The Dark History of Labour Racism

The latest absolute must-read from Jonathan Cook on British Labour's civil war and the sorry history of its institutional Zionist racism:

"An announcement this week by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) that it is considering splitting from the British Labour Party could not have come at a worse time for Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader is already besieged by claims that he is presiding over a party that has become 'institutionally anti-semitic'. The threats by the JLM should be seen as part of concerted efforts to oust Corbyn from the leadership. They follow on the heels of a decision by a handful of Labour MPs last month to set up a new faction called the Independent Group. They, too, cited anti-semitism as a major reason for leaving.

"On the defensive, Corbyn was prompted to write to the JLM expressing his and the shadow cabinet's 'very strong desire for you to remain a part of our movement'. More than 100 Labour MPs, including members of the front bench, similarly pleaded with the JLM not to disaffiliate. They apologised for 'toxic racism' in the party and for 'letting our Jewish supporters and members down'. Their letter noted that the JLM is 'the legitimate and long-standing representative of Jews in the Labour party' and added that the MPs recognised the importance of 'calling out those who seek to make solidarity with our Jewish comrades a test of foreign policy'.

"That appeared to be a swipe at Corbyn himself, who is the first leader of a British political party to prioritise Palestinian rights over the UK's ties to an Israeli state that has been oppressing Palestinians for decades. Only this week the Labour leader renewed his call for Britain to halt arms sales to Israel following a UN report that said the Israeli army's shooting of Palestinian protesters in Gaza's Great March of Return could amount to war crimes.

"Despite the media attention, all the evidence suggests that Labour does not have a problem of 'institutional anti-semitism', or even a problem of anti-semitism above the marginal racism towards Jews found in the wider British population. Figures show only 0.08% of Labour members have been disciplined for anti-semitism.

"Also largely ignored by the British media, and Corbyn's opponents, is the fact that a growing number of Jews are publicly coming out in support for him and discounting the claims of an 'epidemic' anti-semitism problem. Some 200 prominent Jews signed a letter to the Guardian newspaper calling Corbyn 'a crucial ally in the fight against bigotry and reaction. His lifetime record of campaigning for equality and human rights, including consistent support for initiatives against antisemitism, is formidable.' At the same time, a new organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour, has been established to underscore that there are progressive Jews who welcome Corbyn's leadership.

"In the current hysterical climate, however, no one seems interested in the evidence or these dissenting voices. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Corbyn and his supporters are on the back foot as they face losing from Labour an affiliate group of 2,000 members who represent a section of the UK's Jewish community.

"But paradoxically, the loss of the JLM may be inevitable if Labour is serious about becoming a party that opposes racism in all its forms, because the JLM has proved that it is incapable of meeting that simple standard. While the Labour Party has been dragged into an increasingly fractious debate about whether anti-Zionism - opposition to Israel as a Jewish state - equates to anti-semitism, everyone has been distracted from that elephant in the room. In fact, it is political Zionism, at least in the hardline form adopted by groups such as the JLM that is racism - towards Palestinians.

"Zionism, we should recall, required the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians to engineer a 'Jewish state' on the ruins of Palestinians' homeland. It fuelled Israel's hunger for an enlarged territory that led to it occupying the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and further dispossessing the Palestinians through illegal settlement building. Zionism has made it impossible for any Israeli government to offer meaningful concessions to Palestinians on statehood to create the conditions necessary for peace. It has justified policies that view 'mixing between the races' - between Jews and Palestinians - as dangerous 'miscegenation' and 'assimilation'. Furthermore, Zionism has kept Israel's Palestinian citizens a segregated minority, hemmed up in their own ghettoised communities, denied rights to almost all land in Israel, and corralled into their own separate and massively inferior school system.

"All of these policies were instituted by Israel's Labor Party, the sister organisation of the JLM in Britain. The JLM not only refuses to oppose these policies, but effectively shields Israel from criticism about them from within Britain's Labour Party. The JLM remained mute on the structural violence of Israel's occupying army, and the systemic racism - encoded in Israel's laws - towards the fifth of its population who are Palestinian citizens. Meanwhile, the JLM's mother body, the World Zionist Organization, has a division that - to this day - finances the establishment and expansion of settlements in the West Bank, in violation of international law.

"Added to this, an Al-Jazeera undercover documentary broadcast in 2017 showed that the JLM was covertly working with an Israeli government official, Shai Masot, to damage Corbyn because of his pro-Palestinian positions. Israel, remember, has for the last decade equated to the ultra-nationalist government of Benjamin Netanyahu. His coalition allies seek not a two-state solution, but the takeover of most of the occupied territories and ultimately their annexation, again in violation of international law. Ella Rose was appointed director of the JLM in 2016, straight from a post at the Israeli embassy. Times - and politics - move on. The JLM is a relic of a period when it was possible to claim to be anti-racist while turning a blind eye to the oppression of the Palestinian people. Social media and Palestinians armed with camera phones - not just Corbyn - have made that evasion no longer possible. Labour giving pride of place to groups such as the JLM or Labour Friends of Israel - to which 80 of its MPs proudly belong - is, in the current circumstances, as obscene as it would have been 40 years ago for British parties to host their own Friends of South Africa groups.

