices of the anti-Semites. Who is a Jew is a question that fascinated the Nazis. It also fascinates the Zionists and their search for demographic solutions. I find it quite simple. I’m a Jew because there are fascists and I’m a Jew because of what Israel does in my name. And also because I like Jewish food!! Since when was being Jewish about supporting America’s favourite client state? Or super nationalism? The great Jews in history weren’t Zionists. Einstein all but renounced it as he got older, Hannah Arendt became a non-Zionist and all the other great figures in Jewish diaspora history would have run a mile from the idea as did most Jews as and until Hitler triumphed. It was the holocaust that made Zionism into a majority political current in the world and Israel represents Hitler’s triumph. Just as the growth of the German Jewish community (the fastest growing such community in the world) represents the final nail in Hitler’s coffin. That is why they sent foreign minister David Levy to Germany to plead that Germany should impose immigration barriers on Jews wishing to immigrate, just as in the 1970’s and 1980’s Begin and Rabin similarly pleaded with US Presidents not to admit Soviet Jews to their shores and waged a long battle to prevent Jews going anywhere but the USA.
In fact Mikey is wrong in any case. The Jewish community in Britain and the USA is fast assimilating to the majority, but a significant part thereof see themselves as part Jewish. Like my daughter who is 16. She is an atheist like her dad and describes herself as half-Jewish. I haven’t influenced her in that but I’m glad that that is the way she sees herself.
I see my role as quite a simple one. I didn’t choose to be born Jewish but I was. I won’t deny it and if the NF take to the streets I’ll be after them. But when the fight against the fascists was at its height the Zionists said keep your heads down. Do nothing and trust the police. It was non-Jews who were my comrades and Jewish anti-Zionists. With one exception, a Mapamnik moving leftwards, I cannot remember a single Zionist who participated in the struggle. Zionism does not believe in the fight against anti-Semitism rather it believes in labelling people who are not anti-Semites as that.
And for the last time. People make mistakes. It is easy as the Atzmon affair is proving to confuse concepts. If someone like John W says they are not anti-Semitic then unless there is more than an ill-chosen phrase then I believe them. It really is as simple as that. And if John disavows Atzmon and what he represents then that is pretty good for me. What I do find disgusting is that Zionists like Mikey are prepared to do ‘research’ for creatures like Atzmon. Which is why Mikey spends his spare time trying to exonerate another collaborator, Rudolph Kasztner.
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 8 February, 2008 @ 3:19 am
What a load of waffle from Greenstein complete with his usual errors and distortions. The funniest is probably his attack on Moses Hess. Greenstein is probably not even aware that Hess was a huge influence on Karl Marx himself and is widely credited with convincing Frederich Engels to become a communist! I suggest Greenstein does a bit more reading.
I openly admit that I met Atzmon for a drink and I also openly admit that I have subsequently written posts about him on Harry’s Place attacking him, through research I have more information. What I did not do, which is what Greenstein did is to send Atzmon a message saying that he would love to go and here Atzmon play jazz. Moreover, whilst Greenstein has commented on the fact that Atzmon offered me a backhanded compliment, he has ignored the fact that the National Front wrote a review of one his own disgusting pamphlets and compared his (Greenstein’s) work favourably to that of Holocaust Denier Richard Harwood. Ironically, it is also the case that the Holocaust Denial site that John Wight linked to on Engage itself contains at least 2 articles from a magazine that Greenstein himself was on the editorial committee for. No wonder Greenstein is defending John W, because if he did not, he would also in a roundabout way be implicating himself.
Greenstein goes on to claim that the great Jews in history were not Zionist. He provides 2 examples - Einstein and Arendt. Firstly on Einstein, Greenstein claims that Einstein “all but renounced it [Zionism] as he got older” but he does not actually say that Einstein did renounce his Zionism. In fact the truth is that Einstein (3 years before his death) was offered to succeed Chaim Weizmann as the President of the State of Israel. It is hardly likely that offer would have been made if Einstein was an anti-Zionist. yes, Einstein was critical of some Zionists, notably Begin, but he certainly was not an anti-Zionist - not even as he got older.
Similarly, Greenstein claims that Hannah Arendt was a non-Zionist. The truth is not as simple as Greenstein makes out. Firstly she was not an anti-Zionist, secondly she devoted over 20 years of her life working for Jewish and Zionist organisations. Thirdly she regularly donated money to the State of Israel in its appeals, notably in the 6 day war in 1967 and in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Greenstein, to try and prove his point, quotes from an article by Birnbaum, but when he does, he conveniently ignores quoting from te concluding paragraph, where the author stated, “it should be recalled that Drumont’s movement represented a populism that brought together far left and far right alike, in which white supremacists took part, along with Guedists and sometimes even socialists, who had no scruples about being involved in a large-scale anti-Semitic movement that overwhelmingly drew its inspiration from the far right.”
Greenstein alleges that I am wrong in my discussion about who is a Jew. What I claimed was that someone is a Jew if they have a Jewish mother. This is quite clear in Jewish law. Greenstein comments that his daughter calls herself a “half-Jew.” This phrase has no meaning in Jewish law. Either Greenstein’s daughter is or is not Jewish. On the logical assumption that Greenstein’s daughters mother is not Jewish, then neither is Greenstein’s daughter. It is quite clear.
It can be noted of course that the State of Israel uses a different definition of who is a Jew to Jewish law, in its Law of Return, and the reason for that is the State recognised that antisemites themselves put a different definition on who is a Jew and persecuted and killed Jews under that definition. To save them all from possible persecution, the halachic(Jewish legally) Jews and those that would not full under such a definition, but might have been killed by a Nazi for being Jewish all the same, allowed these categories also to live in Israel. Consequently, despite Greenstein’s claim, it is not me that is wrong, it is him, but why should that surprise anyone?
Finally Greenstein says that I spend my time trying to exonerate Rudolf Kasztner who he claims was a “collaborator.” Greenstein may have failed to realise that I do not need to exonerate Kasztner as the Supreme Court in Israel ruled by a 4:1 majority in 1958 that he was not a collaborator. Greeenstein needs to do a little more research himself.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:38 am
In your post to me, Mikey, pure fog. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what you raised with me: ie whether some zionists say that me (and the likes of me presumably) are Jewish or not. You said, you’ll remember that zionists would not claim that. I said they would and have and I’ve cited examples (Harry’s Place posters, Spectrum Radio, and indeed the usual normative stuff). You reply telling me that I shouldn’t ‘complain’. Are you reading what I’ve written? This is what I wrote:
“But if you don’t want to believe that, then find out why I was banned from talking to the children of Simon Marks School in Hackney. Please note, I’m not complaining. ”
I’ll put that in caps “I’M NOT COMPLAINING”
I raised it as an example of how some zionists (not all) try to make me (and the likes of me a non-Jew). And as I’m trying to make clear to you, I’m not asking to be a member of this club. I just am. Born into it. It’s people like you doing the normative stuff. Why not wait till your head’s in gear before you leap to your keyboard?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:37 am
# 89 Tony Greenstein
‘I’m baffled by Prianikoff’s comments. I support a unitary, democratic secular state in Palestine. Am I a bourgeois nationalist? I guess so. And if I opposed 2 states in South Africa would I have also been one? And a united Ireland? Is that bourgeois nationalism? Get real. Fact is that 2 states is a utopian chimera as it ignores the underlying reality of Israel as an expansionist state which will not allow anything other than a client statelet which would make Northern Ireland seem like an oasis of independent government.’
You’re baffled by them because you don’t understand them.
I don’t support 2 states, I support a *bi-national Socialist state*.
In the real situation ‘2 states’ may be utopian, but so is 1 state.
I’m not interested in a political split over the difference between 1 and 2.
But yes, it’s absolutely the case that no one in the PSC, including you, go beyond the terrain of bourgeois nationalism.
You for example totally refuse to do any work amongst Israeli workers because you reject the idea that any valid class struggle goes on inside the country, or that divisions between rich and poor are meaningful.
Comment by prianikoff — 8 February, 2008 @ 7:46 am
Prianikoff:
I don’t support 2 states, I support a *bi-national Socialist state*.
Reply:
And you call us Utopian? In case you haven’t realised, with regard to Palestine the Israeli working class isn’t listening. Your analysis is determinism at its worst. Israel is not a state in the normal sense of the word. It is a settler colonial state, committed to clearing the land of what it views as untermensch, the Palestinians. The Israeli working class benefits materially from Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, who aren’t used as exploited labour but are viewed solely as vermin to be expelled and cleansed from the land. Israel’s role as a US stretegic asset is also unique and makes our efforts in resisting its apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians vital.
Pandering to Israeli national chauvinism over the interests of the international working class this way is simply wrong.
Comment by John W — 8 February, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Greenstein tells bad stories about me.
He says I’m a defender of Richard Littlejohn - in fact I remarked how shameful it is that Littlejohn’s stance on antisemitism is better than that of some of us on the left. Littlejohn’s programme, which Greenstein himself helped to make - as a piece of popular TV - wasn’t bad. It set out some of the arguments about contemporary antisemitism quite well, I thought.
Greenstein says it is a real chutzpah for me to come to a socialist website to discuss antisemitism. He says I’m responsible for conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism. He implies that I am therefore responsible for those in the anti-Zionist movement who are antisemitic. He says he doesn’t take me seriously. He says I only pretend to be concerned with antisemitism. He says if I was concerned about antisemitism I’d launch a campaign against those Zionists who have been very rude to him. He says that most antisemitism comes from Jews and later he says that the bocyott campaign can’t be antisemitic because it is led by Jews. He says I “cried antisemitism” in bad faith in order to rescue Israel from a boycott. He says that on Engage we deliberately distort and smear. He misquotes me as saying that he thinks that “Zionists and Nazis are the same”; in fact I said he thinks that “Zionism is like Nazism” - which he evidently does think http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=918. He openly admits emailing my colleagues and bosses, where I work, with all this baloney (a few colleagues sympathized with me for having such a weird stalker and asked if I had called the police). He says I’m a Zionist - as though being a Zionist was some kind of great crime.
Lots of stuff from Greenstein about why I am a bad person with a bad history and should not be listened to. Lots of assertions.
But nothing from Greenstein - not one word - about how what Andy Newman says about antisemitism is wrong or about how my own critique of John Wight’s antisemtic outbursts is mistaken.
Not one word about the significance of the remarks by colleagues reported by Andy, not one word about John Wight’s “mistake” at having linked to a Fascist website, not one word about contemporary antisemitism. Well there was one word - this was to blame most Jews (ie “Zionists”) for antisemitism.
Lots of pontification about how I’m a bad person. Nothing about why what I say is wrong.
Do have a look at what I have written http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/hirsh/index.htm.
Maybe Greenstein is right, and I am a bad and dishonest person. But maybe what I write about antisemitism is nevertheless worth reading. Judge the arguments, the evidence, the analysis, not the person.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:10 am
David Hirsh:
Maybe Greenstein is right, and I am a bad and dishonest person. But maybe what I write about antisemitism is nevertheless worth reading. Judge the arguments, the evidence, the analysis, not the person.
Reply:
David Hirsh, I am personally calling you a pro-Israel, Zionist supporter of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Your detemined efforts, and those of your supporters, to label me antisemitic are a clear and wilful attempt to divert attention and to cleave a division on this discussion list over the issue of Palestine. Again, I assert, I have spent many years campaigning for Palestinian human rights at home and abroad and will continue to do so. I have also campaigned vigorously against the BNP and the far right and have the onerous distinction of being included on their Redwatch site for doing so. I have apologised to my comrades for referencing the url of a far right site. It was an honest mistake. You have not accepted this as a mistake because it would not suit your purposes to do so.
I am calling you a scumbag. Take me to court, sue me.
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
Can you dig it?
Comment by John W — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:20 am
John.
Stop digging.
Comment by Patrick. — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Another astonishing comment from John Wight: “In case you haven’t realised, with regard to Palestine the Israeli working class isn’t listening.”
This is true, argues Wight, because Israel is unique in that the interests of its working class are opposed to the interests of “the international working class”.
Astonishing.
So unlike the Israeli working class, which is essentially tied to its own bourgeoisie, the other working classes, all over the world, are, I suppose “listening” to Marxists like John Wight?
Well, no, actually, they’re not listening right now are they? But that is because of false consciousness, right?
Whereas the Israeli workers are not listening - but in that cause it is because of true consciousness.
The Israeli working class is the only working class on the planet that has divined its true interest - which is, according to John Wight, to bind with its own bourgeoisie, to “international Jewry”, to American imperialists, to “Arab Collaborationist Regimes” in a project of ethnically cleansing Palestinians - which is opposed by “the forces of human progress”.
This antisemitic, Stalinist pile of steaming rubbish is not Marxism.
In Capital, Marx offered an analysis of exploitation which did not rely on a picture of the rich and the powerful conspiring against the exploited. That was his genius. He replaced conspiracy theory with a structural analysis.
Some people on the left who forget Marx, or who never understood Marx, are left only with the conspiracy of bad people against the oppressed.
And from conspiracy theory it is one short tempting step to antisemitic conspiracy theory.
But don’t listen to me. Because as John Wight and Tony Greenstein point out, I am a clever little Jewish demon who knows how to make arguments about socialism and Marxism in bad faith - in order to protect Israel from criticism of its human rights abuses.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:40 am
Lots of pontification about how I’m a bad person. Nothing about why what I say is wrong.
Very remiss of Tony; it’s just as well he’s not the only person commenting on this thread. If you want to know why what you say is wrong - or rather, why the way you argue is wrong - have a look at my comment #15.
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:40 am
#84 from David T and #85 and BPS, I think form a nice pair of comments on a related theme.
In #85 BPS asks
Writings from Lenin in a period only thirty years after the Czarist state first started to try to create a Russian nation, and when nationalism was both novel and weak don’t relate to today’s conditions, where national identity is firmly established as usually as a vital part of self-identity for most people.
So David T’s point addressed to Miachal Rosen is a fair one:
I would generalise from that to say that socialists saying that all national consciousness or patriotism is chauvinism and racism is a terrible barrier against us ever having mass influence.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:50 am
John Wight: “Your determined efforts, and those of your supporters, to label me antisemitic are a clear and wilful attempt to divert attention and to cleave a division on this discussion list over the issue of Palestine.”
This is the opposite of the truth.
The truth is that people like Wight have split the Palestine Solidarity movement down the middle by insisting on defining who is a friend of Palestine and who is an enemy of Palestine in a very strange way.
I think it should be pretty clear. I am a friend of Palestine because I oppose the Israeli occupation and I oppose the Israeli racism and the Israeli human rights abuses which are necessary to sustain the occupation. I am for an end to the occupation. I think that Israeli settlers should go home to Israel. I am for the establishment of a genuinely free and democratic Palestinian state.
Now, clearly some of you believe that a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel would not be a just or a workable solution. I believe it would be more just and more workable than any other possible solution. So we have some disagreements.
But surely we should be able to work together in a broad Palestine Solidarity movement? So why can’t we?
We can’t because the Palestine Solidarity movement which exists, defines me as an enemy of Palestine. Why does it?
a) because I don’t support an exclusion of Israelis - and only Israelis - from the cultural and economic life of the planet
b) because I believe that the distinction between criticism of Israeli policy and demonizing Israel as a whole, is important. I think that demonizing Israel can lead to antisemitic ways of thinking - and of acting - and I think this is something which we should be careful to avoid.
The Palestine Solidarity movement, as it exists, defines friends and enemies of Palestine according to whether they support BDS, according to whether they characterize Israel as apartheid, according to whether they support the smashing (from outside - remember, not relying on the israeli working class) of the state of Israel.
The politics of boycott and the politics of demonization splits and disables Palestine solidarity in Britain.
The sniff of antisemitism which hangs around Palestine solidarity work - the smell which Andy Newman brings to light in this piece - puts off decent people, who are for Palestinian liberation.
People like me, who support Palestinian freedom, are hardly likely to want to join the Scottish PSC - or Edinburgh Stop The War - when they are angrily denounced as “scumbags” when they get there.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:58 am
It is a shame that a thread that began as a thoughtful piece about antisemitism has become a discussion about Israel and Zionists. A shame, but not a surprise. How has this happened? Because John W cannot discuss antisemitism without asking how many UN resolutions Israel has broken. In the same way that he couldn’t write an article about Holocaust Memorial Day without actually writing an article about Palestinian rights. Meanwhile Tony Greenstein only ever has one thing to say, which is to blame Zionists for everything.
This is exactly the problem that Andy is getting at. There are too many people on the left who cannot relate to anything to do with contemporary Jewish life, Jewish politics, antisemitism or the Holocaust without making it a very angry debate about Israel. If you hate Israel as much as John W does, and you cannot discuss matters Jewish without making it a discussion about Israel, your hatred will inevitably be transferred onto the majority of ordinary Jewish people and their mainstream Jewish organisations that are not anti-Zionist.
Note I say “are not anti-Zionist”; you do not even have to be a particularly active Zionist for this to apply. Eric Lee had his funding pulled by one trade union because he was a politically active Jew who was not an anti-Zionist.
John W and Greenstein both declare their bona fides by stating their record of active opposition to the neo-Nazi far right. I do not doubt either of them. But when leftists or Islamists say the same things as neo-Nazis about Jews, they are unmoved. John W talks about Israel being a “hydra-headed monster” involving “international Jewry” as if these ideas have no antisemitic history. Tony Greenstein has, I am sure, opposed the activities of David Irving for decades; but when Asghar Bukhari of MPAC was revealed as a funder of Irving, Greenstein posted a message of support on Bukhari’s website. When has Tony Greenstein ever been so forgiving of someone who funds Holocaust Denial? When the person who gives money to David Irving does so because they think Holocaust Denial is an anti-Israel activity.
As I said in my previous comment: ordinary Jews are used to the idea that antisemitism can come from many different sources. Our history is replete with examples. Christians, Muslims, Arabs, Persians, far right, far left, intellectual elites, violent mobs…what matters is what people say, think and do about Jews. The same, sadly, does not apply for too many people on the left, who give antisemitism a free pass, or even help it along, if it does not come dressed in jackboots and swastika armbands.
Comment by Dave Rich — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:00 am
Sure Phil, I’ll look at comment # 15.
Firstly, I was quite open in the piece I wrote on Engage that Wight had “apologized” for linking our website to a Fascist holocaust denial website. But I think it is more complicated than that. I think that he did do it by mistake - so I don’t accuse him of supporting the right wing Fascist website. But I don’t think that the nature of the mistake was simply accidental. I think that his view, which says that Jews are sufficiently powerful enough, round the globe, to silence an honest discussion of “Zionism” is very similar to the view of the Fascist website, which says that Jews are sufficiently powerful around the globe to silence an honest discussion of “Zionism”. I think it’s basically the same charge of Jewish (or Zionist) conspiracy and I think that is why he got the two confused.
His subsequent explanation doesn’t hold much water. He says he googled one but got the other. Try it. You don’t get one by googling the other.
Your second point is that my logic is twisted with my critique of what Wight subsequently said.
He stood by his antisemitic comments about “world Jewry” and about Israel consisting of American imperialists and Arab collaborationists. He stood by the version which was explicitly antisemitic. And then he repeated the sentiment using an “anti-Zionist” vocabulary which made it harder to understand that the content of the argument was antisemitic.
My point was that the meaning of the passage which he offered in his email was the same as the meaning in the original comment. One was expressed using antisemitic language and the other wasn’t.
Straightforward point.
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1627
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:06 am
I think it’s basically the same charge of Jewish (or Zionist) conspiracy and I think that is why he got the two confused.
Well, I think we can all agree that there are Zionist groups which organise in more than one country. A left-wing anti-Zionist might talk about ‘international Zionist organisations’ without meaning anything more than that. A Fascist might use exactly the same phrase and mean something completely different. Sometimes a Zionist is just a Zionist.
He stood by the version which was explicitly antisemitic. And then he repeated the sentiment using an “anti-Zionist” vocabulary which made it harder to understand that the content of the argument was antisemitic.
This is exactly my point. You divine the content of the argument from the use of terms you see as anti-semitic; when the same argument is made without using those terms, you conclude that it’s an anti-semitic argument disguised in anti-Zionist vocabulary! Surely it would be simpler - as well as more charitable - to say that John was simply making an anti-Zionist argument all along?
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:25 am
David T’s point addressed to Miachal Rosen is a fair one
Eh? David T’s ‘point’ is a typical rhetorical double-shuffle: first assume the point that’s in dispute by presenting your opponent’s position in grotesquely extreme terms (would in all likelihood result in the massacring of jews), then graciously ‘explain’ why your opponent believes this travesty by reference to their psychological makeup (your messianic belief in international socialism).
I can see where you’re going with the nationalism argument, but I don’t think it works. Yes, it’s probably the case that more British Jews are Zionists than anti-, but I don’t see that that puts Jewish socialists under any obligation to fly the Star of David from their car aerials.
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Phil:
This is exactly my point. You divine the content of the argument from the use of terms you see as anti-semitic; when the same argument is made without using those terms, you conclude that it’s an anti-semitic argument disguised in anti-Zionist vocabulary! Surely it would be simpler - as well as more charitable - to say that John was simply making an anti-Zionist argument all along?
Reply:
But Phil, his intention is not to divine the content, it is to muddy the waters by diverting attention away from the burning issue of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Now David Hirsh claims that he is a supporter of the Palestinians. Perhaps in that case he might care to explain his opposition to BDS. What does he propose in its place? He previously ridiculed an earlier post by me claiming that the Israeli working class are intextricably tied to their own bourgeoisie. When it comes to the occupation and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, the Israeli working class are absolutely and irrefutably tied to their own bourgeoisie, with few , too few, exceptions. As with the US working class, as with the British working class.
But Israel is a settler colonial state, a vital strategic asset of a global empire emanating from Washington that is intent on imposing on the world a free market desert. Marx’s structural analysis of the proletariat and its relationship to the means of production was essentially Eurocentric. He never in any meaningful way factored into that analysis the plight and revolutionary potential of colonial peoples. For that we look to Lenin and, later, specifically with regard to the Middle East, the analysis of people like Isaac Deutscher, Tariq Ali, and even Chomsky for his work in deconstructing Israel’s relationship with the US.
Comment by John W — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:38 am
So your contention, Phil, is that John was making an anti-Zionist argument all along, but he mistakenly articulated it in antisemitic language.
He then said that he stood by this passage - the one which we agree was articulated in antisemitic language - but he offered us a translation to be read alongside the original passage into anti-Zionist language.
If that is your reading of what happened I won’t argue with you.
But the point is that this kind of anti-Zionist thinking leads a decent antiracist like John:
1) to a place inside his head where he is ready to use antisemitic language
2) to a place where he is ready to stand by the antisemitic language, even when it is pointed out to him that this language is antisemitic
3) to then denounce the person who did him the favour of pointing out that the language was antisemitic as a scumbag
4) to claim that the person who pointed out the antisemitic language does so only for bad motives
My argument is not that anti-Zionists are really motivated by an underlying, conscious or unconscious antisemitism.
My argument is that certain kinds of anti-Zionism are dangerous because they tend to lead to anisemitic ways of thinking - in terms both of form and content, of language and of politics.
Wight may have begun as someone who was rightly extremely hostile to Israeli human rights abuses. I share this hostility.
But his hostility led his politics - and it led him to a place where he is beginning to talk like an antisemite - in antisemitic language - and content too.
If it was just a mistake, he would have thanked us (if not us, then Andy, his friend and comrade) for having pointed it out.
It is a disproportional hatred of Israel which leads to antisemitism.
It is an understanding of Israel as something absolutely unique.
It is the belief that Israel and “Zionism” are at the very centre of what is wrong with the world which leads towards an antisemitic way of thinking.
It is the belief - articulated very clearly by John - that if only the evil of Zionism was destroyed, then Palestinians - and all the rest of us - could live in peace - it is this belief that is menacing.
Antisemites have always put Jews at the centre of what is wrong with the world.
Some variants of anti-Zionism tend to pub Israel at the centre of what is wrong with the world.
In truth, neither Jews nor Israelis are at the centre of anything in the world.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:38 am
John Wight has a good idea. Lets read at Isaac Deutscher: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/archives/index.php?id=49
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:41 am
For Michael Rozen:
Michael, first of all, I want to apologize because it was probably me who hurled abuse at you at Harry’s place. I don’t remember if I called you an “animal”, not a particular insult I would use, but certainly, I lost my temper. For that, I apologize.
Before I continue, I would like to copy a paragraph from Mikey which I think is to the point: “Despite this I do think it is fair to say that many Jews get very annoyed with Jews who stand up and oppose Zionism and do so “As a Jew” in groups such as “Jews Against Zionism” when they have no connection with Judaism as a religion and /or Jewish life in say the United Kingdom over an above using their credentials of being Jewish to say “As a Jew” and denouncing everything that most Jews believe in.”
I am one of those who gets very annoyed. I think that you, consciously, work to destroy not only “what I believe in” but the greatest collective work of modern Jewish history, namely, the State of Israel, which, as every human endeavor, is not perfect. Moreover, you do that in the name of one of the most murderous ideologies in history, namely socialism, marxism, or however you want to call your own belief. Marxism is a fringe movement in today’s world for a obvious reason. It failed and killed huge amounts of people every time it was tried. Most reasonable people have abandoned this ship.
Now, in the process of your demolition work, you get in touch with many unsavoury people, but you don’t recognize that you yourself are outside Jewish history. Not because you live in the diaspora (my whole family lives in the Diaspora! so much for “Zionists hating the Diaspora”), but because politically you work to destroy Jewish product insted of working to create. There is nothing you can create through socialism, much less in the Middle East. You can only wish to destroy a state where most Jews live and consider their home.
I think very annoying of you to try to “fusion” a state in which you don’t live, nor plan to live. I think you would find me as annoying if I were a member of a movement in Israel with the express goal to “fusion” Britain with Pakistan as the only solution to Pakista’s misery. Of course, the difference is that we, Jews, are very few, and have lots of enemies - sorry, yes we have - who want to “fusion” us, while Pakistan and Britain are very big countries and would laugh at my hypothetic movement. However, think the fear Europe had of being “fusioned” by force with the Soviet Union to recall what I want to say here. You are an enemy of my people, whether you like it or not, whether you want to consider yourself a Jew or not.
When I think of your “one-state” ideas, I cannot fail but think of how some Christians think that through their religion “there is no more Greek and there is no more Jew, we are all the same in the eyes of God”, as someone put it to me very recently during a discussion. To that I had to point out that there are still Greeks, that there is a country called Greece, (and a country called Armenia, and Russia, and…), in spite of his Christian utopia. There is room in the world for a country called Israel, that Jews call their home. The fact that you work against the existence of this country makes me think that you are exactly like this Christian evangelist, only that your bible is Marxism. You are just as annoying as them.
Too bad you cannot understand this. I have no “false consciousness” and I am not part of the “Zionist elite”. I am a proud citizen of my own homeland.
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:45 am
I don’t know why you’re expressing surprise or indignation about this. You will know of countless examples of Jewish families refusing to speak to members in their family because that person ‘married out’. It’s no rarity for some Jews to decide that other Jews aren’t Jews.
Yes, a couple of generations ago. Didn’t happen to me. Didn’t happen to two of my mates (for very long, at least) and his dad’s a rabbi.
So, jews like to argue, often loudly. And they’re schizmatic! Who would have thought it!!?
I think the problem you’re facing is this, Michael. You’re evidently a very nice and sweet guy. Yet somehow, you’ve thought yourself into this weird political position, in which you unaccountably want two militarised, mutually antagonistic peoples, to live together in a socialist paradise that neither of them want. And you don’t just want it as a theoretical wouldn’t-it-be-nice-one-day way. You actually appear to think that this would be a good idea to try this experiment right now. And when it comes to appearing on platforms, or joining political parties containing Islamists who believe that the day of judgement will not come until rocks and trees cry out “O Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me come and kill him”, you say “Well, they’ve had a hard time, and they don’t really mean it!”.
I completely accept that you’re not a racist or a self hating jew or anything like that. I think you’re a doctrinaire revolutionary socialist, with a deep love of yiddishkeit. I would happily leave my kids with you.
But can you see how somebody, hearing you say what you say, might just think “He really wants to see jews delivered over to muslims who will massacre them. How odd.”
I mean, if you were an muslim Arab, who made a habit of going to rallies run by the Israeli “Greater Israel” Right, and endorsed the absorbtion of “Judea” and “Samaria” into “Greater Israel”, do you think you’d get a good reception at Arab muslim events?
You get a very good reception from most people, including jews - with some exceptions - because, basically, you seem like a nice bloke who has spent too much time in the company of frothing-at-the-mouth trot fantasists, and who has been led astray from reality.
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Coming from a ‘foaming-at -the-mouth’ anti-Muslim bigot, that’s rich.
Comment by Ger Francis — 8 February, 2008 @ 11:21 am
Ger
You’re an ex-member of a very small and very unsuccessful trotskyite party, which expelled you for getting too close to the EXTREMELY dodgy Birmingham Central Mosque crowd, which includes Salma “Free Abu Hamza’s Terrorist Son” Yaqoob, Adam “Slap Tatchell” Yosef, and Mohammed “Dancing Cows” Naseem.
It might have escaped your notice, but the overwhelming majority of muslims in this country want nothing to do with these sorts of fringe nutters. Only Islamophobes identify muslims with the exotic freak-show you’ve been cavorting with for the past few years.
You’re the equivalent of a defender of Kahane Chai, who claims that anybody who stands against you is an anti-jewish bigot.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9178/
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 11:32 am
Phil #106
You misunderstand me.
The point I think is reasonable is that when David points out that “revolutionary socialists” who dismiss other peoples’ own sense of their self-identity are likely to be misunderstood by the vast majority of people who don’t share the assumptions of revolutionary socialists, and indeed have probably never even been exposed to those assumptions.
For example when Adam Joh**nes from Cardiff accuses me of being a racist and a chauvinist because I posted an interview with a Plaid Cymru Assembly member! Clearly his “revolutionary socialism “ has put him on a completely diffetent page from most people, and he is likely to be misunderstood, and cause offence.
There is certainly no obligation for any Jew to support Israel, nor any obligation that being Jewish should require support for the idea of a Jewish nationhood. Nevertheless, a lot of Jews do feel they are a nation, and support Israel as in some way their nation state. I feel we will get a lot further if we recognize that rather than seeking to delegitimise it by saying Zionism is inherently racist.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Ger,
Thats nonsense and you know it.
Deliberately confusing Islamist with Muslim does noone any favours.
The people you are involved with in Birmingham,want to confuse the two,and you deliberately help them.
John W is really doing damage to the PSC.
His views are an embarrassment and will alienate potential supporters.
His claim that he was searching and ended up on the wrong site is truly odd.
I tried it last night.
On no search engines and no combinations of words or initials was it possible to get the two on even the same page.
Perhaps you could tell us how you managed it John.
Even if you are a cyber magician,its a sign of an unhealthy mind to be unable to differentiate between the two sites you claim to have mixed up.
Comment by Steve W. — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
David T, you wrote at #88:
Yet in comment #113 you slip into caractature islamophobic language yourself.
It is utterely ridiculous to describe Salma Yaqoob as an Islamist “Fringe nutter” - and it seems that you are living up to your reputation of seeking to delegitimise involvemtn of Muslims in politics, particularly those who object to the crimes of Israel.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
#115 - Steve W
I have no intention of allowing this thread to degenerate into a platform for islamophobes.
Spouting anti-Muslim bigotry under the smokescreen of being “anti-Islamist” (whatever that even means) is no different from anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Oh honestly, anti-semitism is barely a problem anymore in Europe. The real danger is the growth of openly anti-muslim forces in supposedly liberal countries like the Netherlands, where politicians can call for banning the Koran or taking away the citizenship of Moroccan-Dutch criminals, the government wants to forbid the wearing of the burka, etc. That’s a bigotry that’s embraced in the heart of our societies, encouraged by our leaders and far more dangerous than the fringe activities of some loser neonazis, or the confused anger of people sympathising with Lebanon two years ago.
Comment by Martin Wisse — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Martin says
“Oh honestly, anti-semitism is barely a problem anymore in Europe.”
Yet as I have written before: http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=357
The Estonian government has also refused to cooperate with the Simon Wiesenthal centre in bringing to justice Estonian’s Nazi war criminals. In 2006 the Estonian state prosecutor, Heino Tonismagi, described the Nazi collaborator Harry Mannil, who personally murdered several civilians in Tallinn in 1941, as “one of the most outstanding Estonians” and cleared him of any criminal responsibility, on the ludicrous grounds that the Estonian authorities had no responsibility as the country was occupied at the time.
In 2002 a war memorial was raised in the Eastern city of Parnu celebrating the Estonians who served in the Waffen SS, describing the Nazi invasion of Estonia as “a war of liberation for the fatherland”.
And Estonia is the darling accession country in the EU, and never a word spoken about any of this from other EU governments.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
I realise that you have to say this, Andy, but really!
I’m assuming we’re not taking issue with the nutterdom of THE major declared respect funder, Mohammed Naseem? Who favours the execution of homosexuals? Who thinks that the 7/7 bombers’ confessions were the product of CGI? Who babbles about Bilderberg? Or Yosef, who wanted to nasty “slap Tatchell” and for “his queer army” to “pack their bent bags” and “head back to Australia”?
Is this the sort of thing that socialists say? Are these the sort of allies that ANY progressive should have? Is this what your muslim mates - you know, the ones we grew up with, not the nutters who have gravitated to RESPECT - think? Is it bigoted to point out that these are utterly fringe views, rejected by all sensible people, muslim and not?
Does pointing out the fact that you’ve got people like this on your slate, running for election, “delegitimise the involvement of Muslims in politics”, or do these people do it for themselves, and only for themselves?
We’ll see a generation of muslim politicians, just as all minority groups engage successfully and productively in the political and economic mainstream of our (mostly) open society. But they don’t come from the fringes, and they don’t mad conspiracy theories or nasty attitudes.
I know that Salma Yaqoob is presented as an asset to RESPECT Renewal, but she isn’t. She is an absolute liability. Do you know about her involvement in the Justice for the Yemen Eight campaign: including Abu Hamza’s son and godson at a terrorist training camp in Yemen? Abu Hamza was yesterday cleared for extradition to the US to stand trial for his part in the massacre of tourists which followed their capture. How do you think Salma Yaqoob ended as “press officer” for that campaign? What does that tell you about her politics?
Here’s an article that Salma Yaqoob wrote, called the Islamic Republic of Great Britain. It is a ‘comedic’ vision of Britain becoming an Islamic Republic: an outcome which she evidently favoured. This is how it ends:
“However, one lone man was spotted walking hurriedly towards Departures in Heathrow Airport. His face was not recognisable as he was wearing dark glasses and had a beard. But on closer scrutiny he appeared to be clutching a book to his chest and the words “Satanic
Verses” were just visible”
http://www.divshare.com/download/1168362-52f
Do you think that this is the sort of politics which socialists, liberals, progressive of any sort ought to be associating with?
If so, why?
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Let me make two predictions, Andy:
1. You will leave RESPECT Renewal on this issue.
2. You will then be utterly vilified as an Islamophobe, and a Zionist and a Racist by your former comrades.
Welcome to the club.
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
You might be right, Martin Wisse, that antisemitism is barely a problem in Europe anymore.
Yet this discussion demonstrates that it is a problem in the Palestine Solidarity movement, in Stop the War, and in the pub after the meeting.
It is a problem on campus where there is a campaign to exclude Israelis - and only Israelis - from our universities.
There is little violence against Jews and there is little discrimination against Jews. But there is increasingly a discursive and political antisemitism - and it is well represented on the left - but not only on the left.
David Duke, David Irving, Jenny Tonge, Mearsheimer & Walt, Richard Ingrams - they are all using the same language to express the same hostility to “Zionism”, to its control of American imperialism and to its central place in all that is bad in the world.
So while I’d agree that in some senses antisemitism is much less threatening than other forms of racism in contemporary Europe, political and discursive antisemitism is still alive and kicking on the left and in other parts of the political spectrum too.
Martin Wisse is quite wrong to suggest that there is a choice to be made - either we are militantly opposed to antisemitism or we militantly oppose Islamophobia. It is obvious to me that one goes with the other.
There are plenty of people who oppose either one or the other and who tend to be soft on the one they don’t oppose.
This shouldn’t be the attitude of the left. We should oppose both antisemitism and islamophobia, and we should see this opposition as a single antiracism.
Martin Wisse talks about support for Hezbollah or for the exclusion of Israelis from campuses as a “confused anger of people sympathising with Lebanon two years ago”. I think he’s right.
But racism is always a confused anger. Martin is right to understand what kind of confusion is involved in contemporary antisemitism. But when an anger is confused and misdirected - when it becomes an anger against Jews in general - or against “international Jewry” - then it also becomes threatening.
Antisemitism isn’t only important because it’s a threat against Jews.
It is also important because it harms Palestine.
It is also important because it acts as an indicator of something seriously wrong within radical thought.
That was why Marx went for the antisemites in particular - he went for Bauer, for Prouhdon, for During - he went for the antisemites in particular because antisemitism is a symptom of totalitarian thinking.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
David T #120
There is Islamophobia among some Muslims. Let me let you into a little secret though, there is also a lot of homophobia amongst fire-fighters, the police, Catholics and all sorts of other people as well.
Salma Yaqqob specifically has argued that if Muslims want tolerence and respect for their lifestyle, then they need to show tolerance and respect for other peoples’ lifestyyle choices. that seems sensible to me.
Also, it is understandable that some people under the cosh of Israeli brutality - or those who stringly identify with the Palestinians - are susceptible to anti-Judaic interpretations. There needs to be an argument against such ideas, but it doesn’t mean that the instincts of solidarity with the palestian struggle are wrong.
Some people go further than that and make anti-Semitism central to their politics - these are the people who should not be worked with. These are not the people attracted to or invlved with Respect.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Naah David, there’s a problem with people like you, who attempt to muddy the waters between criticism of Israel, anti-zionism and anti-semitism. You want everything in the first two categories to be percieved as anti-semitism, because that will make it a lot easier to dismiss.
Meanwhile I’ve seen Orthodox Jews in full costume walking together with Palestinian Muslims on demonstrations in Amsterdam against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, or against the War on Iraq, or even against anti-Muslim bigotry in the Netherlands.
So no, I don’t think there’s any real problem with anti-semitism on “the left”, or in the anti-war movement, or even the SWP.
There is however a real problem with people attacking “the left”, or the anti-war movement or even the SWP as anti-semitic because of genuine, well founded criticism of Israel.
Comment by Martin Wisse — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
I’ve seen Orthodox Jews in full costume walking together with Palestinian Muslims on demonstrations in Amsterdam
This would be Neturei Karta, an extreme breakaway faction of a Hassidic sect that believes Israel is a manifestation of Satan on Earth. They also believe that when the messiah comes, the Palestinians will all be kicked out of Israel and Palestine anyway and a Theocracy will be imposed which will execute adulterers and stone gay people (and atheists).
They are an extremist faction within an extremist faction of a religious sect. They number only a couple of hundred worldwide. And they are another example of the kind of people that socialists should be uncomfortable working with
Comment by unseen — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
Martin Wisee,
You put up a straw man argument that people cry antisemitism when really all they are doing is “genuine, well founded criticism of Israel.”
David Hirsh,on behalf of Engage, has repeatedly said that criticism of Israel in itself is not antisemitic. Moreover, no one sensible does claim that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. To provide an example, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is, if you like, the Jewish establishment, stated quite clearly:
“The board has never claimed that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, nor is there any orchestrated campaign by Jewish leadership bodies to silence those who do criticise Israel.”