"The Labour Party bureaucracy is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern world by its members, who have felt liberated by Corbyn's leadership and his history of supporting all kinds of anti-racism struggles, including the Palestinian one. While Britain has major and pressing issues to tackle, from dealing with its exit from Europe to imminent climate collapse, Labour's energies have been sidetracked into a civil war about Israel, of all things. The old guard want to be allowed to support Israel, even as it heads towards full-blown fascism, while much of the membership want to dissociate from what looks increasingly like another apartheid state - and one whose leaders are seeking to stoke a conflict across a volatile region.

"Israel's most ardent supporters, and Corbyn's enemies, in Labour will play dirty to protect Israel and their own role from scrutiny, as they have been doing all along. The JLM led moves last year to divide the party by insisting that Labour redefine anti-semitism to include criticism of Israel. Rumblings of dissatisfaction from the JLM will be cited as further evidence of the membership's anti-semitism, because that is the most powerful weapon they have to silence criticism of Israel and deflect attention away from their role in shielding Israel from proper scrutiny within Labour.

"In 1944 - four years before Israel's creation - Labour's annual conference recommended that the natives of Palestine, a large majority population, be ethnically cleansed to advance the goals of European Zionists colonizing their land. The resolution declared: 'Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in.' That is what Israel did by expelling 750,000 Palestinians, more than 80% of the Palestinian population, in events we now call the Nakba (Catastrophe).

"For decades after Israel's creation, Labour Party members happily travelled to Israel to toil in agricultural communities, such as the kibbutz, that were built on stolen Palestinian land and which, to this day, refuse to allow any of the country's 1.7 million Palestinian citizens to live in them. In a speech in 1972, after Israel seized yet more Palestinian lands, including East Jerusalem, Labour leader Harold Wilson urged Israel to hold on to these conquered territories: 'Israel's reaction is natural and proper in refusing to accept the Palestinians as a nation.'

"This is the dark, dishonourable underbelly of Labour racism, and the party's decades-long support for colonialism in the Middle East. Labour created a hierarchy of racisms, in which hatred towards Jews enjoyed star billing while racism towards some other groups, most especially Palestinians, barely registered.

"Under Corbyn and a much-expanded membership, these prejudices are being challenged in public for the first time - and that is unjustifiably making the party an 'unsafe' space for groups such as the JLM and Labour Friends of Israel, which hang on to outdated, hardline Zionist positions. The JLM's claim to speak for all Jews in Labour has been challenged by anti-racist Jews like those of the Jewish Voice for Labour. Their efforts to defend Corbyn and Labour's record have been widely ignored by the media or, encouraged by JLM, dismissed as 'downplaying' anti-semitism.

The JLM's discomfort may be unfortunate, but it cannot be avoided. It is the price to be paid for the continuing battle by progressives to advance universal rights and defeat racism. This battle has been waged since the Universal declaration of Human Rights was published in 1948 - paradoxically, the year Israel was established by violating the core principles of that declaration.

"Israel's racism towards Palestinians has been indulged by Labour too long. Now history is catching up with Israel, and with groups such as the JLM. Labour MPs have a choice. They can stand on the wrong side of history, battling the tide like some modern King Canute, or they can recognise that it is time to fully enter the modern era - and that means embracing a programme of anti-racism that encompasses everyone, including Jews and Palestinians. (Labour's civil war on Israel has been a long time coming, middleeasteye.net, 7/3/19)

Bob Carr on Corbyn & Anti-Semitism

Last night was one of those rare occasions when I watched ABC television's daily news discussion program, The Drum. Among the items for discussion was the contrived anti-Semitism crisis which continues to swirl around Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

One panelist, Andrew West of ABC Radio National's Religion & Ethics Report asserted categorically that UK Labour "certainly has problems in its grass roots and among MPs who've taken their criticism of Israel too far."

Whether or not these "problems" were genuine, or were from cynical Zionist trolls using fake profiles to advance their cause, was of course, never entertained. Nor did West feel obliged to explain what "taking criticism of Israel too far" entailed. And as for explaining the elementary difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, forget it. I seriously doubt that the distinction has ever crossed his mind. No, the UK Labour Party had "problems" with anti-Semitism and that was that.

Never mind, Bob Carr was there to sort all of this out. Well, sort of:

"How [Jeremy Corbyn] allowed the monstrous phenomenon of anti-Semitism to get any acknowledgment from any small corner of the British Labour Party membership, I simply do not understand. It would have taken basic political skills - no more than that - to have made it clear from the very start of these controversies that it is possible to oppose the occupation of the West Bank, the spread of settlements, the cruelty directed at the Palestinian people, without entertaining anything that smacks remotely of anti-Semitism, systemic criticism of Jewish people."