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/independent_jewish_voices/2007/02/board_of_deputies_can_include.html
What genuine antiracists are concerned about is when it goes way beyond the normal bounds of criticism. When, within this claimed “well founded criticism of Israel” people use the old antisemitic sterotypes of Jewish power,Jewish money or demonise Israel and Israel alone.
Why is it, that people such as John W write so passionately about the “hydra headed monster” of Israel and comment upon International Jewry”? The criticism of Israel because it is merely backed, as is claimed, by Imperialism, far outweighs the criticsm of the Imperialist powers themselves. Why is that? Why are these so called anti-Imperialists arguing that Israel must disappear of the face of the earth but they do not say that Australia, a genuine colonial settler state, with the Queen of England at its head should disappear and nor do they claim that America or Britain is a “hydra-headed monster.” This language is reserved for Israel and Israel alone and that is why complaints of antisemitism are raised.
Now, I can go further, you state that there is a problem with attacking the SWP for antisemitic actions, but you do not allude to the fact that it seems virtually unanimous on this thread that commentators feel Gilad Atzmon has expressed comments that are antisemitic, and that the SWP have continued to host Atzmon despite the allegations about Atzmon being known to them.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
Andy @ 119: you’re right that there are still problems, especially in several Eastern European countries, of which Estland is one, Poland another, but on the whole I’m much more worried about Islamophobia. On the whole, worrying too much about anti-semitism in Britain seems somewhat of a distraction from much more pernicious and widespread forms of racism. Anti-semitism hasn’t disappeared, but it’s the least acceptable form of racism in our societies, enjoying no support amongst the great and powerful, unlike Islamophobia.
In your post there’s a sentence that immediately makes me skeptical: “In July, when the conflict in Lebanon began, we received reports of 92 incidents, which was the third-worst month since records began in 1984.” How many of those are real incidents of the kind described in the article and how many are just the usual labeling of criticism of Israel, or Anti-zionism as anti-semitic?
Comment by Martin Wisse — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
125: vhere you there, Charlie?
Normal Jews. Not some breakaway sect. Just Jews who don’t believe in the right of Israel to ethnically cleanse a country of its people because of some mythical connection 2,000 years old.
126: fuck off. You know it happens and Engage is far from innocent in conflating anti-zionism and anti-semitism.
Comment by Martin Wisse — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Andy (and Martin)
Absolutely, and my instincts are solidarity with Palestinians who are entitled to national self determination. I’ve no time for anybody who disagrees with that.
But I’m not talking about Israel or Palestine. I’m not even talking about anti-semitism. I’m talking about why it is, that RESPECT (and now RESPECT Renewal) has within its ranks:
- Salma Yaqoob, who started her political career in the Abu Hamza wing of Islamism, who thought that the ideal state was an Iranian-style Islamic Republic, and who recently described 7/7 as “the reprisal attacks”
- Abjol Miah, who is a Jamaat-e-Islami activist: and others
- Abdulrahman Jafar, who believes that Israel is running US and UK foreign policy, and our governments are lying to us about it.
This is not socialist or progressive, Andy. But yet you tolerate it!
So I think it is excellent that you won’t tolerate anti-semitism or racism of any type. The trouble is, RESPECT has created a millieu in which, not just anti-semitism, but other forms of virulent reactionary bigotry - at its highest levels - is unremarkable and commonplace.
For example:
- Abdulrahman Jafar expressed the view on Comment is Free that Sikhs had taken a vow not to cut their hair until every muslim in the world was dead.
- Mohammed Naseems’ Islamic Party had a policy of executing homosexuals (but only if they manifested their homosexual identity in public, mind you).
This isn’t like some catholics, or firefighters being a little bit reactionary. This is like the leader of the firebrigades union, or a catholic political party expressing these views. These aren’t your rank and file. They’re your leadership!!!
So yeah, there’s a little bit of anti-jewish racism in RESPECT. I think that’s a problem, but perhaps not a massive problem.
The massive problem is that the anti-jewish racism is a small part of the general conspiracism and lunacy that is circulating at the General Council level of RESPECT Renewal, the incredibly dodgy far right backgrounds of some of the high placed activists, and the fact that, as you say, “so much of the left seems to ignore this problem”
Is pointing this out anti-muslim racism? Of course it isn’t. If somebody had joined a political party which was a coalition between socialists and jewish far right politicians, who had (for example) supported Baruch Goldstein, or who had declared that Britain would be better ruled according to Halachic law, with apostates forced to flee to the airport, and gays executed, would that be anti-semitic? No it wouldn’t be. It would be racist to suggest that these extremists represented jews at all!
In fact, as “unseen” points out, Neterei Karta are just such a bunch of vicious fringe lunatics. They’ve got PRECISELY the same analysis as the Messianic settler types, EXCEPT that they don’t believe that the time of the Messiah has come yet. Of course, when he does, they’re looking forward to a lot of “smiting”…
And what happens when I point this out? Martin Wisse claims that I’m trying to “muddy the waters”. He says that because he doesn’t want to engage with what is actually going on in his own political movement.
You at least are beginning to do so.
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
David Duke, David Irving, Jenny Tonge, Mearsheimer & Walt, Richard Ingrams - they are all using the same language to express the same hostility to “Zionism”, to its control of American imperialism and to its central place in all that is bad in the world.
Two fascists, an old-school Tory, a well-meaning Liberal and two centre-right American academics… all using the same language to express the same hostility.
Really, David, don’t you think other people would have noticed by now?
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Martin Wisse repeats the claim about “criticsm of Israel” and poses the question whether the reported antisemitic incidents are genuine or simply “the usual labeling of criticism of Israel, or Anti-zionism as anti-semitic?”
Dave Rich, who has commented on this thread and has written about the CST report, commented on “the person who is moved to send hate-mail to their local synagogue because of a war in Lebanon.”
Under Martin’s classification is sending hate-mail to a synagogue about Israel’s actions justifiable? If so, maybe Martin Wisse also agrees with Atzmon that burning down a synagogue is a rational act.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Sorry, I missed a link for my comment 131 about sending hate-mail to synagogues.
It is as follows:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=857
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
If I may say something, it really says a lot about the quality of the leadership you have. This John W. #40 “quotes” Ben Gurion saying: “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. 2. David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99: ”
Now, it is obvious that John W. knows next to nothing about Israel and Zionism.
1. Most antisemitic sites (like ifamericansknew or jewishtribalreview, and some pro-Palestinian sites which are apparently not antisemitic, say that the quote belongs to Moshe Dayan, not to Ben Gurion. So it seems that John W. is a fan of collecting stuff from the internet without really trying to find out if the quotes are accurate or not. But, most important,
2. The “quote” actually is a misquote.
March 1, 2001 by Ricki Hollander
Zionist Misquote: Moshe Dayan on Dispossessing Arabs in the Land of Israel
The following is an example of statements misquoted, taken out of context or otherwise manipulated to present a distorted view of Zionist intentions and actions. The misquotes are found in op-eds in campus newpapers and mainstream press as well as on anti-Israel websites.
MISQUOTE:
Example 1 (as quoted in Riverdale Press, January 4, 2001):
We came to this country, which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Jewish state. Jewish villages were built in the place of the Arab villages. You don’t even know the names of the Arab villages, because those geography books no longer exist. Not only the books do not exist, the Arab villages are not there either — there is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. ( Moshe Dayan, as quoted in Ha’aretz 1978)
Example 2 (as quoted by Ralph Schoenman)
We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, Jewish state. Instead of Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You do not even know the names of these villages and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only the books, but also the villages do not exist. Nahalal was established in place of Mahalul, Gevat in place of Jibta, Sarid in the place of Hanifas and Kafr Yehoushua in the place of Tel Shamam. There is not a single settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village. (The Hidden History of Zionism, Veritas Press 1988, p. 41. Also available online here.)
ACTUAL QUOTE AND CONTEXT:
The quote is taken from an address Dayan gave to Technion University students on March 19, 1969. A transcript of the speech appeared in Ha’aretz on April 4, 1969.
In answer to a student’s question suggesting that Israel adopt a policy of punishing Arabs who commit crimes in the West Bank by deportation to Jordan, Dayan answers that he is vehemently opposed to this idea, insisting that the answer to the longstanding Arab-Israeli problem is to learn to live together with Arab neighbors. He goes on to say:
We came to a region of land that was inhabited by Arabs, and we set up a Jewish state. In a considerable number of places, we purchased the land from Arabs and set up Jewish villages where there had once been Arab villages. You don’t even know the names [of the previous Arab villages] and I don’t blame you, because those geography books aren’t around anymore. Not only the books, the villages aren’t around. Nahalal was established in the place of Mahalul, and Gvat was established in the place of Jibta, Sarid in the place of Huneifis and Kfar Yehoshua in the place of Tel Shaman. There isn’t any place that was established in an area where there had not at one time been an Arab settlement.
Dayan’s conclusion was that the solution to the Arab-Israeli problem is to learn to coexist with them.
In the misquote, the key phrase “we purchased the land from Arabs” is omitted, and thus Dayan’s meaning is reversed. Dayan was not saying that Arabs were dispossessed. On the contrary, he was indicating that though Arabs sold the land of their own free will, given their presence in the region, the Israeli goal is to live peacefully together with them.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=21&x_article=371
***
Now, I suppose that John W. has read the original Haaretz article in Hebrew and his is an informed comment. What next? Quotes from the Talmud?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
How many of those are real incidents of the kind described in the article and how many are just the usual labeling of criticism of Israel, or Anti-zionism as anti-semitic?
I can answer your question. The statistics are available in full in the CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report for 2006, which you can read here http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents%5FReport%5F06.pdf. There are two sections that are relevant to your question:
Firstly, in the introduction on page 5, this paragraph:
“All reports of incidents are investigated thoroughly before being included in the CST’s incident statistics. If there is no evidence that an incident is antisemitic then it is not included: in 2006 the CST received 306 reports of potential incidents that were rejected for this reason, and are not included in the total number of antisemitic incidents. These represent 29 per cent of the potential incidents reported to the CST and mostly
involved criminal damage to Jewish property, or criminal assaults on Jewish people, where there was no evidence of antisemitism.”
And more pertinently perhaps, this on pages 13-14:
Antisemitism and criticism of Israel The role that hatred of Israel plays in contemporary expressions of antisemitism often leads to discussion of the relationship between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and when
the former becomes the latter. Of course, criticism of Israel is perfectly legitimate and many people who wish to express their unhappiness with events in the Middle East do so in a way that is not antisemitic. As explained
in the introduction to this report, the CST rejects many reports of potential incidents because they are not considered to be antisemitic. By contrast, the antisemitic nature or content of the incidents recorded by the CST
is usually blatant, even when they are predicated on anti-Israel feeling. Messages that start out as attacks on alleged Israeli policy or behaviour often conclude with abuse of, or threats to, all Jews, the wish that all Jews
were dead, claims of Jewish conspiracy or the accusation that Jews killed Christ. The antisemitism is compounded if the incident is targeted at a Jewish person or institution - such as a synagogue - that is then held responsible for the alleged actions of the Israeli government. This charge of collective responsibility
and collective guilt, whereby every Jew in the world is supposedly answerable for the behaviour of every other Jew, is one of the fundamental building blocks of all racism. Some examples of incidents where criticism of Israel
led to general expressions of hatred against all Jews are given here:
A woman phoned a synagogue in Newcastle and said, “You are murdering babies on the beaches in Gaza, you are worse than the Nazis, all Jews should burn in hell”.
An organisation in London closely associated with Israel received an email that read, “I am not antisemitic in anyway, I am a theatre producer and some of my best friends and work associates are Jews and I have a lot of time for your country. But the way, that those bastards in your government in Tel Aviv are working at the present time
makes me think that it would have been better if the holocaust had succeeded”.
A Jewish man was walking down the road when two Asian men saw his Star of David necklace and chased him, screaming “you represent Israel you fucking Jew, we will kill you and chop your heads off, death to all Jews.”
Comment by Dave Rich — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
David Hirsh,on behalf of Engage, has repeatedly said that criticism of Israel in itself is not antisemitic. … the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is, if you like, the Jewish establishment, stated quite clearly: “The board has never claimed that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, nor is there any orchestrated campaign by Jewish leadership bodies to silence those who do criticise Israel.”
Well, that’s a weight off all our minds.
I think the problem we’ve all got here is that what people actually do isn’t necessarily what they believe they’re doing. John W doesn’t believe he’s using Nazi language and David H doesn’t believe he’s applying loyalty oaths. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
#133
We don’t have to go back into the depths of time (or 1948) to see israel grabbing land - the seperation wall, the house demolitions “on security grounds” in the West bank even today.
We see illegal Settlements in the West Bank squatting land, and then not recognising deeds of ownership by Arabs for that land from the Jordanian period.
We can also meet old men and women and their descendeants who were forcibly evicted from villages in the 1948 lands.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Andy,
I think the point Fabian was making in post 133 was not the history of 1948 and who did what, but that some people, and in this instance, John W distort the historical record by misquoting an Israeli leader in order to attempt to score a political point. This is unacceptable.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
#129
David T
You can’t help yourself can you.
Quite apart from the non-sensical slurs that named individuals like Abjol Miah and Salma Yaqoob are “far right”, when in fcta they are progressive, left wing politicians, you talk about “general conspiracism and lunacy ” of Muslims in Respect.
I am not a Muslim, i don’t beleive what Muslims believe. But equally, I have worked with a number of religious people over the years, in the peace movement and labour party for example who are Catholics, Quakers and protestants, who have beliefs that I think are irrational, and sometimes reactionary.
But in any effective politics you learn to distinguish what is important - the beliefs that motivate people and inform their political activity, away from the other beliefs they may hold that are private or irrelevent.
I should imagine that many of the Muslims in Respect have the same approach to working with Trotskyists!
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
#137
Mikey.
It seems that John W quoted from a book in good faith.
The establishment of Israel in its 19848 borders, let alone its 1967 borders was not done by “land purchase”, and so whatever may have been said at that university many years ago, the bigger truth is that Arab villages were taken by force.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
What are you talking about when you say “David Hirsh doesn’t believe he’s applying loyalty oaths”? I have absolutely no idea what I have ever done which could be construed as a “loyalty oath”. Loyalty to what?
Martin Weisse tells me to “fuck off”. John Wight tells me that I’m a scumbag. Tony Greenstein says I’m “not in the least concerned about antisemitism”. Various people say I’m a Zionist.
Really, what kind of a discussion is this? This ad hominem stuff does not help us to understand whether there is a problem of antisemitism in our movement.
George Orwell:
“… so long as no argument is produced except a scream of ‘Trotsky-Fascist!’ the discussion cannot even begin… In such circumstances there can be no argument… What purpose is served by saying that men like Maxton are in Fascist pay? Only the purpose of making serious discussion impossible. It is as though in the middle of a chess tournament one competitor should suddenly begin screaming that the other is guilty of arson or bigamy. The point that is really at issue remains untouched. Libel settles nothing.” (Orwell 2003)
The time has passed when it is plausible just to scream insults at a person who raises the issue of antisemitism.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
Andy,
I am quite competent to discuss 1948 and actual land purchases, but I think it is moving very much away from the point of this thread.
In any event, one may wonder why the misquotes of the likes of John W of Israeli leaders always are one way round, to portray them in a bad light.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
Andy
I see what you’re saying: but you’re making excuses for some incredibly dodgy politics, run by people who are not progressives or socialists at all, but who have quite different political ideals in mind. You’re doing it because you think of them as “Muslims”. You wouldn’t make the same lattitude for anybody else.
But these people are not just “Muslims”. They’re people with far right Islamist politics, who HAPPEN to be muslims. Just as Kahane Chai types aren’t “Jews”: they’re fascists who HAPPEN to be jews.
These are not “non-sensical slurs”. Jafar really did write an article in which he said that Sikhs grew their beards in anticipation of the day when all muslims would be killed. He really did write an article in which he said that our leaders were lying to us about how Israel controls US and UK foreign policy. Salma Yaqoob really did write an article about an Islamic Republic of Great Britain. She really did work as press officer for the Abu Hamza Yemen terrorist defence campaign. Naseem really did found a party which wanted to execute gays.
None of this is a product of being a “Muslim”. Seriously. Before joining RESPECT, did you ever meet muslims who believed this sort of stuff? I grew up in East London. The only muslim I knew who bought into this stuff was my mate from university Anjum Chouhdry, and he went mad after one too many acid trips, and ended up running Al Muhajiroun. This is not to do with religion and culture. This is to do with a section of the far right, in pretty threadbare religious garb.
“But in any effective politics you learn to distinguish what is important - the beliefs that motivate people and inform their political activity, away from the other beliefs they may hold that are private or irrelevent.”
Yes, I agree. And so, if you’ve - oh, I dunno - published an article in a national newspaper, or run a campaign, or formed a political party, then these beliefs aren’t really “private” or “irrelevant”
I should imagine that many of the Muslims in Respect have the same approach to working with Trotskyists!
They do! Which is, incidentally, one of the reasons that they knifed the SWP. One of my penfriends is a senior RESPECT activist, who I’m rather fond of. This person calls you lot “the godless ones”. They’re laughing at you, mate.
I like laughing at the SWP. Who doesn’t?
But you’re a non-opportunist, principled socialist (although, admittedly, one who is wrong), and you shouldn’t be running with this rabble.
Comment by David T — 8 February, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
I have absolutely no idea what I have ever done which could be construed as a “loyalty oath”.
Shorthand for taking it on yourself to challenge other people’s bona fides, and demonstratively refusing to accept they are what they say they are until they prove it to your satisfaction.
What purpose is served by saying that men like Maxton are in Fascist pay? Only the purpose of making serious discussion impossible.
Well, quite. What purpose is served by saying that people like John Wight are anti-semites?
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
“It seems that John W quoted from a book in good faith. ”
Andy, It seems that John W never ever saw any book, not even those two books that misquoted Moshe Dayan. John W. is evidently taking his knowledge about Israel history readymade from the internet, in several not very reputable websites. To argue otherwise is similar to believe that John W. was looking for something called “CODOZ” when he quoted content from the website “CODOH”.
Exactly the same, and taken from the same websites, are doing those nutters who post in blogs I read in Spanish falsified quotes from the Talmud.
Hillel in the first century said “Kill your neighbor for money”, or maybe not, he said “Do not do unto others what you wouldn’t like to be done unto you”, but who cares which statement is right because -as we all know - there are probably Jews who killed people for money in history, and there is no “historical truth”, right? That is just a burgeois assumption. Better use lies when we discuss about Israel. What damage can we can do?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:20 pm
That is not and never has been our argument Phil, as I explained above.
My argument is not to say that anti-Zionism (an inadequate political framework) can be explained by either secret or unconsicous antisemitism. I don’t explain exaggerated hostility to Israel as an effect of hostility to Jews. Mine is not an ad hominem argument.
It is the other way round. There are political reasons for the focused and exaggerated hostility to Israel which I do not explain in terms of an underlying Jew hatred. I do not believe that people like Wight are motivated by an underlying Jew hatred. I believe that they are motivated by an anger towards Israeli human rights abuses. But I believe that their politics leads them towards an antisemitic world-view.
Good motivation leads to bad politics. Bad politics leads to warped ways of thinking, warped ways of explaining the world. “Marxism” without Marx becomes conspiracy theory. It becomes an explanation for exploitation in terms of the badness of the ruling class rather than in terms of the logic of capitalist development.
So you’re not right, Phil, if you think my argument is:
(a) Wight is a racist
(b) Therefore you shouldn’t take him or his politics seriously.
My argument is:
(a) Wight’s politics are inadequate and lead to warped ways of thinking - ways of thinking that don’t accurately describe the world.
(b) One way of thinking that it leads him to is to put “Zionism” at the centre of all that is bad in the world.
(c) He then supports antisemitic movements like Hezbollah and Hamas.
(d) He then makes elaborate apologies for the antisemitism of these movements.
(e) He then insists that what defines a friend of Palestine is a willingness to boycott Israelis.
(f) He then starts using antisemitic language.
(g) He becomes so disorientated that he starts linking to Fascist websites by mistake.
(h) When all this is pointed out to him he angrily denies it all and responds with a Stalinist shout of “Scumbag!”
It is not an ad hominem argument. It is an argument about what people say and what they do.
Please do look at my paper, “Anti-Zionism and antisemitism: cosmopolitan reflections” - available online here: http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/hirsh/index.htm
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Andy: There are like 364 websites that repeate exactly the same misquotation! (there are variations I am not taking into account) And that is only in English.
When someone translates this to Spanish, Italian or Swahili, do you think that there are enough people capable of getting the facts right going to the original?
No, people in Argentina who do not read English will do like John W. and get the same misquotation from someone who copied it from a neo-nazi site…
And you ask, “what damage is done”?
Have you ever heard that the Holocaust started with 2000 years of lies about Jews?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Fabian #146
You are puttng words into my mouth.
I did not say ““what damage is done”?”
And of course it is ahistorical nonsense to argue that “the Holocaust started with 2000 years of lies about Jews”
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
“Good motivation leads to bad politics. Bad politics leads to warped ways of thinking, warped ways of explaining the world. “Marxism” without Marx becomes conspiracy theory. It becomes an explanation for exploitation in terms of the badness of the ruling class rather than in terms of the logic of capitalist development.”
Exactly! The use of the fake quotes comes to replace an understanding of the 1948 war in terms of the problems and dilemmas of a war between two nations with a conspiratorial idea that the Zionist leaders did everything is ascribed to them because they were demoniacally bad; perverted! The fake quotes replaces true analysis with demonization. Demonization of Jews = antisemitism.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Andy, weren’t you defending the use of fake quotes because “the bigger truth” more or less conforms to them?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
David #145
It seems that most of what you object to in JOhn’s politics is his opposition to Zionism.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
What is of course interesting is that an attempt to seriously discuss anti-Semitism is being hijacked by those who want to use it as a stick to beat opponents of Zionism.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
Hijacked?! my God, you cannot even exchange three arguments with me! I am debating in good faith. It seems that you think that is “hijacking”.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
#149
Fabian
What I was doing was pointing out that inaccurately quoting someone could be done in good faith.
Ae you denying that physical force was used to steal Arab land? Are you denying that even today the seperation wall excludes palestinians by force from access to their own land?
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
One effect of his particular variant of anti-Zionism is that it has led him to write like an antisemite and to link to Fascist websites - to license antisemitic ways of thinking and to insist that the only way forward is to exclude Israelis - and only Israelis - from the cultural, academic and economic life of humanity.
There are others. For example it is not smart to pretend that the only way that Palestinians can win their freedom is by winning an absolute and total victory over “Zionism” and entirely destroying it. It is a programme which understands freedom for Palesitne to be, in reality, unachievable. It is not a positive politics of Palestinian liberation but nihilistic politics of fighting the evil.
I do object to John Wight’s kind of anti-Zionism but we can have a reasonable discussion about that and about how we fight for freedom and liberty in the Middle East.
But on the question of antisemitism it seems to me we have to draw clearer boundaries. We should not normalize antisemitism by treating it as one side of a legitimate debate. Antisemites - in fact most racists - try to appear legitimate by posing as one side of a legitimate debate. David Irving and Wight’s “Campaign for an open discussion of the Holocaust” are clear examples.
Like all racisms, we should try to understand antisemitism. We should understand why people become racists. We should understand what kinds of misdirected anger racism represents. But we should also be clear in our opposition to racism.
This is particularly true when it appears within our own world: on the left; in the trade unions; in stop the war; in the PSC; in the universities.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
Andy: first of all, this post is about antisemitism in your movement, not about Israel.
Second, I have posted an apology to Michael Rosen, but explained where I dissent with him.
Third, I have brought to everybody’s attention, John W. use of fake quotes about Zionist leaders. I have added also that this method of debate is common among neonazis. David Duke has a very easy download page of all these quotes.
You argued that John W “seems” to have quoted from a book in good faith. It is obvious that John W. has never seen a book. He copy-pastes those “quotes” from the internet from not very reputable websites that propagate lies.
Your defense is to attack me arguing about Israel’s history. But that is beside the point.
I point out that using fake quotes replaces analysis with conspirationism and demonization of Israel. That is very grave.
You complain then about “hijacking” the thread to defend Zionism. Come on. If you want to fight antisemitism in your movement, fight for the truth. For example ask John W. to show you the books where he took out all those “quotes”. You know he hasn’t any books, that he is copy-pasting. He actually knows very little about Israel. Still he is obsessed. Well, man, he is foremost, your problem. He is not in my movement.
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
David
The trouble is that arguing for a boycott of Israel or political solidarity with Hamas and Hizbollah are not necessarily anti-Semitic.
Even being too unaware of anti-Semitism and naively looking at far rigt web-sites is not necessarility conscious anti-Semitism.
You weakened you argument by bundling that all together.
Fabian - we don’t need fake quotes to justify opposition to Zionism, or Israel’s policies. I have no idea whether JOhn read the book or referenced a web-site - and nor do you. BUt there is no reason to beleive he acted in bad faith.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Fabian:
You argued that John W “seems” to have quoted from a book in good faith. It is obvious that John W. has never seen a book. He copy-pastes those “quotes” from the internet from not very reputable websites that propagate lies.
Reply:
This is complete garbage. The quote is from the book mentioned, of which I possess a dog-eared copy.
Fabian:
Your defense is to attack me arguing about Israel’s history. But that is beside the point.
Reply:
Israel’s history is PRECISELY the point.
Tell me, as a citizen of Israel, what is your opinion of your govt’s policy towards the Palestinians?
Comment by John W — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
John W,
Israel’s actual history is precisely not the point when dealing with antisemitism in 2008. What is the point is why some wish to use and abuse that history and make antisemitic arguments when doing so.
One can entirely be critical of the Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians but at the same time not use demagogic language that is reminiscent of classical antisemitic literature.
Comment by Mikey — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
“This is complete garbage. The quote is from the book mentioned, of which I possess a dog-eared copy.”
You have provided a suspiciously well ordered assortment of quotes from books, English and British newspapers (some that are impossible to locate according to your quote, e.g. “Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz)”).
You have obviously copy-pasted them. For example, if I search in yahoo for the exact phrase “Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz)” enclosed in quotes I find 13 sites with lists of fake “racist Zionist quotes”.
You have copy-pasted from them, admit it. You don’t even know where and when in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, the “quote” was supposedly taken from!
Stop digging John W.
Or provide us with Talmud “quotes” already.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
sorry, “English and Israeli newspapers”
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Andy, do you still give John W. the benefit of the doubt regading his “good faith” in “quoting from a book”? He is clearly lying about this.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
Andy “What is of course interesting is that an attempt to seriously discuss anti-Semitism is being hijacked by those who want to use it as a stick to beat opponents of Zionism.”
Andy , i think you’ll find that it was certain “antizionists” who hijacked the thread to excuse antisemitism. People mention antisemitism and certain parts of the left (such as John W) cry “Israel”.
And you know something Andy , it’s a little unfair. I’d like to comment about the subject of Israeli wrongs and also Palestinian wrongs but i won’t - not because i’m a zionist apologist but simply because by doing so we detract from the real subject of this thread antisemitism.
I had a nasty experience 20 odd years ago when as a student i went to a SWSS meeting on Israel The Hijack State”. AFter the meeting we all went for a drink , myself , a few Jewish Society members , and some comrades from The Labour Club. I had a heated discussion with the SWP full-timer. One of the Labour Club members then said that while he had been sitting there , 2 SWSS memebrs had been talking about “fucking Jewish Bastards”. I couldn’t believe it , i presumed that they would get a talking to from the SWP full-timers. The reaction of the full-timer (years before Foot excused Tam Dalyell’s antisemitic outburst) was to say that they must have meant “zionists” and not “jews”. Somethings never change do they ?
Comment by Richard — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
Fabian From Israel, I see from your blog that you were born in Buenos Aires and immigrated to Israel in 2003.
Palestinians born in Palestine, countless thousands of them, have not been allowed to return to their lands, the homes stolen from them by Zionist terrorists, since 1948.
Are you okay with that?
Comment by John W — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
163.
Surprised you’ve got time to post here, John, given the devastating developments for Solidarity this week.
Comment by watcher — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Andy, sorry to roll all the way back to point 101, but I do want to address your response to my question regarding socialism and nationalism (broadly speaking).
You wrote, “Yeah – I suppose I have a different take on this, which is that national consciousness over the last 150 years has become such a normative part of almost everyone’s collective self-identity that we have to work with it.”
I’d like to hear more on this, because I’m not sure I follow. When I say that socialists should ‘reject’ or ‘expose’ contradictions in “national consciousness” I’m not implying that they should ignore it.
*How* socialists insert categories like class into and over nation is the rub here is it not? The debate seems to be over ham-fisted conflations that in some cases end up sounding like racism. Doesn’t the old saying go, “ultra-leftism and opportunism walk hand in hand”?
You go on to write, “Writings from Lenin in a period only thirty years after the Czarist state first started to try to create a Russian nation, and when nationalism was both novel and weak don’t relate to today’s conditions, where national identity is firmly established as usually as a vital part of self-identity for most people.”
I hope this was a general statement and not aimed at my ramblings. You seriously misplace me if you think I’m after bolshevik orthodoxy for the 21st century. In fact I think that toy-bolshevik mannerisms are at root of the “tone” of opposition to Israels actions. To be insensitive to your audience’s ideological jump points is one of the most fundamental flaws and failures of the left in Britain. Added to by it’s “tactical” orientation on questions of principle.
BTW, I loved David T’s assertion that he would let his kids be minded by Michael Rosen. Mine would pay good money for the opportunity!
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:27 pm
john.
The story about googling the two sites doesn’t ring true.
Are you sure your memory is correct?
Which search engine were you using?
Comment by tim — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
On a lighter note, where are all the women?
Where do you guys get the energy to rehash the same points on the same 4 blogs with the same 10 suspects? Has to be an all Jewish males conspiracy. Who else but closet rabbis will engage in such talmudic points,counterpoints, parsing, and hair splitting? I feel a migraine coming on after reading 150 posts.I am dizzy. Oy vey! As a Jewish female, I say: a pox on all your houses!
Comment by A female — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
BPS #165
Yes rest assured it was a general point, and certinly not aimed at you!
My own view is that we should seek to shape national consciousness rather than seeking to confront it - and seek a convergence between the content of what people see as their class interest, and what they see as representative of their national culture.
Also we shoud challenge any chauvinist ideas that people’s own national cultures are better than other peoples, but acceot that people are quite fond of the culture they have grown up in, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I have to go out now, but I will come back to this.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Andy (168) Pheeeeew!
I think we have alignment. I also feel a lot better about letting my kids read about Winston Churchill, (applying critical, negative dialectics along the way of course!).
But “shape vs. confront” is the rub here it would seem.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
John W. # 163. I see that you cannot defend yourself. Andy, take note of this guy. He is a liability on your movement.
“Fabian From Israel, I see from your blog that you were born in Buenos Aires and immigrated to Israel in 2003.” (john W.)
If I may end this productive -I am not joking- discussion with a slightly politically incorrect joke, I would say to John W. that I was born in Argentina and lived there for the first 27 years of my life. As you know, Argentina came to existence as a state by the almost complete –>mass murderingexpelled
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
shit HTML. This is what I wanted to say:
John W. # 163. I see that you cannot defend yourself. Andy, take note of this guy. He is a liability on your movement.
“Fabian From Israel, I see from your blog that you were born in Buenos Aires and immigrated to Israel in 2003.” (john W.)
If I may end this productive -I am not joking- discussion with a slightly politically incorrect joke, I would say to John W. that I was born in Argentina and lived there for the first 27 years of my life. As you know, Argentina came to existence as a state by the almost complete mass murdering of its native population and its replacemen by Europeans during the last decades of the XIX century. Today, the natives don’t need to “return” anywhere. The few that are left live in reservations where they literally die of hunger, and their bodies reach northern hospitals thin as in the pictures of Jews in Auschwitz. Next to the Argentinians, the Zionists, that only expelled - not mass murdered - some -not all- of the Arabs during a total war of extermination against them, are Angels of Mercy and deserve the highest praise by every civilized people. Excuse me that I can’t see any particular evilness in Zionism. I come from South America.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
Too bad I am not a Zionist leader, eh, John W.? Or you could play a little loose with my words and add my joke to the lists of “quotes” going around in neonazi websites that you copy-paste.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 8 February, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Surprised you’ve got time to post here, John, given the devastating developments for Solidarity this week.
Comment by watcher — 8 February, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
What’s Eddie Trollman rabbiting on about now?
Comment by watching liemen — 8 February, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
I loved David T’s assertion that he would let his kids be minded by Michael Rosen. Mine would pay good money for the opportunity!
Yes, I missed that. Might I also add that I have no objection in principle to Anthony Horowitz or Lauren Child dropping round to give us the odd night off, just as long as they put the kids to bed at a decent hour and don’t let them sit in front of the PS2 all night. These authors, you’ve got to keep an eye on them.
Comment by Phil — 8 February, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
“Even being too unaware of anti-Semitism and naively looking at far rigt web-sites is not necessarility conscious anti-Semitism.”
I would like to stress again - for the third time on this thread alone, that the danger of discursive and political antisemitism is not a danger of “conscious” antisemitism.
We are all accustomed to the idea that lots of the most menacing racism in society is not “conscious” - it is structural or institutional - it is expressed through racist practices and racist assumptions.
I never thought that John Wight was a conscious hater of Jews. I think that his politics has led him to a place where he speaks and acts like a conscious hater of Jews.
But that is just as dangerous. He educates the youth in the movement; he runs Stop the War in Edinburgh; he speaks for the SPSC. The fact that he is not conscoius of his own antisemitism does not make everything OK.
The Engage argument is not an ad hominem argument. It does not say that anti-Zionism is motivated by Jew-hatred.
It says that Jew-hatred is a likely effect or outcome of a politics which understands “Zionism” to be a unique evil on the planet.
Comment by David Hirsh — 8 February, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Fabien may also find that many of the loudest critics of “settler states” and Military juntas,were the same people who wanted to appease the Galtieri Governments bid to extend the settler states borders in 1981.
Comment by tim — 8 February, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
After 20-30 years of hard work we have finally realised that when a woman cries rape then she means it. 20-30 years that when a person of Caribean or Asian descent says that they didn’t get a job or was attacked on the street, we believe him. When a man says he can’t get a job working with children because he is gay, we believe him. When a Muslim man tells us of excrement put through his letter box because he is a Muslim, we believe him.
But, when a Jew screams antisemitism, in typical Stalinist fashhion, we tell him that it can’t be true because there has been no antisemitism for the past 60 years, and so he has to be making it up; in fact, not only do we tell him that they are making it up, but that they are making it up to hide the truth, and that they are making it up for no other reason than as a means to oppress and silence everyone in the world so as to protect “their” obnoxious little Jew-state. After all, this is what some people here are saying, when can you ever trust a Jew?
So, I guess, when all is said and done, what I am saying is, no, Martin Wisse, you fuck off!
Comment by Saul — 8 February, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
Salma Yaqoob and Dr Naseem are dodgy Birmingham ‘Islamists’, eh? Odd then that in the current controversy about Shaira law they are to the forefront in opposing it:
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2008/02/08/city-muslims-say-no-to-sharia-law-97319-20454638/
And this is how the Birmingham Post described Dr Naseem:
‘He has been a vocal champion of Muslim integration into British society, and broke ranks with conservative members of his faith by appointing the first female onto a Shariah Council and having a woman as a spokesperson for the mosque. He also lead the way in promoting what he believes is the true peaceful message of Islam by opening the mosque to people of all faiths without restrictions. He was also the first British mosque official to ban openly the extremist group Al Muhajiroun from the mosque and its grounds.’
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/power50/
I don’t share Dr Naseem’s penchant for conspiracy theories, nor some of his historical examples, but he is, for good reason, recognised as one of the most progressive religious figures not just in the Muslim community but also across the city.
The notion that either he or Salma espouse or practice sectarian hatred, which the catch all phrase ‘Islamist’ is meant to denote, finds currency only at Islamphobic sites like Harry Place and those bigoted or ignorant enough to take their understanding of Muslim politics from it.
Thankfully, in Birmingham at least, these slanders are confined to the racist fringe where they belong.
Comment by Ger Francis — 9 February, 2008 @ 12:19 am
I’d just like to point out to John Wight, #173, that I am not ‘Watcher’ and that if I was going to be a troll in relation to his postings it wouldn’t be on this issue or others in relation to Palestine, Islamophobia etc.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 9 February, 2008 @ 12:24 am
First it’s difficult to understand why Mikey is even contributing to a discussion on the Socialist Unity site since he’s not a socialist. Merely a not very sophisticated defamer and Zionist apologist who has caused The Times to concede a libel action against me because of his habitual lying. That is a fact unlike most of his assertions. He is really no different from Atzmon, Rizzo et al, merely a different side of the same coin. Hence his fascination for them.
I suggest that Mikey reads Shlomo Avineiri’s article on Moses Hess. Avineiri for those who don’t know is a mainstream labour Zionist historian who for the most part is completely uncritical of Zionism. But he makes it clear that Marx rejected Hess’s blood and soil racism, unlike Mikey himself who is unable to comment on the fact that Hess subscribed to the medieval Jewish blood libel among other racial fantasies. Not something Marx believed in! Marx broke completely from Hess fairly early.
Mikey admits to meeting Atzmon for a drink. Yes well that’s public and up on Harry’s Place. What he doesn’t comment on are the posts he put on Mary Rizzo’s peacepalestine sewer, which I have quoted, where he admits acting as an informer for Atzmon. At least his hero Kastner could claim that he was operating under duress. What’s Mikey’s excuse? Well the answer is obvious. To him anti-Zionism is the main enemy and working with anti-Semites is permissible in such circumstances.
I may have said I’d see Atzmon play jazz but not meet him socially or otherwise. Therein lies the difference. What is particularly disgraceful is that Mikey wants to go from collaborating with anti-Semites who are not fascists (Atzmon) to those who are both, i.e the NF, by retailing at face value what they write. I’m quite serious. For anyone to quote the NF against someone who is well-known as an anti-fascist is a disgrace in any language.
The NF didn’t write a review of my pamphlet ‘Zionism – anti-Semitism’s twin in Jewish garb’. They didn’t comment on anything in the review. What they did was discover that I was an anti-Zionist and bought a pamphlet I had written on Zionism and anti-Semitism and how the former was an offshoot of the latter. Unlike Mikey, who has never been involved in any anti-fascist activity, I was secretary of the ANL in Brighton and a founder of local anti-fascist committee. As is documented in literally dozens of articles in the local press I led the campaign to clear them from the streets and was subject to a number of organised physical attacks by them. That is why I have a prominent place on the Southern section of Redwatch. I even organised the last demonstration against a public meeting that John Tyndall was going to address before he died. I doubt the fascists have even heard of Mikey and why should they? He is nothing other than an internet troll and my own internet stalker (I’ve had to block his attempts to spam me). In much the same way that the Alef (academic left) list from Haifa University has also blocked him (and they do have Zionists on them but people who are serious academics and historians). He is suspected of having linked up with Steven Plaut and other supporters of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was a Jewish Nazi.
The NF wrote the article cited in order to hand a weapon to Zionists like Mikey. But most Zionists, even theit most ardent propagandists, have refrained from soiling their hands with this particular article, as it is so obvious in its intent. Not so Mikey who has no shame. Mikey conveniently omits the following from the NF article:
‘TONY GREENSTEIN, AS most readers of ‘Sussex Front’ well know, is a leading light in the local Trotskyite ‘Anti-Nazi League’. Tony Greenstein is a Jew…
Nationalism oppose Zionism. Zionism – or Jewish Nationalism – in turn opposes non-Jewish Nationalism yet these otherwise virulent opponents share the same basic beliefs in Race and Nation. However, anti-Nationalists, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, oppose Nationalism of either variety and in doing so risk association with either or both brands of nationalism….’