Again, Carr bases his comment on the same assumption as West: the party has real "problems" with anti-Semitism, but only because Corbyn hasn't effectively combated them, not because the British counterparts of the Australian "Zionist Zealots," about whose bullying he complained in his recent memoir, are using the accusation as a weapon solely to prevent a leader sympathetic to Palestinian rights from becoming prime minister.

Asked if Corbyn ever stood up to said anti-Semitism, Carr replied:

"He did it too late. He did it strongly at the Labour conference in September last year and unapologetically laid out his commitment to recognise Palestine and repudiate anti-Semitism, but as leader you've really got a responsibility for seeing that these things get no oxygen at the very start, and I'm ashamed that a fraternal party, a social-democratic party, has even got to take a moment's time to say we're not anti-Semitic."

In fact, Corbyn has denied the smear of anti-Semitism on many occasions. Where he is at fault is in not pointing out that naming and boycotting Israeli apartheid for what it is has nothing whatever to do with hatred Jews as such. As anti-Zionist Jew Tony Greenstein, suspended from the Labour Party in 2016 after allegations that he may have breached party rules, has written in an expose of the matter:

"Corbyn's response to the accusations of antisemitism was to repeat that he wasn't an anti-Semite, which was of course true. What he didn't seem to understand, though, was that when his Zionist opponents used the term 'antisemitism' they were not talking about hatred of Jews but hatred of Zionism. In other words they were talking past each other. If Corbyn had stood up to his accusers from the beginning then he would have shot this fox. To a very large extent Corbyn has been the author of his own misfortunes. All he needed to have done was to say that yes, he condemned antisemitism but he also condemned those who weaponised antisemitism for their own advantage. He could also have noted how supporters of Israel repeatedly accuse opponents of Zionism of 'antisemitism'. It is not as if Corbyn was unaware of this. One of his Jewish anti-Zionist friends, the late Mike Marqusee, had written a book about this, If I Am not For Myself. Jeremy Corbyn of all people should have understood what was happening. He has been involved in Palestine solidarity politics for over 30 years. He cannot be unaware of the fact that the standard go-to accusation of Zionism is to accuse their opponents of antisemitism. There cannot be a Palestine solidarity supporter in the country who hasn't been accused of antisemitism. This is entirely understandable. If you have to defend the theft of land, the demolition of homes, the allocation of 93% of Israeli land to Jews only, coupled with torture, administrative detention and abuse of children, then it is much easier to cry 'antisemitism'." (The story so far... , in The Antisemitism Wars: How the British Media Failed their Public, Karl Sabbagh, 2018, pp 29-30)

Macron Smears the Yellow Vests

France's dispossessed are now being smeared by their president:

"The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned antisemitic abuse of a leading intellectual by gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protesters and said it would not be tolerated. Police intervened to protect philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut after he was targeted by a group of protesters on the fringe of a demonstration in central Paris on Saturday, according to videos posted on social networks. 'The antisemitic insults he has been subjected to are the absolute negation of what we are and what makes us a great nation. We will not tolerate it,' Macron tweeted... Several protesters shouted 'dirty Zionist', 'we are the people' and 'France is ours', according to a video broadcast by Yahoo! News." (Macron condemns antisemitic abuse during gilets jaunes Paris protest, Agence France-Presse, 17/2/19)

This, of course, comes from a president who has falsely labelled anti-Zionism "a reinvention of anti-Semitism." (See my 27/4/18 post Trump's French Poodle.)

So, was the eminent philosopher, absent the adjective, falsely accused of being a Zionist?

It seems not:

"Parallel to Finkielkraut's denial of the existence of a black people comes his denial of the existence of a Palestinian people. Melding Sartre's 'the anti-Semite creates the Jew' with Golda Meir's 'there is no Palestinian people,' Finkielkraut regards the Palestinians merely as an epiphenomenon of Israel.' 'Is there anything in Palestinian identity,' he asks in his book of dialogues with Peter Sloterdjik, 'besides the refusal of Israel?'" (Race in Translation: Culture Wars Around the Postcolonial Atlantic, Robert Stam & Ella Shohat, 2012)

Herald Plumbs New Depths in Editorial Vileness

One of the most despicable editorials ever to appear in the Sydney Morning Herald cropped up on Monday, October 29. It concerned the recent appalling anti-Semitic shooting rampage in a Pittsburgh synagogue which left 11 worshipers dead and 6 injured.

At first, it stuck to the facts, namely that the gunman, Robert Bowers, was a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite, nothing more, nothing less, connected to the American alt-right. Then it veered way off course with this vile conflation of the unconflatable:

"This is not to besmirch the mainstream right, which has often led the way in protecting minority groups, nor to play down anti-Semitism and political violence among African-American and left-wing anti-Zionist movements. A left-wing extremist shot a senior US Republican in 2017." (Alt-right terrorism now stalks the US)

Let me unpack its nastiness.

*"This is not to besmirch the mainstream right... " Just who exactly are "the mainstream right"? Trump's Republicans? What precisely does the editorialist mean by this term?

*"... nor to play down anti-Semitism and political violence among African American... movements... " Who exactly are these anti-Semitic and politically violent African American movements, and when, if ever, has a representative of one of them gone on a shooting rampage in a Jewish institution, spewing, like  Bowers, his hatred of Jews? I'd really like to know.

*"... and left-wing anti-Zionist movements." What "movements" are referred to here? Can we have a list of them? And when, if ever, has a representative of one of them gone on a shooting rampage in a Jewish institution, spewing, like Bowers, his hatred of Jews?

*"A left-wing extremist shot a senior US Republican in 2017."

The "left-wing extremist" obliquely referred to here is James Hodgkinson, who harboured a dislike for Trump and a partiality for Bernie Sanders. This, apparently, in the eyes of the editorialist, is all one needs to qualify for the label "left-wing extremist." And, since Sanders is a Jewish supporter of a Jewish state in Palestine, in other words a Zionist, quite how this qualifies Hodgkinson as a card-carrying anti-Zionist is beyond me.

What the editorialist is doing here, of course, is conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, a smear straight out of the Zionist playbook. To go on and explain the simple fact that when Zionism first emerged in the late 19th century, the vast majority of the world's Jews were anti-Zionists would be wasted on the Herald editorialist. To conflate the likes of Bowers and Hodgkinson with ant-Zionists, many of whom today are Jews, is about as low as it gets. In fact, it speaks volumes that not even the editorial in the Australian of the same day (Toxic ingredients in America) on the same subject went that far.

Enough said...

Trump's French Poodle

Have we reached an historic moment? Is the formulation of US policy in the Middle East now in the hands of Tel Aviv... and Paris? Has USrael has found, in Emmanuel Macron, its Tony Blair? Has Bush's poodle become Trump's French poodle? Has Dumb found his Dumber? Whatever's going on, the Trump-Macron bromance is truly weird.

Regardez:

"Just a month after another brief flirtation with the idea of withdrawing from Syria, President Trump once again said he wants US troops out of Syria, promising 'big decisions' very soon. His first talk of a pullout was scrapped days later. This time, he backtracked almost instantly. With French President Emmanuel Macron in tow, Trump told reporters that he and his allies are taking a long-term approach to Syria, and that this would involve leaving 'a strong and lasting footprint' within Syria. He said talk of the long-term issues in Syria was 'a very big part' of his discussions with Macron.

"The idea that Macron is driving Trump's decision-making was a big issue last week. Macron claimed credit for Trump agreeing to stay in Syria, but quickly reversed course, and insisted the two had always agreed on the issue." (Trump again backtracks on Syria pullout, vows 'strong and lasting footprint', Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 24/4/18)

Just on the issue of dumbness, how dumb is Macron? By all accounts, tres. 

For example, it seems he's completely unaware of the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: "Addressing Benjamin Netanyahu [last year]... who attended [an event in France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Vel D'Hiv round-up, in which 13,152 French Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps by the then Vichy French government], the French leader said: 'We will never surrender to the messages of hate; we will not surrender to anti-Zionism because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism." (Emmanuel Macron says anti-Zionism is a new type of anti-Semitism, independent.co.uk, 17/7/17)

In addition to conflating the unconflatable and allowing Netanyahu to make cheap propaganda out of the Vel D'Hiv round-up, thus exploiting the suffering of its Jewish victims, France's appalling colonial record in Syria appears to give him no pause for thought whatever - assuming he's even aware of it that is. Now more than ever, it's worth reviewing the sorry story. The following extract comes from Jeremy Salt's vital book, The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands, 2008:

"In 1919 [the Syrians] held a congress in Damascus and chose a king (the sharif [of Mecca's] son Faisal) without being fully aware of the extent to which their rights were being bargained away in London and Paris. In 1920 France partitioned Syria by establishing an enlarged Lebanon and giving it a constitutional arrangement that privileged Christians against Muslims. When negotiations with the Syrian government failed, it sent an army across the Lebanon mountains to bring Damascus to heel. The French forces met stubborn resistance all the way, punishing 'rebellious' villages by bombing them from the air or putting them to the torch. At the base of the anti-Lebanon mountains thousands of Syrian nationalists took up defensive positions around the pass at Khan Maysalun. The pitched battle that ensued dragged on for several hours; by the time the nationalists were routed, 150 were dead (including their commander Yusuf al 'Azma) and another 1,500 wounded. French losses were 42 dead and 152 wounded. Faisal fled before the French entered Damascus and began taking over public buildings.