This is of course nonsense. If you oppose one form of racism it doesn’t mean you espouse another, but no matter.
‘One can argue with Greenstein’s conclusions but not with the valuable data his researches have unearthed. We have crossed swords with Mr. Greenstein in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. Trotskyism is political rabies and the Greenstein’s of this world are its infected carries…
Doubtless Greenstein will be as savagely mauled by the mad dogs of Zionism for his authorship of this booklet as if it was written by Richard Harwood himself… Greenstein’s personal fate at the hands of lunatic Zionism is a matter of indifference to us….’
If Mikey had any knowledge at all of the NF or holocaust revisionism he would know there is no such person as ‘Richard Harwood’. It was Richard Verall, at the time deputy leader of the NF.
The purpose behind the ‘review’ has always been clear to anti-fascists and that is why a patsy like Mikey is happy to do the NF’s bidding by pretending the article is a genuine express of NF beliefs. My pamphlet starts a priori from the fact of the Holocaust and then goes on to detail the collaboration of Zionism with anti-Semitism, including the Nazis. The NF deny there was a holocaust. If Mikey can’t see the problems in this then his stupidity is even greater than even I have previously given him credit for.
Mikey says that the site John W linked to has ‘2 articles from a magazine that Greenstein himself was on the editorial committee for’ is an example of the politics of Mikey. It’s called guilt by association. In other words a form of McCarthyism. I don’t have time to trawl the internet for who has reposted articles I or other socialists for that matter have written that fascists and conspiracy sites copy and use. What matters is whether I approve of such use. The answer should be obvious, even to someone of Mikey’s limited mental capabilities.
As Lenni Brenner has said, even a dung beetle appreciates gourmet food! Or as the saying goes, even the devil can quote scripture. The fact is that especially in the early 1980’s, when the left had a revival, the fascists often did ape leftist literature over things like rights for the unemployed etc. Anyone active at the time or who is a student of fascism will know that fascists borrow leftist themes and then subvert them for their own purposes. Much like Labour Zionism which tries to appear progressive when it is anything but.
Yes Einstein was offered the President of the Israeli State. He also refused it! Mikey unfortunately wears blinkers on this too. Einstein, as Lenni Brenner has pointed out, started out as a Jewish chauvinist and Zionist. On that there is little dispute. However over the years he became wiser and rejected Jewish chauvinism. He also rejected political Zionism in favour of a form of cultural Zionism which saw a Jewish cultural presence in the Middle East as something to support but not a state. Repeatedly he warned of the dangers of Zionist nationalism. By the end of his life Einstein’s political position was that of Judah Magnes, founder of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was hounded out of Palestine because of his support for binationalism. In his evidence to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in January 1946 Einstein stated that:
‘The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-mindedness and economic obstacles. I believe that it is bad. I have always been against it’ and then continued that the idea of a Jewish state was an ‘imitation of Europe, the end of which was brought about by nationalism.’
As early as 28.1.30. he had written in the paper Falastin that ‘oppressive nationalism must be conquered’. And in a later letter to the New York Times with Rabbi Leo Baeck he praised Judah Magnes, who he argued represented the true feelings of most Jews, not the narrow nationalists that Mikey comes here to defend.
Arendt clearly moved to a non-Zionist position and wrote an article ‘Zionism Reconsidered’ in 1944. Judith Butler in her article in London Review of Books, ‘I Merely Belong to Them’ 10.5.07. writes@
In ‘Zionism Reconsidered’ (1944), however, she argued forcefully that the risks of founding a state on principles of Jewish sovereignty could only aggravate the problem of statelessness that had become increasingly acute in the wake of the First and Second World Wars. By the early 1950s, Arendt was arguing that Israel was founded through colonial occupation with the assistance of superpowers and on the basis of citizenship requirements that were anti-democratic. In the 1930s she had worried that the Jews were becoming increasingly stateless; in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the displacement of Palestinians made it imperative that she develop a more comprehensive account of statelessness.
In ‘Zionism Reconsidered’, she calls ‘absurd’ the idea of setting up a Jewish state in a ‘sphere of interest’ of the superpowers. Such a state would suffer under the ‘delusion of nationhood’: ‘Only folly could dictate a policy which trusts a distant imperial power for protection, while alienating the goodwill of neighbours.’ On the one hand, she is clearly anxious to find ways for Israel/Palestine to survive; on the other, she predicts that the foundations proposed for the polity will result in ruin. ‘If the Jewish commonwealth is obtained in the near future . . . it will be due to the political assistance of American Jews,’ she writes. ‘But if the Jewish commonwealth is proclaimed against the will of the Arabs and without the support of the Mediterranean peoples, not only financial help but political support will be necessary for a long time to come. And that may turn out to be very troublesome indeed for Jews in this country, who after all have no power to direct the political destinies of the Near East.’
In 1948, after the UN had sanctioned the state of Israel, Arendt predicted that ‘even if the Jews were to win the war [of independence], its end would find the . . . achievements of Zionism in Palestine destroyed . . . The “victorious” Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded inside ever threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defence to a degree that would submerge all other interests and activities.’ She stated once again that partition could not work, and that the best solution would be a ‘federated state’. Such a federation, in her view, ‘would have the advantage of preventing the establishment of sovereignty whose only sovereign right would be to commit suicide.’ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/butl02_.html
She was bitterly attacked by the Zionist movement and its hack critics for her brilliant book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem – The Banality of Evil.’ The postcript pp. 282/3 to the 1994 edition gives an insight into the method of Zionist propagandists and defamers like Mikey who are responsible for giving sustenance to the Atzmons of this world since their methods so closely resemble the worst caricatures of Jews:
‘Even before its publication this book became both the center of a controversy and the object of an organised campaign… the campaign conducted with all the well-known means of image-making and opinion-manipulation, got much more attention than the controversy so that the latter was somehow swallowed up by and drowned in the artificial noise of the former. This became especially clear when a strange mixture of the 2, in almost identical phraseology, - as though the pieces written against the book (and more frequently its author) came ‘out of a mimeographing machine’ (Mary McCarthy)… And this was possible because the clamor centered on the ‘image’ of a book which was never written and touched upon subjects that often had not only not been mentioned by me but had never occurred to me before.
The debate – if that is what it was – was by no means devoid of interest. Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences that they never foresaw or intended.’
Arendt speaks of how it was alleged that she was attributing to the whole Jewish people ‘a “death wish” unconscious of course. This was the unexpected conclusion certain reviewers chose to draw from the ‘image’ of a book, created by certain interest groups, in which I allegedly had claimed that the Jews had murdered themselves. And why had I told such a monstrously implausible lie? Out of ‘self-hatred’ of course.’
Arendt ends up quoting an inmate of the Thereinstadt concentration camp: ‘The Jewish people as a whole behaved magnificently. Only the leadership failed.’ The Mikeys of this world defend the leadership because they are anti-socialist to the core and flunkeys.
Like most philosophers, Arendt was inconsistent and had her lapses back to chauvinism such as her support of Israel in 1967 and 1973 (because even she was taken in by the propaganda wave, which I remember distinctly). Even Isaac Deutscher, a critic of Israel, was prone to this. Arendt wasn’t a socialist but was a humanist and a great writer and thinker. It is this that caused her to fall foul of the propagandists of Zionism who are really nothing but intellectual terrorists.
If Mikey was a historian of any worth then he would first take on board the inconsistencies rather than pretend that those the Zionist movement attacked during their lifetime were in fact signed up supporters to their genocidal project.
I don’t quote all of Birnbaum’s article for one simple reason that Mikey seems not to understand. Because I source a quote doesn’t mean I agree with the whole analysis. But I note that having said that I made up the idea that Zionists propagandists attacked the Jewish Diaspora as hateful, he has now retreated from that little error! Unsurprisingly because the evidence is too overwhelming, even for him.
And Mikey also demonstrates that his argument is really little different from the Nazi strain of racial mythology. There is nothing in Jewish law that says Jews have to originate from the mother’s line. That is how the law has been interpreted (halachah) over the centuries but in fact it was originally via the male. There is nothing unusual in this. The Bible forbade usury, the rabbis allowed it as long as it was non-Jews who were the object of the practice. People, one of whose parents were Jews, were defined as Jewish under the Nazi race laws and treated accordingly. They would have been considered Mischlinge (mixed race) of the 1st degree and were in considerable danger and many died as a result. It is an insult to their memory to now claim that they weren’t Jewish when that was why they were exterminated. Even the detestable Israeli Law of Return recognises that those with one parent who is Jewish are in fact Jewish but being the hack he is, Mikey merely repeats the nostrums he was brought up with. In fact his definition is an orthodox Jewish one and not one that the Reform or Liberal movements accept. Unsurprisingly because if the Orthodox definition continues then there aren’t going to be many Jews left in Britain, just as the majority of American Jews are of the Reform/Conservative strand. But my daughter may only be 16 but she is clearly more sussed than Mikey already and understands that being Jewish isn’t just a question of racial attachment. That is why I’m proud of her.
Mikey puts ‘collaborator’ in inverted commas re Rudolph Kastner whose trial, including appeal, went on for over 4 years in Israel, led to the downfall of one government and led to a quick abandonment in Israel of the trial of collaborators there. The fact that the Supreme Court acquitted Kastner of collaboration for political reasons, the reason they primarily gave was that they were in no position to accuse anyone of collaboration when they weren’t there, but also because what Kastner did was not unusual from the Zionist perspective (‘saving the few from the many’) is immaterial to whether he was a collaborator. Mikey is fond of quoting Randolph Braham’s work on the genocide of the Hungarian Jews. The Politics Of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Even Braham, who is a Zionist notes that Kastner’s report to the Jewish Agency, which excludes all mention of how he came to learn of Auschwitz, which he hid from Hungarian Jews rather than informing them of what lay in store, was ‘self-serving.’
In fact the Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY upheld both the facts found by the lower court, that Kastner ‘sold his soul to the devil’ and the finding of collaboration against Kastner for having travelled to Nuremburg to provide testimony exonerating Kurt Becher, promoted to SS General in January 1945 and at least 4 other Nazi war criminals including Wisliceny, one of Eichmann’s key adjutants, responsible for the holocaust in Slovakia and hanged there after the war. SS General Hans Juttner was another he tried to exonerate (another key war criminal). That Mikey even attempts to justify this demonstrates where he is coming from.
As I’ve told Mikey on numerous occasions, two out of the five Supreme Court judges had no doubt that Kastner was a collaborator. Moshe Silberg, whom even he accepts found against Kastner. But I D Goiten also found that ‘the facts which were revealed substantiate the findings of the lower court and prevent us a court of appeal from interfering.’ Goiten clearly upheld Halevi’s findings. However for technical reasons apparently he voted with the majority, but only on technical grounds and it is this which Mikey claims in his favour! Incidentally this is why reputable writers and historians like Noah Lucas, Lenni Brenner and of course Ben Hecht state that the verdict was 3-2. In reality it was and in justifying Kastner’s saving of the Zionist and bourgeois leadership in Hungary at the price of half a million dead Mikey also demonstrates what his own politics are and they have nothing to do with socialism.
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:17 am
The one thing I don’t say about David Hirsh is that he is a ‘a bad and dishonest person’. These are morally relative terms which say nothing and reveal nothing. I am prepared to believe that David is a good partner, nice to his kids (if he has any) and is totally upfront about his politics.
However David is a Zionist, which he thinks is fine and I think is the legitimating ideology for what happened in Palestine, the dispossession of a whole people and the massacre of many of them, to say nothing of its baleful influences on Jews outside Israel.
Yes I admit to e-mailing Hirsh’s academic colleagues to demonstrate how he operates politically. He makes an allegation on his site, viz. that I think Nazism and Zionism are the same thing and then refuses a right of reply until I broadcast his methods to his academic colleagues! As he says only a few of them sympathised with him whereas lots of them wrote to me that they sympathised with what I wrote and none of this was a revelation. That’s perhaps why his colleagues voted not to support him as a delegate to the UCU National Council.
And David really shouldn’t tell porkies about the affaire de Littlejohn! After all why, if what he says is true, did he delete the whole thread from Engage? There is a simple answer. He was so embarrassed at what he’d written that he felt this was the best thing to do. Unfortunately I had already captured the thread and for those who are interested, there is a good article about it on Mark Elf’s Jewssansfrontieres blog. I quote the salient parts from David Hirsh: http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2007/07/disengaging-from-littlejohn.html
‘But diasporist, my point was, how come this right wing sleaze is now suddenly more of an anti-racist than you are? At least than Livingstone is, than the SWP is, than Alexei Sayle is, than UCU is than UNISON is, than T&G? How come?
What has happened to antiracist politics when even Richard Littlejohn is to the left of all those that I mention? I never said he was good, I said he was a clearer opponent of anti-Jewish racism than a whole layer of “antiracists”.’
There are no anti-semites in the ‘anti-Zionist movement’ so how can I say that Hirsh is responsible for conflating the two? I say he conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism. A completely different thing. It is this sleight of hand that demontrats the dishonest political method of Hirsh. If you are an anti-Zionist you must be opposed to anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism is a form of anti-racism. That is why Atzmon is not an anti-Zionist. He rejects any analysis of Israel that says it is the creature of colonialism or imperialism. He argues that it is ‘the Jews’ who are responsible. And David Hirsh agrees with him on this too.
I’m sorry David has such trouble reading. This must be a great handicap for a sociology lecturer but on second thoughts maybe not since sociology is crap for the most part. My previous post goes into a lot of detail about how I see anti-Semitism today and also where I disagree with Andy.
I’ve already commented about John W’s mistake. Does that make someone an anti-Semite because they make a genuine mistake? Why is Hirsh so interested in creating anti-Semites out of people who are not anti-semitic? Does he have a vested interested in anti-Semitism? Perhaps he should let on!
No David. I don’t have the time to look at what you’ve written because if it comes from the stable of Engage it’s not likely to be worth the read. Your colleague John Strawson performed a similar trick when he referred me to an article of his which he said demonstrated how much he supported the Palestinians. On that occasion I was suckered into reading it and realised immediately that it had little to say about the Palestinians and was nothing more than a not very subtle rejection of the argument that Israel is an apartheid state. Sorry, but I’m not going to fall for the same trick again!
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:40 am
I think that David Hirsh has given another excellent example of the method of Zionists in attacking as anti-Semitic all those who disagree with them. For making the obvious point that the Israeli working class is and has been in alliance with its own bourgeoisie, and a product of Zionism, ‘This antisemitic, Stalinist pile of steaming rubbish is not Marxism.’
I doubt if Hirsh would know what Stalinism was if it leapt up and bit him on his ample butt.
It is a fact, as I have often argued, that settler working classes - whether it is Northern Ireland, South Africa or Israel - are the most racist and most chauvinistic sections of society. In S Africa we had the example of ‘white workers of the world unite’ led by the Communist Party! In Northern Ireland does anyone seriously argue that the Loyalist working class allied with Unionism against Catholic workers? And in Israel the Jewish working class has CONSISTENTLY, without fail, taken a hostile attitude to working with Arab workers.
Histadrut, their own so-called trade union, waged a campaign in the 1920’s and 1930’s for Jewish Labour, i.e. a boycott of Arab labour. Pickets were set up in orange groves and outside factories calling for the sacking of Arab workers and their replacement by Jewish workers. This was their answer to unemployment.
Although a Zionist, he is also a socialist of the old school but with a blind spot for Arabs. I refer not to Hirsh of course, who is no socialist but to Zeev Sternhall’s Founding Myths of Zionism. It is the best book I’ve read on the origins of labour Zionism and he shows, with unique access to archival material, that labour Zionism was always an ANTI-SOCIALIST project that from the beginning rejected all suggestion of joint work with Arabs. He also details how the labour Zionist leaders, who Hirsh loves so much, ended up starving (literally) into submission the work brigades (Gdud Avodah) of roaming workers in Palestine amongst whom some went over to an anti-Zionist position of joint working class opposition to the British and Zionists. Sternhall misses this out but he shows how determined Ben Gurion & co. were to squash them.
Once again Hirsh shows he is unable to conduct an honest political argument and instead libels people as ‘anti-Semites’ instead. Most people without their head in the clouds know of the ‘poor white’ mentality that sees those below you as the target of all your animus. Hirsh, being unable to conduct a political argument, despite or maybe because he is a sociology lecturer, resorts to ad hominem abuse.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:53 am
Re Dave Rich’s contribution. The reason a piece about anti-Semitism becomes intertwined with a discussion of Zionism and Palestine is that, unfortunately, the majority Jewish identity today is intertwined with Zionism. When people like Hirsh and co. proclaim that any criticism of Israel and Zionism is anti-Semitic in practice then it is difficult to avoid the subject.
But I do discuss anti-Semitism. I say it is a marginal prejudice, today and at this moment. It is not a form of state racism. But anything can change as society changes and capitalism becomes more barbarous. That is precisely why Zionism has to be fought, not just because of what it does to the Palestinians but because it also leaves Jews defenceless with its theory of the objective rightfulness of anti-Semitism and its views that Jews are strangers in others’ lands.
Eric Lee incidentally had his funding pulled, i.e. not given, by UNISON because he is a Zionist who uses his Labor Start web site to subtly support Israel. He used to have an IDF symbol on the site, as an ex-officer, until he was embarressed into taking it down. He supported the Israeli attack on Lebanon two years ago and has consistently refused to document the oppression of Arab workers in Israel, or in Palestine itself, unless forced to do so or unless they are in conflict with other Palestinians. He has nothing whatsoever to say about Histadrut and its apartheid discrimination against Arab Israelis for example.
Re Asghar Bukhari of MPAC. Asgha is a representative of an oppressed community in this country, Muslims. He made a mistake and admittted to making a mistake. That was the point. I don’t want to increase the number of anti-Semites. Only Zionists love them and want more. Asghar gave a small amount of money, I think about £60, to Irving’s campaign because he was taken in by Irving’s self-professed anti-Zionism.
When people like Hirsh, Mikey & co. say that Israel is a Jewish state and therefore what it does in is in the name of the Jewish people, there are many, many people who are not anti-Semitic who believe them. Who are not politically sussed. Asghar Bukhari was one of them. When it was pointed out that Irving was a racist and anti-Semite he apologised and regretted his actions. What problem does Rich have with this? Is he stuck with the mark of Cain? Indelibly marked forever on account of this mistake? I made it clear to MPACUK that he was wrong but that if he accepted it was wrong then I too accepted he was not anti-Semitic. In fact what I also did was go through the MPACUK site and ask them to take down the writings of Atzmon for reasons which are obvious. Rich and Hirsh couldn’t do this because they are not interested in real anti-Semites only those who oppose Zionism. MPACUK acceded to my request and that demonstrates that they are honest in their intent. Further they have on at least one occasion asked me what I thought about a submission for their site and I’ve given them my opinion. Why should they be experts on anti-Semitism? When people who should know better exonerate Atzmon and proclaim that he is not anti-Semitic, is it any wonder that people are confused by Zionist attacks on any and everyone as anti-Semitic?
Hirsh, Rich & co. want people to be anti-semites. They wouldn’t know what to do without them. But I take my stance from Jesus. I welcome converts on the road to Damascus.
If Rich and Hirsh had had any involvement in anti-fascist activity they would know that winning over fascists to anti-fascism was also a secondary aspect of our activity. It wasn’t just acquainting fascist heads with the pavement. One of the people I work with today on anti-fascist work was a member of the British Movement. Should we have rejected him and pointed out all his past sins and refused to accept that he was genuine? I am a socialist not a reactionary essentialist.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:17 am
Andy writes that ‘There is certainly no obligation for any Jew to support Israel, nor any obligation that being Jewish should require support for the idea of a Jewish nationhood.’
I don’t know whether you were brought up in a Jewish household, let alone an orthodox one Andy. But I disagree. Looking back, Israel and the Jewish state were presented as an absolutely inseparable from my Jewish identity. I really never even heard about the phenomenon of Jewish anti-Zionism. The Bund never made an appearance and the only hint of radicalism from my rabbi father was the fact that he personally took part in the Battle of Cable Street (which the Zionists of course opposed alongside the bourgeois Jewish representatives of the Board of Deputies of British Jews). And because of the old Tory attitude to anti-Semitism he always voted Labour.
But and I have to be honest, he is an anti-Arab bigot and not just anti-Arab either.
I understand where you are coming from but socialists must avoid the pitfalls of nationalism, which at the end of day means a cross-class alliance. Instead we should make a sharp distinction between the nationalism of the oppressed and the oppressor. The latter is wholly reactionary. The former is not. When I went to northern Ireland as part of Troops Out and Labour Party delegations I was impressed by the progressive politics of so many Sinn Fein activists.
Jim McCallister, who has recently resigned from Sinn Fein over the gangsterism of some of their members in the Armagh region, was an example that stood out as someone committed to justice. An elected member of the Assembly he has fought passionately for justice for his people. If that is nationalism I can live with it.
I remember the women in Sinn Fein arguing with the men about the right to choose. Imagine in any other northern Ireland political party people supporting a right to choose, which actually became policy at one Ard Fheis (though reversed later Sinn Fein’s policy has been better than most in Southern Ireland).
The task of socialists is to work with people like this as opposed to the Gerry Adams to take the struggle for human emancipation forward.
The situation re British Jewry is different. For a start most of the organised community is middle class/professional. Its politics are not progressive in the main. I make a distinction between the organised community and the very large number of secular Jews who want nothing to do with that community.
I broke with Zionism when it became clear to me that you couldn’t reconcile socialism with Zionism. And a debate at my Jewish school where I took the position of supporting the Palestinians (before doing any research which then convinced me!) are my 2 personal milestones.
But I am not convinced that downplaying Zionism and Israel has any merit because it won’t convince anyone. The point is to make it clear that we oppose anti-Semitism just as we oppose what Israel is doing.
On an entirely separate point. David Hirsh admits that anti-Semitism is a marginal phenomenon but points to the experience of jewish students on campus. Again this is nonsense. We have a Union of Jewish Students, funded by their own admission, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, with more sabbaticals than the NUS. And it has determinedly tried to ban people like myself and Roland Rance from campus because we are Jewish anti-Zionists.
Part of the story is here. The hypocrisy of these people is amazing.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_greenstein/2007/05/vetting_in_practice.html
We do first have to accept that it is part of mainstream Jewish identity, although I am very pleased to say
Nevertheless, a lot of Jews do feel they are a nation, and support Israel as in some way their nation state. I feel we will get a lot further if we recognize that rather than seeking to delegitimise it by saying Zionism is inherently racist.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:39 am
Mikey writes:
“The board has never claimed that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, nor is there any orchestrated campaign by Jewish leadership bodies to silence those who do criticise Israel.”
And what did Jacob Gerwitz, Executive Director of the Board of Deputies Defence Department claim in ‘Anti-Semitism, the Left and the Right’?
‘Although theoretical differences can be drawn between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, these are distinctions without a difference. The fascists, odious as they are, have at least the virtue of candour.’
But being a poor propagandist Mikey quotes officialdom without ever questioning them. Yes the Board claim to be in favour of tolerance and light, but what is their record? Just before Independent Jewish Voices were formed last year (& why would there be such a need unless there was such intolerance?) there was a massive campaign led by people like Stanley Kalms and other luminaries of the Jewish establishment in this country that the Director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, an independent body that he founded, to sack Antony Lerman. And why? Because he is one of those who questions whether a unitary secular state might be in order. He is a Zionist as far as I’m aware but one of the increasingly questioning kind. Oh and he also maintains that the ritual attack on people who support the Palestinians is ‘draining anti-Semitism of all meaning’.
It’s a great pity that this thread has mouthpieces like Mikey contributing when they say nothing except repeat what their elders and betters tell them. But again maybe it’s a good lesson for others.
And on the question of Estonia and anti-Semitism. This is of course true. A despicable government but one which is pro-Israeli so when it comes to real anti-Semitism you’ll hardly hear a murmur from the professional anti anti-Semites like David Hirsh. Anti-Semitism is only a problem if those who are ‘anti-Semitic’ are also supporters of the Palestinians. And therein lies the rub.
And as for Hirsh opposing Israel’s brutal and racist policies towards the Palestinians. We judge someone David by action not words. Boycott was and is the most effective tactic in making Israelis question what they are doing. Yet you oppose it because it is ‘anti-Semitic’, alongside of course the Parliamentary Committee on anti-Semitism and other worthies. Your record shows that you have never done anything to support the Palestinians. You are a byword for hypocrisy.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:52 am
Clearly irony is lost on Dave Rich and much else besides. He cites the Community Security Trust, an organisation which the old National Council for Civil Liberties strongly criticised for its thuggery and physical intimidation of Jews who are not Zionists. I mean members of the Jewish Socialists Group and even on one occasion a member of Mapam. (see Civil rights council blasts security men) 17.8.90. I would sooner trust Arthur Daley to sell me a reliable car than these people.
But look again at these incidents. They hardly equate with racist attacks on people in the street, mob violence against Muslims etc. And what do they have in common? That’s right – the atrocities that Israel commits. And all of them accept the Zionist propaganda that Israel, a Jewish state, acts on behalf of Jewish people wherever and that there is an indivisible bond between Israel and Jews and that the latter should automatically accept and justify Israel’s deed.
If once, just once, I had heard Hirsh or any of the other members of the echo chamber, condemn the Chief Rabbi for defending the bombing of Lebanon and speak in the name of the Jewish community or the Board of Deputies which allows NO criticism of Israel (& a motion to widen this was recently defeated) then I would understand. But most people, who are understandably horrified by the murder of a whole family on the beach at Gaza are not so sophisticated. So congratulations Hirsh and co. You are managing to make anti-Semites of people who are not anti-Semitic and people like me have to go round picking up the pieces.
None of the comments below are defensible but who planted in the head of these people that ‘the Jews’ were responsible? Step forward Hirsh, Rich and co.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Clearly irony is lost on Dave Rich and much else besides. He cites the Community Security Trust, an organisation which the old National Council for Civil Liberties strongly criticised for its thuggery and physical intimidation of Jews who are not Zionists. I mean members of the Jewish Socialists Group and even on one occasion a member of Mapam. (see Civil rights council blasts security men) 17.8.90. I would sooner trust Arthur Daley to sell me a reliable car than these people.
But look again at these incidents. They hardly equate with racist attacks on people in the street, mob violence against Muslims etc. And what do they have in common? That’s right – the atrocities that Israel commits. And all of them accept the Zionist propaganda that Israel, a Jewish state, acts on behalf of Jewish people wherever and that there is an indivisible bond between Israel and Jews and that the latter should automatically accept and justify Israel’s deed.
If once, just once, I had heard Hirsh or any of the other members of the echo chamber, condemn the Chief Rabbi for defending the bombing of Lebanon and speak in the name of the Jewish community or the Board of Deputies which allows NO criticism of Israel (& a motion to widen this was recently defeated) then I would understand. But most people, who are understandably horrified by the murder of a whole family on the beach at Gaza are not so sophisticated. So congratulations Hirsh and co. You are managing to make anti-Semites of people who are not anti-Semitic and people like me have to go round picking up the pieces.
None of the comments below are defensible but who planted in the head of these people that ‘the Jews’ were responsible? Step forward Hirsh, Rich and co.
Andy is right. In fact a maximum of 6% from memory of land was purchased and that was from rich, absent landlords like Sursuq in Lebanon and the peasants were evicted from the land by the ‘socialist’ Zionists never to be re-employed. The vast majority of Palestinians were forcibly expelled as the remarkable book by Ilan Pappe, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine documents, including far worse quotes from Ben Gurion than the one by Moshe Dayan that was wrongly atttributed. And I don’t accept that the quote that John cites is inaccurate incidentally. Dayan was in the habit of saying these things and worse.
David Hirsh complaining about personal attacks when he remains silent about Mikey accusing me of being in league with the National Front leaves me speechless. Clearly the man has no sense of irony as Tom Lehrer said about Kissinger after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fabian from Israel has the cheek to say that false quotes, in fact correct quotes wrongly misattributed, come to replace an understanding of the 1948 expulsions of the Palestinians. I was brought up to believe that the Arabs left when ordered to by Arab radio broadcasts. This pernicious lie, no different in principle from those that the holocaust deniers use, except this is Naqba denial, was laid to rest when Palestinian researcher Walid Khalidi and then Erskine Childers in The Spectator in 1960 proved, through going through the CIA and BBC monitoring of such transcripts that not only were the refugees not ordered to leave but they were ordered to stay. These are the real facts that Fabian ignores. Ethnic cleansing accompanied by massacres. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism but everything to do with the anti-Arab racism of Zionism.
Hirsh witters on about anti-Semitism but never has anything to say about the anti-Arab racism in Israel whereby 4 out of 5 people say they don’t want to live next to an Arab, 61% say they wouldn’t have an Arab in their home, nearly half would strip Israeli Arabs of the vote and a large majority are opposed to any governing coalition being dependent on Arab votes and of course more than half support the ‘transfer’ of Israeli Arabs out of Israel. Oh and some 2/3 believe marriage to an Arab is ‘national treason’. About this Hirsh is totally silent. Is it any wonder that we question whether he is genuine in his concern about anti-Semitism when he has nothing to say about racism perpetrated on behalf of Jewish people?
Fabian of Israel ‘can’t see any particular evilness in Zionism’ and therein lies the rub. Being from Argentina it is clear that there are none so blind as those who will not see. Maybe I can help him see why, even from the point of Jews, Zionism is a disaster. Remember that in Argentina between 1976-83 there was a vicious and murderous junta that not only murdered some 30,000 socialists and leftists but Jewish leftists in particular. Despite being less than 1% of the population some 10% of those killed were Jews.
Or maybe the following article in Hadashot of 28th September 1990 is also a lie.
‘The Jewish government could have saved hundreds of Argentine Jews, who were murdered or kidnapped during the rule of the generals between 1976 and 1983, claims Marcel Zohar in his book Let My People Go to Hell, soon to be published by Zitrin.
The military censor this week decided to at last permit the publication of the book, except for several paragraphs which, so he claimed, might endanger certain person’s lives or harm Israel’s relations with other countries. The publisher, Ben Zion Zitrin, is about to offer the book to foreign publishing houses. Zohar, who was Yedi’ot Aharonot [an Israeli evening newspaper] correspondent in Argentina between 1978 and 1982, describes how the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency and other official bodies refrained from processing immigration applications from Jews with left-wing background, in order to preserve Israel’s good business and political links with the ruling junta. In the same period, arms sales worth about one billion dollars were concluded between Israel and Argentina. According to Zohar, both Likud and Labour leaders shared in the conspiracy of silence.
His book recounts the struggle which took place between Danny Rekanati, the immigration official based in Argentina, and the Israeli ambassador, Ron Nergad. Rekanati tried to help persecuted Jews escape from the country, while Nergad, according to the book, complained about his activities. The unwritten instruction was to refuse any help to Jews defined as ‘too left-wing’. The late Menahem Savidor, who was Knesset chairman at the time, admitted to Zohar that he had prevented a public Knesset debate on the situation of Argentina’s Jews at the government’s request in order not to harm Israel’s crucial links with Argentina. The prime ministers of the period covered, would not discuss the book. Yigal Alon and Moshe Dayan, who were Israel’s foreign ministers then, are no longer alive. The foreign ministry refused to cooperate or to open its archives for the period.
As Yossi Sarid leader of the Zionist Meretz party put it: “In Argentina, Israel sold even the Jews for the price of its immediate interests.” Har’aretz 31.8.89. Jewish Political Studies Review 16:1-2 (Spring 2004)
According to Sarid, this was done through cooperation with the military junta in the economic area, and by not arousing international and Jewish public opinion about the fact of the disappearance and arrest of young Jews in that country. However, according to Foreign Ministry personnel, the arms sales actually helped the embassy in its application for the release of detainees in military camps, and thus saved them from sharing the fate of the desaparecidos.
This is the Zionism which Fabian believes is an angel of mercy. And incidentally it is a myth that there was a war of total extermination against Israel in 1948. Perhaps he could read something other than propaganda pamphlets of the Israeli foreign ministry? Try Simha Flapan’s Myths & Realities. Flapan was one of the leading ideologues of the Mapam party, a dedicated Zionist, but he convincingly refutes this nonsense.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:41 am
Eddie #180
I did not post the comment made in #173.
Tony Greenstein #s182-186
Magnificent!
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 8:24 am
Denham’s post is that of somebody who likes to conduct his political argument by smears. He does not bother to engage with the evidence because it is spoils the picture he seeks to paint. Contrary to what he and his ilk at Harry’s Place assert, Dr Naseem is not regarded as an Islamic fundamentalist ‘lunatic’ in Birmingham. And having a suspicion about the security services does not make him one. He is seen as a voice of religious moderation.
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=14533861&method=full&siteid=50002&headline=terror-leaflets-found-at-mosque-name_page.html
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=14617688&method=full&siteid=50002&headline=city-outrage-over-pro-osama-poster-name_page.html
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_headline=leaders-put-their-faith-in-brum-s-future&method=full&objectid=19778320&siteid=50002-name_page.html
Comment by Ger Francis — 9 February, 2008 @ 9:02 am
John Wight is certainly impressed. I’ll leave others to judge the value of Greenstein’s pompous knock-about for themselves.
But his attack on Eric Lee’s magnificent LabourStart should not go un-opposed. Firstly becuase LabourStart is fantastic international resource for Trade Unionists which people should use - and people should spread the word. And secondly because the camapaign to portray LabourStart as illegitimate in the labour movement because Eric is a Zionist is a scandal.
People should look at LabourStart and make their own judgment.
http://www.labourstart.org/
Tony Greenstein is not telling the truth when he says that LabourStart “has consistently refused to document the oppression of Arab workers in Israel, or in Palestine itself”.
Go to http://www.labourstart.org/ and put in the word “Palestine” into the search box in the top left hand corner of the site. You will see that LabourStart is a very rich source of information on Palestinian trade union struggle - as it is on trade union struggle throughout the world.
Greenstein is part of a campaign to de-legitimize an international labour movement resource on the basis that it is run by a Jew who identifies himself as a socialist Zionist.
Eric is a lifelong trade unionist, socialist and campaigner for an independent Palestinian state. You may disagree with his view but the idea that his view puts him outside of the labour movement is a disgrace. He is a socialist Zionist but he doesn’t have horns.
To accept that Eric and LabourStart have no place in the Labour movement is to accept that Jews who do not identify themselves as anti-Zionists have no place in the labour movement.
Antisemites have always tried to drive Jews out of public life.
Greenstein wants to drive Eric Lee out of the trade union movement because he is a Jew and a “Zionist”.
Comment by David Hirsh — 9 February, 2008 @ 9:39 am
Hirsh
Zionism is a supermacist,racist ideology,which lies at the root of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. These attempts to posit you and yours as socialist Zionists are as transparent as they are ludicrous. The issue isn’t over the post 1967 occupation (at least not as far as I am concerned it is not). The issue, my Zionist friend, is the original sin of 1948 when 750,000 Palestinian civilians were foribly expelled from their homes, terrorised, and sent on their was by Zionist terrorist militias such as the Stern Gang and Irgun.
Are you saying that this crime constitutes a legitimate act in the formation of a modern nation state? Do you even acknwoledge that this crime took place?
I support a one-state solution and the Palestinian right of return. What do you support? You support a two-state solution which allows a state, Israel, to exist as an avowed and exlusionary Jewish State. What about the right of return of the Palestinians able to trace origins to the land in 1948? What about people like ‘Fabian from Israel’ who wasn’tborn there and only immigrated to the land in 2003?
This is the contradiction which lies the heart of your attempt to whitewash Zionism’s crimes against humanity.
Tony Greenstein is a widely respected socialist and activist in support of the Palestinian cause. You support Israel’s right to exist at the negation of another people, despite your determined efforts to maintain otherwise. In this you are redolent of those Christian fundamentalist who’ve adpated themselves to the science in support of evolution with their Creative Design codswallop.
Splash me all over your forum ya radge. I take it as a compliment.
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:01 am
Apologies,
I just realised that perhaps some on here are unfamiliar with the eytomology and meaning of the word ‘radge.’ Allow me to enlighten the comrades as to the multiple definitions and versatility of this internationally renowned Edinburgh colloquialism.
Radge: (noun) bam; daftie; a person, male or female, who is a coil short of a toaster; a person, male or female, whose brain is considered to be 2lbs lighter than a meringue. (adj)to go radge: enjoying oneself with reckless or gay abandon; losing one’s self control; wild, exuberant behaviour.
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:16 am
John Wight “Splash me all over your forum ya radge. I take it as a compliment.”
It’s a shame that Wight is proud of his antisemitic rhetoric. You would have thought that he would have learnt his lesson and modified his rhetoric - a rhetoric which is more reminiscent of traditional far right wingers. Instead he’s proud.
“Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine?”
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1353
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Time for ‘two-staters’ like Hirsh to tell us what this Palestine state will look like? At present the territory where such a state would exist (according to most of the descriptions doing the rounds)has been chewed into by the wall, settled on in fortified enclaves by people who say that the whole of this territory is ‘jewish’ land (!), divided up by roads along which Palestinians can’t freely travel, separated from Gaza.
The fact is that the whole of the territory between Egypt, Syria and Jordan is occupied by Jews and Palestinians. The great majority of it is ruled by a people who say that it must be ruled as their state, for their benefit. It is in their words a Jewish state. One of the ways in which this rule is maintained is by chopping up the Palestinians into ‘Gazans’, ‘West Bankers’ ‘Refugees’ and ‘Israeli Arabs’ and the like. All the while, the Jews worldwide are supposedly one unified people all with equal claim to live in this Jewish state.
Creating yet another enclave: a ‘Palestinian state’ in this situation will solve nothing. It will produce any combination of civil wars between Palestinians, perpetual conflict between Palestinians and Jews in this territory. In the end, the very notion of a Jewish state in the modern world is unsustainable. States cannot survive as one-people entities either in a capitalist or a socialist world. Capital and peoples flow between territories under capitalism. I, for one, would hope that peoples and co-operation would flow between states in a socialist world until such time as borders came down anyway. Either way, mono-people states, which allow for immigration but only on the terms of the mono-people and only for the benefit of that mono-people, are a dead duck. Northern Ireland and South Africa are signposts in the capitalist world.
I suspect that the same applies to the Israel-West Bank - Gaza territory. At some point, there will have to be some kind of federal solution. Zionists say that this means ‘Israel won’t exist’ and of course make this a condition for negotiation, thereby blocking off all possible negotiation around this matter. The phrase ‘israel won’t exist’ is intended to signify that Jews won’t exist, ie they will have been massacred and pushed into the sea. This vision is a deliberate attempt to scare off people trying to envision something bigger and better than enclave and tribe politics. People like Hirsh, left, right or centre, who imagine they’re talking the language of freedom, liberalism, human rights, enlightenment etc by talking up ‘viable Palestinian state’ and the like are trapped in racialised, tribal politics, policed by Imperial diktat. They then hound anyone who criticises them by labelling them with what is supposed to be a terrifying swearword ‘antisemitism’. The word has now become so debased that pages and pages of blogspace is taken up with people arguing over what it means anyway. This too serves the purposes of sustaining the Jewish state, I suspect Hirsh himself knows. Even for saying the things I’ve said above, there are some zionists who would label me antisemitic. That’s how purposeless it’s become. If Hirsh and other so-called liberal zionists went back to ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ and applied those old principles, in full, in their entirety to the Middle East, you wouldn’t come up with two-states - for the simple reason that the Palestinian state as envisaged, as feasible, is no state for the Palestinians and no future for the area.