"Over the years the French used the full range of colonial devices to control Syria. The strategic need to anchor the French presence at both ends of the Mediterranean meant not just consolidating a military presence on land and at sea but blocking the growth of religious and national sentiment. Accordingly, the French 'did not conceal their preference for Christians above Muslims and for the mountain minorities (Maronites, Alawites, Druzes and Turcomans) above the majority Sunni Arabs of the coast, desert and cities.' Separate states - effectively colonial protectorates - were established around Damascus and Aleppo; within the state of Aleppo, the coastal sanjak (subprovince) of Alexandretta (Iskanderun) was excluded and given its own autonomous administration before France completely debauched its 'sacred trust' responsibility under the mandate by handing the region over to Turkey in 1939 (the very region it had insisted in 1918 was part of la Syrie integrale); the coastal region of Latakia was given statehood, and in the south the Jabal Druze was given autonomy with its own governor and an elected council. These arrangements were modified over the years, but French interests always had to predominate. Each state or autonomous region functioned under the control of French delegues and departmental advisers; parliaments (in Lebanon as well as Syria) could be prorogued at the high commissioner's discretion and constitutions suspended indefinitely.

"From beginning to end the platform on which this colonial structure was built was force. More than six thousand French soldiers (most of them colonial troops from North or West Africa) had already died suppressing 'rebels' and 'brigands' since 1920 when Sultan al Atrash, angered at the arrest of Druze sheikhs, routed a French column in late July 1925 and besieged the occupied Druze town of Suwayda. When a second column sent to punish the sheikh for the destruction of the first was also scattered, a wave of uprisings spread across the whole of Syria with the speed of a grass fire. The 'great Arab revolt' had begun, and the French moved swiftly to crush it. In October an uprising in Hama led by Fawzi al Qawuqji - later to make his name fighting the British in Iraq and the Zionists in Palestine - was met with aerial bombardment of the market area and ground action by the hated Senegalese levies that left more than three hundred dead. Outside the town 'rebels' set fire to railway stations and pulled up the lines; in the south, eight villages and the town of Majd al Shams in the Golan were left in ruins after French attacks that left tens of thousands of people homeless; attacks on the Druze in one part of Syria led to Druze uprisings elsewhere, with the town of Hasbeyya (in Grand Liban) being recaptured only after an assault by more than three battalions of Algerian infantry backed by cavalry, tanks, field artillery, and air support.

"Inevitably, Damascus had to bear the brunt of French imperial anger. The main point of resistance was the orchard area on the outskirts of the city known as the Ghuta. Already by October 15 about a hundred 'brigands' had been killed in 'clearing operations.' Twenty-four of the bodies were carried into the city by French soldiers and put on public display in the central square, a touch of barbarity that only further inflamed public feeling. On October 17, Druze horsemen arrived at the Ghuta, and the nationalists began moving toward the center of Damascus, bypassing the barricades set up to keep them out. The next evening the French began bombarding the southern quarters of the town before turning their attention to the center the following morning, 'this time with high explosive shells striking in all quarters from the central bazaars down to the middle of the Maydan.' In two days, 1,416 people (including 336 women and children) were killed and much of the central city was ruined by tank and artillery fire and air attack. The Suq Midhat Pasha and the Suq al Hamidiyya markets near the Umayyad mosque were destroyed. Shop fronts were riddled with machine-gun fire. In the biblical 'street called straight' (running alongside the Umayyad mosque), whole buildings collapsed into piles of rubble. The palatial mansions of the urban notables were shattered. The French high commissioner (General Sarrail) had made part of the 'Azm Palace his quarters, and that was quickly besieged by 'rebels.' The general's rooms were pillaged and the selamlik (where official guests were received) was destroyed. 'Very serious damage' was done to the library, 'where valuable and irreplaceable prints and books dealing with Arabic art have either been absolutely destroyed or injured beyond repair.' Tapestries and carpets were looted both from the 'Azm Palace and the mosques of the Maydan quarter by persons unknown, but the nationalists accused French troops of taking them before setting the mosques on fire.

"There were no apologies from the French government, only outrage at the killing of French troops and the destruction of property by 'brigands.' A collective fine (of about P35 per person) was imposed on Damascus, and the city was subjected to a house-by-house search for weapons. In the country, villages 'where brigands are reported to have been harbored and victualled' were torched, yet the resistance continued. More than 200 Druze fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded in fighting with the French around Majd al Shams in April 1926. Suwayda was retaken by the French the same month after a large-scale battle between 12,000 French troops and a Druze force of 4,000 to 5,000, of which number about 600 men were killed and another 800 wounded for perhaps 120 deaths on the French side.

"With resistance slowly being broken in the north and the south, the French were able to concentrate on the center. In February they had made another attempt to crush resistance in Damascus, and on May 7 they struck again: 'In less than 12 hours the French army struck with more intensity than it had either in October [1925] or February. The number of houses and shops destroyed during the aerial bombardment or as a result of incendiaries was estimated at well over 1,000. The death toll was equally staggering, between 600 and 1,000. The vast majority were unarmed civilians, including a large number of women and children: only 50 rebels were reported killed in the attack. Afterwards the troops indulged in pillaging and looting and then paraded their spoils through the streets in the city centre... The French assault made a formerly busy quarter of 30,000 a virtually deserted ruin.'