I suspect that if Egypt, Syria, Jordan ,Israel and the Palestinians could sit down and negotiate with chairpeople as chosen by all parties, a solution could be found. In fact, what goes on in the area is a pax americana - no, it’s not a ‘pax’ (peace) it’s a war…and again, I suspect that the realpolitik of the US re the area is that this is a sustainable war, and with the cooperation of the Saudis, can be sustained forever.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:36 am
“There is therefore a strong case to be made for excluding Jews altogether from any principled debate about anti-semitism, cince as a group, they are characterised by support for a racist state.”
Maybe let them comment and put a big label “Israelite” after their name ?
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Michael, I’d be happy to discuss ways of moving towards an end to the violence between Israel and Palestine - any deal that the Israelis and the Palestinians can negotiate between them is fine by me. Everybody serious knows what the deal is - something like the Geneva Accords or the Nusseibeh-Ayalon initiative.
And it is important in my view not to confuse the basis of a peace agreement on the one hand - which is clearly an end to the occupation, an end to the killing and a sovereign Palestinian state - with the basis of the best imaginable long term political arrangement for life in the Middle East on the other.
After WWII, a peace in Europe came first. Schengen came later.
The Geneva Accords are the basis of a peace agreement - they are neither my nor your political utopia.
I think we could talk reasonably about our differences on one state / two states.
But this thread is about antisemitism. And we have just seen an explicitly antisemitic comment - declaring that you and I should be excluded from this debate because we are Jews.
Antisemitism is about pushing Jews out of public life.
Whether it is a ’socialist’ suggestion that Jews should be excluded from a debate about antisemitism.
Or a ’socialist’ suggestion that Eric Lee should be excluded from the labour movement because he is a Jew who refuses to identify as an anti-Zionist.
Andy Newman, to go back to his original post, was right and courageous.
Comment by David Hirsh — 9 February, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Verat:
The important point that John W is making is that it is no longer possible to allow Jews to have any say in what constitutes anti-semitism.
Reply:
Here we go again, attempting to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. When did I make the point that you state? Please tell me. Or is that you and your fellow travellers are the arbiters of what constitues anti-Semitism? What about Illan Pappe, a man I have met and discussed these matters with at length and who now is the regular recipient of hate mail for the views he holds. The problem is that your frame of reference for what constitutes anti-Semitism is any non-Jew who comes down unequivocally on the side of the Palestinians and sees the root of the problem as 1948 and not 1967. Who doesn’t pander to what apologists for Israel refer to as ‘facts on the ground.’
Anything which questions the right of Israel to exist as an exclusionary Jewish State is calumnied as anti-Semitic in this train of thought, a traine of thought which begins with the starting point that Israel represents the interests of all Jews, of the Jewish people. Well, I and others do question this view, and despite the dread attached to the label of anti-Semite I will continue to question it.
Exceptionalism is the antithesis of universal human rights. It is exceptionalism which has lain at the root of every act of genocide in human history. It is Aryan exceptionalism which led to the Holocaust in which six million perished. It is exceptionalism, both US and Israeli, responsible for the chaos and carnage in the Middle East.
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
Actually, exceptionalism is what lay at the heart of left-wing arguments against Jewish emancipation. John Wight’s politics can be traced back directly to Bruno Bauer, the one whose arguments he destroyed and who later became a leading antisemite. According to his line, only those who cease to be anything can be granted and give human rights. Again, the comparion between US Israel and the Nazis! Next, what, Proudhon?
Comment by Saul — 9 February, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Verat,
I misread your previous post. However, having re-read the passage I still disagree with you. Jews are eminently qualified to determine what constitutes anti-Semitism. Zionists, however, I agree cannot be taken seriously on this topic, given their adherence to the existence and exaltation of a state founded upon the ethnic cleansing of another people and which continues to exist at their negation.
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
I hope, but don’t believe, that verat is a parody.
“… we could certainly make demands for Jews to be excluded from platform debates or published work or even university courses unless they could establish their anti-Zionist position.”
Disgusting.
Comment by goodwin sands — 9 February, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
“The removal of large numbers of Jews from public life may be the wake-up call they need to rouse them from their foetid little world of race supremacy and hate.”
Ah, the things said in the name of “anti-racism.”
Comment by goodwin sands — 9 February, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
John W
Everything you have written here is a cross purpose discussion of something other than the topic at hand.
Most people here want to have a discussion about anti-Semitism on the left. A part of this is how anti-Semitic narratives have been woven into anti-Zionist arguments (the origins of which are Nazi era radio broadcasts and Soviet propaganda from the 1950s and 1960s).
You on the other hand want to talk about Israel. This itself is part of the problem. When I talk about anti-Semitism I’m telling you because despite everything you’ve written so far I do believe you want to see a world without prejudice or bigotry. The way to resolve this is to start first by looking at our own behaviour.
Believing in equality at some abstract level is very easy but your actions betray the value you claim to uphold. A simple example might be treating the kind of people who come here as equals deserving of your respect- individuals concerned about racism no less than you are; people who believe in socialist solutions but who are concerned with the way in which anti-Semitic narratives and ways of thinking are returning to leftist discourse.
However, when people in good faith take issue with the kind of language you use you treat them with no respect whatsoever. You treat them as lesser human beings, not worthy of being taken seriously or afforded respect. You simply dismiss their concerns as a waste of your time.
The biggest part of building socialism is in the everyday interactions we have with other human beings; acknowledging them, according them respect as equals, engaging with them and their concerns. Most Jews would find the type of language you use offensive because they consider it anti-Semitic.
Myself, David Hirsh and others have made specific pointed criticisms of the language you use- explaining exactly why we consider it offensive. Your only responses so far are to repeat said language, ignore the substantive issues and call David a Zionist, a radge and a scumbag.
You don’t need to allude to Nazi caricatures of Jews when describing Israel or talk of “international Jewry” when making a case for the Palestinians. We all understand your opposition to Zionism- what we can’t get our heads around is your instance that its acceptable to express your anti-Zionism in language many Jews consider to be anti-Semitic.
If you genuinely believe in equality it necessary to find ways to express your opposition to Zionism in language which includes rather than excludes people. This is particularly relevant when the people you need to persuade are the very ones excluded and offended by the language you use.
Saying “Boycott was and is the most effective tactic in making Israelis question what they are doing”- is another example of your self-defeating approach. Your claim is simply false.
I speak as an Israeli, I’m also a socialist and a kibbutznik. I know what my freinds and family think about BDS. Whether you like it or not BDS will not make Israelis question ourselves any more than we already do. The fact is that BDS is perceived by most Israelis (and diaspora Jews) as the latest manifestation of anti-Semitism. This is the reality that you have to deal with.
There are many practical ways to support the Palestinians Ways that will support the kind of solution you claim to aspire to. Yet you aren’t interesting in the kind of activities which build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians (one example being the ecological seminars which take place on my kibbutz involving Palestinian and Israeli schoolchildren). Building bridges is the only way that a one-State solution could ever be viable. Demonising the Israelis whilst lionising Palestinians just deepens the divisions. You simply can’t achieve peaceful coexistence by stoking up hatred.
Your use of anti-semitic language and imagery and your support for BDS are indicative of your whole approach to building socialism and Palestinian liberation; in both cases you claim to believe in things and then do everything in your power to prevent them from happening.
Comment by Stephen — 9 February, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Andy. Perhaps Verat is not what he seems ?
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
“verat”, were I in the unfortunate position of being in the same meeting as you and hearing what you wrote, I would move and argue for your removal. On failing to win the argument I would leave.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 9 February, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
John W
Can I get this straight - as Zionism is racism, Zionists cannot comment on anti-semitism. As most Jews are Zionists therefore most Jews cannot be trusted to comment on anti-semitism unless they can demonstrate that they are not Zionists.
Presumably no socialists can be Zionists also because Z=R
If Z=R then I presume you also support such time honoured traditions as calling for the banning of Jewish societies within student unions, boycotting Zionist sponsored book weeks and calling for Israel to be thrown out of the eurovision song contest.
Just want to be clear.
verat must be a parody…surely
Comment by monsgon — 9 February, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Of course he is. Thats why people are ignoring him.
Comment by johng — 9 February, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
The sad thing is that John W., the compulsive liar -see above, when he lies about taking the fake quotes from his “dog eared book”- is not a parody. He is real. He is a real antisemitic socialist. I don’t think he needs to provide “quotes” from the Talmud anymore. Enough was said.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
Here is my question. John W claims ‘I didn’t even open the link to the site, as I was looking for the site: Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism (CODOZ) and instead ended up on (CODOH)’.
Yet I am unable using Google to turn up any evidence for an organization called ‘Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism’ or any similar organization with an acronym ‘CODOZ’.
John W, what were you looking for again? Something less ad hoc this time.
Comment by goodwin sands — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
“Are you denying that physical force was used to steal Arab land?”
Are you denying that physical force was used to steal Jewish land?
Comment by Shmuel — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Are you denying that physical force was not used to steal German land?
Comment by Shmuel — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism (CODOZ)
Committee For Open Discussion Of Zionism. It is a site created by Joel Kovel.
Apart from that I refuse to have any further discussion with any Zionist. Zionismin relation to Palestine and ethnic cleansing cannot be negotiated with, neither can it be reasoned with.
It can only be confronted and resisted.
Verat posted:
That’s the campaign the left needs to instigate and brave people like you who can resist the stigma of smear campaigns are the ones who can start calling for it.
Reply:
No, you are completely wrong. Bravery is what those courageous men and women did last week in Gaza in breaking that barbaric and inhuman blockade. That is bravery. Watching the footage of them breaking out, the joy on their faces at winning their freedom, and listening to a first hand account from a comrade who was there from SPSC, it reminded me of Lenin’s description of the Paris Commune in 1871 as a ‘Festival Of The Oppressed.’
And that’s exactly what it was: a festival of the oppressed.
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
Avante!
Comment by John W — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Wight “Apart from that I refuse to have any further discussion with any Zionist.”
That’ll be a relief for “international jewry”
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
On doing a little digging, the site you are looking for is codz.org, although there is almost nothing there; I think this was an honest bit of confusion on your part.
Comment by goodwin sands — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
If you google “Campaign For An Honest Discussion Of Zionism” which was what Wight says he was looking for , you get no results found.
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Question is John W radge?
Replies over 400 words will be considered.
Comment by RedRooster — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
Andy,
can you please remove posts 204 and 209 by Ibnaz, who is almost certainly a Zionist troll masquerading as an anti-Semite. His statement that:
‘The bombing of the International Jewry/Zionist community centre in Argentina for example was a progressive act of true social justice that we may wish to emulate.’
needs no comment. It is obviously anti-Semitic.
Likewise Verat’s comments are clearly a put up job, or he is immensely stupid to call for a numerus clausus for Jews attending universities. I’ll leave it to the imagination.
The point about Jews and anti-Semitism is that clearly some Jews, like David Hirsh, deliberately conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. A case in point is Eric Lee. I have criticised him for his bias against Palestinians on his site. It was only grudgingly that he put anything up, he had very little on the struggle of the Workers Advice Centres and nothing on Histadrut. I therefore oppose my union funding him given his racism. And that is on the grounds that he is a Zionist, not because he is Jewish, Mormon or whatever religion he might be.
So Hirsh is, once again, deliberately lying. Because on the one hand he says ‘oh we never accuse anti-Zionists of anti-Semitism’ and then he goes and does just that.
Stephen believes that ‘Most people here want to have a discussion about anti-Semitism on the left. A part of this is how anti-Semitic narratives have been woven into anti-Zionist arguments (the origins of which are Nazi era radio broadcasts and Soviet propaganda from the 1950s and 1960s).’
Rubbish. I don’t recognise an ‘antisemitism of the left’. If you are a socialist then you can’t be an anti-Semite. And if you are an anti-Semite you are no socialist. Period. Despite the best efforts of Zionists like Stephen anti-semitic narratives (what are they? is this the same narrative that holocaust denier Atzmon refers to - strange choice of language these racists use) are not at all interwoven into anti-Zionist discourse and I challenge Stephen to be specific rather than engage in vague generalisations.
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
“It can only be confronted and resisted.”
And if need be, with fake quotes, distortions and lies.
Evidently John W. relies on other people to provide him with “Zionist quotes” since he doesn’t read what Zionists have to say nor discusses with them.
How will he know which quotes are real and which are fake?
Do you think he cares?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
lbnaz is evidently paroding John W.
Greenstein wants to remove the posts because they raise too many uncomfortable facts.
1984, eh, Greenstein?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
“Rubbish. I don’t recognise an ‘antisemitism of the left’. If you are a socialist then you can’t be an anti-Semite.”
I studied that at school in Argentina!
It is called the falacy of the good Scotish. “La Falacia del Buen Escocés”
1. A good Scotish drinks whisky.
2. I am a good Scotish and I don’t drink whisky.
3. You are not a good Scotish.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
Sorry, it is not the “good” Scotish. It is the falacy of the “authentic” Scotish.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
Throughout this thread we have had the hypocritical baiting of John W for one or 2 sloppy comments and misquotes. Despite him making it clear he is not anti-Semitic, the Hirshes and Fabians of this list have continued to harass him over which site he went to and when. Their concern is touching.
Now maybe Hirsh will prove that his concern is with anti-Semitism and not anti-Zionism by promising never again to allow Mikey to do a ‘guest post’ on Engage and that he will ban his comments too, just as he has done to my comments. Otherwise he is a gross hypocrite. Because whatever minor sins John W has committed stand in contrast to Mikey.
I cited earlier the comments of Mikey on the overtly anti-Semitic peacepalestine site of Mary Rizzo. In case Hirsh has forgotten them I repeat them below:
Here is someone who not only goes out for social drinks with an anti-Semite and holocaust denier, but acts as an informer. Atzmon asks him to provide information on my political comrade Roland Rance and what does he say? No, I’m too busy doing the same on Tony Greenstein. Informing for an anti-Semite against a Jew. Are you happy with that Hirsh. Now redeem yourself by ensuring that this collaborator with anti-Semites and holocaust deniers plays no further part in Engage.
If you ignore this or pretend that you don’t understand then we shall understand you for what you are - a hypocrite. On the other hand if you do demonstrate that your concern about anti-Semitism doesn’t only come into play when anti-Zionism is on the agenda I shall take my hat off to you. It’s your decision.
But it is ironic that despite being a site devoted to ‘anti-semitism’ the only time Atzmon is mentioned is either to minimise him (David T’s article on him) or simply to ensure that there is an association drawn to peoples’ attention between Atzmon and Palestinian/Left groups. There is no attempt at analysis beyond the superficial. No looking to see whether he is an anti-Semite by reference to his works, still less a holocaust denier. That work has been done entirely by anti-Zionists such as myself. Now I wonder why it is that Engage makes no attempt to campaign against Atzmon but merely seeks to use him to discredit others?
And below is also an explanation of how Jewish law treats informers like Mikey. Indeed according to Jewish religious law Mikey himself is no longer a Jew! Especially when their informing is to non-Jews (which Atzmon is having converted to Christianity)!
Tony Greenstein
A verbatim transcript of Rabbi Simcha Cohen’s article “A Jewish Informer” here follows. Please note that whereas the Jewish Encyclopedia uses the accepted spelling “moser,” Rabbi Cohen goes with an alternate spelling of this Hebrew word for informer, “mosser.”
HALACHIC QUESTIONS
Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
A Jewish Informer
Question: Jewish law considers the crime of informing upon a fellow Jew a most vile and odious sin. Why? What is the nature of the sin of the informer (the mosser) that galvanizes such a negative reaction?
Response: The Rambam rules that an informer is not to be deemed part of Klal Yisrael (Hilchot Mamrim 2:2). In another section, the Rambam notes that an informer is not to receive a share in the World to Come (Hilchot Teshuva 3:12). The rationale of the Rambam, says Hagaon Rav Hutner, z”l, is based upon the following theory: One who separates himself from the ways of the community (ha’poresh mi’darchei tzibbur) “even though he does not sin… has no share in the World to Come” (ibid. 3:11). Thus, separation from communal standards is tantamount to exclusion from the Jewish people. This, moreover, does not have to relate to any specific sin. Informing on Jews, contends Hagaon Rav Hutner, is an action that goes against the essence of Jewish communal standards. It is a behavioral pattern that is simply not Jewish. This is not what Jews do. As such, the informer (mosser) is excluded from Klal Yisrael because of his refusal to conform to the moral character of the Jewish people (Pachad Yitzhak, Pesach, Ma’amar 63:5).
Rabbi Cohen is the Rav of the Mizrachi Kehilla in Merbourne and the author of several halachic works, the latest being “How Does Jewish Law Work?” (Jason Aronson)
>>Mikey, can you provide us with the criminal record of this Bugger-Rance. Is he on spent conviction like greenie l or is he just an ordinary liar?
Gilad Atzmon | 03.12.07 - 8:00 pm | #
I have been very busy digging up stuff on Tony Greenstein - Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.
Mikey | 03.12.07 - 8:53 pm | #
‘Mikey, I hope you do not mind me saying that, but your contribution for the pls solidarity movement is priceless. It is crucial that we all know about the racist record of this Greenpiss, a man who was banned time after time for being a racist and an anti Semite!
I really want to believe that this revolting violent man will feel some shame and take some time off to think about it all. But I doubt it.’
Gilad Atzmon | 03.04.07 - 10:46 am | #
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/thecutter/117192641046077827/
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:02 pm
What complete and utter garbage from Greenstein in post number 180.
I simply detest the political views of Atzmon and yes, I have written about it on Harry’s Place. One my recent pieces on that site entitled “Jews and Jew Haters” [1] shows exactly what I think of him. In that article, I also comment in that article on one Tony Greenstein. I urge everyone to read it.
Greenstein is attacking me for writing on PeacePalestine site, but he does not attack me for far more comments on the obnoxious site belonging to Mark Elf, a person who openly comments on, “this propensity for sheer instinctive dishonesty has become a habit of mind with many, maybe most, Jews. It’s part of the culture now and it’ll be a hard slog shifting it. I think as communities, the Jews are heading for a disaster thanks to this grotesque culture of deceit.” [2] I suppose Greenstein will put this statement of accusing most Jews of dishonesty and deceit down to anti-Zionism?
Greenstein continues with his comments about Hess and Marx. What Greenstein does not discuss, is that one of the profound differences of opinion between Hess and Marx was that Hess completely rejected the association by Marx of capitalism with Judaism,[3] an argument that many scholars claim is antisemitic. [4] But given Greenstein was discussing Avineri on Hess, as Avineri comments on page 246 of his book “Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism, that in the classic text Hess wrote in 1862, Rome and Jerusalem it can be demonstrated that the ideas of socialism and Zionism “coexisted side by side [and] complemented each other.” [5] This clearly disproves Greenstein’s rubbish pamphlet that he wrote some time in the 1980s “Socialist Zionism: The Impossible Contradiction.” [6] The truth is, as is well known, Hess inspired the whole Kibbutz movement, a movement that has probably been the closest working experiment of the communist ideal that has been seen.
Greenstein states “The NF didn’t write a review of my pamphlet ‘Zionism – anti-Semitism’s twin in Jewish garb’.” This is completely inaccurate and Greenstein knows it. The truth is, Sussex Front devoted virtually a full page article entitled “Book Review” dedicated to Greenstein’s pamphlet. The review clearly discusses “Greenstein’s excellent and painstaking researches” and referred to it as “vital reading” before going on to refer Greenstein’s “thesis” as a “seminal work, as important in its own way as was Harwood’s “Did Six Million Really Die.” [7] This is not all but Greenstein goes on to state “The NF wrote the article cited in order to hand a weapon to Zionists like Mikey.” This is complete nonsense as the article comments upon “the mad dogs of Zionism,” but Greesnstein and writing complete and utter nonsense is nothing new. Greenstein suggests that I do not know that Harwood was the name used by Verrall, but of course I know about it. It can be read in many places, not least the excellent book by Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial: Antisemitism, Racism & the New Right. If Greenstein had taken the trouble to read this book, he would also know about Lenni Brenner’s distortion of the Holocaust, a matter she discusses in reasonable depth and concludes that Brenner’s thesis on Zionism and the Holocaust is “virulently antisemitic.” [8] One wonders why Greenstein continue to quote from this discredited author.
Greenstein rambles on about his so called anti-fascist activities in Brighton. But he fails to mention that Vicky Phillips, as President of the National Union of Students, urged students to write to Anti-Fascist Action protesting against his involvement, because, in her words, Greenstein “brings the whole organisation into disrepute.”[9] Despite Greenstein’s claims about his anti-fascist work, it is somewhat a strange anti-fascist that was on the editorial board of a magazine that was banned from NUS conference for being “antisemitic.” [10]
I cannot fail to comment on Greenstein trying to spread a false rumour that I have “linked up” with “supporters of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.” This is not only completely false, it is the opposite of my actions and is a slur against my character. It is probably too much to expect that Greenstein might actually apologise for this.
Greenstein tries to excuse the fact that Neo- Nazis praise his work so much that they republish them on their own web sites. It does not seem to concern him at all that his work is that his (and Brenner’s) thesis on Zionist Nazi collaboration seems only to be quoted by so called “anti-Zionists” on the left and neo-Nazis on the right. Responsible historians dismiss this thesis out of hand.
Greenstein’s comments on Einstein ignore substantial amounts of information. He ignores the fact that Einstein toured America with Chaim Weizzman promoting Zionism and, as his biographer Denis Brian comments, making “money-raising speeches for the Zionist cause.” [11] Not only did Einstein commit himself to raising money for Israel, as commented he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel. Greenstein correctly notes that Einstein turned down the offer, but the reason for doing so, he does not mention. He was, in his own words“deeply moved” by the offer “saddened” to turn it down but did so because he was primarily a scientist who throughout his life had “dealt with objective matters,” and hence he believed that he lacked “both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.” In the weeks before he died, Einstein made clear that he regarded “the birth of Israel as one of the few political acts in his lifetime which had an essential moral quality.” He proposed to make speech on April 27 1955, Israel’s seventh birthday in favour of the country, but died before he got a chance. Nevertheless, Einstein bequeathed all of his papers to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a body that he was in his lifetime on the Board of Governors of. [12]
Einstein’s papers can still be seen at the Hebrew University [13] and it is ironic that this is one of the few universities in the world (all of the others also being in Israel) that Greenstein is arguing people should boycott. What a terrible shame for the advancement in knowledge of the mind of one of the greatest, if not greatest, scientist that ever lived.
Greenstein goes on to comment about Hannah Arendt and yet again ignore much crucial information. Substantially after Arendt wrote “Zionism Reconsidered,” in 1963, she wrote:
“I am not against Israel on principle, I am against certain important Israeli policies. I know, or believe I know, that should catastrophe overtake this Jewish state, for whatever reasons (even reasons of their own foolishness) this would be the perhaps final catastrophe for the whole Jewish people” [14]
Not only did Arendt often contribute to the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel Emergency Fund, but Arendt’s biographer, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl describes Arendt as “intensely proud” when Israel was victorious in 1967 war. Commenting on that war, Arendt wrote to her friend Mary McCarthy and stated, “Any real catastrophe in Israel would affect me more deeply in anything else.” When Israel was attacked in 1973 that led to a further war, Arendt in an interview stated, “The Jewish people are united in Israel.” She added that Judaism was a national religion.[15]
I do find it somewhat amusing that Greenstein feels competent to comment at what points Einstein and Arendt were wise and at what point they were not. Perhaps Greenstein will tell us that Einstein was wrong to claim that E=MC**2
Greenstein reverts to his favourite subject that continually makes errors on, that of the case of Rudolf Kasztner. [16] It is true that I am fond of quoting Randolph Braham, widely recognised as the leading historian on the Holocaust in Hungary and it is also true that Kasztner’s own report was “self serving “ and that is why, I do not rely upon it, but rely upon the work of serious scholars such as Braham. In fact if Greenstein had bothered to read Braham’s highly acclaimed two volume work, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary [17] there is no possible way that he could come to the conclusions that he does about Kasztner and the actions of the Zionists in Hungary and maybe he would also make less errors.
Contrary to what Greenstein claims, the Supreme Court did not acquit Kasztner for “political reasons” but because they considered the evidence and ruled that “Kasztner was motivated by the sole motive of rescuing all Hungarian Jews, i.e., rescuing the maximum number which, considering the circumstances of time and place as assessed by him could be saved.” Consequently, they ruled that “one cannot find a moral fault in that behavior; one cannot find any causation between it and the expediting of the deportation and the extermination and one cannot consider it amounting to the degree of collaboration with the Nazis.”[18]
It was not a fact of the case that Kasztner, “sold his soul to the devil” as Greenstein claims but it was the opinion of Judge Benjamin Halevey, an opinion that was not only overturned by the Supreme Court but an opinion that Halevey himself, on more than one subsequent occasion admitted that he regretted using. [19] Kurt Becher was not promoted to a General in 1945 as Greenstein alleges but a colonel. [20] Greenstein continues to repeat the falsity that the verdict in the Kasztner case was 3:2. I can provide numerous scholarly accounts that expose this falsity, but in this instance Greenstein need only look at the anti-Zionist Akiva’s Orr article on the Kasztner case that was published in the book of JimAllen’s despicable play Perdition to know that it was a 4:1 majority in the Supreme Court. [21] If Greenstein wants another reference, I suggest he purchases Ladislaus Lob’s book that is published this week , that I have been fortunate to receive an advance copy of Dealing With Satan: Rezso Kasztner’s Daring Rescue Mission where he be able to see quite clearly on page 279 that it was four to one majority. [22]
Finally, Greenstein suggests that my politics have nothing to do with socialism. He makes that claim as he thinks that I am a Zionist and that it is “impossible” for Zionists to be socialists. Greenstein should spend some time and learn about the whole history of socialist Zionism. He could start with Moses Hess.
Mikey
[1] http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/11/21/jews_and_jew_haters_the_antizionist_jewish_squabble.php
[2]
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/levi9909/5773458525484843543/?src=hsr#319340
[3]Nicholas Xenos, “Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism by Shlomo Avineri,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 48, No. 2. (May, 1986), pp. 524-527
[4] See for example, Max Geltman, “On Socialist Anti-Semitism,” Midstream March 1977, pp. 20-30 available on line at:
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/geltman.pdf
[5] Cited by David Ellenson, “Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism by Shlomo Avineri,” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 67, No. 4. (Oct., 1987), pp. 558-559.
[6] Tony Greenstein, “Socialist Zionism: The Impossible Contradiction,” (London: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, n.d.)
[7] Philip Drax, “Book Review” Sussex Front January 1983, p. 9
[8] Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial: Antisemitism, Racism & the New Right (Leeds: Beyond the Pale Collective, 1986) pp. 85-92
[9] “Phillips waves the flag,” Jewish Chronicle December 26, 1986 p. 12
[10] “Banned mag storm,”Jewish Chronicle April 27, 1990 available on line at
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/return-banned.pdf
[11] Denis Brian, Einstein: a life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1996) p. 126
[12] Ibid; pp. 424-9
[13] http://www.alberteinstein.info/about/
[14] Quoted by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For the Love of the World, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984) p. 361
[15] Ibid., pp. 455-6
[16] For an example of where I have previously highlighted errors in claims Greenstein has made about Kasztner, see http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/01/24/tony_greenstein_more_errors_than_paragraphs.php
[17] Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary revised and enlarged edition (New York and Boulder: The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies Graduate Centre / The City University of New York and Social Science Monographs, 1994)
[18] Cited by Ben Hecht, Perfidy, (Jerusalem: Geffen Publishing House, 1999) p. 275
[19] For examples of where Halevey admitted regretting using the phrase that Kasztner sold his soul to the devil, see Leora Bilskey, Transformative Justice: Israeli identity on trial (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2004) p. 44, 272n 11. The reference Bilsky provides the comments by Halevy were taken from an interview Halevey gave to the newspaper Ma’ariv on 3 October 1969. Tom Segev The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust ( New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991)P. 310 provides a further reference. based on an interview Halevey gave to the Israeli Defense Forces radio station. (Segev does not seem to provide a date for the broadcast.)
[20] Gabor Kadar and Zoltan Vagi Self-Financing Genocide: The Gold Train, the Becher Case and the Wealth of Hungarian Jews (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004) pp. 235-6
[21] Akiva Orr, “The Kastner Case, Jerusalem 1955” in Jim Allen Perdition (London: Ithaca Press, 1987) pp. 81-105
[22] Ladislaus Lob, Dealing With Satan: Rezso Kasztner’s Daring Rescue Mission, (London: Jonathan Cape, 2008) p. 279
Comment by Mikey — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
No because it’s probably Fabian from Israel engaging in a bit more racist drivel. This time at the expense of Jews rather than Palestinians.
>>Greenstein wants to remove the posts because they raise too many uncomfortable facts.
1984, eh, Greenstein?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:05 pm
“Despite him making it clear he is not anti-Semitic…”
Just like David Irving or David Duke. What does that prove?
“the Hirshes and Fabians of this list”
There is more than one Fabian or are you grouping me with people I have never met?
“have continued to harass him over which site he went to and when. Their concern is touching.”
Well, he has posted fake quotes and misquotes while using antisemitic language. But for the little I have read of you in Harry’s Place, you are not a stranger to that either.
“Atzmon asks him to provide information on my political comrade Roland Rance and what does he say? No, I’m too busy doing the same on Tony Greenstein. Informing for an anti-Semite against a Jew.”
Inform about you? Who ARE you?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
I have deleted a number of commenst from “Verat” and “Ibnaz” due to their clearly and inflamatory anti-Semitic nature.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
Andy, lbnaz is “Left but not AntiZionist” from Harry’s Place. Paranoid Greenstein thinks lbnaz is me.
You shouldn’t have deleted lbnaz comment because it was a parody of John W.’s antisemitic thought, with lots of important data that anti-Zionists usually ignore. (for example, the role of Arab fighters in violence and terrorism against Jews in Eretz Israel much before the days of the Stern Gang and the Irgun.
If you can bring the post back, do it.
I don’t want to think that you are pretending that lbnaz post was antisemitic just because it was unconfortable reading for an anti-Zionist.
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 9 February, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
Tony- I have given specific examples in all of my posts- read them. Look at the original article by Andy, is he part of the Zionist conspiracy too?
I know you think socialists can’t be anti-Semitic- but your claim is based on an abstraction- unless of course you don’t consider John W or yourself to be socialists? What about the whole history of left-wing anti-Semitism?
Comment by Stephen — 9 February, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
“I have deleted a number of commenst from “Verat” and “Ibnaz” due to their clearly and inflamatory anti-Semitic nature.”
What makes some comments clearly antisemitic while others require several essays and 200+ comments to deconstruct?
Comment by Shmuel — 9 February, 2008 @ 10:19 pm
There has been a lot of interesting debate going on here. We should be grateful and applaud the above author for sparking it off.
One point I would like to make concerns the parallels between the former apartheid South Africa and the apartheid state of Israel. Undeniably, the situation in Israel is much worse.
When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became President, many South Africans fled the country and settled in Israel, taking their expertise in the mass control and suppression of populations with them.
The South African boycot, divestment and sanctions campaign was one of the biggest and most successful socialist led campaigns of all time.
I suspect though, that when it comes to Israel, BDS as a tactic is ultimately doomed to failure. No campaign can ever hope to reach the required critical mass to win or secure the concessions it seeks without mass, grassroots popular support.
Principally, the problem doesn’t seem to have much to do with lack of public interest or sympathy, and probably has more to do with language and the ideological and religious dimensions that conflates the issue of apartheid Israel as opposed to apartheid South Africa.
Members of the public all too easily buy into the idea of boycotting goods that exploit or support the abuse of populations, the environment and the animal kingdom - as campaigns against South African goods, environmental degradation, child or sweatshop labour and animal testing have demonstrated.
But once Judeophobic rhetoric or imagery (or anything open to accusations of being) starts creeping into discourse about Israel, most members of the public understandably run a mile, meaning many campaigns about Israel are left to flounder, extending little beyond a bubble of politically conscious activists left preaching to themselves.
Whoever can devise a BDS strategy for growth that manages to throw off this achilles heel, and can simply sell the issue in a populist and undogmatic way that gets the public doing their bit (in a humanistic way that is effortless, seems fun, simple and fashionable) will undoubtedly have found the elusive, and most important Holy Grail of anti-imperialist, anti-Israeli colonialist politics.
Comment by Tam G — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
JohnW. Re Ethnic Cleansing.
Hot off the press!
Census: 30% rise in Palestinian population over last decade
Palestinian population in West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem reaches 3.76 million, up from 2.89 million a decade ago.
JohnW, Please revise propaganda. Talking points mugged by census. Over.
Comment by R. — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
Tam “When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became President, many South Africans fled the country and settled in Israel, taking their expertise in the mass control and suppression of populations with them.”
Care to back this up ?
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
Tam - I know many South AFircan Jews left for Israel but it’s your presumption that firstly they were involved in the repression in South Africa and secondly that they exported their skills in repression to Israel.
I think the reason BDS won’t find the same ammount of support over Israel is that people can see that Israel is not an aparteid system. That’s not to say that there isn’t racism against Israeli Arabs , it’s not to say that the occupation is not oppressive but many people understand that there are wrongs on both sides and that it is a conflict of nationalities. SOuth Africa was a white minority ruling a black majority. There were no black Members of the South African Parliament , no black judges , no suffrage for black SOuth Africans , no mixed universities , or health care , no Hamas , no rocket attacks on civilians.
That’s why poeple won’t support boycotts.
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:52 pm
Sorry about the typos !
Comment by Richard — 9 February, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
@228 “But once Judeophobic rhetoric or imagery (or anything open to accusations of being) starts creeping into discourse about Israel, most members of the public understandably run a mile, meaning many campaigns about Israel are left to flounder, extending little beyond a bubble of politically conscious activists left preaching to themselves.”
This is exactly the case. Here’s an example -
http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=686
A letter from Mary Rizzo endorsing a ridiculously anti-semitic Holocaust denial site. The article bears a collection of tags - visible at the bottom - that represent an anti-semite’s fever dream: “… Jewish Porn Industry, Jewish Lobby, Jews Behind Bolshevik Revolution, Alternative Media, Canadian Identity/Sovereignty, Zionist Jews in Russia, Germany, Jews, Ernst Zundel, Jewish Banking Cartel, Jewish Holocaust Industry, Human Rights/orgs, Israel Shamir/writer, B’nai Brith, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Media Monopoly, Freedom of Thought, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Jewish Congress, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.”
But here’s what Rizzo has to say: “I hope you realise that it is a valuable resource, and any campaigning made to insinuate that it is a racist site is not at all accurate.”
And so blind Mary Rizzo find herself left behind, rallying supporters but coming up with only the Atzmons, the ‘Shamir’s, the Wendy Campbells of the world. It is difficult to imagine under what circumstances she could add anything positive to the Israel/Palestinian discussion, and even if she did, speaking as she is from down inside such a deep and self-created credibility hole, its unlikely anyone could even hear her.
Comment by goodwin sands — 10 February, 2008 @ 12:17 am
I see that Mikey has yet again seen fit to ignore the quotes which I have provided that he was happy to be an informer for Atzmon. There are more up there on Rizzo’s peacepalestine sewer site.
So if Mikey does indeed ’simply detest the political views of Atzmon’ why act as his informer against someone who has been his most determined foe? Simple question but Mikey can’t give the simple answer, which is that Zionists will indeed work with anti-Semites against their main foes, anti-Zionists.
I have read Braham’s 2 books and they rely heavily on no less than people like Ben Hecht, who is quite clear about the role of Kastner.
As I’ve already said the Israeli Supreme Court delivered 5 different verdicts - 3 favourable to Kastner, 2 not favourable. The fact that there was a formal 4-1 vote on technical grounds does not invalidate this and contrary to what Mikey wrote, the Supreme Court, which is a political body like its US counterpart, voted 5-0 that Kastner collaborated in exonerating one SS war criminal.
Becher incidentally was already a Colonel with the SS and was promoted to General in January 1945.
Arendt and Einstein were not politicians, they had contradictory views at different times of their lives but both recoiled against Jewish nationalism, the type of Jewish nationalism that Mikey, Hirsh et al espouse and saw in Israel the possibility of a cultural centre for Jews. Maybe when a unitary state of Palestine is created then that will be an actualite.
Mark Elf answers for himself, just like Mikey occasionally does for himself.
I also notice, despite Mikey’s witterings, that he hasn’t told us why Hess supported the blood libel myth and whether Mikey therefore endorses it too? Either you do or you don’t endorse Hess’s many comments on race, such as the length of Jewish noses etc. That this was typical among Zionist ideologues is maybe part of the problem. They were all racist to a man.
Professor Loeb who Mikey quotes is indeed an enthusiast for Kastner. Not surprisingly since he was one of the lucky 1684 people on the train of the ‘prominents’. The allegations of collaboration against Kastner came from those who were among the approx. 200,000 Hungarian Jews who survived because the Jews of Budapest were not deported, though subject to the tender mercies of the Nyilas fascists. Those who lost their relatives because one word from Kastner about Auschwitz and they would have fled across the border to Rumania. That is the crime that Mikey wants to defend.
And as I said Mikey not only works with Atzmon but he’s happy to act as a supporting chorus for the claims of Brighton NF. When he tells us what his anti-fascist activity consists of then he can be taken seriously.
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 10 February, 2008 @ 12:31 am
I endorse what Goodwin says. I have only just come across this Radical Magazine (radical as in Germany). It is listed as one of the organisations/individuals signing up to Atzmons and Rizzo’s little petition on www.peacepalestine.blogspot.com saying I’ve been unfair to them! I don’t think Mikey’s yet got around to signing.
Richard is a Zionist so he doesn’t want a boycott to work. He is a giveaway with his talk of Hamas (Israel creation circa 1981) and rockets (but not Israeli rockets)but his nonsense about Israel not being an apartheid state is just that.
According to Roee Nahmias in YNet News March 27, 2007 (Yediot Aharanot online) in an article‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’ we are told that over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.
The survey also found that over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.
Over 56 percent of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country.
Over half of the participants said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab, and 55 percent said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”. When asked what they thought of Arab culture, over 37 percent replied, “The Arab culture is inferior.”
And of Israeli Jews 62% want Arab emigration; nearly one third of respondents say Jewish majority required for crucial national decisions, almost two thirds want to encourage Arabs to leave the country http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3248693,00.html
This isn’t marginal racism but symptomatic of a diseased and racist society. Apartheid isn’t ‘whites only’ signs but what happens in practice. When you can’t rent land because you are not Jewish or can’t work in a factory because it is ’security related’ and you are not Jewish or you can’t live with your Palestinian spouse and remain in Israel. This is apartheid as is the continual displacement of Bedouin in the Negev and the destruction of their unrecognised villages (Jewish towns are never unrecognised). Or the Judaification programmes for the Negev and Galilee (strike a bell that work? how about Aryanisation?).
The fact is that Israel is an apartheid society but worse than South Africa. In the latter they simply denied Blacks any political rights. In Israel they didn’t do that, they expelled them instead! And those remaining had political rights as long as they didn’t use them to question the Jewish nature of the state.
So yes, BDS is exactly the right way to go. Of course there’s no anti-Jewish imagery in it. That is why Rizzo and Atzmon oppose boycott incidentally, for Atzmon it is ‘book burning’. In fact not only Mikey but David Hirsh and Atzmon should get on like a house on fire. It’s no wonder that Mikey is Atzmon’s unpaid research assistant.
Tony Greenstein
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3381978,00.html
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 10 February, 2008 @ 12:50 am
The Tony Greenstein committee makes me feel like throwing up - and let’s get it straight: Tony Greenstein (and Andy Newman, New Man = homosexualised,zionist, Illuminati, Space lizard stooge)is not ONE person, but a well-funded and well-staffed zionist propaganda operation, dedicated to destroying PSC.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 10 February, 2008 @ 2:23 am
Tony Greenstein is a complete joker.
He comments again suggesting that I am “happy to be an informer for Atzmon.” However if we look at what happened in that conversation, I was attacking you for more of your erroneous comments. Atzmon asked me also for comments about Rance and I responded that I was busy dealing with you. I would have dealt with you irrespective of the comments of Atzmon and I would also deal with the nonsense of Rance irrespective of Atzmon. One wonders how warped Greenstein’s mind actually is if he thinks I would work with someone who openly wants to see the State of Israel destroyed. As I did in my article “Jews and Jews Haters” which I referred to in my above post (222) I attacked both Atzmon and Greenstein in the article for having the same end goal.
One can only laugh at Greenstein’s simply ludicrous statement, “I have read Braham’s 2 books and they rely heavily on no less than people like Ben Hecht, who is quite clear about the role of Kastner.” If Greenstein had actually read The Politics of Genocide by Braham, he would know that the statement he has made is completely false. For those who are not aware, Randolph Braham is the foremost scholar in the world on the Holocaust in Hungary. There is not any credible scholar who studies that subject who does not footnote the work of Braham in their own books. Ben Hecht, however, is not a historian and nor does he claim to be, Hecht was a playwright who was more used to writing and assisting to write the screenplays for films such as Gone with the Wind, Roman Holiday and Scarface. To claim that Braham relied upon Hecht is simply pathetic. I do not know who Greenstein is trying to fool, but as the saying goes, you cannot fool all the people all the time.
To make it clear, in the index of The Politics of Genocide (revised and enlarged edition, 1994,) Braham has two references to Ben Hecht for over 1,500 pages of text. One reference (p. 1,161) is a footnote where when referring to the actual document of the Supreme Court ruling, Braham mentions that there are also extracts in Ben Hecht’s book. The more major reference is for page 836. I copy the paragraph in full below:
“The same conclusion [that Kasztner allegedly offered to remain silent and ‘help keep the Jews from resisting deportation’ in exchange for the opportunity to rescue 15,000-20,000 ‘biologically valuable’ Jews] was reached by a number of anti-Zionist or anti-Mapai Zionist figures, including Vrba and Ben Hecht. According to them, Kasztner and his associates constituted a group of quislings who sold out Hungarian Jewry to save themselves, their friends, and a few rich Jews. They reject the view of some historians, including Professor J. L. Talmon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, that by the time those associated with the Jewish Councils ‘grasped the real aim of the Nazis they were no more than helpless and benumbed hostages.’ Vrba claims that men like Kasztner were far from ‘helpless;’ they were in fact ‘clever diplomats who knew what their silence was worth.’ Hecht with his own ‘revisionist’ axe to grind against the official Zionist leadership, extends this accusation to virtually everyone associated with the Mapai or the Jewish Agency.” [1]
That is the complete paragraph and I trust Greenstein will no longer make such a ludicrous claim that Braham relied heavily upon Hecht.
In fact, Hecht’s work that Greenstein and Brenner for that matter is keen to rely upon was widely criticized by many scholars. Chaim Lieberman went so far as to write a 109 page booklet exposing Hecht for his own nonsense. [2]
Why Greenstein is continuing with this 3:2 nonsense about the Supreme Court verdict in the Kasztner trial, I will never know. I do not know how many scholars he needs me to quote to show that it was a 4:1 majority but I will quote one more. The scholar who has probably done the most work on this case is Yechiam Weitz. He states quite clearly:
“• There was not one verdict but five—each one of the five judges who sat on the bench issued his own opinion.
• The verdict of Justice Shimon Agranat, with which four of the five judges concurred, totally reversed the verdict of Judge Halevi.
• There was no agreement among the judges of the highest court. Alongside the verdict of Agranat there was also the verdict of Justice Moshe Silberg, who accepted Halevi’s verdict in principle.
• The highest Court of Appeals altered both the verdict and the sentence issued by Halevi. Halevi acquitted Gruenwald on three of the four charges of the indictment, convicted him on one (that Kasztner shared with Becher the spoils of the property of Jews of Hungary), and imposed a symbolic fine. The Supreme Court judges, on the other hand, convicted him of three of four counts, acquitted him on one (the question of the declaration regarding the matter of Kurt Becher), and imposed a substantive punishment.
• The judges did not stop with reversing Halevi’s verdict, but, in a very unusual step, the President of the Court, Justice Olshan, severely criticized the manner in which Halevi had conducted the trial. He argued that “in several respects the trial was not conducted in accordance with accepted procedural rules: Halevi allowed irrelevant testimony,” as well as “extended, endless cross-examinations concerning trivial matters, which prolonged the trial in an exaggerated manner.”” [3]
I also have no idea why Greenstein tries to dispute what I say about Kurt Becher. Greenstein should know by now that I know an awful lot more about the Kasztner case, Kurt Becher and surrounding issues than he does. Moreover, I have the most scholarly accounts at my fingertips in my personal library, so all I have to do is to turn around, pick a book of my shelf and prove him wrong. Despite the fact that I have already used the authoritative study of Kador an Vagi,to show thatGreenstein is wrong, he still insists that he is correct (without providing any source). I will therefore provide another impeccable source: Szabolcs Szita, the head historian at the Holocaust museum in Budapest. He said that Becher’s rank was Obersturmbannfuhrer (Lieutenant-Colonel) and in January 1945 he was promoted. The new rank was Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) [4]
Greenstein shows his ignorance of the conditions of the Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary with his astounding claim that had the Hungarian Jews known about Auschwitz they could have fled across the border to Rumania. Greenstein does not consider for a moment how they could have done this. He does not consider that the Jews had no cars as they were prohibited from Jews, they were not allowed on train as they were also prohibited so Greenstein firstly does not consider the problem of getting to the border in the first place. Secondly when at the border, what were the Jews going to do? Show a passport and travel across the border as if they were on some kind of day trip? The borders were heavily armed but Greenstein does not consider any of these details. For completeness on this matter, despite the danger and how hazardous and risky it was to attempt to cross the border, as Asher Cohen explains, between 5,000 and 7,000 Jews, most of whom who lived closer to he border did manager to be smuggled across of which about 2,000 were saved directly by the Zionist halutz resistance. [5]
Tony Greenstein is a complete joke. He should stop commenting on either Zionism, Nazism or the Holocaust as he can hardly string a sentence together without including at least one error or distortion.
Mikey
[1] Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, revised and enlarged edition Volume 2 (New York and Boulder: The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies Graduate Centre / The City University of New York and Social Science Monographs, 1994) p. 836
[2] Chaim Lieberman, The Man and His “Perfidy”: A Rejoinder to Ben Hecht’s Vitriolic Attack Upon the Government and Leaders of Israel.” (New York: Bloch Publishing, 1964)
[3] Yechiam Weitz, “The Holocaust on Trial: The Impact of the Kasztner and Eichmann Trials on Israeli Society,” Israel Studies Vol 1. No. 2 (1996) pp. 1-26
[4] Szabolcs Szita Trading in Lives?: Operations of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest, 1944-1945 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005) p. 34, p. 199
[5] Asher Cohen, “Resistance and Rescue in Hungary”in Ed. David Cesarani, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944, (Oxford: Berg, 1997) pp. 123-34
Comment by Mikey — 10 February, 2008 @ 3:07 am
Up at Comment # 91, a Tony Greenstein writes this: “Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky spelt [sic! spelled?] out his views on the Galut (Jews in Exile thus): ‘I have no doubt that I am a Zionist because the Jewish people is a very nasty people and its neighbours hate it and they are right. (S. Avineiri, p.162. Ktavim)”.
The source is a bit misconstrued which happens when you use secondary sources even though better ones are available. On page 27 of Jabotinsky’s autobiography, “Sippur Yamai”, in the Hebrew, he relates making his very first Zionist speech in Berne, Switzerland where he had gone as a journalist in 1888, having left high school. He was thus not yet 18 at the time. For those for whom Hebrew is still a foreign language, Joseph Schechtman’s biography basically translates the few sentences Jabotinsky managed to utter before being shouted off the platform of the students’ club at the University where Jabotinsky was hanging out (later that year in the fall, he went to Rome where he studied for some three years) in his Volume One, “Rebel and Staesman”, p.47.
As Jabotinsky recalled the situation, Nachum Syrkin made an appearance and tried to synthesize Zionism and Socialism and then the 17 and a half year old arose and said something like [and here I am using the original Hebrew for Schechtman inserts some terms that aren’t there in Jabo’s version YM]: “I am little acquainted with the teachings of socialism but I am undoubtedly a Zionist for the Jews were facing in the Diaspora a St. Bartholomew’s Night massacre. The enemies of the Jews were not completely wrong since in the dispersion the Jews are a very negative people and its neighbors harte them with justice. Only a wholesale emmigration of Jews to Palestine could save the Jewish people.”
As he himself explains, Jabotinsky had just taken the rail from Odessa to Berne and passed through the heart of Galicia. The main crossing between Russia and Central Europe at the time went through Brody and he was surprised at the hovels, poverty and off-setting impressions the Jews of that area provided for him, a Jew from intellectual and liberal Odessa and so presumed that if he was so affected, the Goy even more so.
So, that is the background. If one wishes to quote Jabotinsky, even at the age of 17.5, why not quote his prophetic outlook on what would happen to Jews without a Homeland.
Comment by Yisrael Medad — 10 February, 2008 @ 6:54 am
Sorry, that “harte” should, of course, be “hate”.
Comment by Yisrael Medad — 10 February, 2008 @ 6:56 am
Post #95 John W writes:-
” you call us Utopian? In case you haven’t realised, with regard to Palestine the Israeli working class isn’t listening. Your analysis is determinism at its worst. Israel is not a state in the normal sense of the word. It is a settler colonial state, committed to clearing the land of what it views as untermensch, the Palestinians. The Israeli working class benefits materially from Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, who aren’t used as exploited labour but are viewed solely as vermin to be expelled and cleansed from the land. Israel’s role as a US stretegic asset is also unique and makes our efforts in resisting its apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians vital.
Pandering to Israeli national chauvinism over the interests of the international working class this way is simply wrong.”
————————————————————————–
I honestly don’t see the point you’re making here at all.
How exactly does supporting a bi-national Socialist state pander to Israeli National Chauvinism?
It does exactly the opposite!
It would mean ending any special privileges of one side over another, demilitarisation of the state and providing the economic and political framework within which there was any practical possibility of settling the refugee question. What you seem to be saying on the other hand, is that ANY recognition of Jewish nationality EVEN within a bi-national state is reactionary.
i.e. that those Israelis who remain have to accept that they are ‘Arab-Jews’, (perhaps Dhimmis in a Hamas controlled state?)
That there should be no official recognition of Hebrew and no representation of ethnic or religious groups within the polity.
But that’s a Pan-Arabist position, which even the Saudi government promotes.
Sorry, but this is historically and politically ludicrous.
First of all, there are over 5 million Israeli Jews and even if they are secular, they speak Hebrew.
A totally different situation to that which existed in Iraq, Morocco or other Arab countries with sizeable Jewish minorities in the past.
The real history of Israel/Palestine is that the Jews and Arabs have been distinct groups for over 2,500 years.
Any future solution needs to recognise that fact.
Politically, making appeals to the declaration of the Rights of Man and vague promises of equality isn’t going to convince anyone, least of all Jews.
It’s never worked anywhere else and it isn’t going to work there either.
It’s simply a propaganda formula.
You also picture the views of the extremist right wing settlers as being synonymous with those of the Israeli working class.
This is completely untrue.
The fact that such views may be getting increased political support is in part, due to the attempt to impose a 2 state solution within a capitalist framework by imperial diktat.
Bi-Nationalism is the only approach that makes any sense.
It was even the official policy of Left-Labour zionists from the 1940’s to the late 50’s
It’s also supported by the left-wing Arab Knesset member Asmi Bishara.
Absolutely NOT a position that will make you friends on the chauvinist right in Israel.
But certainly one it’s possible to get a minority hearing on amongst both Jews and Arabs.
It’s even something actively discussed amongst Palestinian activists.
Socialism is the only economic system that can guarantee that it will work.
I’m not suggesting that this become official policy of a solidarity movement.
But socialists should argue for it within such a movement.
Eventually, the majority will see that it’s the only position which corresponds to reality.
Call that “determinist” if you like, but I don’t regard that as an insult.
Comment by prianikoff — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:25 am
Wow, interesting debate (yawn). How many times can Tony reiterate his lies and four really strange and equally monomaniacally obsessed types parrot it by simply insinuating and not engaging in rational thinking?
THIS is what I wrote in support of Radical Press:
Jan 17, 2008
Dear Editor,
The issue of peace in the Middle East is far too important for anyone to attempt to think it can only be dealt with between other “more important” issues such as sporting events and what Paris Hilton is doing these days. Yet, I do understand (as I am a journalist myself) that people do like to read things they already agree with that don’t challenge anything they think they already know, and especially, they don’t get encouraged to think out of the box.
At any rate, The Radical Press presents thought-provoking and intelligent information and analysis. It is absolutely NOT anti-Semitic, but many who might not agree with its harsh critique on Israel might try to label it as such, so that people will create confusion between the two, and things never change.
I hope you realise that it is a valuable resource, and any campaigning made to insinuate that it is a racist site is not at all accurate.
Mary Rizzo
Uh… where do I endorse Anti-Semitism Goodwind?
the “little petition” got Tony’s pants all knotted. He decided now he’s going to destroy Redress! Way to go, Tony. Is he going to go on a campaign against everyone who signed? Just wait until he sees the comments that I will publish.
BTW, lying through his teeth about the boycott is idiotic. Everyone but Tony knows I support the boycott. I actually go much farther than Tony by practicing what I preach. Tony suggested that I accept the invitation by an Israeli “peace” film director to plug his film. Tony affiliates with someone who absolutely does not support the Boycott, Shraga Elam, while Gilad just says it needs discussion, quite a different and not so small detail.
Tony lies through his teeth. He has very little support in Palestinian activism, because they see through him as if he were transparent.
The rest of what he writes is the same old BS, but let him carry on…. he asked for it.
One last thing, and VERY funny… Tony goes all Talmudic on Mikey. OH WOW!!! and, where did Tony get the info that Gilad converted?! That’s the best one I’ve heard all day. Keep on making up the stuff, Tony, but “support your argument with evidence!” You are the ultimate joker. How ANYONE takes you seriously is beyond me. And, want to know more? After your threat to Redress, the Head Editor signed the petition and said you do not scare them in the slightest.
BTW, the petition is on many Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian and other sites including The People’s Voice, Uruknet, Arab News… It’s being translated into Spanish because Rebelion, the major leftist internet site wants to publish it, and French because ISM France wants it. No one is afraid of you, Tony! You and your group of Zionist (and this is the way even a survivor of Auschwitz described you in a comment that you will soon see) comrades do not intimidate any of us.
And… do you have a life outside of banging on a computer? How do you find the time?????
Comment by thecutter — 10 February, 2008 @ 9:57 am
And by the way, Jabotinsky’s later-in-life thoughts on antisemitism and the Diaspora can be located in the book “The Political and Social Philosphy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky - Selected Writings”, M. Sarig, ed., Vallentine Mitchell 1999, Chapt 9, pp. 130 - 147 where he expounds on two categories - the antisemitism of “things” and of “men”. An additional source is the English translation of Professor Raphaella Bilski Ben-Hur’s “Every Individual, A King - The Social and Political Thought of Ze’ev Vladimir Jabotinsky”, Bnai Brith Books, 1993, 164 - 175.
Comment by Yisrael Medad — 10 February, 2008 @ 11:33 am
One of the problems the left has obviously had to deal with when it comes to Israel is the religious exclusivity of the state.
Unlike campaigns against the policies of warmongering regimes of religiously pluralist nations, many on the left seem to have seen no other option than to engage in a multi-layered campaign on Palestine that encompasses both 1) the military repression and 2) the rampant discrimination against non-Jews that has been enshrined in Israeli policy on the ground, on a daily basis, for blood-soaked decade after decade. The latter has obviously necessitated focussing on and questioning the religious ideological aspects of the conquest and occupation that gave birth to and enables the very existence and perpetuation of the Israeli state.
Obviously, in the spirit of extending international solidarity the racist nature of those policies needs to be opposed, but you can not effectively fight racism or hope to occupy the moral high-ground by engaging in language that is open to accusations of being anti-Judaic or racist itself.
This has been the tightrope balancing act that the left has had to walk when it comes to criticising and opposing apartheid Israel and grassroots policies ranging from land ownership, employment to healthcare that unapologetically favours Jews over Muslims. All this against the backdrop of a community, ravaged and scarred by the genocidal atrocities of a Nazi Holocaust that happened within living memory. A community understandably hyper sensitive today to any attacks and criticism that focus too much on their religious beliefs.
And therein lies the danger; bridge-destroying waters are entered when a campaigner, government or any form of media appears to blame and hold to account an entire religion and its followers wherever they may be across the world, for the actions of a single person, group or, in this case, entire nation state. It is very difficult to avoid treading on toes, alienating and burning bridges with that community when you do that, which is sad because the Jewish community, particularly those that have Israeli citizenship and have the vote and a powerful voice on the ground over there, are potentially the most effective ‘citizen’ ambassadors there are.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, I think those that benefit from the perpetuation of the conflict are filled with private glee when they see the two sides and camps at logger-heads, alienating and scape-goating the other, fighting, mud-slinging and name-calling, because it helps perpetuate what they want to achieve: the continuing mutual-demonisation and segregation of the two populations, with one ’sitting pretty’, controlling all the territory and resources, and the other, left powerless and downtrodden, living at the whim of a draconian 21st century imperial ‘over-lord’.
Where can you plant the seeds of reconciliation - of peace - when that’s the soil your working with?
My feeling is that there is a pressing need for rational discourse on the subject, perhaps a special conference or publication on the issue. My view is that you have to be pragmatic and focus on the need to achieve demonstrable, beneficial results on the ground for the people. Anti-imperialist, anti-Israeli colonialist discourse is one thing. bonbastic, anti-Judaic hyperbole quite another. It no doubt brings a warm glow to the hearts of those that engage in it, angered and fired up by Israeli human rights abuses - some of it they will have witnessed and even experienced at first hand - but what it does (other than antagonise and alienate other anti-racists and our Jewish comrades) to ultimately benefit the Palestinians is questionable.
There’s never been a better time for the left to take a few steps back from the coal face and reflect on the way ahead.
Comment by Tam G — 10 February, 2008 @ 11:56 am
John W., can you show us your dog-eared copy of “Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz)”?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 10 February, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Well, Tony is now promoting and arguing using Halacha Law, differentiating the Jew from the Goy, as a valid argument to do … what?? We are figuring that one out now. Will get back to it, as well as waiting not that patiently for the information on the Conversion to Christianity of Gilad Atzmon!!! This is so rich, you couldn’t make it up if you wanted to.
He does actually circulate Jabotinsky material on Alef, (as well as using Wikipedia as a source but lamenting when anyone else does….) so I think “Socialist Unity” blog should wonder just who they are giving all this bandwidth to!
Why not ask a Holocaust survivor who signed Walid’s petition what he has to say?
Dear friends,
For me, as a survivor of 10 month of Auschwitz, one thing is clear, there is a fundamental flaw
in Zionism. At least in the form in which it expresses itself in political reality. It has not accepted one of the fundamental truths of the Enlightenment: the essential and fundamental equivalence of all human beings.
Therefore, due to this fundamental flaw, political Zionism in its present form will eventually perish.
Unfortunately, you the Palestinians will have to mobilise a lot of somoud. So far, you have been able
to show that you can do it. Don’t despair, the enlightened world is with you.
Dr Hajo G. Meyer, Heiloo, the Netherlands
More comments will be posted in the coming days. But, this one seemed relevant for this venue.
Comment by thecutter — 10 February, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Hello Mary.
Tell us - although I suspect we already know - whether you find anything antisemitic about this tag list: “… Jewish Porn Industry, Jewish Lobby, Jews Behind Bolshevik Revolution, Alternative Media, Canadian Identity/Sovereignty, Zionist Jews in Russia, Germany, Jews, Ernst Zundel, Jewish Banking Cartel, Jewish Holocaust Industry, Human Rights/orgs, Israel Shamir/writer, B’nai Brith, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Media Monopoly, Freedom of Thought, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Jewish Congress, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” This is how Radical Press has tagged the page your letter appears on.
Anything there strike you as possibly a little dodgy?
You claim “The Radical Press presents thought-provoking and intelligent information and analysis. It is absolutely NOT anti-Semitic”
Yet: http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=308
A long piece by a leading Holocaust denier in praise of his movement.
Mary you’re the perfect portrait of the uncritical activist true-believer. Let someone claim to be pro-Palestinian and your criticial faculties shut down completely. This leaves you praising not only the toad Atzmon but Holocaust denial sites like Radical Press. If it were only a matter of your embarrassing yourself in an emperors-new-clothes sort of way I would say it’s merely entertaining, rather like when a Nabokov narrator unintentionally tips his hand and reveals himself to be mad as a battlefield. But because you have tied yourself to the Palestinian struggle there is more at stake than your own unintentional comedy, because of the damage you do to that struggle due to the startling vapidity with which you embrace anti-semites.
Comment by goodwin sands — 10 February, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
It is absolutely shocking that the cutter is defending The Radical Press by claiming, “The Radical Press presents thought-provoking and intelligent information and analysis. It is absolutely NOT anti-Semitic.”
Let us take some examples from a browse through its disgusting web site-
“AMERICA IS NOW A JEW-RUN NATION.” [1] February 2, 2008
Support for Holocaust Denial and the known Holocaust Denier, Ernst Zundel. [2]January 24, 2008 and December 2, 2007, April 3 2007 etc
Support for Neo-Nazism by those “who are genuinely desirous of fighting Jewish supremacism and the anti-white death cult ” [3] February 2, 2008
Support for standard antisemitic filth:
“The Jew also believes he is destined to own and rule the whole world as a ‘master race.’”
“The Jews are not going to stop what they are doing to us! We are going to have to stop them, even if that means separating them from our midst permanently!”
“Jewish supremacists thrive and thieve more successfully in a country without a strong majority that is well-organized for its own self-interest, as whites used to be before the Jewish Trojan Hebrew Horse rode into town”
“the whole concept of “multiculturalism”, the kind offered up like a steady dietary staple on a majority of college campuses, was created by Jews. In fact, as political dissident author Curtis Maynard explains, a Jewish woman actually wrote a whole primer to encourage and spread this alien ideology.”
“Abortion is a modern and grisly Jewish death trade. Jews run 50% of abortuaries in America (though only comprising 2% of the population) and they make up the leadership of nearly every pro-abortion activist group…. the main impetus or stimulus for the Jewish abortion cheerleaders is to dramatically lower the white birthrate, thereby killing off their chief competitors and decreasing the white surplus population.”
“Most teens in America have a far more favorable view of homosexuals than their parents or grandparents ever did. But this is the Jewish way. Brainwash, propagandize and then recruit, recruit, recruit like hell! But as Jewish homosexual organizations try to indoctrinate sexually confused young people into the gay death style there seems to be more at work here than simple “tolerance” or “diversity” issues. This is an effort to tear asunder the notion of “traditional family” that has been the bedrock of Western survival….Though not all homosexual enthusiasts are Jewish, their leaders surely are.”
“All of these facets of the Jewish blueprint have one central theme. They impose sickness and social disease and degeneracy and death by constant fiat.” [4] January 31, 2008
But of course, according the cutter, none of the above is antisemitic.
[1]http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=681
[2] http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=663#more-663 and
http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=563#more-563
and http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=436#more-436
[3] http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=683#more-683
[4] http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=674#more-674
Comment by Mikey — 10 February, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Mary Rizzo describes The Radical Press thus:
‘The Radical Press presents thought-provoking and intelligent information and analysis. It is absolutely NOT anti-Semitic, but many who might not agree with its harsh critique on Israel might try to label it as such, so that people will create confusion between the two, and things never change.’
Well let’s see what this intelligent, thought provoking and analytical site can offer.
There are articles on the:
Jewish Banking Cartel (82) Jewish Holocaust Industry (77) Jewish Lobby (112) Jewish Media Monopoly (105) Jewish Porn Industry (50) Jews (148) Jews Behind Bolshevik Revolution
http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=681#more-681
Let us take Brother Daniel’s incisive article:
AMERICA IS RUN BY JEWS
By Brother Nathanael Kapner
Copyright © 2008
Brother Nathanael bronathanael@yahoo.com
AMERICA IS NOW A JEW-RUN NATION. Here is a list of the prominent Jews who run America:
On second thoughts let not take it.
Elsewhere we learn that ‘Judaism is a “chameleon” culture/religion. It “becomes” whatever is necessary in order to deceive and trick non-Jews’
http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=681#more-681
Yes, these are all excellent ways to support the Palestinians. Anti-semites unite.
Fact is that Mary Rizzo is such an anti-Semitic twisted little individual that she can no longer tell the difference between anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinians and anti-Semitism.
And another article by the object of her adoration, Gilad Atzmon, which is on the Redress site:
‘Brave new world war Holocaust politics in the service of Anglo-American hegemony
I do not wish to enter the debate regarding the truth of the Holocaust but the ugly face of Holocaust politics cannot be hidden any more.’
As for Mikey however much he twists and spins he can’t get out of the fact that he was doing deals with Atzmon, who praises him in comparison with me. To wit:
Mikey, can you provide us with the criminal record of this Bugger-Rance. Is he on spent conviction like greenie l or is he just an ordinary liar?
Gilad Atzmon | 03.12.07 - 8:00 pm | #
I have been very busy digging up stuff on Tony Greenstein - Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.
Mikey | 03.12.07 - 8:53 pm | #
‘Mikey, I hope you do not mind me saying that, but your contribution for the pls solidarity movement is priceless.
To anyone with eyes to see the above is quite clear. Mikey doesn’t say, no fuck off Atzmon, I don’t work for you. He says ‘Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.’ And Atzmon replies in the same spirit: ‘your contribution for the pls solidarity movement is priceless’. Why? Because Mikey was trying to dig up dirt on me to be used by holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
I suggest a long period of silence from you would not go amiss.
Mikey suggests there are only 2 references to Hecht in Braham’s books (1981 edition Columbia Press. How about footnotes 61, 62, 64, 111, 113, 117, 118 pp. 727-731. They are probably not all but those I’ve quickly scanned, which makes 7 not 2! Clearly arithmetic is also not the collaborator’s main claim to fame.
Mikey mentions Professor Talmon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and indeed he is worth a mention, as he was one of the main defenders of the Judenrat, the quisling Jewish Councils set up by the Nazis as part of their programme to annihilate the Jews.
In ‘Escaping Auschwitz – A Culture of Forgetting’ by Professor Ruth Linn of Haifa University, a book I reviewed in Tribune last year, she reprints an exchange of letters between Talmon and Rudolph Vrba. Vrba is one of the heroes of the Jewish resistance. He together with Alfred Wexler, the 2nd and 3rd Jewish escapees from Auschwitz gave testimony for what became the Auschwitz Protocols. These for the first time definitively showed where Auschwitz was and laid out a map and detailed the exterminations there.
On September 8 1963 there was a report from Hannah Arendt on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and how the trial had been manipulated to serve the purposes of Zionist historiography. She questioned many things including the role of the Judenrat and the accusation that the Jews of Europe went to their deaths like sheep, as if they did something different from other victims of genocide.
‘Arendt argued that it was imperative to study the connection between the functioning of the wartime Jewish leaders and the lack of Jewish opposition or to what extent the Jewish leaders might have contributed to the “sheep-to-the-slaughter” state of mind. It certainly ought to have interested the prosecution, who relentlessly kept asking the witnesses: Why did you not resist.’
On September 15 Talmon replied. Signing himself off as Professor of Modern History’ he referred to Arendt, one of the greatest of philosophers, as ‘Miss Arendt’ – a calculated insult. On September 22 Vrba replied describing how he and Wetzler had escaped from Auschwitz on April 7 1944. I quote:
‘In April 1944 we handed to a high representative of the Zionist movement (in Slovakia) Dr Oskar Neumann, a 60 page detailed report on the fact that extermination of 1.76m Jews had taken place in Auschwitz…. Did the Judenrat (or the Udenverrat) in Hungary tell their Jews what was awaiting them? No, they remained silent and for this silence some of their leaders – for instance Dr R. Kasztner – bartered their own lives and the lives of 1684 other ‘prominent’ Jews directly from Eichmann. They were not ‘helpless and benumbed hostages’ but clever diplomats who knew what their silence was worth. The 1684 Jews whom they bought from Eichmann included not only various prominent Zionists, not only relatives of Kasztner etc, but also such Jews who were able to pay with millions… At the same time they silently watched as more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews, unaware of their fate, were tricked into Auschwitz, where thousands of their children were not even gassed but merely thrown into the pyre alive.’
And he concluded: ‘Now Professor Talmon is an historian and he should understand that if we ponder and speak about the past it is because we think about the future. This historical phenomenon has to be faced if we are able to understand mankind.’ (Linn, pp. 9-13)
Of course it is understandable that the small collaborator, Mikey, identifies with historians who are also apologists for collaboration. I prefer to identify with the non-Zionist Rudolph Vrba who did his utmost to reveal the whereabouts of Auschwitz and what was about to happen to the last remaining large Jewish community in Europe which had been untouched so far. The Auschwitz Protocols were handed to Kasztner on April 29th by Oskar Neumann and Kasztner sat on them. He did nothing to publicise them or make sure that the gist of what they were saying were distributed to the Jewish communities of Hungary. The major Jewish community of Kolozvar (Cluj) was but a few miles from the Romanian border. It is indisputable, because this is what the survivors who challenged Kasztner after the war said, that they could have crossed the border to Romanian. Some may have perished but some would undoubtedly survived. Everwhere in Europe where Jews fled the ghettos for the forests some survived. Even if it was only 50% it was 50% higher than survived if they went in a sealed train to the extermination camps.
That Mikey defends the Zionist collaborators shows exactly where he is coming from. He is not someone to accuse of modesty. He believes he knows more than me about Holocaust history. Even were this true it would be irrelevant because he comes with predetermined conclusions, viz. that nothing the Zionists did was wrong. It is not a question of how much individuals know, as Vrba demonstrated with Talmon, who was undoubtedly a scholar with much knowledge, but to what use you put that knowledge and what sense you make of it. Mikey uses what knowledge he possesses to justify collaboration. And his great stores of knowledge, as showed by his reference to Hecht and Braham seems to be primarily dipping in and out of books. If he had read Brahams as opposed to just going to the index then he would know that there were a number of references to Ben Hecht in the footnotes and that Braham did indeed rely heavily on him for the section on Kasztner.
Ben Hecht incidentally was a Zionist dissident, a supporter of the Revisionists, but despite this he was an ardent campaigner to save ALL Jews not just Zionist leaders in Nazi occupied Europe. Hence he supported the Bergson/Merlin group of Zionist dissidents who campaigned to make people aware of the Holocaust and to force the US Government to do something. The Zionist leaders bitterly opposed this group because they were more concerned about forming a future Jewish state rather than saving Jews in the here and now.
Yisrael Medad refers me to the original of what Jabotinsky said in the original Hebrew. I am happy to stand corrected because I am not a Hebrew speaker and therefore do have to rely in this instance on secondary sources. However Shlomo Avineiri, albeit a Labour Zionist whereas Y Medad is a Revisionist Zionist, gives I think a faithful translation, bearing in mind that any translation is always open to translation. I have seen at least 3 different translations of Ben Gurion’s famous 1938 memo to the Zionist Executive on having to choose between
‘refugeeism’ and building a state. Who is to say which is right? Any interpretation is a work of art to some extent.
Yisrael’s quotation is: ‘“I am little acquainted with the teachings of socialism but I am undoubtedly a Zionist for the Jews were facing in the Diaspora a St. Bartholomew’s Night massacre. The enemies of the Jews were not completely wrong since in the dispersion the Jews are a very negative people and its neighbors harte them with justice. Only a wholesale emmigration of Jews to Palestine could save the Jewish people.”
Avineiri’s is: ‘I do not know if I am a socialist, since I have not yet acquainted myself with this doctrine; but I have no doubt that I am Zionist, because the Jewish peopoe is a very nasty people, and its neighbours hate it and they are right; its end in the Diaspora will be a general Bartholomew Night, and the only rescue is general immigration to Palestine.’
I don’t think there are major differences between the 2 versions. I don’t accept Medad’s reasoning, viz. that ‘he was surprised at the hovels, poverty and off-setting impressions the Jews of that area provided for him, a Jew from intellectual and liberal Odessa and so presumed that if he was so affected, the Goy even more so.’ Is Medad really saying that the cause of anti-Semitism was the poverty Jews lived in? Non-Jews were also poverty stricken. The causes were political not the state that Jews were living in.
The point I was making was that the utter contempt and hatred for the Jewish diaspora was a common feature of Zionist ideologues. Actually this was most true of the Labour Zionists. If it makes Medad happier I will conceded that this was less true for Revisionism. It is no accident that Hecht, Bergson and Merlin came from the Revisionists who did believe, wrongly that Palestine could save all Jews. It was a chimera. The only way of preventing the holocaust was resistance in Europe and it is no accident that 6 and not 8 million died. This was because the Soviet Union, for all its hideous deformations, save up to 2 millions if not more. When the Soviet troops retreated in the summer of 1941 they took with them hundreds of thousands of Jews, in some cases whole communities.
For example I could quote from an article by Joachim Doron ‘Classic Zionism and Modern Anti-Semitism: Parallels and Influences (1883-1914), Studies in Zionism, No. 8 Autum 1983 where he says: ‘It cannot be denied that the Jewish self-criticism so widespread among the German Zionist intelligentsia often seemed dangerously similar to the plaints of the German anti-Semites.’ p.171.
It would be churlish to go over at length the quotations from Arthur Ruppin’s Diary. Ruppin was know as the father of the settlements. A key person in charge of land settlement within the World Zionist Organisation. Doron quotes how when Ruppin was accused of being an anti-Semite, he replied that:
‘I have already established here [in his diary] that I despise the canceres of Judaism more than does the worst anti-Semite…’ (entry 4.8.93.) And what was his take on the Dreyfuss trial, where the French aristocratic and military caste sought to pin the label of treason on a Jewish officer as a means of rolling back the gains of Emancipation for French Jewry as a whole?
‘In Paris a captain by the name of Dreyfuss has been arrested on charges of spying: he is a Jew. In Berlin a major usury trial is taking place. Naturally the accused are Jews, and so it goes on. I fear that up till now I have had too good an opinion of my people and perhaps the anti-Semites are right in their charges after all!… Even the gravest punishment is not too harsh for this Dreyfus, since not he alone but all the rest of us must suffer for his guilt.’ (23.11 and 23.12.94) So much for the idea that Herzl was so horrified by the Dreyfus Affair that he became a Zionist.
Doron speaks of Ruppin’s ‘revulsion toward the Jewish character and its physical embodiment.’ p. 191
Ruppin, Klatzkin, Hess and Jabotinsky were not, however, isolated figures. This was endorsed by all major Zionist figures. They believed in the ‘new Jew’ as opposed to the ‘hideous’ speciment in the Jewish Diaspora. If one doesn’t understand this one doesn’t understand anything about the role of Zionism. That is why I disagree with Andy that Zionism was a Jewish national movement. It wasn’t. It was a quisling movement. Those Zionists who did fight against anti-Semitism, such as Mordechai Anielwicz, commander of the Jewish Fighting Organisation in Warsaw Ghetto did this not because of but despite their Zionism. And Anielwicz made this clear himself when he referred to the wasted years engaging in Jewish self-education and running Kibbutzim (under the Nazis no less!).
Take the Zionist newspaper Die Welt. As Doron notes:
‘One of the most effective weapons of the anti-Semites in reinforcing the stereotype of the Jew in the consciousness of the masses was the caricature whose purpose was to make its object hateful to the general public. The Zionist newspaper Die Welt, however saw in the caricature – and especially the anti-Semitic caricature – a positive and educational value. According to that view, those who denounced the Jewish people over the ages unwittingly filled an e ducational role. For the Jew must come to know himself ‘and who will deny that there are faults in the Jews that invite caricature?’ The Jewish typology that appeared in the anti-Semitic caricatures was not new. For example the French artist Charles Huard who frequently won enthusiastic reviews in the Zionist paper, repeatedly portrayed nouveau riche; the leech that s uchs the blood of the French and the ‘impudent’ Jew who pushes his way into Christian society quite uninvited. (Rudolph Lothar ‘Antisemitische Karikaturen, Die Welt, no. 3 1897, p.14. Lothar concluded thus:
‘An anti-Semitic teacher once said ‘It is impossible to be too hard on the Jews.’ The man was pretty close to the truth. Only relentless vigor, only relentless denunciation can heal Judaism of its ills.’
There is much else I could quote. But now people can judge where Mikey’s comment ‘“The most virulent anti-Semitism comes from Zionists who hate the Galut (Jewish diasporah).” Zionists certainly do not hate the Jewish diaspora, Greenstein has simply made this claim up.’ is in fact true or merely a demonstration of the ignorance of this purveyor of hasbarah (propaganda).
Maybe a more general point since nothing will shake the collaborator Mikey’s belief that he is the greatest historian since Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, the Roman orator and politician.
Andy wrote a good article on anti-Semitism on which there should be a debate. However it quickly got sidelined onto Zionism etc. I think this demonstrates that today anti-Semitism cannot be discussed in isolation from the movement which took anti-Semitism as its starting point and which continues to define anti-Semitism in such a way that they target above all their anti-Zionist opponents.
I haven’t pointed out the sordid dealings between Mikey and Atzmon just to embarrass the former or to his false allegations on Aaronovitch’s blog in order to humiliate him, though clearly he is prone to making wild allegations that cannot be sustained. It is because Zionism always considered anti-Semitism normative, a natural reaction of non-Jews to the Jews in their midst.
I also suggest that there is no point in discussing anti-Semitism when anti-Semites like Mary Rizzo participate. She clearly hasn’t an inkling just what anti-Semitism is. Even the most virulently anti-Semitic sites are, to her, just anti-Zionist. I suggest any posting by her on the subject is deleted as soon as Andy is able to because she has nothing to contribute. And trolls like Fabian from Israel who likewise are more than happy to justify the most overt racism are deleted. That way there may be a genuine discussion. Fabian can go to a blog which debates whether it is right to bar non-Jews from ‘Jewish’ land and the like. But just as Rizzo doesn’t understand anti-Semitism, he doesn’t understand anti-Arab racism.
Let me include extracts from ‘Zionism was right’ a report of a lecture by A B Yehoshua to the Union of Jewish Students as reported in the Jewish Chronicle. I can e-mail anyone who wants the whole article:
‘Zionism was right
Novelist A. B. Yehoshua raises a debate on Israel’s centrality to Jewish life
ZIONISM started at the end of the 19th century, not because of the memory of eretz yisrael for which Jews had never ceased to long. Zionism was created as a political movement out of the fear of the diaspora, which for the first tine overcame the fear of Eretz Yisrael.
…
Later on, Jabotinsky issued his famous warning: “If you do not destroy the gola, then the gola will destroy you. “The great majority of the Jewish people; however, persisted in opposing Zionism.’
Anti-Zionism is not the product of the non-Jews. On the contrary, the Gentiles have always encouraged Zionism, hoping that it would help to rid them of the Jews in their midst. Even today, in a perverse way, a real antisemite must be a Zionist.
Nevertheless, the main opposition to Zionism came from among the Jews themselves. For example, the great chasidim on the one hand, and the extreme Socialist movement, the bund, on the other, opposed Zionism
The Balfour Declaration issued in 1917 was a moment of grace. Britain was inviting the Jews to establish a homeland in Eretz Yisrael. The world Jewish population at that time totalled six and a half million”— two and a half million of whom were on the move from Eastern Europe to America.