"On July 8, a further six days of fighting began when the French military command sent some 5,000 troops, backed up by tanks, field artillery, and aircraft, into the Ghuta. Another 1,500 people (an estimate because, like most occupying armies, the French had no interest in counting the people they were killing) died (only a few hundred of them 'rebels') at the cost of about 200 'French' (mainly colonial troops) lives. Druze and other nationalist leaders fled into Transjordan; France was to retain its hold on Syria and Lebanon until 1946, when, weakened by the war and disgraced by a final bombardment of Damascus in which hundreds of people were killed, it was compelled to withdraw under British pressure and transfer the authority given to it by the League of Nations to nationalist governments." (pp 83-86)

And Macron wants the US to stay in Syria?

Educating Macron

Shlomo Sand's Why I cannot be a Zionist: an Open Letter to Emmanuel Macron:

"As I began reading your speech on the commemoration of the Vel d'Hiv round-up... I was grateful that you... took a clear position... yes, France is responsible for the deportation [of Jewish origin people to the death camps], yes, there was anti-Semitism in France before and after the Second World War... I saw these positions as standing in continuity with the courageous statement you made in Algeria, saying that colonialism constitutes a crime against humanity. But... I was rather annoyed by the fact that you invited Benjamin Netanyahu. He should without doubt be ranked in the category of oppressors, and so cannot parade himself as a representative of the victims of yesteryear...

"I stopped being able to understand you when, in the course of your speech, you stated that 'Anti-Zionism... is the reinvented form of Zionism.' Was this statement intended to please your guest, or is it purely and simply a marker of a lack of political culture? Has this former student of philosophy... read so few history books that he does not know that many Jews or descendants of Jewish heritage have always opposed Zionism, without this making them anti-Semites? Here I am referring to almost all the old grand rabbis, but also the stances taken by a section of contemporary orthodox Judaism. And I also remember figures like Marek Edelman, one of the escaped leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, or the communists of Jewish background who took part in the French Resistance in the Manouchian group, in which they perished. I also think of my friend and teacher Pierre Vidal-Naquet and of other great historians and sociologists like Eric Hobsbawm and Maxime Rodinson... And finally I wonder if you seriously expect of the Palestinians that they should not be anti-Zionists!

"Nonetheless, I suppose that you do not particularly appreciate people on the Left, or, perhaps, the Palestinians. But knowing that you worked at Rothschild Bank, I will here provide a quote from Nathan Rothschild. President of the union of synagogues in Britain, he was the first Jew to be named a lord in the United Kingdom, where he also became the bank's governor. In a 1903 letter to Theodor Herzl, the talented banker wrote that he was anxious about plans to establish a 'Jewish colony'; it 'would be small and petty, Orthodox and illiberal, and keep out non-Jews and the Christians.' We might conclude that Rothschild's prophecy was mistaken. But one thing is for sure: he was no anti-Semite!

"Of course, there have been, and there are, some anti-Zionists who are also anti-Semites, but I am also certain that we could find anti-Semites among the sycophants of Zionism. I can also assure you that a number of Zionists are racists whose mental structure does not differ from that of other Judeophobes: they relentlessly search for a Jewish DNA (even at the university I teach at).

"But to clarify what an anti-Zionist point of view is, it is important to begin by agreeing on the definition of the concept 'Zionism', or at the very least, a series of characteristics proper to this matter... First, Zionism is not Judaism. It even constitutes a radical revolt against it. Across the centuries, pious Jews nurtured a deep ardour for their holy land, and more particularly for Jerusalem. But they held to the Talmudic precept intimating that they should not collectively emigrate there before the coming of the Messiah. Indeed, the land does not belong to the Jews, but to God. God gave and God took away again; and he would send the Messiah to restore it when he wanted to. When Zionism appeared, it removed the 'All Powerful' from his place, substituting the active human subject in his stead.

"We can each give our own view on the question of whether the project of creating an exclusive Jewish state on a slice of land with a very large Arab-majority population is a moral idea. In 1917, Palestine counted 700,000 Arab Muslims and Christians and around 60,000 Jews, half of whom were opposed to Zionism. Up till that point, the mass of the Yiddish-speaking people who wanted to flee the pogroms of the Russian Empire preferred to migrate to the American continent. Indeed, two million made it there, thus escaping Nazi persecution (and the persecution under the Vichy regime).

"In 1948 in Palestine there were 650,000 Jews and 1.3 million Arab Muslims and Christians, 700,000 of whom became refugees. It was on this demographic basis that the State of Israel was born. Despite that, and against the backdrop of the extermination of the European Jews, a number of anti-Zionists reached the conclusion that in the name of avoiding the creation of fresh tragedies it was best to consider the State of Israel as an irreversible fait accompli. A child born as the result of a rape does indeed have the right to live. But what happens if this child follows in the footsteps of his father?

"And then came 1967. Since then Israel has ruled over 5.5 million Palestinians, who are denied civil, political and social rights. Israel subjects them to military control: for part of them a sort of 'Indian reservation' in the West Bank, while others are locked up in a 'barbed wire holding pen' in Gaza (70% of the population there are refugees or their descendants). Israel, which constantly proclaims its desire for peace, considers the territories conquered in 1967 as an integral part of the 'land of Israel,' and it behaves there as it sees fit. Thus far 600,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers have been moved in there... and this has still not ended!,

"Is that today's Zionism? No!, reply my friends on the Zionist Left - which is constantly shrinking. They tell me that we have to put an end to the dynamic of Zionist colonisation, that a narrow little Palestinian state should be created next to the State of Israel, and that Zionism's objective was to establish a state where the Jews would be sovereign over themselves, and not to conquer 'the ancient homeland' in its entirety. And the most dangerous thing in all this, in their eyes, is that annexing territory threaten's Israel's character as a Jewish state.

"So here we reach the proper moment for me to explain to you why I am writing to you, and why I define myself as a non-Zionist or anti-Zionist, without thereby becoming anti-Jewish. Your political party has put the words 'La Republique' in its name. So I presume that you are a fervent republican. And, at the risk of surprising you: I am, too. So being a democrat and a republican I cannot - as all Zionists do, Left and Right, without exception - support a Jewish State. The Israeli Interior Ministry counts 75% of the country's citizens as Jewish, 21% as Arab Muslims and Christians and 4% as 'others' (sic). Yet according to the spirit of its laws, Israel does not belong to Israelis as a whole, whereas it does belong even to all those Jews worldwide who have no intention of coming to live there. So for example, Israel belongs a lot more to Bernard Henri-Levy or to Alain Finkelkraut than it does to my Palestinian-Israeli students, Hebrew speakers who sometimes speak it better than I do! Israel hopes that the day will come when all the people of the CRIF ('Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France') and their 'supporters' emigrate there! I even know some French anti-Semites who are delighted by such a prospect. On the other hand, we could find two Israeli ministers close to Netanyahu putting out the idea that it is necessary to encourage the 'transfer' of Israeli Arabs, without that meaning that anyone demanded their resignations.

"That, Mr President, is why I cannot be a Zionist. I am a citizen who desires that the state he lives in should be an Israeli Republic, and not a Jewish-communalist state. As a descendant of Jews who suffered so much discrimination, I do not want to live in a state that, according to its own self-definition, makes me a privileged class of citizen. Mr President, do you think that makes me an anti-Semite?" (counterpunch.org, 11/8/17)

Baldwin's Balderdash

The Australian's tedious Zionist crusade against Professor Jake Lynch of Sydney University's Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies continues in the form of an opinion piece by a former Labor politician with a Zionist bee in his bonnet about Hamas.  

Peter Baldwin "was minister for higher education (1990-93) in the Hawke-Keating government." (Where the right to speak is howled down, 2/4/15)

There's the usual tiresome tripe about "mob rule" at Sydney University, "genocide by Hamas," and "the vicious persecution of Christians [presumably by Hamas] most of whom have now fled the territories."

Then there's the following eye-rolling stuff and nonsense: 

"Riemer gave a detailed defence of the disruption in a long article in the online journal New Matilda. This piece of casuistic nonsense..."

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. What's casuistry compared to the confusion that stems from a failure to distinguish between polar opposites? (Remember that this bloke's the convener of something called the Blackheath Philosophy Forum): 

"My sense is that increasingly anti-Zionism is a mask for occulted anti-Semitism."

Which, of course, is merely the obverse of the classic Zionist conflation of Judaism (faith) with Zionism (political ideology).

Just as bad is Baldwin's failure to see the issue of Gaza in its historical context:

"As for the stuff about failing to promote human flourishing, perhaps Riemer should consider that by turning Gaza into an armed camp... Hamas and its supporters and apologists are failing to 'promote human flourishing'."

Leaving aside the hypocrisy of describing Gaza as an "armed camp" while ignoring the Zionist movement's turning of what was once Palestine into the Middle East's largest and most powerful armed camp, Baldwin blithely ignores the fact that the rise of an armed resistance movement in the Gaza Strip was the inevitable result of Israel's ethnic cleansing of southern Palestine in 1948, the population of which was not only forced to seek refuge there but forced to remain there in violation of international law and common humanity so that their ethnic cleansers could get on with the business of stacking their former homes with Jews from all over. 

Maybe he thinks those refugees should have set up a 'Gaza Philosophy Forum' instead.  

France: On the Road to Criminalising Anti-Zionism? 2

Continued from the previous post:

"If we can say that the horrible actions of Islamic State are a perversion of the beliefs of the vast majority of the world's Muslims, can we also not say that Zionism is a perversion of Judaism? CRIF insists that the Paris attacks be labeled 'Islamist'. By the same logic, should we label Israel's crimes acts of 'violent radical Judaism'?

"While anti-Zionist Jews, secular and religious, have always insisted that Israel and Zionism do not represent them or their religion or cultures, politicians like Hollande reinforce the false and dangerous association between Jews as Jews on the one hand and Israel's violent racist colonialism against the Palestinians on the other. Some misguided youths, hearing these messages, may indeed believe Israel's claim that 'the Jews' are the enemies of the Palestinians and direct their anger or hatred towards Jewish targets. They may hear the Islamophobic diatribes emanating from many right-wing and liberal supporters of Israel and also conclude - falsely - that 'the Jews' are the enemies of 'the Muslims'. The message has to be clear always and is worth repeating: words or acts targeting Jews as Jews are never a form of solidarity with the Palestinians."