If only five per cent of them had come to Eretz Yisrael in the 1920s, our destiny might have been completely different. With 800, 000 Jews, we could have established a Jewish State then and its existence could have saved countless Jewish lives in the Second World War.
The British cannot be blamed. Lloyd George and others were very favourable towards Zionism but they could not hold the country for us forever. Yet the Jews did not come. Then Britain got involved in the war and it could not fulfil Zionism for us. This was the failure of the Jewish people. Zionism was right, but the Jewish people failed.
The final proof that Jews do not want to come to eretz yisrael is that since the establishment of the State 90 per cent of new immigrants have come through lack of choice. The remaining 10 per cent prove that you don’t have to come only because someone is forcing you to.
Eretz Yisrael is the pillar of Judaism. for Jews have never forgotten the Promised Land. They say in. their prayers: “Next year in Jerusalem. ” So why aren’t they coming? This is a pathological situation.
…
This refusal to come to Israel has been constant since the time of the Second Temple. It is a malady which is deep in our veins because there has always been a superficial excuse ready without trying to look deeper into the malady.
…
The definition of a Jew as the child of a Jewish mother is a very narrow one. No one would define a British person as being “a child of a British mother. ” To be British, you have to be connected to the British framework, to be eligible for conscription into the British Army, etc. Next to this come the religious and cultural concepts of Judaism and there is a conflict between the two definitions which the diaspora is helping to avoid.
…
People should not say, “Next year in Jerusalem, ” if they do not mean it. Don’t be dishonest with us Israelis, with yourself or with the Gentiles around you. By living in an uncommitted situation, you are escaping from your responsibilities.
Jewish Chronicle 22.1.82.
This is also the answer to the trite and superficial argument of the Mikeys of this world that the prayer ‘next year in Jerusalem’ has any political meaning. It didn’t until imperialism decided that it should.
My apologies for the length of the post but as the old saying goes, by the time a lie has gone 12 times around the world, the truth has only just got its boots on.
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 10 February, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Greenie,is there any dignity in your pathetic system?
Palestinian activists are clearly asking you to leave the room….
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/02/petition-for-two-activists-that-you.html
“We, Palestinians and activists for Palestine, express our solidarity with Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo….. Tony Greenstein created among his usual lies that some Palestinians attack and defame the two dedicated supporters of the Palestinian cause, Atzmon and Rizzo. We declare that he does not speak for us or in our names when he attacks these and other activists.
Initial Signatories: other names will be added and comments that have been sent will be compiled and published.
Adib S. Kawar, Nazareth, Palestine - Beirut, Lebanon
Walid Halabi, France-Italy
Arab Abdel-Hadi PMWATCH, Ansar Al-Quds. LEBANONVIEW, Free Palestine and others
Malak Abdel-Hadi, Palestinian living in Dubai
Shahira Mehrez, Egyptian living in Cairo, Egypt
Paola Pisi, Italy, URUKNET
Ismail Zayid, Canada
Nizar Issa, London, UK
Nadia Hasan, Chile
Dr Sadek Pharaon MD, Syria
Oren Ben Dor, UK
Manuel Talens, Spain
Dima Hamdan, London, UK
Iqbal Tamimi, Exiled Journalist Network – UK, A Palestinian journalist and poet
Samir Daoud - Akka Palestine - residence: Beirut – Lebanon
Nadia Daoud - Akka Palestine - Residence: Beirut – Lebanon
Hala Kawar – Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut – Lebanon
Wajih Freij – Jerusalem, Palestine - Residence: Beirut – Lebanon
Lamia Kawar – Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut - Lebanon
Ibrahim Kawar – Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut - Lebanon
Fausto Giudice, Secretary, France, Zapatist Alliance for Social Liberation
Ginette Hess Skandrani, France, Chairwoman, Zapatist Alliance for Social Liberation
Wael AlSaad, Düsseldorf-Germany. PYN Coordinator-Germany Palestinian Community Düsseldorf Board
Dr Hajo G. Meyer, Heiloo, the Netherlands, survivor of Auschwitz
The Radical Press, Canada
Mauro Manno, Italy
Manuela Vittorelli, Italy
Diego Traversa, Italy
Vicente Romano, Spain
Carlos Sanchis, Spain
Nancy Harb Almendras, United States, Germany
Zuhair Nafa, Palestine
Raja Chemayel, The Hague, Netherlands
Theodore D. Turner, Brooklyn, New York
Kristoffer Larsson, Sweden
Ellen Rohlfs, Germany, German-Palestinian Society and Gush Shalom
Hergen Matussik, Germany
Benedetta Scardovi-Mounier, USA/Italy
Cristina Santos, London, UK
Rocío Anguiano, Spain
Sigge Andersson, pre-med student, Sweden
Guenter Schenk, France/Germany, Aktionsbündnis für einen gerechten Frieden in Palästina
LanceThruster, LA, CA, USA
Mary Sparrowdancer, Tallahassee, FL
Birgit Jödahl, Sweden
Miguel Martinéz, Florence, Italy
Susanne Scheidt, Al-Awda Italia
Jean-Marie Flémal, writer and translator, WPB (Workers’ Party of Belgium), Charleroi, Belgium.
Edna Spennato, South Africa-Brazil, Earth Heal Geoharmonic Research Project
Abdullah Husain, Palestine by birth, KSA, India by life accident
Wendy Campbell, California, USA, MarWen Media
Peter Brooke, UK, www.peterbrooke.org.uk
Daniel McGowan, Geneva, NY, Exec. Director, Deir Yassin Remembered
Debbie Brown, Hacienda Heights, California USA
Kenneth Rasmusson, Sweden
Redress Information & Analysis, London, UK
Schuyler Ebbets, USA, The People’s Voice.org
Ragnar B. Johannessen, Norway, The People’s Voice.org
Annie Selden Annab, Annie’s Letters Blog
Jim Leven, UK, PSC member
Javier Fernández Retenaga, Spain
Shaukat Khawja, Toronto, Canada Profession: Engineer
Volker M., Canada
Lina Abu Baker, London, UK
Brenda Heard, UK, Friends of Lebanon, http://www.friendsoflebanon.org/
Letizia Tessicini, Orte, Italy
Simon R-Levin, Manchester, UK
Paloma Valverde, Spain,member of CEOSI
Sarah Stevens, UK
Ralph Pinner, UK
Inge Soder, Germany
Sarah Gillespie, London, UK
Raja Ibrahim, Pistoia, Italy, ASSOCIAZIONE AMICIZIA ITALO - PALESTINESE
Adriano Mencarelli, Roma - Italy
Diego Ianiro - Caserta, Italy, of Khalas Napoli - khalasnews.splinder.com
Francesca Longhi- Bergamo, Italia
Antonio Corraine - Aosta, Italy
Stuart Cary Welch - N/A
Haitham Sabbah, Tulkarm, Palestine/Dubai, blogger of Sabbah’s Blog
Latuff, Rio De Janiero, Brazil, Cartoonist
Nureddin Sabir, London, UK, Editor of Redress Information & Analysis
Steve Amsel, Jerusalem-Al Quds, blogger of Desert Peace
Lasse Wilhelmson, Sweden
Richard Jones, Swansea, Wales
Einar Schlereth, Sweden, Journalist
Karaiskos Kostas, Komotini, Greece, ANTIFONITIS director
Adeline Rec, N/A
Àlex Tarradellas, Catalonia
Nuria Álvarez, Spain
Guillermo F. Parodi, Paraguay, Universitary Professor
Dennis Zackrisson, Uppsala, Sweden
Mark Roland, Eugene Oregon, USA
Robert Wagner, Italy
Graham Derrick, West Yorkshire, UK
Gabriele Rèpaci, Milano, university student
Emmanuel St John, London, UK
Sami Joseph, UK
Ernesto Paramo, Mexico/UK
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Glasgow, Scotland, blogger of The Fanonite
Jeffrey Blankfort, California, USA
David Baldinger, USA, Cartoonist, blogger
Olivia Zémor, Paris, France, cofounder CAPJPO (Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient)
Ana Cleja, France
John W. Blalock, N/A
Maryam Husain and Children, Displaced Palestinian/KSA/Italy/India currently
Emanuela Borrelli, Italy
Rachel Bridgeland, UK
Maria Ingrosso, Lecce, Italy
Riccardo Di Vito, Roma, Italia - Campo Antimperialista
Camilla Rahm, Gothenburg, Sweden
Comment by Gilad Atzmon — 10 February, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
Ah, and now Gilad Atzmon.
Gilad, your friend Paul Eisen thinks that the gas chambers of Auschwitz probably didn’t exist. You’ve helped him spread that belief by circulating his essay.
Is he right, Gilad? Are the gas chambers of Auschwitz a Jew - sorry, ‘zionist’ - fraud?
Comment by goodwin sands — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
And Greenie’le mine kind, don’t you forget, today was the IM UK day ….
You may want to call your friends their…. you may have another fiasco to deal with before you go to bed…
You are really good in bringing the shit on yourself…
Now when the Pls solidarity movement is rejecting you , I am afraid I may going to miss you.
Comment by Gilad Atzmon — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
Atzmon, Rizzo, and ‘Jock McTrousers’ - are there any more anti-semites who’d like to step up and pollute this site, or are they all over at Rizzo’s blog?
Gilad, your friend Paul Eisen thinks that the gas chambers of Auschwitz probably didn’t exist. You’ve helped him spread that belief by circulating his essay.
Is he right, Gilad? Are the gas chambers of Auschwitz a Jew - sorry, ‘zionist’ - fraud?
Comment by goodwin sands — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Ah yes, the Ego himself returns. Perhaps Atzmon might answer Goodwin Sands question, as to whether he believes the gas chambers existed or is it just part of a rolling narrative?
But Goodwin doesn’t need to hang around for an answer. As John Prine once remarked, a question ain’t really a question when you know the answer too. And we all know the answer Atzmon, don’t we? In your latest article, ‘Holocaust politics in the service of Anglo-American hegemony’ you state that
‘I do not wish to enter the debate regarding the truth of the Holocaust but the ugly face of Holocaust politics cannot be hidden any more.’
The starting point of any debate that anti-Zionists take part with over Zionist uses of the holocaust is that the Holocaust happened. Period. You look at anything Finkelstein or Brenner or myself have written and that is where we begin. You don’t. You begin with a question mark over the holocaust itself and if the reports from Germany are correct, you believe the Holocaust is a ‘forgery’. So a simple question which will allay our doubts. Do you believe there was such a thing as the holocaust, i.e. the deliberate extermination of European Jewry by the forces of Hitler. I’m sure that with all the thousands of words you expend you will be able to find the courage to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
‘In a public statement, Atzmon is quoted as having said that the written history of the Second World War and the Holocaust are a “complete forgery, initiated by Americans and Zionists”.
Atzmon has a history of distributing Holocaust denial literature, and of endorsing Holocaust revisionists. Of course, he angrily denies that he himself is a Holocaust denier.
I found myself curious about the source of this Atzmon quote, which I have never seen before. (Stoltz used the same quote while defending neo-Nazi Rigolf Hennig in 2006.)
After much searching, I found it: In 2005, a local newspaper, Ruhr Nachrichten, reported on his lively performance in Bochum, Germany:
What followed was a heated debate…during which several spectators left the room in protest. Atzmon described the known history of the Second World War and the Holocaust as a whole, as a forgery initiated by Americans and Zionists….Particularly fierce debate erupted as Atzmon argued that there is “no forensic evidence” that the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust is really six million.’
Atzmon asks ‘Greenie,is there any dignity in your pathetic system? Palestinian activists are clearly asking you to leave the room….’
I truly thought that Atzmon and Rizzo would have had second thoughts about this obvious and absurd petition. Clearly the anti-Semites have been feeling the heat, after their debacle on the Cork PSC Database where an Atzmonite editor, Paul de Rooij, effectively defaced the page where an author is introduced. The fact is that Ireland PSC, with its feet on the ground, did not wish to be seen to be in any sort of alliance with the Atzmonites, because those who campaign for the Palestinians know that Atzmon and his fellow anti-Semites are death for Palestinian solidarity.
Likewise the Redress site, which is advertised at the moment on the UNISON Scotland site will be removed. Normal people detest you Atzmon, hence why you hang around with the freaks and weirdos comprising some Indymedia moderators. I say some because there are others who are devoted campaigners. But the ftps of IM UK have no base in the real world.
Just like the same petition 2-3 years ago, also hosted by Redress, this one is written by Atzmon and Rizzo. They eventually owned up to writing the last one so I hope they’ll be honest this time around. It adds, as an afterthought, that people should remember the people of Gaza. And that says it all. Atzmon’s ego is so big now that he goes around asking for palestinians and their supporters to support him. And being generous people, without most people knowing anything of the issues, they append their names. Not many of them but enough to feed Atzmon and Rizzo’s egos for another day.
Far from Atzmon being a supporter of Palestinian solidarity, he expects Palestinians to be a supporter of the Atzmon Ego. And the man has the cheek to talk of dignity? Who could parody this?
Tony G
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
Let’s keep this short: the Goy antisemite, as you call him, can’t stand the Jewish existence in the Diaspora among him for all sorts of reasons (and there is a difference between ‘my’ Christian poor and the ‘their’ Jewish poort) and will either, hate, igniore, discriminate or kill the Jew(s). The Jewish Zionist also doesn’t like Diaspora Jewish existence as it has corrupted Jewish national psyche, to use the term Jabotinsky did, and doesn’t like the Jew who cooperates with a Diaspora existence. But he doesn’t hate the Jew rather he dislikes his/her characteristics and therefore wants to redeem him/her by returning him to his natural, physical, cultural, psychological, nationalistic and religous environment. Is that too difficult to comprehend? If so, why?
Comment by Yisrael Medad — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
So it’s now the Atzmon Solidarity Campaign?
Amongst its assorted supporters we have one “Lance Thruster”
Sarah Gillespie, a well know Atzmon sycophant and hatemonger.
A collection of unrepresentative individuals, bloggers a ‘Universitary Professor’ and members of such organisations as the ultra-stalinist Workers Party of Belgium and the “Earth Heal Geoharmonic Research Project” and joining them Atzmon’s personal research assistant schmendrack Mikey.
All hail Fatzmon and his grotesque overbloated ego!
Comment by Prianikoff — 10 February, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
No Yisrael. It is not at all difficult to comprehend. Far from it. The anti-Semite (I didn’t say goy) doesn’t like the Jewish existence in ‘their’ country, but not just as an individual, but for all the reasons you elaborate: natural, physical, cultural, psychological, nationalistic and religous environment. There is therefore a meeting of minds between Zionist and anti-Semite.
Both agree Jews do not belong where they live and were born. Both agree they are strangers and both agree that the Jew should go to Palestine. Of course whilst individual anti-Semites will hate individual Jews (though their leaders declaim all such gutter anti-Semitism) the Zionist merely detests the existence of the Jew in the diasporah because it has ‘corrupted’ his ‘national psyche’.
The two amount to the same and it is on this basis that Herzl ensured that no criticism of the Czarist pogromists was made at the 6th Zionist Congress and why the Zionist movement, almost uniquely, was a legal movement in Czarist Russia. And as you know Medad, this culminated in the Ben Gurion idea that if there was a choice between what he termed ‘the national museum’ and saving the Jewish diasporah, regardless of destination, then the former took precedence.
Revisionists previously, like Hecht and co. and of course Shmuel Tamir who represented Greenwald in his libel suit against Kastner and who himself became a government Justice Minister in the late 1970’s under Begin, disagreed with this creed of Ben Gurion. Indeed Herut as a whole castigated Kasztner. Do you agree with the position that Herut used to adopt or have you changed with the wind?
Tony G
Let’s keep this short: the Goy antisemite, as you call him, can’t stand the Jewish existence in the Diaspora among him for all sorts of reasons (and there is a difference between ‘my’ Christian poor and the ‘their’ Jewish poort) and will either, hate, igniore, discriminate or kill the Jew(s). The Jewish Zionist also doesn’t like Diaspora Jewish existence as it has corrupted Jewish national psyche, to use the term Jabotinsky did, and doesn’t like the Jew who cooperates with a Diaspora existence. But he doesn’t hate the Jew rather he dislikes his/her characteristics and therefore wants to redeem him/her by returning him to his natural, physical, cultural, psychological, nationalistic and religous environment. Is that too difficult to comprehend? If so, why?
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 10 February, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
Yissie: “Is that too difficult to comprehend? If so, why?”
It’s not difficult to comprehend, but it’s a complete fantasy.
You must be living quite a privileged existence on your kibbutz.
Try living in a 2 room flat in Haifa during a khamsin in August.
Try working in an oil refinery and taking the bus to work everyday.
That’ll do wonders for your nationalist psyche Haver
Comment by Yeshiya — 10 February, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Gaswind, I mentioned to you before that I am not too concerned with the historicity of the Jewish Holocaust because the debate on the topic is momentarily prohibited (this is changing now). However, I do care about the meaning of the event (ethics). I am obviously far more concerned with the Shoa that is taking place in Gaza in your name.
Re Eisen and the gas Ch, I may have to challenge you first, … are you an Holocaust expert? What are your credentials? Did you publish a paper on the subject in an academic magazine? I know that Eisen did his research,I published a few papers on the subject (widely published and translated into 5 languages) but what about you Gaswind?
You see Gaswind’le in order to debate scholarly you have to do some homework.
You ll have to accept it: having your schwantz chopped a week after you came to the the world is far from being an academic credential. You’ll have to try harder. As far as I can remeber, you were asked to resolve the Q raised by Eisen and others…i cannot recall seeing your answer.
However, it is so nice to see that this SU blog that had the pretence of a progressive blog just a few month ago, is now officially transformed into a kosher cyber shtettle with the David Taubs, and the Fabians, and the Greensteins, and the Tims, and the Gaswinds. What can i say, well done guys, well done Andy, it didn’t take too long.
You are indeed an impressive bunch of ‘Wondering cyber Jews’.
I ask myself, why can’t you just settle in one blog like us in Pepa?
Comment by Gilad Atzmon — 10 February, 2008 @ 10:08 pm
Can i raise a basic question relating to what started this discussion - namely a member of the Green Party at an anti war coalition meeting saying that in essence the world economy is Jewish controlled. This is clearly anti semitic - the socialism of fools which blames jews for capitalism. What puzzles me is why this person was not , at least if s/he persisted with these views, simply expelled from the meeting. If this had been an expression of any other form of racism (eg Palestinians rule the world) or misogyny (witches are behind the election of the US President) then I suspect the Green Party member would have been kicked out of the meeting. Why not here? Why are anti-semitism and anti-semites treated with kid gloves? This is a genuine question. It would be depressing if it were answered with the usual vituperation - namely that Jews somehow can’t stamd criticism of themselves and have no concern for democracy etc etc. At a time of the international growth of anti-semitism then such views need not simply be contested but need to be visibly stamped on. Otherwise the next thing we will hear from the Greems (as we did from their Nazi counterparts in the 30s) is that Jews are somehow rsponsible for envionmental distaster through their atatchment to urbanisation. Steve Cohen
Comment by steve cohen — 10 February, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
Atzkatzazayin, you’re such egotistical scum it’s a pain to listen to you.
Comment by prianikoff — 10 February, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
Steve wrote “Otherwise the next thing we will hear from the Greems (as we did from their Nazi counterparts in the 30s) is that Jews are somehow rsponsible for envionmental distaster through their atatchment to urbanisation.”
To put the record straight: In the mid 90s David Icke was thrown out of the Green Party for anti-semitism. As an active anti-fascist at the time I was involved in helping to mobilise a campaign and protest against Icke - he was holding large meetings in Totnes in Devon (I’m based “down the road” in Exeter) to publicise his book “The Truth Will Set You Free” which cited the notorious Czarists anti-semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if it were true.
Anyway - it was activists from the Green Party who played a central role in this principled campaign against this anti-semitism. I had the pleasure as an anti-fascist (not a Green!)of working with people like Dave Taylor of Glastonbury Green Party who did brilliant work on this. I have no hesitation in congratulating the Green Party for their role in this affair.
What you might describe as the “anti-capitalist” movement does attract some politically naive people who are taken in by the seeming radicalism of conspiracy theories. There can be something quite comforting about seeing the world in terms of the machinations a small evil “elite”. So 9-11 can be interpreted as the ultra-evil plot by conspirators, that the course of the world is determined in secretive meetings of the Bilderberg group and other such nonsense, that US foreign policy is controlled by the “Jewish lobby” and so on. People attracted to such ideas are to be found amongst the Greens, amongst socialists and amongst anarchists - and in terms of debate on this site most significantly within those who volunteer their services to Indymedia. I think they are a small minority in wider the movement and I don’t agree that their numbers are growing - however perhaps there is a lower level of political consciousness around such that they aren’t jumped on as quickly as they should be! They have alweays been challenged though!
Comment by garagelanduk — 10 February, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
What a load of junk from Tony Greenstein.
Firstly Greenstein should let us know what was he doing reviewing Ruth Linn’s book given that Linn is a lecturer at Haifa University and what is he also doing using Studies in Zionism as a source as that journal was published by Tel Aviv University. I thought Greenstein was boycotting Israeli universities. On the news of his own activities, can he make it clear to us whether he is a) a hypocrite or b) has dropped his idea that Israeli universities should be boycotted? There is no other alternative. (By the way Greenstein did not review Linn’s book last year for Tribune, but for publication on June 9, 2006 where his review also contained errors.)
I am pleased to see that Greenstein has managed to source a copy of Braham’s Politics of Genocide, albeit an old edition. Even if Greenstein is accurate that there were seven footnotes to Hecht’s book, out of probably thousands in the 2 volumes, it can hardly be claimed that Braham did “rely heavily” on Hecht that Greenstein claims. If Greenstein could stick to using those two volumes as a source he would not make such ridiculous claims that Kurt Becher was a General.
In any event, Ben Hecht’s book Perfidy contains numerous errors. A review of Perfidy in the New York Times said that Hecht “indulges in some crude distortions of history.” Lucy Dawidowicz argued in Commentary, “Hecht is neither a historian nor a chronicler, he has little respect for the accuracy of a date, a name, or a quotation: it is too much to expect that he should have placed Kasztner in historical context.” Dawidowicz was scathing in her attack: “He [Hecht] has converted ideological differences into savage personal defamation, and equated Zionist mistakes and expediency with German murder.” [2] In Jewish Frontier, Marie Syrkin slated the “unsavory” book. She accused Hecht of “Falsification of facts,” of using material “out of context,” of “sleight-of-hand,” “omission,” “confusion,” “venom” and of “the revolting aspect” of exploiting “the martyrdom of European Jewry for his partisan ends.” [3] A review in Midstream referred to Perfidy as “a fistful of pages concocted of half truths, outright falsehoods, misrepresentations, quotations out of context, surmises and innuendos, name calling, flight of fancy dressed up to sound like fact and huge glaring omissions of crucial facts and events which can be ascribed either to abysmal ignorance or to equally abysmal cynical disregard of truth.” Shlomo Katz who wrote the review said “It is an evil book in every sense of the word …. The first reaction to reading Perfidy is one of loathing. ‘Trash!’ one is inclined to exclaim and to fling Ben Hecht’s opus into the nearest garbage can.” Katz concluded “Ben Hecht’s Perfidy … is unique – when one reads it, one feels soiled.” [4]
Despite Greenstein’s claim, Arendt’s “report” on the Eichmann Trial did not appear on September 8, 1963. It originally appeared in the New Yorker in five successive issues from 16th February-16th March 1963. In May 1963 the articles were compiled into a book published by Viking Press.
To suggest that it was “a calculated insult” for Professor Talmon to refer to Hannah Arendt as “Miss Arendt” is incorrect. Hannah Arendt was widely known as Miss Arendt and this was the title that even her friends gave her in positive reviews of the book. [6]
Again, in any event, I do not see why Greenstein is relying upon the work of Arendt as It was widely discredited. Not least by Judge Musmanno, who famously said:
“Miss Arendt’s book is so kernel-full of hopelessly inexplicable inconsistencies, unutterably illogical utterances and unfathomably preposterous conclusions that one could only wholly cover the absurdities in her book by writing one equally as long to refute it.” [7]
Jacob Robsinson took that project upon himself and did write a full length book extending to over 400 pages critiquing Arendt’s “report” noting literally hundreds of errors. [8]
Whilst it is true that Rudolf Vrba was indeed a hero of the Holocaust, he was not a historian and his facts about the Holocaust in Hungary and the possibilities are not accepted by historians such as Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In any event, Vrba was not in Hungary as after he escaped from Auschwitz, he made his way to Slovakia and joined the partisans there. [9]
It is not clear cut that “The Auschwitz Protocols were handed to Kasztner on April 29th” as Greenstein claims. Krasnianski, who Vrba claims wrote the protocol gave three different testimonies that all contradicted each other. He originally claimed that Kasztner received them on April 26, but this seems impossible as to the best of our knowledge they were not finished until April 27. In a different testimony he claimed “Kasztner say this on the 28th.” [10] The truth is, we do not know exactly when Kasztner received the Protocol.
Contrary to the claim of Greenstein, I do not claim that the Zionists in the Holocaust did nothing wrong, I believe that numerous errors were made. The difference is, I put the blame for the deaths fairly and squarely where it belongs, in the hands of the Nazis and their helpers. I do not try and apportion the blame to the Zionists.
For Greenstein to claim “The Zionist leaders bitterly opposed this group because they were more concerned about forming a future Jewish state rather than saving Jews in the here and now,” is simply astounding. I have no idea where he makes up this nonsense from. In fact the opposite is the case. David Ben-Gurion put it at the time: “There has never yet been a time like today when we have all been threatened with destruction… the destruction of the Jews of Europe is ruinous for Zionism for there will be no-one left to build the state of Israel.” [11]
Really, Tony Greenstein should refrain from allowing his fingers to touch the keypad. Like John W, it might be better if he let people wonder if he was a complete ignoramus, rather than writing such comments and leaving no doubt.
Mikey
References:
[1] Homer Bigart, “A Matter of Personalities,” New York Times Book Review January 28, 1962 p. 20
[2]Lucy S. Dawidowic, “ Ben Hecht’s ‘Perfidy,’” Commentary Vol. 33 No. 3 March 1962 pp. 260-264
[3] Marie Syrkin, “Perfidy and Stale Venom,” Jewish Frontier Vol. XXIX No. 1, January 1962 pp 13-18
[4] Shlomo Katz, “ Ben Hecht’s Kampf,” Midstream Winter 1962 pp. 92-101
[5] Jacob Robinson, And the crooked shall be made straight: The Eichmann Trial, the Jewish Catastrophe and Hannah Arendt’s Narrative (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965) pp vii-viii and Anson Rabinbach, “Eichmann in New York: The New York Intellectuals and the Hannah Arendt Controversy,” October 108, Spring 2004, pp. 97–111.
[6] See for examples, Daniel Bell, “The Alphabet of Justice: Reflections on ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem, ’” Partisan Review Vol. XXX Number 3, Fall 1963, pp417-29 and also Mary McCarthy, “The Hue and Cry,” Partisan Review, Volume XXXI, Number 1, Winter 1964, pp82-94.
[7] Michael Musmanno, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Critique” Chicago Jewish Forum, Vol. 21, Number 4, Summer 1963 pp. 282-5.
[8] Jacob Robinson, op. cit. For a view of some of Robinson’s located errors etc. see, “A Report on the Evil of Banality: The Arendt Book,” Facts, Vol. 15 No. 1, July-August 1963 pp. 263-70 available on line at:
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/robinson-arendt.pdf
[9] Rudolf Vrba I Escaped from Auschwitz, (London: Robson Books, 2006) pp. 250-77
[10] Yehuda Bauer, “The ‘Protocol of Auschwitz,’” Yalkut Moreshet 3 Winter 2005, pp. 125-36
[11] David Ben Gurion, quoted in Dina Porat, The Blue and the Yellow Stars of David: The Zionist Leadership in Palestine and the Holocaust, 1939-1945 (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990), P. 259
Comment by Mikey — 10 February, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Atzmon @ 258: “Gaswind, I mentioned to you before that I am not too concerned with the historicity of the Jewish Holocaust because the debate on the topic is momentarily prohibited”
Horseshit, Atzmon. I’m not asking for a book-length dissertation. And I am not asking Eisen but you. I’m asking you for either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.
Surely that is not beyond your capabilities.
Unless of course there is something you believe that youd rather not say in public.
Comment by goodwin sands — 10 February, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
So Atmon’s friend Mikey has once again cited Zionist authors at length to refute and rebut Perfidy.
I’m glad that the ‘expert’ (self-defined) Mikey now admits that the no. of references to Hecht’s book by Braham is at least 350% more than he first acknowledged! The point is that these references are all in the chapter concerning Kasztner.
As for quoting Lucy Dawidowicz in Commentary and various other neo-con magazines I suggest Mikey that you take on board that most people on a socialist site take that as proof that there must be more than an element of truth in it if it gets up the noses of Wolfowitz et al. Sorry if you don’t get it.
Dawidowicz was above all a Zionist. A right-wing Zionist at that. She gave very favourable plaudits to Joan Peter’s From Time Immemorial whose main thesis is that no Palestinian refugees were expelled because they were never refugees in the first place! They were recent immigrants attracted by the Zionist settlers! And in ‘proving’ this she quoted an eye witness, a 14th century philosopher no less! It’s almost as bad as quoting from or helping Atzmon.
The book was a forgery and after all the favourable reviews in America it all turned to dust as reputable historians, both in Israel and England, savaged it. So no, I don’t take Dawidowicz with more than a pinch of salt. Where she documents something then what she writes is invaluable but overall her analysis, likeyour own, is lamentable.
Ben Hecht’s book is written by a revisionist Zionist. I disagree with its analysis but the facts it details cannot be disputed, other than by a holocaust denier like Atzmon, in whose camp you are an honorary member.
There is no doubt that Kasztner was given a copy of the Protocols. I have deliberately chosen the date that is accepted by most people, April 29th. There can be no doubt that he, like Freudiger (chief rabbi) and others were recipients. From memory it was from Hungary that a copy was sent to Istanbul. You have nothing to say about Kastner keeping silent fine.
No Vrba wasn’t a historian but Linn asks the pivotal question in her book. Who is a better historian? The person who sits behind a desk and writes or the person who lives through it? I think most people would say that Vrba, having lived the events is in a better position to judge than a Dawidowicz or Bauer. And precisely because of his experiences with Zionist collaborators he became a non-Zionist or in your words anti-Zionist.
Mikey also doesn’t understand the Boycott campaign. It is specifically not aimed at individuals, but at institutions. That means boycotting conferences, joint acacdemic exchanges, reviewing peer papers and other forms of collaboration. It doesn’t prevent people communicating and exchanging especially on topics that are of use to the struggle against Zionist attempts to appropriate history, in this case holocaust history. Nor is it mean to mean one boycotts reading an Israeli journal. Sorry Mikey, you’ll have to practice your ’skills’ at Engage.
Knuckles or, to give her her full name, Edna Spennato, thinks I’m perturbed about the ‘petition’. Quite the contrary. I notice she signs on behalf of the ‘South Africa-Brazil, Earth Heal Geoharmonic Research Project’. Clearly not much harmonics when she writes here, but that may be because Atzmon does the writing and she does the posting.
No I absolutely welcome this petition. It shows just what the priorities of the anti-Semites are - themselves.
Atzmon will do everything, Goodwin, to avoid answering a simple question. As you surmise, there is only one reason for that. in fact I’d go further. Even when he has denied he is an anti-Semite or a holocaust denier (as per his statement that the SWP dragged out of him) you simply can’t believe him.
One has to judge someone by their actions not just their words. He works with, defends, distributes the material of holocaust deniers and of course uses the same language about ‘Zio holocaust narratives’. There can only be one conclusion. After all - if you lie down with a dog you end up with fleas. And Atzmon has those in abundance.
Tony
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 11 February, 2008 @ 12:39 am
Greenstein gets it wrong again. There should be no surprise.
In 1962, Commentary was not a neocon magazine. It may have become associated with the neocon movement by 2008, but it certainly was not when Dawidowicz wrote her article. For example, Irving Howe, who was the editor of the left leaning Dissent also wrote articles for Commentary including a very interesting one criticising the New Yorker for their publication of Hannah Arendt’s “report.” [1] For that matter Partisan Review was also anything but neoconservative as it attracted the sort of writers such as Mary McCarthy, Daniel Bell, Robert Lowell and what Irving Howe subsequently described in Commentary as – “The New York Intellectuals.” [2] Jewish Frontier was also not neoconservative as the magazine was associated with its Socialist-Zionist editor, Marie Syrkin. [3]
Lucy Dawidowicz was also not “above all a Zionist.” She was primarily a historian focussing on the Holocaust and other Jewish issues and was highly regarded for it.
To suggest that Ben Hecht’s facts cannot be disputed, as Greenstein does, surely is a joke. I direct Greenstein to The American Section of the Executive of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency response to Perfidy. [4] This report detailed numerous errors in Perfidy and to the credit of Julian Messner Inc., who originally published Perfidy they included this devastating response in later editions of the book.
For Greenstein to suggest that I am either a “holocaust [sic] denier” or in Atzmon’s “camp” is a lie and a slur on my character. How low Greenstein is prepared to go to peddle his filth.
Rudolf Vrba certainly lived through Auschwitz and I am very prepared to read what he has to write about that camp, but he was never in Hungary. Using your own analogy, you my wish to read Joel Brand’s story as Brand understood what conditions were like in Hungary at the time.[5]
Greenstein states, in his own words, that the boycotters of Israel should not be “reviewing peer papers.” He simply does not explain why he was therefore reviewing Ruth Linn’s book. As I said earlier either Greenstein is a hypocrite or he must realise that the whole boycott must be dropped.
Mikey
References
[1] Irving Howe, “‘The New Yorker’ & Hannah Arendt,” Commentary, Vol. 36 No. 4, October 1963, pp318-19.
[2] Irving Howe, “The New York Intellectuals: A Chronicle & A Critique,” Commentary Vol. 46 No. 4 October 1968, pp. 29-51.
[3] Marie Syrkin, The State of the Jews (Washington, DC: New Republic Books, 1980) p. 1
[4] The American Section of the Executive of the World Zionist Organisation and the Jewish Agency, “Ben Hecht’s “Perfidy” – An analysis of his rewriting of history,” contained in Perfidy(New York: Julian Messner Inc., 1962)
[5] Alex Weissberg, Desperate Mission: Joel Brand’s Story as told by Alex Weissberg,” (New York; Criterion Books, 1958)
Comment by Mikey — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:40 am
You have to give it to Tony Greenstein: no matter how many times he is exposed, he keeps coming back with the same interminable nonsense!
What is one to make of someone who in one breath insists that there’s “a meeting of minds between Zionist and anti-Semite” because they “agree Jews do not belong where they live and were born,” but then explains that his friend Bukhari donated money to a neo-Nazi because “he was taken in by Irving’s self-professed ANTI-Zionism” and that neo-Nazis heaped praise on his anti-Zionist views and reprint his anti-Zionist diatribes on their websites because “as the saying goes, even the devil can quote scripture”! Does Greenstein want us to believe that neo-Nazis post his writings because they don’t agree with them? Or perhaps he wants us to think that it’s all a clever neo-Nazi trick to discredit him? Perhaps they were put up to it by the Zionists! If Greenstein can allege that the Union of Jewish Students act as “paid and unpaid informers for Mossad” (Return Magazine, September 1990) then he is capable of anything!
But then again, Greenstein is quite happy to manipulate definitions of Zionism, anti-Zionism and antisemitism to fit whatever Party line he is pushing at any particular moment. So it is that he cites Avineri on the virulently antisemitic Blood Libel essay by Hess while suppressing Avineri’s point that this essay was penned by Hess during his communist ANTI-Zionist years! So it is that he cites essays by Birnbaum and Penslar from the Journal of Israeli History (March 2006) while suppressing the major theme of those essays, and of all the other essays in that special edition - namely that all far-right antisemites turned into venomous anti-Zionists!
While we’re on the subject of antisemitism, let’s take a look at some of Greenstein’s most extraordinary fabrications. Greenstein tells us that “Marx rejected Hess’s blood and soil racism” and “comments on race, such as the length of Jewish noses,” comments that are “typical among Zionist ideologues.” Perhaps Greenstein would like to explain Marx’s infamous diatribe against the “Jewish nigger Lassalle” who - as “the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify” - was “descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt” (Letter to Engels, July 30, 1862, Marx-Engels Collected Works, Vol. 41, p388). No blood and soil racism there! And no antisemitism either, for, as Greenstein informs us, he doesn’t recognise an antisemitism of the left: “If you are a socialist then you can’t be an anti-Semite”!
Presumably then, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Toussenel, Blanqui, Proudhon, Bakunin, Marx, Engels, Duhring, etc. were neither leftists nor socialists. Proudhon and Duhring are particularly significant, as they were the first modern European intellectuals to demand the annihilation of all Jews. In fact Duhring’s writings to that effect were even more shocking to Herzl than the Dreyfus case. Incidentally, the French socialists generally supported the antisemites AGAINST Dreyfus: “The extreme Left and the Nationalist Right found common ground in France after the Dreyfus Affair in their hatred of Jewish finance, Jewish intellectualism, Liberal-Republican democracy and bourgeois parliamentarism” (Robert Wistrich, “Socialism and Judeophobia,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 1992, p115). Just as the Russian far left had enthusiastically supported the antisemitic pogromists against their Jewish victims (Stephen Berk, “The Russian Revolutionary Movement and the Pogroms of 1881-1882,” Soviet Jewish Affairs, 7:2, 1977). Just as the German revolutionaries Marx and Engels, while writing The Communist Manifesto, were also publishing a virulently antisemitic newspaper in which they called for the destruction of entire classes and peoples while denouncing Jews as “national simpletons and money-grubbers,” the “meanest of all races,” whose “lust for profit” caused them to “plunder the churches, set fire to the villages,” beat people to death in public places, etc. (Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849).
But Greenstein knows better: “If you are a socialist then you can’t be an anti-Semite”!!!
It seems that there are no limits to Greenstein’s historical revisionism. Take his assertion that Zionism was “not a mass national movement of Jews,” unlike the Bund. Of the 5.6 million Jews in in the Russian empire, including Poland, at the time of the October Revolution the Zionist movement had 300,000 members while the Bund had 33,700 members; in elections to the Constitutent Assembly, the Zionists won 417,000 votes while the Bundists won 31,000 votes - thus Zionists outpolled Bundists by over 10-1! Indeed, “The overwhelming majority of politically conscious Jews identifying with Jewish parties preferred the Zionist parties and programs to those of the socialists… [and] it can be assumed that [the] half-million Jews who voted for Jewish parties represented the great majority of Jews voting” (Zvi Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp71-2, 80-1).
Greenstein’s revisionism runs from the ludicrous to the sinister: “It was the holocaust that made Zionism into a majority political current in the world and Israel represents Hitler’s triumph.” Greenstein, of course, knows from Herf’s essay (in the Journal of Israeli History, supra) that the Nazis vehemently opposed Jewish statehood. And he knows from the recent study by Mallman and Cuppers (Yad Vashem Studies 35) that the Nazis wanted to murder all Jews, including the Jews of the Middle East, and that they colluded with the Palestinian Arab leadership in planning the massacre of the Yishuv.
So Greenstein criticises Eisen for denying the Holocaust, but Greenstein himself denies planned extensions of the Holocaust! And he does this more than once, for he also says that “it is a myth that there was a war of total extermination against Israel in 1948.” His source for his denial of this “myth” is an ideologue for Mapam! A party that openly supported Stalin’s antisemitic purges! A party led by paid KGB agents! More reliable, I think, are official statements by the Arab League: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades” (BBC, May 15, 1948).
Finally there is the matter of Greenstein’s ongoing denials of collaboration in the actual Holocaust. I refer not to his falsehoods about Kastner - Greenstein surely knows that Kastner was never in the Hungarian Judenrat, contrary to the Vrba statement which he quotes as Gospel truth - but to his obscene claim that Stalin “save[d] up to 2 millions if not more” Jews from Hitler. The fact of the matter is that during their joint aggression against Poland the Soviets collaborated with the Gestapo in deporting hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees to concentration camps, so that “old people, cripples, mothers of children were sent with their children” to “die of hunger, cold and disease” (Yosef Litvak, “The Plight of Refugees From the German-Occupied Territories,” in Keith Sword, ed., The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939-41, St. Martin’s Press, 1991, pp67-9).
Such is the depraved denouement of Greenstein’s anti-Zionist fanaticism: denial of leftist antisemitism, denial of Nazi plans to implement the Holocaust in the Middle East, denial of Stalin’s mass murders of Jews in collaboration with Hitler!
Comment by Paul Bogdanor — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:56 am
Paul Bogdanor is a madder version of Mad Mikey and a reacton against his father, constitional theorist Vernon Bognador. As such I will not dignify his foaming attacks on the left as having conspired with the fascists to murder Jews. It is a conspiracy theory too far.
Just to say that the figure of 2 million Jews who would otherwise have died is cited in Menachem Begin’s The Revolt, hardly a tome of anti-Zionist understanding!
And the other mistake I’ll correct is regarding the 10-1 support the Zionists had in Poland vs the anti-Zionists. It is true that in the 1920’s and early 1930’s the Zionists did have a mass base. But as the fight against anti-Semitism increased, the Zionists with their theories of the objective necessity of emigration to Palestine were seen as little more than the validation of anti-Semitism.
By 1938 when the local Jewish council seat elections were held, the Bund won 17 out of 20. The Zionists won just one. History is fluid not static. As the terror under the Colonel’s government increased and as anti-Semitism increased, the Jewish masses flocked to support the only party in the Jewish community that sought to fight anti-Semitism, the Bund. Even the left Poale-Zion increasingly undertook joint work with the Bund on self-defence.
Bognador as a foaming-in-the mouth Zionist of the far right would understand none of this. But as with Mikey he belongs on Harry’s Place and other pro-war sites.
Tony Greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:27 am
I assume that Tony Greenstein means by his above post, that he simply cannot answer the points Paul Bogdanor has made. Does it surprise anyone? One thinks that it is actually Tony Greenstein who is foaming at the mouth.
Comment by Mikey — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:48 am
Those who are seriously interested in combatting anti-Semitism, as opposed to defaming their opponents, will want to hear what has happened at Indymedia. See the following link.
It would seem that the hopes of Gilad Atzmon, fed by his faithful collaborator ftp (no not you Mikey this time round) have not been fulfilled.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=640441812647446166
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 11 February, 2008 @ 4:56 am
Greenstein has lost the argument. Again.
Well, what can you expect from someone who argues using secondary school fallacies “if you are a socialist you cannot be an antisemite”. The level, my God, the level…
Ey, John W., can you show us yet your dog-eared copy of “Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996 (in Ha’aretz)”? Such a compulsive liar…
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 11 February, 2008 @ 7:37 am
Fabian
What can you expect from a Zionist who sees nothing wrong in the fact that the land he now lives in, and wasn’t even born in, was stolen from a people who aren’t allowed to return that land?
Tony Greenstein is respected and supported throughout the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Despite the cheap attempts at Zionist revisionism which have polluted this list over the past few days, he will continue to enjoy this support and respect.
Now, for your edification, I suggest you study the following:
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948
PREAMBLE
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Comment by John W — 11 February, 2008 @ 7:55 am
#268 Bogdanor “Stalin’s mass murders of Jews in collaboration with Hitler”
Standard right wing propaganda and not to be trusted.
Stalin was culpable for the policies that allowed the Nazis to gain power.
But in Eastern Poland and the Ukraine, the choice for Jews was pretty clear as this account shows:-
History of the German Occupation of Stryj, Galicia
(edited extracts of a family history by H.Edelstein)
Stryj lying in the plains and lowlands at the southeastern corner of Poland
Minor, was the city holding the corridor to the Carpathian Mountains, whose
summits rise against the distant horizons on the way to Skole, a small town
southwards in the direction Hungarian frontier. The River Stryj serves as a
diadem to the wide stretching and multi-colored city, with it’s embroidery
of fields and forest as far as the foothills of the mountains. The river’s
waters moved the wheels of the mills from which the city used to obtain its
flour, and beside which the townsfolk bathed in the hot summer. The city
ties on a crossroads, and in the days of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria
it linked Eastern Galicia with Hungary by the railway line that ran from
Lemberg and Lawoczne to Budapest in the south, with Stanislawow to the
southeast and Prszemysl to the northwest.
There were Jewish communities round and about in all directions, among those
were Rozdol, Mikolayow, Zurawno, Sokolow, Zydaczow and Bolechow. Not far
away lie Drohobycz, Boryslaw and Schodnica, with their oil-wells, from which
most of the population of these towns made their living. By the beginning of
World War II the population consisted of about 40,000 persons in roughly
equal proportions of Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. Jews were a vital part of
the economy. They handled manufacturing, trade, food supply, clothing,
footwear, furniture, building materials, fuel, drapery, haberdashery and the
like. Their handicrafts included harness making, carpentry, tailoring,
tinkering, glaziery, house painting, construction, upholstery, furriery,
watchmaking, manufacturing of oilcloth, gold and silversmith work, and the
handling of all other kinds of metals and skilled mechanics. Jews were some
of the finest craftsmen in all branches of handicrafts. Many Jews in the
surrounding villages made their living directly or indirectly by
agriculture. Some lived directly from their farms, while others leased vast
stretches of land from Polish barons and noblemen who were estate holders,
and cultivated them on behalf of the latter. Or else they leased inns in
traditional fashion, the leaseholds passing from father to son for
generations.
Germany Attacks - Under Soviet Rule
German troops attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. When the German army
entered Stryj, Ukrainian Peasants from the surrounding villages came in a
crowd to greet them, dressed in their finest clothes. A triumphal arch was
set up in Droboycka street, with the proclamation, “We shall pave the way of
victory for the German soldiers with Jewish skulls”. In the city, Jews hid
in attics and lofts and cellars.
Soon it began to be rumored that Galicia had been divided between the
Soviets and the Germans. On the 22nd of August 1939, Stalin had signed a
non-aggression pact with Hitler, its chief purpose was to ensure that
Germany would not fight on two fronts. The treaty had ensured Hitler freedom
of action in the West and other parts of Europe and Africa, without any fear
of being attacked from the East. On the third day after the Germans entered
the city, army commanders from both sides met on the Bolechow Bridge
crossing the river Stryj. They decided that the Germans should withdraw to
the River San, and that Stryj should be included in the Soviet Occupation
Zone. The joy of the Jews when they saw the Germans leaving the town was
beyond description. On the eve of the Day of Atonement, 1939, Soviet forces
entered the city.
Under Soviet rule, the Jewish population suffered from want as compared to
the ample living of prewar Poland but not because they were Jews. The Jews
suffered together with all the other people of Soviet Russia during the
emergency; but not more than they did. The Soviets fed the people the
doctrines of Marx and Lenin, and ordered them to obey the Stalinist
Constitution in accordance with which he who does not work shall not eat.
The Front moved west and people seemed to be safe. The people felt that it
was fortunate to live in peace under the protective wings of the Soviets,
and would find shelter in the shadow of the Red Flag. There seemed to be
reason for these feelings. An obvious proof of the friendly relationship
between the Germans and the Soviets, were railroad cars full of wheat seen
passing through the railroad station in Stryj en route from the Ukraine to
Germany.
A Soviet Commissar came to the farm at Gaje-Nizne and informed my
grandfather and his partner that the farm was being collectivized, and that
they and their families must leave. The only things they could take were
personal possessions and furniture.
Nazi Occupation
On the 22nd of June, 1941 airplanes suddenly appeared at a great height. The
sound of artillery fire could be heard from the direction of Drohobycz and
Przemysl. German airplanes began appearing without a break and dropped
bombs. Germany had attacked the Soviet front and government and party
officials made their preparations to leave the city. Railway wagons were
placed at the disposal of the families of soldiers and party members, to
take them to safe places across the Russian frontier. Yet countless of these
railway wagons were bombed and completely destroyed by the German planes as
they made their way eastward.
Once the German occupation was complete, every Jew from the age of 16-60 was
compelled to work. In the city a vast number of institutions were
established, including military stores, military laboratories and private
German firms. Some of them were: Heeresverpflegungsdepot (Army Supply
Depot), Baudienst (Building Service), H.K.P., Wasserwirtschaft (Water
Authority), Karpathen Oh, Altstoff (old clothes etc.), Heeresbarrackenwerke
(Military Barracks Factory, the sawmill of Zelig Borak), A.S.A. Glasfabriken
(Glassworks - in Neubauer’s flour mill).
The Ukrainians and Poles traded and made money. Jews were forbidden to leave
the town limits. Every morning workers went in the thousands to work at the
above places. in return for their work they received rations of bread and
soup.
All Jews wore armbands with the Star of David on them. It was permissible to
enter and leave the Jewish Quarter. Jews with work papers might enter the
Aryan Quarter, white Aryans were permitted to enter the Jewish Quarter. Each
day my grandfather and farther would go out to work in the barracks factory
and return home that evening. Jewish workers were identified by an arm band
with a Star of David and a number which corresponded to the one on their
work papers. Later they were issued square patches, to wear along with their
armbands, on which was darned the letter “W” meaning “Wichtig” (important).
This meant that they must be preserved and safeguarded, and that the Gestapo
must not do them any harm.
Establishment of the Jewish Quarter
A few months later the order establishing the Jewish Quarter (Juedisches
Wohnviertel) was published and paved the way for the Ghetto. It meant that
the Jews were separated from the Aryan population. The Jewish Quarter began
from Kilinskiego Street (the Lachowicz Bookshop) to its end at the corner of
Iwaszkiewicza-Drohobyca Street). It continued on the other side along the
Stojalowskiego Boulevard, Zamkowa, Rynek, Berka Joselowicze, Kusnierska,
Lwowska; Batorego to Zielona Street.
The German District Officer had ordered the people of the Jewish Quarter to
form a Judenrat (Jewish Council). This council had a double task. It was to
maintain contact with the German Command, carry out its orders, and handle
all the internal affairs of the Jews themselves, who from that day forward
would constitute a separate body entirely cut off from the Aryan population.
This Jewish Council was chiefly intended to serve as a bridge for passing on
the decrees of the Nazi Command to the Jews. The Council was given authority
to collect taxes from the Jews, and establish a Jewish police
(Ordnungsdienst) which would be under its orders. The Council was provided
food for the community. The Jewish Council Building was the on the corner of
May 3rd and Potockiego Streets. Departments were set up for taxes, housing,
furniture and food. There were secretaries with telephones, typewriters,
storehouses and shops. A complete state apparatus down to the last detail.
The Jews of the Aryan Quarter were transferred to the Jewish Quarter and
crowded into the apartments of the Jews already living there. At this time
the Quarter contained about 12,000 persons. The Jewish Council was ordered
to make room for another 11,000 persons who had been expelled from the small
towns of the district, which were thus made Judenrein.
Escape from the “Action”
Before long the “Actions” began. This was the name given to the systematic
extermination carried out in accordance with a definite plan, and with
precise German order. On one occasion, for example, orders were given to
kill 1000 Jews between the hours of 4-12. If by chance another Jew came
along after twelve, the murderers sent him away until the next Action.
On September 3, 1942 a major Action occurred. The Action lasted three days
during which 5,000 people were deported to the Belzec concentration camp.
The Action continued through the day with SS and Ukrainian troops beating
and killing Jews unmercifully. At the end of the day those captured were
marched to the Great Synagogue and were shut inside. Here they remained over
night without food or water. All attempts to bribe the soldiers guarding
them failed.
When morning came they were taken to the railway station where they were met
by SS and Ukrainian troops with dogs and herded onto railway cattle cars.
Those inside were packed tightly together. They slid the doors closed and
began to board up and put barbed wire over the small windows. My grandfather
and another bribed the guards not to nail the boards too tightly, so that
they could possibly escape by pushing out the boards from the inside.
They waited all day inside the cramped car. When evening came German
soldiers climbed in mounted gun boxes spaced along the length of the train,
which then began to leave the station.
The Ghetto and the Liquidation
On December 1st, 1942, large posters consisting of photographs and signed by
Hans Frank of the General Gouvernement announced the establishment of the
Ghetto in Stryj. Entrance and exit was permitted only to Jews with work
cards stamped by the Gestapo. Those breaking the law were subject to the
death penalty. The Aryans were warned not to approach the Ghetto limits.
Selling or giving food or offering Jews any kind of help would be punished
by hanging. The Ghetto area consisted of the following streets: Berka
Joselowicza, Kusnierska, Krawiecka and Lwowska. It had two main entrances,
in the Borek Joselowicza and Lwowska streets. Thick wooden posts were set up
on both pavements and logs were placed as a barrier which were raised when
necessary.
Policemen watched the gates day and night. Streets that led to the Aryan
quarter were blocked with high wooden fences. The Ghetto was set up with the
definite purpose of being destroyed.
The liquidation of the Ghetto began on June 10, 1943. German troops went
house to house seeking victims and destroying buildings. They threw
incendiary grenades into suspected bunkers or flooded them with water and
then shot any survivors. The offices of the Jewish Council were burned and
the members were shot along with the council police. In early July the
Altstoff and Wasserwirtscaft camps were liquidated with other small camps.
On July 20, 1943 the A.S.A. and H.K.P. camps were liquidated a few days
later so was the Heeresbarrackenwerke, the largest labor camp in Stryj.
Stryj was liberated by Soviet troops on August 8, 1944.
Comment by prianikoff — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:05 am
John W
Now, for your edification, I suggest you study the following:
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
That would be the same United Nations that, just a year before, had voted to create the State of Israel as a “Jewish state”? Funny how anti-Zionists always rely on UN resolutions to condemn Israel, while pretending that resolution 181 never happened.
As for Tony Greenstein:
Clearly irony is lost on Dave Rich and much else besides. He cites the Community Security Trust, an organisation which the old National Council for Civil Liberties strongly criticised for its thuggery and physical intimidation of Jews who are not Zionists. I mean members of the Jewish Socialists Group and even on one occasion a member of Mapam. (see Civil rights council blasts security men) 17.8.90. I would sooner trust Arthur Daley to sell me a reliable car than these people.
So because eighteen years ago, the NCCL criticised CST, therefore CST’s report on antisemitic incidents in 2006 should be considered unreliable? This guy really knows how to hold a grudge. Strange how a man who sues if you mention anything about his past is so quick to dredge up the most flimsy allegations about everyone else.
For what it is worth, and in keeping with Greenstein’s record for inaccuracy, CST did not exist in 1990. I presume Greenstein has in mind the security division of the Board of Deputies, which was the forerunner of CST. Martin Wisse questioned how many incidents recorded by CST were in fact antisemitic, and how many were merely anti-Israel. I responded by posting the relevant section from the report, which demonstrates how CST distinguishes between the two. Greenstein responded to this by (a) telling everyone to ignore the report because eighteen years ago someone at the NCCL decided to take a pop at a different Jewish organisation, and (b) excusing the antisemitic incidents on the grounds that the perpetrators only abused British Jews because they were angry with Israel. And this guy says he is serious about fighting antisemitism. In fact he will excuse and ignore every example of antisemitism that comes in an anti-Zionist wrapper.
Hence his rush to forgive Asghar Bukhari for sending money to David Irving at the time of his libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt. Bukhari sent the money with a note commending Irving for “trying to expose certain falsehoods perpetrated by the Jews”. Greenstein says that Bukhari simply made a mistake, which he has since acknowledged. Well if it was a mistake, it’s one that Bukhari and MPAC make an awful lot. They have repeatedly reposted material from Irving’s website onto the MPAC website, over many years. They have done the same from other far right websites, including the Heretical Press and the Church of the Creator. They have posted articles in support of Ernst Zundel and others by Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review. One article celebrated the legal victory of Argentinian Denier Hector Buela against the Wiesenthal Center, which had tried to stop him disseminating Holocaust Denial material. MPAC have called the Talmud the “most racist book in the world” and place Zionist conspiracy theories at the centre of everything. They blamed a Zionist conspiracy for the Danish cartoons and just last week blamed Zionists for the underfunding of elderly care by the British government. I understand that MPAC’s desire to blame everything on Zionists is what so endears them to Greenstein; but I presume he never saw their alteration of a Sunday Telegraph article in 2003 about Neitzsche which included the line that he was “the victim of a posthumous smear campaign by anti-Nazis”. MPAC changed “anti-Nazis” to “Zionists” in their version of the article. So much for anti-fascist solidarity between Greenstein and Bukhari. Now Greenstein says he is advising Bukhari and MPAC. It is one thing to help someone understand why their way of thinking is antisemitic and wrong. It is quite another to help someone couch their antisemitic message in more subtle language.
Comment by Dave Rich — 11 February, 2008 @ 11:00 am
One difficulty with the above discussion is the confusion of topics which have been central to debates within scholarship on both the Holocaust and Israeli history (the role of collaberation on the one hand, and of course the voliminous literature on the Katz affair), and some kind of debate with ‘holocaust deniers’ and flatearthers of other kinds. I think its very important to draw a line between these very different kinds of discussion.
Comment by johng — 11 February, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
JOhn
I agree, I gave up trying to make any sense of this thread some while ago.
What I think it has proven is:
i) There is some anti-Semitism in the palestinian solidarity movement (Atzmon, Rizzo, et al)
ii)Some people who are not anti-Semitic (John W, for example), unfortunately give hostage to fortune by being insufficiently switched on over the issue of anti-semitism
iii) some Zionists do misrepreent all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic
Comment by Andy Newman — 11 February, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
johng,
You could start by trying to provide some kind of rational answer as to why the SWP continually host Gilad Atzmon.
Comment by Mikey — 11 February, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
some Zionists do misrepreent all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic
Some - perhaps many? - people will always simplify things to the point of misrepresentation. I would suggest that the tendency of some anti-Zionists to misrepresent antisemitism as criticism of Israel, outweighs the tendency of some Zionists to misrepresent criticism of Israel as antisemitism. Although I suppose it all hinges on your definition of “criticism”.
Comment by Dave Rich — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
Andy:
iii) some Zionists do misrepreent all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic
Reply:
No, ALL Zionists do. It is a congenital condition of what is clearly and unequivocally a racist, supremacist ideology.
Comment by John W — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
Hi! I just came from Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv. I think it is the only place in the world where you can read the original Haaretz newspaper from 1969 (If you call Haaretz directly, they will direct you to Beit Ariella, the main public library in Tel Aviv).
I have in my camera pictures from the original microfilmed newspaper.
I have read enough of Moshe Dayan’s conference in Haifa to find the misquote. Efectively, Camera is right. It was a misquote, and the context is omited. I won’t say that Moshe Dayan sounds like Peace Now, but certainly, he is a voice of moderation against the desires of some of the students whose questions are also transcribed, for collective punishment, transfer (although the word uses is Aabara, not Transfer) and harsher actions against terrorists and Arab population. When I have more time I will post in my own blog pictures of the original article and my own translation from Hebrew to English.
For the moment I can say in response to John W. #40 that:
1. Ben Gurion never said those words, it was Moshe Dayan, and the quote is a misquote of him. So, in the case you actually have the book “The Jewish Paradox” by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, I would be very careful to use it as a source. In fact, I could never rely on it. You don’t read Hebrew and that is a shame, because, as an Arab friend here once told me at the University: “we Arabs have a saying: each new language you add to your knowledge is like a new world you can live in”.
2. You have been lying regarding the procedence of at least another of your quotes, and probably you have never read “the Jewish paradox”. You have taken them from non-reputable sites on the internet, as it is obvious from the way you have made the citation.
3. Your only defense is calling me names and try to deflect attention. Very grown up.
4. You are an ignorant about Israel and it shows. I would start correcting that by learning Hebrew, you potz.
Andy, even though you may agree with John W. political positions, this is a guy in which you cannot trust because he lies and hides the truth.
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
ALL Zionists do. It is a congenital condition of what is clearly and unequivocally a racist, supremacist ideology.
As I said at the beginning of this thread, a case study in demonisation, nothing more.
Comment by Dave Rich — 11 February, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
“As I said at the beginning of this thread, a case study in demonisation, nothing more.”
Indeed. In fact Zionism is a movement that contains as wide a range of political ideologies as Islamism or socialism. John Wright’s assertion that all Zionists treat criticism of Israel as anti-semitic is plainly false. There are many Zionists, including peace activists, human rights advocates and army refusniks who have plenty of criticism of how the Israeli state treats the Palestinians.
Comment by Dust to Dust — 11 February, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
Andy Newman: “ii)Some people who are not anti-Semitic (John W, for example), unfortunately give hostage to fortune by being insufficiently switched on over the issue of anti-semitism”
John Wight: “ALL Zionists [misrepreent all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic]. It is a congenital condition of what is clearly and unequivocally a racist, supremacist ideology.”
Andy, if you think that John W is (unfortunately) giving hostages to Zionists who will dishonestly use his ignorance against him, and against all anti-Zionists… why do you think he is still doing it?
Why, Andy, when it is pointed out to John W that he is saying antisemitic things, do you think he not only keeps on saying them, but he insists that he is the one in the right?
He is not motivated by antisemitism, we can all agree, so why does he keep saying antisemitic things?
How many antisemitic things does a person have to say, how many times does it need to be pointed out to him, before we characterize a that person as an antisemite?
Does it matter if we characterize John Wight as an antisemite or not? The point is that he insists on continuing to say antisemitic things. He has learnt nothing from this thread.
And he continues to teach antisemitic things to the youth.
Surely he is not fit to take a leadership role in Stop the War or in the SPSC.
Comment by David Hirsh — 11 February, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
Tony Greenstein denies that his communist heroes “conspired with the fascists to murder Jews. It is a conspiracy theory too far.” Now denials of Stalinist mass murders are always disgusting. And denials of Stalinist mass murders perpetrated in collaboration with Hitler are particularly vile. And when the issue is the mass murder of Jews, Greenstein is not a million miles from Holocaust denial. Let’s quote just a few of the sources:-
“When the Soviets became convinced that many of the Jewish refugees [from the Nazi-occupied zone] were ‘anti-social’ elements they aparently decided to give them a ‘loyalty test’ … This deceitful tactic was made possible thanks to the close cooperation between the NKVD and the Gestapo. The German assistance in the perpetration of this great fraud on the Jewish refugees by the NKVD was illustrated in two matters: 1) The Gestapo apparently gave its approval to the publication by the Soviets of public announcements that the refugees could register for their organised return to their homes and families in the German-occupied territories; 2) in order to encourage the Jewish refugees to believe these announcements, a Soviet-German committee was actually set up [in Brest-Litovsk]…
“[Thus] the NKVD had in their possession complete and up-to-date lists, including addresses, of the refugees who had failed the loyalty test and against whom action would need to be taken. The ‘criminals’ of employment age were sentenced to Gulag camps in the northern part of European Russia and in Siberia… Old people, cripples, and mothers of children were sent with their children to places of exile in Kazakhstan and in the northern regions… Both the prisoners and the exiles were likely to die of hunger, cold and disease. The fate of both groups was fairly speedy annihilation.”
- Yosef Litvak, “The Plight of Refugees From the German-Occupied Territories,” in Keith Sword, ed., The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939-41 (St. Martin’s Press, 1991), pp66-9.
“It was in the course of the third mass deportation, in June 1940, that the greatest number of Jews was deported to the USSR…
“Compilation of the June 1940 deportation lists involved more deliberate deception than had been used on previous occasions… Two registrations were going on in the spring of 1940 in Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia: one for identity papers and the other, conducted by the German repatriation commission, for population transfers. The actual decision to deport refugees from western and central Poland may have been taken independently of these two procedures. But only as a result of them were complete name and address lists of the refugees compiled by the Soviet authorities.”
- Jan T. Gross, Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia (Princeton University Press, 2002), pp97, 202-3.
“By the time that the [Soviet] Amnesty had been granted in 1941 (for crimes that had not been committed), almost half of the one-and-a-half-million Poles deported in the previous years [i.e., 750,000 people] were already dead. The victims included 100,000 Polish Jews, headed by the Chief Rabbi of Warsaw, Moses Shore. The exact numbers will never be known.”
- Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes (Oxford University Press, 2005), Vol. 2, p334.
Thus Greenstein is exposed as a denier of the mass murder of 100,000 Jews resulting from collaboration with the Nazis.
I can’t resist pointing to one last example of Greenstein’s methods. He says that “the figure of 2 million Jews who would otherwise have died [but for Stalin’s humanitarianism] is cited in Menachem Begin’s The Revolt, hardly a tome of anti-Zionist understanding!” I have a copy of this book, which says nothing of the kind: in fact the first three chapters recount Begin’s experiences as an inmate of the Stalinist concentration camps!
Greenstein has already unmasked himself as a denier of Hitler’s plans to murder the Jews of the Middle East, a denier of Stalin’s collaboration with Hitler and a denier of Stalin’s mass murders of Jews. Would it be at all surprising if he denied the existence of Stalin’s concentration camps as well?
Comment by Paul Bogdanor — 11 February, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
I trust this post meets Andy’s criteria, seeing as previously my blatantly obvious sarcastic parody of John W’s tone and banter and challenge of some of what has passed uncritically on this rambling thread as historical narrative was deemed too offensive for this site and even regarded as ‘antisemitic’ by Andy and Tony Greenstein.
Just wondering, regarding the boycott/divestment/sanctions initiative, if any of its proponents (besides John W, Mary Rizzo, Jock McTrousers and Gilad Atzmon), can explain how it is that Cuba not only allows their Jewish citizens to emigrate to Israel should they wish (which begs the question how free are Cuban citizens to emigrate elsewhere should they wish?), but also imports Israeli fruits and vegetables among other goods?
Surely, Cuba can’t be considered either insensitive to the plight of Palestinians, under undue pressure from a ‘Walt and Mearsheimer type’ pro-Israel lobby, or imperialistic — in the ‘only the US, Israel and UK are contemporary imperialist states’ sense of the term. So how is this willingness of Cuba to have fairly good relations with the State of Israel and foster trade with Israel explained?
BTW, unlike much of the rest of the planet, the scourge of far left (and as one would expect, far right and paleocon) antisemitism is practically non-existent inside Cuba. Same goes for anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment both inside Cuba and with respect to Cuba’s external relations.
Comment by lbnaz — 11 February, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
With his wild assertions, such as I have ‘unmasked’ myself as a denier of Hitler’s plans to murder the Jews of the Middle East, Bognador just reveals himself as a foaming in the mouth liar. He should take a few lessons from his somewhat more respected father and calm down.
I have no doubt at all that if the Nazis had conquered Palestine they would have murdered the Jews and many of the Palestinians too, who they saw as untermenschen. It is possible that they would have related to the Zionists as the new Jews of Baron Mildenstein and other Nazis description and treated with them as with other colonial elites. But it was Trotsky who said that Palestine could prove one big trap for the Jews.
The idea that I’m a stalinist is just another example of Bognador’s foaming. I come from the trotskyist tradition but without Bognador’s rabid dog approach to Stalinism.
Re Begin’s Revolt. Bognador says that:
‘He says that “the figure of 2 million Jews who would otherwise have died [but for Stalin’s humanitarianism] is cited in Menachem Begin’s The Revolt, hardly a tome of anti-Zionist understanding!” I have a copy of this book, which says nothing of the kind.’
Nothing of the kind? This is what Begin says:
‘I cannot forget and no Jew should forget, two fundamental facts. Thanks to the Soviet Union hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.’ It is on p.13 of the book so I can understand Bognador’s difficulty in finding it. He may not have mentioned a figure of 2 million but the gist of the meaning is quite clear.
Or how about Nahum Goldmann, one of the key leaders of world Jewry and Chair both of the World Jewish Congress and the WZO at different times.
‘Let us not forget that the Russians saved hundreds of thousands of Jews by allowing them to flee from Poland, after the Nazi invasion into Russia and enabled them after the War, to return to Poland and most of them to Israel
JC., 25. 9. 1981. ‘The Danger Facing World Jewry’, N. Goldmann
Gerald Reitlinger argues that the official figure of 157,420 who returned after the war from Russia is dwarfed by the number of Jews from Polish White Russia who chose to stay in the Soviet Union. Up to 700,000 may have escaped from Poland and eastern Galicia into Russia. A quarter of a million Jews, including those in Auschwitz, the Lódz ghetto and the hidden Jews survived the Nazi occupation. [The Final Solution pp. 303-4] The fact that such large numbers remained concealed is testament to the fact that anti-semitism was not all-pervasive.) [pp. 497-99, p299]
Reitlinger estimates that between 60,000 and 70,000 of the Baltic Jews escaped the holocaust by escaping to Russia. [p.292]
The Ukraine contained the true ‘reservoirs of eastern Jewry’. In addition to the 568,000 Jews from east Galicia, annexed in 1939, over two million lived here. When the Russians retreated in 1941, most employable Jews left with them, leaving only their families. German paramilitary Einsatzgruppe C reported that rumours about the fate of the Jews had already preceded them and that many Jewish communities were reduced by 70%-90% - and in some cases 100%. According to Einsatzgruppe B, “in many towns the Soviets had evacuated the entire Jewish population”. But for the Bolshevik revolution, despite all the subsequent Stalinist horrors, at least a million and a half more Jews would have died. [R Hilberg, Destruction of European Jewry, pp. 107, 109. Student edition]
Unlike Norman Davies and Bognador, both Reitlinger and Hilberg are acknowledged historians of the holocaust.
One of the reasons that Hilberg and Reitlinger for that matter, who are holocaust historians unlike Norman Davies (whose books were subject to severe criticism in respect of their coverage of the Jewish question incidentally)find it difficult to place figures on the number of Poles who died is because so many fled to the Soviet Union.
I cannot forget and no Jew should forget, two fundamental facts. Thanks to the Soviet Union hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.
It is no secret that Stalin colluded with the Nazis. I think even Bognador knows about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. This involved for example deporting German communists back to Germany. Likewise the Russians would have deported Poles too, among whom were Jews. However Bognador elides over the fact that Jews deported were deported because they were Poles, not because they were Jews. In fact in the first 2 years of the Nazi occupation of Poland, more Jews died because they were part of the Polish intelligentsia than from purely anti-Jewish Actions.
Of course for Bognador Soviet Russia and Hitler’s Germany were one and the same thing. This is the real holocaust revisionism since but for the Soviet troops and army and the Soviet people, and despite Stalin’s bloody misleadership, hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from an otherwise certain death. Compare this to the Zionist project which obstructed rescue.
So Bognador, in his anti-communist zeal, demonstrates once again that he is a falsifier of history.
As for Fabian from Israel. If he is so concerned about racism then he could turn his attention to the state he lives in. Why does the JNF control state lands and why are Palestinians even from Israel barred from 93% of the lands, why are Bedouin villages in the Negev destroyed as part of the ‘Judaification’ process there and in the Galilee. I could go on but anyone who pretends they are concerned about anti-Semitism when they turn a blind eye to Zionism’s racism, even when they live in the Israeli state is a hypocrite.
David Hirsh takes exception to John W’s statement that all Zionists misrepresent criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. That is true. And that is precisely why people like those in Indymedia, who are undoubtedly anti-racist, have become so confused as a result that they are now receptive to holocaust denial. Congratulations David. An excellent achievement!
And when are you going to bar Mikey for collaborating with one of the key exponents of holocaust denial and anti-Semitism,Gilad Atzmon, viz. one Mikey?
It is a sign of the sick and twisted mind of Bognador that he repeats what are really the warmed up offerings of German revisionist historians like Ernst Noltke, who also argue that Stalin and Hitler’s regime were one and the same and indeed that the former gave rise to the latter. That is indeed where the most rabid Zionists end up - as the exonerators of Hitler. There were many things to say about the Stalinist regime in the USSR but they didn’t embark on an attempt to liquidate the Jews, quite the contrary, the USSR was one of the few places of refuge for Jews from Poland. And even Begin owes his life to that fact.
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 11 February, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
First Tam G posted the following: “When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became President, many South Africans fled the country and settled in Israel, taking their expertise in the mass control and suppression of populations with them.”
Richard then asked her to back up her claim that South Africans who emigrated to Israel (we can safely assume here that by South Africans, Tam G was referring primarily to Jewish South Africans, can we not?) had expertise in “mass control and suppression of populations”.
She neither backed up her patently indefensible claim and neither did she retract it.
And notwithstanding that her post, not to mention Jock Mc Trouser’s, John W’s and Mary Rizzo’s posts, didn’t strike Andy Newman as being either too offensive or antisemitic for this thread, what I find even more absurdly ironic is that following Tam G’s unfounded and demonizing claim about South African Jews who emigrated to Israel, she posted the following comment: “Anti-imperialist, anti-Israeli colonialist discourse is one thing. bonbastic, anti-Judaic hyperbole quite another. It no doubt brings a warm glow to the hearts of those that engage in it…”.
How can the juxtaposition of Tam G’s two comments, the first, bombastic, anti-South African Jewish hyperbole and the second a condemnation of other people’s but not her own, bombastic and anti-Jewish hyperbole, not be seen as a blatant demonstration of pot calling kettle black?
Will Pam G. please retract her previous claim if she wants readers to take her second comment as sincere?
Comment by lbnaz — 11 February, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
TG @ 287 -”With his wild assertions, such as I have ‘unmasked’ myself as a denier of Hitler’s plans to murder the Jews of the Middle East, Bognador just reveals himself as a foaming in the mouth liar. He should take a few lessons from his somewhat more respected father and calm down.”
Good grief - who is foaming at the mouth and needs to calm down? Who makes wild assertions all the time.
You should stop encouraging him Andy - when he’s finished making a fool of himself - you’ll look pretty damn silly too.
Comment by ftp — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
David Hirsh:
Why, Andy, when it is pointed out to John W that he is saying antisemitic things, do you think he not only keeps on saying them, but he insists that he is the one in the right?
He is not motivated by antisemitism, we can all agree, so why does he keep saying antisemitic things?
Reply:
Again, again, and again you continue to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. For far too long you and your supporters have banked on being able to roll out the anti-Semitic card when the heat is on vis-a-vis Palestine and have good people run for cover for fear of being calumnied. I again reject your pathetic attempts to do so and state again that Zionism is a racist, supremacist ideology, and that Israel as an exlusionary Jewish State has been the source of unremitting suffering for the Palestinian people and for its Arab neigbours, a majory contributory factor in the economic, political, and social dislocation that has so devastated the region. A state founded upon the ethnic cleansing of another people and which continues to exist at their negation constitues a stain on the conscience of the world. Israel as an apartheid state has NO right to exist. Such exceptionalism is the very antithesis of universal human rights. Such exceptionalism has lain at the root of every act of genocide in human history, whether committed under the aegis of the British Empire, European settlement of North and South America, the slave trade, the Armenian Genocide, the Jewish Holocuast, or the Rwandan Genocide.
Surely you see the pattern yourself?
The Jewish people, throughout history, have played key roles in forming and shaping our world for the better. They have also been resolute in resisting oppression. The Jews who stood side by side with communists, socialists, trade unionists, Irish immigrants, etc., to smash fascism in the East End of London in the Battle Of Cable Street in 1936 were heroes. The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto who resisted the Nazis in 1943 were giants. The Jewish men and women who took part in the uprisings in Sobibor and Treblinka concentration camps in 1943 were the same. They also played key roles in the various resistance and partisan groups that fought the Nazis in Eastern Europe and were heroes all.
The State of Israel and its brutality towards the Palestinians tarnishes the memory of those people and the memory of those who were slaughtered by the Nazis in Europe.
Zionism is not the same thing as Judaism. Judaism is a religion and a cultural identity. Zionism is an ideology.
As for my being in leadership positions within Stop the War or SPSC, you are incorrect. I am merely an activist the same as everybody else.
Re Israel and S Africa, it is a matter of historical record that Israel maintained trade relations with S Africa during the apartheid years. The US used Israel as a conduit to continue to sell arms to S Africa in order to circumvent sanctions and there was cross fertilisation between both Israel and S Africa in counter-insurgency techniques and training.
In fact Israel to this day exports and sells its expertise in torture and counter-insurgency to countries around the world, expertise gained via its repression of the Palestinians. We have just uncovered one such school close to Edinburgh, run by a company that goes by the name ‘360 Defence.’ Here is their website: http://360defence.co.uk
David, would you like to join us in protesting this company and their activities?
Comment by John W — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:37 pm
John W “In fact Israel to this day exports and sells its expertise in torture and counter-insurgency to countries around the world, expertise gained via its repression of the Palestinians. We have just uncovered one such school close to Edinburgh, run by a company that goes by the name ‘360 Defence.’ Here is their website: http://360defence.co.uk”
I think you’re onto something big here John.
Comment by Richard — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:47 pm
The anti-road rage course - i bet it’s just a cover.
Comment by Richard — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
We’re still googling CODOZ and CODOH.
John,
You must be a genius to achieve what you did.
Comment by Jeff — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
It is no coincidence that ftp (free the peeps!) has come to this site to defend Paul Bognador, an ultra-Zionist if ever there was one.
Ftp has been the main person in UK Indymedia campaigning for the right of holocaust deniers and anti-Semites to continue posting openly on UK IM whilst at the same time hiding posts which criticise Atzmon and his friends.
Birds of a feather methinks!
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:11 pm
John W. Can you please post the search link where you came up with CODOH instead of CODOZ ?
Comment by Richard — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
Speaking of birds of a feather, I notice that the Holocaust denier Paul Eisen has signed Mary Rizzo’s presumably self-written ‘I support Mary Rizzo’ petition, bringing that self-serving enterprise’s total to four Holocaust deniers - at least that I know of, on the assumption that Tony is right that Edna is the toad’s toady ‘knuckles’.
Ah the ‘anti-racist’ Holocaust denier. Mary you’re welcome to them. We on the left have other ideas. And ftp will sooner or later have to choose.
Comment by goodwin sands — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
@ 295, John W was looking for a site called codz.org, Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism. It’s a very slight little site but it does exist and John’s mistake is to my eye not implausible.
Comment by goodwin sands — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
Socialist Unity? In this case an obvious oxymoron? How many sectarians is it possible to balance on the head of a needle? Fortunately very few people will ever get to read this navel gazing rubbish and fortunately your influence on the Palestinian Solidarity movement or on the Revolutionary Socialist movement is ….
Comment by Richard Jones — 11 February, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
Goodwin Sands
I googled codoz , codz , codz.org and i didn’t find aything from Codz.
Comment by Richard — 11 February, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
Sorry i just found Codz under SPSC. But no Codoh at all.
Comment by Richard — 11 February, 2008 @ 10:04 pm
Tony Greenstein is simply ridiculous. He was not named “the Tommy Cooper of the anti-zionist lobby” for nothing.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/01/24/tony_greenstein_more_errors_than_paragraphs.php
He claimed (message 250) that Stalin “save[d] up to 2 millions if not more” Jews from Hitler.
Paul Bogdanor picked him up on this point (message 268)
Greenstein stupidly retorts (message 269) “Just to say that the figure of 2 million Jews who would otherwise have died is cited in Menachem Begin’s The Revolt.”
Paul Bogdanor correctly states (message 285) that Begin’s book “says nothing of the kind.”
Greenstein then goes to his source and see that it actually states (message 287) “Thanks to the Soviet Union hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.”
Consequently Greenstein converts “hundreds of thousands” to “up to 2 millions if not more” and then tries to defend his statement.
This is a typical example of one of Greenstein’s historical distortions and lies and why no genuine socialist or anyone else for that matter should believe a word of what he says. He is no better than a common liar.
Comment by Mikey — 11 February, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
TG @ 294: “It is no coincidence that ftp (free the peeps!) has come to this site to defend Paul Bognador, an ultra-Zionist if ever there was one.”
Try reading it again Tony, its not a defence of Bogadnor at all, its merely a remark on the irony of you accusing someone else of doing what you do, and then advising them to do what you should do.
“TG @ 287 -”With his wild assertions, such as I have ‘unmasked’ myself as a denier of Hitler’s plans to murder the Jews of the Middle East, Bognador just reveals himself as a foaming in the mouth liar. He should take a few lessons from his somewhat more respected father and calm down.”
Good grief - who is foaming at the mouth and needs to calm down? Who makes wild assertions all the time.
You should stop encouraging him Andy - when he’s finished making a fool of himself - you’ll look pretty damn silly too.
Comment by ftp — 11 February, 2008 @ 8:21 pm”
Comment by ftp — 11 February, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
Tony Greenstein wrote: “As for Fabian from Israel. If he is so concerned about racism then he could turn his attention to the state he lives in. Why does the JNF control state lands and why are Palestinians even from Israel barred from 93% of the lands…”
The JNF controls a whopping 13% of state land in Israel, not 93%, while 87% of the land inside the 1967 armistice lines can either be leased or purchased by non-Jews, as well as Jews. As to why, that 13% held by the JNF is reserved for Jews, the reasoning as far as I can understand it, before either justifying or condemning the policy is twofold.
First, there is a context to consider parallel to the aspirations of First Nations in British Columbia, most of which are currently negotiating treaties with both the provincial and federal governments in Canada, First Nations in BC assert that a substantial portion of the lands they receive as a result of the treaty process are to be deemed as communal lands held by a given First Nation as a whole and not deemed as fee simple lands in which any private individual or private interest is eligible to purchase the land from a member of the First Nation who was allocated land as a result of a ratified treaty and later able to sell that land to any other private individual or interest. Of course, the reason that First Nations do not want most or all the land they receive through the treaty process to be deemed fee simple is because of the likelihood that under a fee simple title, much of the land they receive out of a treaty process can be sold out to people who aren’t members of the First Nation minority, thereby defeating the purpose of the treaty process in the first place. Of course much of the right wing opposition to both the treaty process and to any non-fee-simple titled land being transferred to First Nations hinges on the argument that land held communally by any First Nation is racist.
In what way can the aforementioned scenario in BC be compared to the 13% of state lands held by the JNF in Israel? Well, of course inside Israel, Jews make up approximately 80% of the country’s population and so within the state they can not be considered a minority. However, in the Arab Middle East, from which most of Israel’s Jewish population originated, the situation is altogether different. The ratio of land in square miles held by Arab states that Jews are forbidden from purchasing is about 650:1. For every one square mile in the Middle East owned by a Jew, 650 square miles of land are held by Arabs that Jews are forbidden to purchase or own.
It is a crime punishable by death for an Arab in either the West Bank, Gaza, or Jordan to sell land to any Jew. Maybe Tony Greenstein and others can rationalize to themselves that this isn’t racist, but that the JNF is, or at least that the JNF holding 13% of land in Israel for Jews is more racist than laws and policies that selling land to Jews is a crime punishable by execution, but that species of argumentation can not be considered rational or persuasive. Jews from Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, and practically all the Arab states from which Jews originated had their land and property expropriated from them, simply because they were Jewish and because Arab states and populations opposed UNSC 181 (not because Jewish communities were taking up armed resistance against Arabs in those countries) and somewhere between 750,000 and 800,000 Jews from these countries were forcibly expelled from their homes. To this date, not a single one of these Arab states has seriously sought to redress this dispossession.
Notwithstanding the yes, racist sanctions forbidding Arabs from selling land to Jews in several Arab states and in the West Bank and Gaza and the dispossession and expulsion of 750,000-800,000 Jews from most Arab states, none of which are even seriously discussing redressing that injustice — there is another aspect to consider as far as the JNF’s communal policy (whether you agree with it or not) to exclusively reserve 13% of the land they own in Israel for Jews and not have all lands in Israel deemed as fee simple, apart from the minority status of Jews in the world and in the ME in particular.
The JNF was established long before Israel was admitted as a member state of the UN and its funds were raised specifically for the purchase of lands in what was to become the British Mandate of Palestine from voluntary contributions of Jews throughout the world. Non-Jews did not contribute funds to the JNF and non-Jews weren’t and aren’t taxed for the purchase or maintenance of the JNF lands. That is to say that it is foremost up to the donors to decide today whether the JNF policy of reserving 13% of land in Israel communally for Jews should be continued or terminated. The last polling I saw done on the issue claimed that 81% of Israeli Jews were in favour of maintaining the JNF communalist policy of reserving the 13% of land held by the JNF for Jewish people as opposed to deeming those land holdings as in effect fee simple and available for purchase or sale by all.
I am not aware of polling of JNF donors around the world as to what their position may be on the status of JNF held lands, but It strikes me that a substantial part, but not all of the explanation why at least the Israeli Jews polled want the communal policy to remain in place is because of the extant de facto and de jure restrictions preventing Jews from having any access to land in much of the Arab world, even land that was unjustly expropriated from Jewish owners between the 1930’s and following the war in 1967.
Of course, we have those on this thread who assert that all of the land held by the state of Israel, by the JNF, or by private Jewish individuals was obtained solely or at least predominantly, through forced expulsion of approximately 700,000-750,000 Arab residents from Israel during the 1947-49 war. In fact, as was published in Arab language newspapers of the late 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, such as Al Jammiyyah al- Arabia, Al Carmel, Filastin, Maraat Al-Sharq, Al Tzrat Al-Mastiqim, Al Yarmuq and Al Maqdam, to name a few, Arab elites, absentee landowners, smaller Arab landowners, indebted fellahin (agrarian peasants) and Arab brokers and middlemen, many of whom, following the anti-Jewish pogroms in British Mandate Palestine, claimed to be the purest of Arab nationalists and made a big show of denouncing any Arab who might sell land, or anything else for that matter, to Jews, did in fact sell their private land to the JNF and to individual Jewish purchasers. It is also crucial to acknowledge that by far most of the land in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine was never privately owned, either by Arabs or Jews, but instead was held as property of the reigning power.
Perhaps Tony Greenstein and other antizionist activists in the British Isles who denounce the JNF as racist for holding 13% of land within the 1967 armistice lines as a communal trust for Jews, who make up less than a single percent of the world’s population, can provide some sound legal justification as to why First Nations in BC today ought to be able to demand of the Provincial and Federal governments in Canada, that most, if not all of the land transferred to their communities through the current treaty process ought to be held and deeded perpetually as a communal trust rather than deeded as fee simple lands. Are they opposed to any community perpetually holding land for any reasons under a communal type of title because they deem that to be racist, or just opposed to the JNF holding 13% of land within the 1967 armistice lines?
Inside the 1967 armistice lines I have no objection to a maximum of 13% of land to be held communally for Jews, if it was legally purchased by the JNF on behalf of its Jewish donors and if those donors wish to maintain that policy and nor do I have any objection to First Nations in BC acquiring land through a ratified treaty with the federal and provincial governments in Canada to be deeded as perpetual communal treaty lands as opposed to fee simple lands. Then again, I’m not an antizionist.
Comment by lbnaz — 11 February, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
Greenstein’s latest outburst is surely one of the most embarrassing and self-destructive messages ever published online.
Previously Greenstein cited Begin as the source for 2 million Jews saved by Stalin. I exposed this as a lie. Greenstein now admits that he was lying, but quotes this passage from Begin: “I cannot forget and no Jew should forget, two fundamental facts. Thanks to the Soviet Union hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.”
Greenstein has, of course, amputated the quotation. Here’s what Begin actually wrote: “Thanks to the Soviet Union hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands - though some of them suffered greatly and some of them died in prison, in exile, or as refugees.”
This example tells you everything you need to know about Greenstein.
And Greenstein hasn’t finished: having admittedly lied about Stalin saving 2 million Jews from Hitler, he now claims that without the Bolshevik Revolution the Nazis would have killed another 1.5 million Jews! Now it’s hardly debatable that without Lenin, there could have been no Stalin; hence no Hitler-Stalin Pact; hence no WW2 and no Holocaust. Indeed, Greenstein’s mentor Brenner went even further: in Zionism and the Age of the Dictators he wrote that “Stalin’s fanaticism” shared the blame for the “failure to unite” the German left that “let Hitler come to power.”
Greenstein has tied himself into this historical straitjacket because he insists on denying the mass murder of 100,000 Polish Jews as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Greenstein thinks that anyone who mentions the mass murder of millions of innocent men, women and children, including Jews, by Stalin thereby turns into an apologist for Hitler. With identical logic, his counterpart Irving argues that anyone who recognises the mass murder of millions of Jews by Hitler must be an apologist for Stalin. And just as Irving lies about Hitler saving the victims of Stalin, so Greenstein lies about Stalin’s efforts to rescue Jews. Having denied, Irving-style, the mass murder of 100,000 Polish Jews, now he tries to conflate the number of Jews who FLED the Nazi advance with humanitarian rescue efforts by the Stalinist dictatorship. On the non-existence of these rescue efforts, see Ben-Cion Pinchuk, “Was There a Soviet Policy For Evacuating the Jews?” Slavic Review, March 1980; Jeffrey Herf, “The Nazi Extermination Camps and the Ally to the East,” Kritika, Fall 2003; and countless other sources.
Especially comical in this respect is Greenstein’s recommendation of Hilberg. Greenstein would be well advised to consult Hilberg’s chapter on Hungary, which not only contradicts his discredited line on the Kastner case but repeatedly cites Kastner as a source. Perhaps, if Greenstein spends some time reading Hilberg, he will learn to stop relying on the testimony of Eichmann?
Comment by Paul Bogdanor — 11 February, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
I’m amused, but not surprised, that Tony Greenstein has made the monumental blunder of invoking the Nazi apologist Ernst Nolte. Let’s compare the two of them.
- Both equate Zionism with Nazism.
Nolte wrote that “Zionists basically wanted something similar to the national socialists, namely to conquer and colonize a vital space” (quoted in Jewish Political Studies Review, Fall 2002). Greenstein wrote that the Zionist “obsession with demography and purity of the national entity, was no different from that of the anti-Semitic movements whose activities led directly to the Holocaust” (Return Magazine, March 1990).
- Both blame Zionists for the Holocaust.
Nolte argued that the Nazis were “justified in treating the German Jews as prisoners of war” because the Zionists were on England’s side (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 24, 1980). Greenstein stated that “without a Zionist movement… it is hard to believe that anything like 6 million would have been allowed to die. If it was the Nazis who pulled the trigger it was the Zionists who provided them with the alibi” (Zionism: Anti Semitism’s Twin in Jewish Garb, 1982).
- Both claim that Hitler founded Israel.
Nolte “maintains that in future historical perspective, Hitler will appear as the one who originated the State of Israel” (JPSR, Fall 2002). Greenstein declared, above: “It was the holocaust that made Zionism into a majority political current in the world and Israel represents Hitler’s triumph.”
- Both celebrate the Hitler-Stalin war while ignoring the Hitler-Stalin alliance.
Nolte justifies the genocidal Nazi regime as the “strongest of all counter forces” to communism (New York Times, June 21, 2000). Greenstein, above, justifies the genocidal Stalinist regime as the main obstacle to Hitlerism.
- Both identify Judaism with an ideology of genocide.
Nolte detected “a great affinity between Judaism and Bolshevism” (JPSR, Fall 2002). Greenstein saw “the Jewish orthodox religion” as “the fount of the most virulent forms of racism,” invoked “solid foundations for these Judaeo-Nazi views in the Halachah” and rejected “the Nazi pronouncements of Jewish orthodoxy” (Return Magazine, March 1990).
- Both defend the PLO and justify the destruction of Israel.
Nolte asked his readers to imagine that the PLO “were to succeed in destroying the nation of Israel,” which would be remembered as a “victory over racist, repressive, even Fascist Zionism” (FAZ, July 24, 1980). Greenstein wrote: “I want the state of Israel to be destroyed” because its leaders are “Judaeo-Nazis” (Letter, Weekly Worker, July 20 2006) and he boasted of visiting Baathist Syria with PLO funding (Harry’s Place, June 10, 2005).
Thus in all important respects, Greenstein is the mirror image of Nolte, the antisemitic ideologue and Nazi apologist.
There is, I submit, one crucial difference. To my knowledge, Nolte has yet to advocate the mass murder of American Jews. By contrast, Greenstein has announced that “If every staffer in AIPAC were to be vapourised tomorrow, alongside Bush, Blair and Cheney, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep” because they are an “anti-Semitic caricature… determined to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion” (Alef list, April 19, 2007).
In proposing this 9/11-style massacre of Zionist Jews, Greenstein is, I think, in a class of his own.
Comment by Paul Bogdanor — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:09 am
Or in other words,
Tony Greenstein represents antisemitism’s twin in Marxist garb!
Comment by Mikey — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:22 am
It is worrying to read much of the thread above as it seems to do nothing to help with either supporting the cause of the Palestinians or defeating anti-semitism.
I’d like to return to the original blog which is the practical consideration of how to deal with the rise of anti-semitism and how Jews must align themselves with others in the movement.
Even Jews who support Israel, are opposed to anti-semitism - the crucial question is who will lead - us or those who will readily capitulate as was usual for the Board of Deputies when it came to fighting Mosely in the thirties.
I have my views on Stalin (not very good ones), much better view on the Red Army who objectively saved Jews whilst under a banner of Russian Nationalism as well as defence of the Soviet Motherland. However, if this discussion is to be of any use and lead anywhere it might focus on how the left can seriously tackle anti-semitism in the here and now.
As it happens, I am Jewish but strongly opposed to Zionism, supporting the Palestinians right to self-determination (not telling them they must live in a secular state because I think it’s best).
But for those who seem to wish to trade insults in this thread, please remember: the fascists do not care whether you are Zionists or not, go to shool or not, socialist or not when they come for us.
Comment by Ray — 12 February, 2008 @ 12:45 am
Remember something else, Ray…. zionazis do not care whether you are Jewish or not, go to shool or not, socialist or not when they come for us.
Comment by knuckles — 12 February, 2008 @ 10:36 am
knuckles dearest, the zionazis don’t have to come for you, they’re already in your head.
Comment by lbnaz — 12 February, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
Let’s catch a wake-up, boys and girls. “Anti-Semitism is a real problem”. Er, can you actually say that seriously in this day and age, when there are REAL problems such as the neo-con genocide of 11 million people in one country alone… http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm
That’s not even looking at Iraq yet!
Comment by knuckles — 12 February, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
David Hirsh writes that ‘The Jewish people, throughout history, have played key roles in forming and shaping our world for the better. They have also been resolute in resisting oppression. The Jews who stood side by side with communists, socialists, trade unionists, Irish immigrants, etc., to smash fascism in the East End of London in the Battle Of Cable Street in 1936 were heroes.’
Yes but David Hirsh is being his disingenuous self again (or maybe ignorance would be a better word). As Geoffrey Alderman (yes it is he, the JC columnist and now bigot) wrote in his excellent book, the Jewish Community in British Politics wrote, the only grouping in the Jewish community which supported David Hope Kydd and the anti-immigrant Tories in the 1900 General Election was the fledgling English Zionist Federation. (93) Kydd described the Jewish immigrants as ‘the very scum of unhealthiest of the Continental nations.’ (75)
These were Zionists, not most Jews of course because only Zionists saw advantages and opportunities in anti-Semitism.
And when are you going to answer David whether or not you are going to have more ‘guest posts’ from Atzmon’s favourite helper, one mad Mikey?
Yes Begin says ‘hundreds of thousands’ though I remember a figure of 2 million. So? Same order of magnitude. Bognador says ‘nothing of the kind’ - nothing mind you. I think my comments were somewhat more accurate.
As for Ibnaz, he says that ‘Inside the 1967 armistice lines I have no objection to a maximum of 13% of land to be held communally for Jews, if it was legally purchased by the JNF on behalf of its Jewish donors’. Firstly it’s not 13% but 93%. The JNF jointly control this land with the Israeli Land Administration, who formally control 80% via the various JNF laws in 1960/1. So having now established it is 93% of Israeli land that Palestinian Israelis are barred from we can see exactly why, as in Southern Africa, land is the key to the apartheid situation in Israel.
Bognador has begun foaming again. I provided him with the quote and he still foams!! He’s not worth bothering with and should go back to his little libel sites and hope to gain a little attention that way since he is a far-right freak who is in good company with Mikey and Hirsh.
An example of his method is his quote from me:
‘If every staffer in AIPAC were to be vapourised tomorrow, alongside Bush, Blair and Cheney, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep” because they are an “anti-Semitic caricature… determined to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion” (Alef list, April 19, 2007).
Note the ‘if’ - if it happened. What does the idiot then write?
‘In proposing this 9/11-style massacre of Zionist Jews, Greenstein is, I think, in a class of his own.’ There is no proposal in the above it is a conditional clause. If Bognador cannot understand that there is no point debating with him.
I agree with Ray. The Russians won the war despite Stalin who let the Nazis march in because of his faith in Hitler’s word. But the fact remains that without the Russians having torn the guts out of the Nazis the latter may well have won the war, certainly in the whole of Europe. But I suspect that that is not a prospect Bognador would have been too worried about, since he is first and foremost an anti-communist.
But should one expect any different from Zionists? Even the David Hirsh variety?
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 12 February, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
Tony Greenstein seems now to have attributed a quote to me that was in fact written by the only person who is impressed by all his erudition, John Wight.
I suppose that now Greenstein realizes that it wasn’t written by me but by Wight, then he will change his mind about it being “disingenuous”.
It is beyond belief that anybody could take a single word Greenstein writes seriously. Poor old Tony.
Comment by David Hirsh — 12 February, 2008 @ 11:47 pm
Tony Greenstein is very much an oddball and if there is anyone “foaming” on this thread it is him. He continues to repeat the nonsense that I am “Atzmon’s favourite helper.” Earlier on in this thread Greenstein tried to prove it by linking to a series of comments on PeacePalestine web site.
In that same thread that he linked to, it can be seen by my continual questions to Paul Eisen, I got him to say the following:
“Regarding gas, again I am not sure but the evidence for the use of homicidal gas-chambers is not good at all. The evidence against it is much, much stronger.”
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/thecutter/117192641046077827/#232973
Tony Greenstein has subsequently used that quote more than once to attack Atzmon for his friendship with Eisen. By Greenstein’s own perverted form of logic, I could be accused of being “Greenstein’s favourite helper.”
It is complete nonsense, like the nonsense that Becher was a General, like the nonsense that it is reasonable to attribute a claim that the Russians saved “up to 2 millions if not more” Jews from Hitler to Menachem Begin, like the nonsense that it was a 3:2 majority in the Kasztner case in the Supreme Court ruling. The list goes on. If Greentein were Pinocchio, the length of his nose would by now be as long as the M1.
Comment by Mikey — 13 February, 2008 @ 12:23 am
It is true that the ILA on behalf of the State have a law enacted in 1961 which sets out the state’s relationship with the JNF. However, Tony Greenstein’s conflation of the ILA and the JNF is spurious, when it comes to how much land inside the 67 armistice lines is held in trust by the JNF on behalf of its donors. What Tony G seems to be opposed to is public lands. Very odd, nay counterintuitive, for a socialist. Of course, if the public land isn’t in Israel, Tony G. likely becomes a socialist again and will support the concept of publicly held land. But when it comes to Israel, Tony G. joins the chorus on the right in Israel who call for the privatization of state lands.
And again notwithstanding that Tony G is clearly beyond his depth on this matter and so impervious to acknowledging facts when it comes to Israel or Zionism, or WWII, that it suits him better to bask in ignorance and repeatedly make spurious claims, I will anyways counter his bs with facts: Tony G is dead wrong. 76.5% of the land inside the 67 armistice lines is owned by the State of Israel; 8% of the land inside the 67 lines is privately held or fee simple; 2.5% of the land inside the 67 lines is owned by the Islamic Waqf; and 13% of the land (approx. 2.5 million dunam or approx. 625,000 acres) is held in trust by the JNF on behalf of its Jewish donors.
http://www.kkl.org.il/kkl/hebrew/nosim_ikaryim/jewish-lands/hakika/hakikakneset.x
For the last fifty years any non-Jew wishing to lease JNF land was able to do so by means of the following arrangement: Israel Lands Authority would give the person whether Jewish, or not, the JNF property he wanted to acquire, and would compensate the organization with land of equal value at another site.
Since 2004, however, because of technical and procedural problems, the Lands Authority has stopped doing this, and the Adalah Arab rights association petitioned both the Authority and KKL-JNF in the High Court of Justice, on the grounds that KKL-JNF lands are no longer being sold to non-Jews.
The High Court of Justice accepted the view held by JNF and the State, which is that a land-swap agreement has to be reached between the two. For a period of three months, until a comprehensive arrangement has been worked out, the practice of individual land swaps will be reinstated and followed once more as it was for many years in the past.
Comment by lbnaz — 15 February, 2008 @ 12:41 am
Mikey seems to have a problem with reading the English language. I have said, repeatedly, that even if the Supreme Court voted 4-1 on political/legalistic grounds (primarily they didn’t have the right to judge anyone a collaborator) their opinions divided 3-2 - Judges Goiten and Silberg in the minority. They ALSO upheld that the collaboration charge was proved, remember this is a libel, in respect of his testimony on behalf of Kurt Becher. Mikey continues to ignore this aspect.
The report of Becher’s promotion to General is in Hecht and he cites a US source from memory. It is irrelevant really because rank was not the determinative factor in influence. Eichmann for example only had the rank of a Lt. Colonel. (standarten fuhrer I believe).
Most people recognise that Supreme Courts, be it in Israel or the USA, deliver political judgments in accord with the society they live in. The Kastner case was extremely embarrassing. It threw a light on an episode they would rather have concealed. After the first few days the attorney general himself, Chaim Cohen (late a Supreme Court judge too) took over the prosecution (in reality defence).
The story is now widely known, not just in standard history books but Ben Hecht’s Perfidy and of course the Perdition play.
Mikey still hasn’t explained his acting as an unpaid researcher for Atzmon and why Atzmon, not just in the quotes I’ve posted, is so warm in his praise for him. I think one can assume the reason.
And despite making a guest appearance here, David Hirsh has still seen fit not to comment! I can’t imagine why. Here is a gues poster on his site who consorts with anti-Semites. Hirsh professes to detest all anti-Semitism. Why the silence?!!!
I don’t accept Ibnaz’s interpretation. The Israeli Lands Authority controls 80% of land in Israel and together with the JNF it is 93%. There is a joint committee of the ILA and JNF to administer it. I am not interested in the arrangements made or how they are operated. Public in Israel means Jewish Public. Why else would a Jewish, not Israeli, Jewish National Fund have a status in law to administer lands that non-Jews cannot lease or rent, as per Article 3A of its own articles of incorporation . Uri Davies has published a whole book on this but the reality of the situation is quite simple.
When the Ka’adan ruling was made by the Supreme Court the JNF pressed for a bill to reverse the ruling and allow it to continue to only have to let apartments to Jews. See the leader ‘a racist Jewish state’ in Ha’aretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=884358
On its own KKK-JNF site, all the pretensions and lies and obfuscations of Ibniz are swept away. This is what they say:
‘A survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens.’
Note that 80T prefer Israel as a Jewish state rather than as the state of all its citizens.
And if you go further down, you will see that the JNF explain why they should be able to keep their 13% separate and reserved for Jews:
‘KKL-JNF continued to perform this function after the State of Israel was founded, too. The distinction here is very clear: the State owns over 80% of Israel’s land.’
Now noone disputes the JNF owns 13%, so you don’t have to be a brilliant mathematician to work out that 80+13=93%.
Anyone who has an ounce of anti-racist politics would denounce this apartheid practice of leasing land to Jews only. However our Zionist sophists try to make excuses instead.
Tony G
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 15 February, 2008 @ 2:15 am
I should have added the url to the quotes from the JNF.
http://www.kkl.org.il/kkl/english/main_subject/jewish%20people%20land/jewish%20people%20land.x
I should point out that the heading in this article ‘All KKL-JNF land was paid for in full with money contributed by Jews all over the world.’ is untrue as is admitted much further down. 80% of it, 2m dunums was the land given to the JNF in 1950 from ‘absentee’ Palestinian landowners.
tony greenstein
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 15 February, 2008 @ 4:33 am
Tony Geenstein cannot get a simple thing right.
He comments that Eichamnn’s rank as Lieutenant colonel was equivaluent to “standarten fuhrer.” I have already stated above (10 February, 2008 @ 3:07 am) that the rank for Lieutentant Colonel is Obersturmbannführer. This fact can be checked in any half decent book the Holocaust. But Greenstein does not rely on half decent books, he relies on Ben Hecht, a book that I have highlighted contains numerous errors and has been exposed as such.
Despite this, Greenstein relies on a book by a playwright for his facts. Not only is Hecht incorrect, his book also has inconsistencies. One of these areas is the rank of Becher. On page 62, Hecht states “From August [1944] on, Kastner was busy traveling. He traveled with S.S. Lieutenant General Kurt Becher…” On page 68, Hecht states, “In 1945, Hitler rewarded the elegant mannered and industrious Kurt Becher with the rank of Lieutenant General.” (Ben Hecht, “Perfidy” ( Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 1999))
It is quite obvious to anyone (apart from Tony Greenstein) that if, according to Hecht, Becher was already “Lieutenant General” in 1944 that he would not have been “rewarded” with the same rank in 1945. This is aside from the fact that Becher’s was never “Lieutenant General” in the first place.
But Greenstein’s error is compounded, because now he is claiming that his source of information was Hecht but in his post (235) Greenstein states, “Becher incidentally was already a Colonel with the SS and was promoted to General in January 1945.” As is quite clear, Greenstein even misquotes his incorrect source because Hecht gave Becher a rank of Lieutenant-General both pre and post Janary 1945. It is simply farcical.
But that is not all the nonsense from Greenstein because he comes up with a new one. As far as Greenstein is concerned, the Israeli Supreme Court “didn’t have the right to judge anyone a collaborator.” I simply have no clue how Greenstein can write such complete balderdash as he should be aware that in 1950, a number of years before the Kasztner case the State of Israel issued the following law “Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-1950.” This law can be seen on the official government web site as follows:
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Nazis%20and%20Nazi%20Collaborators%20-Punishment-%20Law-%20571
Not only is there a law that specifically allows the Israeli court system a collaborator, as Greenstein well knows, the lower court judge did refer to Kasztner as a collaborator. The job of the Supreme Court was to uphold or overturn the ruling. (Kasztner was not on trial, Grunwald was - but it was precisely that ruling that the Supreme Court considered). Greenstein should have known this as because he has carefully read Ben Hecht, he would recall that on footnote 176 (p.275) Hecht quote Supreme Court Judge Shimone Agranat as saying, “one cannot consider it amounting to the degree of collaboration with the Nazis.” Agranat and the three other judges who voted with him (making four in total) could have easily said something different.
Why Greenstein is continuing to push his argument about the judges vote in the face of all the evidence I shall never know. He comments that the opinions of Silberg and Goiten were in the minority. Even Greenstein must understand that if Goiten agreed with Silberg, he could have voted with him. He chose not to. He voted with the majority. Consequently the majority opinion was 4 and the minority opinion was 1. This, as I have repeatedly said, is a straight fact. It can be seen in a number of scholarly books and articles and I have already quoted some. Greenstein should stop relying upon Ben Hecht for this point as Hecht has been shown to be wrong.
Not only does Greenstein rely upon Hecht for incorrect information and he does not even properly report Hecht’s views were, Greenstein compounds his blunder by suggesting the play Perdition. For those not familiar with that play, it was widely discredited by leading historians for factual inaccuracies.(Sir) Martin Gilbert commented that when he first read the play he “found more than 60 historical errors, each one of which was used … to build what seemed to have been a vicious case and a false one against the wartime Jewish leadership, both Zionist and non-Zionist, inside Europe and outside.” (Martin Gilbert, “Travesty of the facts,” Daily Telegraph, January 22, 1987.)Sir Martin Gilbert was not the only one, David Cesarani and Stephen Roth, both eminent also highlighted where they had gone wrong. For more information about this play see David Cesarani, “The Perdition Affair,” in Robert S. Wistrich (Ed.) “Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World.” (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan/IJA, 1990) pp. 53-60
Tony Greenstein should simply give up commenting on Kasztner and surrounding matters, as each time he does he makes a fool of himself.
Comment by Mikey — 15 February, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Tony G’s link in #316 says the exact opposite of what he claims. But as he says in #315: “I am not interested in the arrangements made or how they are operated.” As far as I can tell, the only thing that Tony Greenstein isn’t credulous about is the observation that Gilad Atzmon and his fan club are reactionary bigots. Mind you to put that into some perspective, there are a lot more people far more credible than Greenstein that recognize Atzmon and his tiny cadre to be reactionary bigots. FFS, even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice in a 24 hour period.
Comment by lbnaz — 15 February, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
Although I don’t have Perfidy with me it sources the promotion of Becher in January 1945. Not that it is particularly important. Yes there were a no. of trials for collaboration with the Nazis in Israel BEFORE the Kastner trial. There were none after that and one of those convicted before the Kastner trial had his conviction quashed on precisely the grounds I’ve mentioned, viz. who is to judge in hindsight.
That was the thrust of the majority judges decision, that they should not sit in judgement as they were not there etc. A cop out but that is what it was.
I notice Mikey still hasn’t admitted that the Supreme Court nonetheless found that Kastner was guilty of collaboration in regard to the testimony he gave at Nuremburg. Is it too inconvenient to this thesis?
Yes Martin Gilbert slated Perdition, after the Zionist lobby had successful put pressure on for the Royal Court Theatre to ban the play. A stupid act as it gave Perdition far more publicity than it would otherwise have garnered.
Mikey may not have been about at the time but I remember the Channel 4 programme in which Gilbert took part, debating Lenni Brenner. He came off very poorly and it is his opinion that there were 60 mistakes. In fact one of these ‘mistakes’ the putting on ice of up to 20,000 Jews at the Vienna Strasshoff camp which Gilbert claimed for Kastner was no such thing of course, as Mikey will of course know from his reading of his favourite author Brahams.
Gilbert in any case tries to run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds. He also wrote the foreword to Rudolph Vrba’s ‘I Escaped from Auschwitz’, a book which slates in the appendices the collaboration of - yep that’s right - Kastner! But quoting from Zionist historians and in Gilbert’s case disgusting establishment historians, doesn’t prove anything. Gilbert is a licensed historian to the establishment, which is why he was entrusted as the official biographer for Winston Churchill, who he has defended through thick and thin against charges of racism, anti-Semitism etc. although it is well known that he was a vile racist and imperialist in respect of non-white people.
It is no surprise though that Mikey defends Kastner because he has a fondness for those who collaborate with anti-Semites, as my latest quote from Atzmon in respect of his services proves!
Comment by Tony Greenstein — 16 February, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
Why, oh why, does Tony Greenstein keep coming back for more punishment? One can only conclude he is something of a masochist.
Tony Greenstein comments that in the Kasztner case, “the thrust of the majority judges decision [was] that they should not sit in judgement as they were not there etc.” This is nonsense. The role of the judges is precisely to sit in judgement and that is what they did. To quote directly from the judgement, using the translation by the anti-Zionist Israeli, Akiva Orr, (just in case Greenstein tries and accuses my of a translation bias,) Justice Agranat for the majority concluded as follows:
“1 During that period Kasztner was motivated by the sole motive of saving Hungary’s Jews as a whole, that is, the largest possible number under the circumstances of time and place as he estimated could be saved; 2 This motive fitted the moral duty of rescue to which he was subordinated as a leader of the relief and rescue committee in Budapest; 3 Influenced by this motive he adopted the method of financial or economic negotiation with the Nazis; 4 Kasztner’s behaviour stands the test of plausibility and reasonableness; 5 His behaviour during his visit to Cluj (On May 3rd) and afterwards, both its active aspect (the plan of the ‘prominents’) and its passive aspect (withholding the ‘Auschwitz news’ and lack of encouragement for acts of resistance and escape on a large scale) – is in line with his loyalty to the method which he considered, at all important times, to be the only chance of rescue; 6 Therefore one cannot find a moral fault in his behaviour, one cannot discover a casual connection between it and the easing of the concentration and deportation, one cannot see it as becoming a collaboration with the Nazis” [1]
It can therefore be seen that, Tony Greenstein is incorrect, and there should be no surprises there, as the judges did consider Kasztner’s actions and did not decide that they should not sit in judgment.
Greenstein comments that “the Supreme Court nonetheless found that Kastner was guilty of collaboration in regard to the testimony he gave at Nuremburg.” This is not accurate. Using the same anti-Zionist source, Akiva Orr shows that in the lower court, Judge Benjamin Halevey grouped Grunwald’s accusations Kasztner into four headings. 1 Collaboration with Nazis; 2 “Indirect murder” or “preparing the ground for murder” of Hungarian Jews; 3 Sharing plunder with a Nazi war criminal; 4 Saving a war criminal from punishment after the war. It can therefore be seen that there was a split between the charge of collaboration and that of the testimony. The majority decision in the Supreme Court did find that the accusation that Kasztner had saved a Nazi war criminal from punishment to be truthful, but they exonerated him from the charge of collaboration. [2]
Greenstein now states, “the Zionist lobby had successful put pressure on for the Royal Court Theatre to ban the play.” Yet again, this is not accurate. The play was not banned. The Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre was Max Stafford-Clark. He made it clear in an article for the Guardian that the reason the play was axed was not because it was banned but because he “lost confidence in the play’s credibility.” He states explicitly that it was his decision to axe the play, as, in his own words, “as Artistic Director the constitution of the Royal Court entrusts me with responsibility for the selection of the theatre’s programme.” It is true that Martin Gilbert and Stephen Roth went to see Stafford-Clark about the play, but as Stafford-Clark stated very clearly, “It is ironic that throughout its history, the Royal Court has received generous help from a number of Jewish trusts and prominent Jewish families. In the course of this affair, none of them put any pressure on me. As for any other ‘undeclared pressure’, there was none.”[3]
Continuing with his errors, Greenstein goes on to suggest that one of the errors that Gilbert said was in the play in the Channel 4 debate was about the “the putting on ice of up to 20,000 Jews at the Vienna Strasshoff camp.” Greenstein is being very silly here, because a that whole debate can be watched on line because an anti-Zionist web site has uploaded the video. [4] I have watched this video very closely and at no point does Martin Gilbert mention the Jews who were transported to Strasshof, most of whom survived the war. Regarding Gilbert coming off badly, that is Greenstein’s opinion, however the facts are that Lenni Brenner, in order to try and suggest that Kasztner was a collaborator, reduced himself to quoting Adolph Eichmann. Martin Gilbert expressed complete shock at such an appalling display from Brenner and I concur. What next from the likes of Brenner and Greenstein, will they be quoting Myra Hindley, convicted and found guilty in the Moors child murders trial, on the best way to treat children?
It is true that Martin Gilbert wrote the preface, (not the foreword as Greenstein claims) of Rudolf Vrba’s book, “I escaped from Auschwitz,” but as Gilbert claims, and rightly in my opinion, it was “an honour” to do so.[5] Vrba escaped from Auschwitz and his report (with Wetzler) combined with further information from later escapees, provided the Allies with crucial information about Auschwitz. In this respect, Vrba was certainly a hero of the Holocaust. However, despite Vrba’s view of Kasztner, he was not in Hungary at the time. Even after escaping Auschwitz, he made his way to Zilina, Slovakia before going on in that country to Liptovsky Svaty Mikulas before travelling to Western Slovakia where he joined the partisans. [6] Consequently, despite the fact that Vrba was very competent to comment on Auschwitz and did so admirably, his comments on Kasztner are based on his secondary sources and simply his own opinion.
Greenstein seems fit to dismiss Sir Martin Gilbert for the bizarre reason that he is an “establishment historian.” What can one say to this nonsense? Sir Martin is an Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford University, and a Distinguished Fellow of Hillsdale College, Michigan. [7] Lenni Brenner, on the other hand is a man who did not even have a college education. [8] I find it amusing that Greenstein prefers the work of an uneducated man whose work has been widely discredited [9] rather than the work of an internationally respected historian. It exposes more the stupidity of Tony Greenstein than anything else.
I will conclude this post by quoting the distinguished professor Randolph L. Braham, who states on Kastzner the following:
“Whatever characterization of Kasztner one wishes to believe – and most appear quite understandably exaggerated – it seems that Kasztner’s role cannot possibly be evaluated with any degree of objectivity without assessing the wartime attitude of both belligerent parties towards the Jews; the Nazis’ decision to bring about the Final Solution on the Jewish question and the intensity with which they pursued this goal; the Allies’ passivity towards the Jews and their failure to undertake any military measures to frustrate the Nazis’ designs. In this context, Kasztner, like the six million other Jews, was also a victim.” [10]
Mikey
References
[1] Akiva Orr, “The Kastner Case, Jerusalem 1955” in Jim Allen, “Perdition” (London: Ithaca Press, 1987) pp. 81-105
[2] Ibid.
[3] Max Stafford Clark, “Why I axed Perdition,” The Guardian, March 13, 1987. (NB a copy of this article can be seen in Jim Allen’s, “Perdition” ibid, pp. 140-41)
[4] The video can be watched in its entirety by clicking on the relevant link at
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/clip.php?cid=310
[5] Sir Martin Gilbert, “Preface from Sir Martin Gilbert,” in Rudolf Vrba, “I Escaped from Auschwitz,” (London: Robson Books, 2006) p. vii
[6] Rudolf Vrba, ibid., pp. 250-77
[7] http://www.martingilbert.com/index.html
[8] “‘It’s All Rabbis and No Jews’: An Interview with Lenni Brenner.” Palestine Solidarity Review -Fall 2004 available online at http://www.psreview.org/content/view/33/72/
[9] See for example C.C. Aronsfeld,, “Zionism in the age of the dictators: a reappraisal, By Lenni Brenner” International Affairs, Vol. 60 No. 1 (Winter 1983-1984) pp. 138-39 available online at http://www.paulbogdanor.com/brenner.pdf (PDF) A further example is Louis Harap, “Zionist-Nazi collaboration” Refuted – Lenni Brenner’s Trickery Exposed,” Jewish Currents, May 1984 pp. 4-9, 28-30 available on line at http://www.paulbogdanor.com/harap-brenner.pdf (PDF)
[10] Randolph L. Braham, “The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary,” revised and enlarged edition Volume 2 (New York and Boulder: The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies Graduate Centre / The City University of New York and Social Science Monographs, 1994) p. 1,112
Comment by Mikey — 17 February, 2008 @ 3:41 am
The biggest danger to the socialist movement today is the siren song of “national liberation.” The workers don’t need a nation, they need a state. When nationalism and “national liberation” eclipses the working class as the liberating and historical force of revolution you are half-way to syndicalism and well on the road to proto-fascism.
Populism is not socialism. National liberation is an oxymoron. The rhetoric of “Anti-imperialism” has become a mask to justify a wink wink anti-Semitism.
Comment by Robert — 22 March, 2008 @ 4:29 pm