"In his address to CRIF, Hollande spoke about the 'Israeli-Palestinian conflict' in the bland terms of the defunct 'peace process'. He reaffirmed France's commitment to the fantasy of the 'two-state solution'... He offered not a single word of comfort or anger about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza where there has been no reconstruction since Israel's summer attack devastated much of the besieged and impoverished territory. Hollande warned that those who do not learn from history are destined to relive it. Yet there was not one word of accountability or justice for the Israeli war crimes that left more than 2,200 people, including more than 500 children, dead in Gaza.

"Why are 1.8 million Palestinians, mostly refugees from present-day Israel, caged in Gaza under such abominable conditions in the first place? The answer is simple: their mere existence, the fact that they live and breathe as non-Jews, is considered a threat to Israel's self-declared identity as a 'Jewish state'. Palestinians are in a ghetto because of who they are and France's president has nothing to say about that.

"While French leaders are doing their best to pander to the prejudices of their audience, it is doubtful it will be enough. Richard Prasquier, the former president of CRIF, went on national television to say that Hollande and Valls had not gone far enough. CRIF's current president Roger Cukierman provoked anger from the French Muslim community leaders by declaring that 'all the violent attacks today are committed by young Muslims.' Cukierman also praised Marine Le Pen, leader of the racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and traditionally deeply anti-Semitic National Front, as 'irreproachable'.

"Alas Hollande's ardor to combat racism was nowhere in sight when it came to the fanatical anti-Arab racism of Israel's leading political parties. CRIF heard no rebuke from the supposedly anti-racist Hollande for Cukierman's public embrace of Israeli ultra-nationalist politician Naftali Bennett, who boasts about how many Arabs he has killed and claims that Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land are 'protecting London, Paris and Madrid.'

"In his speech Hollande announced education reforms to reinforce the messages he gave to CRIF. But what France really needs to teach its Jewish and Muslim citizens is that contrary to Israeli claims, Israel does not represent Jews and that Israeli policies and Israeli crimes are not Jewish policies or Jewish crimes. The irony is that it might prove more difficult to convince French Jews and Christians of this than it is to convince French Muslims."

A Guide for the Perplexed Jewish Uni Student

During Orientation Week at Australian universities, newly arrived Jewish students are likely to encounter and be encouraged to join the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).

So what's on offer?

An editorial in The Australian Jewish News explains:

"Fortunately, the benefits of belonging to AUJS don't only amount to defending Israel. What you get out of the organisation can be as simple as a bagel with a few Jewish mates between classes." (Applause for AUJS, 27/2/15)

Israel & bagels?!

Buyer beware!

If you're ever tempted to go to an AUJS outlet for your bagel and camaraderie, and the AUJS guy/gal asks, 'Do you want Israel with that?' you can always say, 'Thanks, but no thanks'.

Greg Sheridan's Tsunami

Anti-Semitism?

According to Tony Abbott's Suppository of All Wisdom, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, we'll soon be standing in it!

Here's Sheridan on the tsunami of anti-Semitism that's supposedly about to "engulf" us:

"There has been astonishingly, a recrudescence of Christian anti-Semitism. Some of this comes from Arab Christian churches who seek to portray Jesus not as Jewish, which he certainly was historically, but as a Palestinian." (Hatred of Jews on rise again: There is nothing isolated about the surge of anti-semitism engulfing us, 7/6/13)

Funny, I've never known Sheridan to have conniptions over the stereotypical depiction of Jesus as a blue-eyed, blonde, Nordic type, bearing not the least resemblance to Theodor Herzl, but as soon  as a Palestinian pipes up...

"It is indeed a legitimate element of Christian theology that the Old Testament promises are fulfilled by Christ in the establishment of Christianity. But it is not legitimate to deny the Jewish people, or their history."

Crafty bugger! Notice it's "the Jewish people," not 'Jews' (as in Christians, Muslims and Jews). Boilerplate Zionist dogma in other words. You see, what Sheridan's really defending here isn't Jews and/or Judaism, but political Zionism:

"The idea of Zionism is that there should be a Jewish state in the historical lands of Israel. It is not remotely necessary to have any religious faith at all to acknowledge the historic and ongoing Jewish connection with the land of Israel. This certainly does not entitle Israel to all the land of the Biblical passages."

Actually, Greg, that "connection," however you characterise it, doesn't "entitle" Israel (the creation, by bomb and bullet, of mainly East European Jews) to one square inch of Middle Eastern real estate.

"But it is a historic claim of association to a land of a kind that we recognise explicitly in our own legislation regarding Aboriginal land rights."

Only a rusted-on Zionist fanatic like Sheridan could twist Australian history in this shameless fashion.

We recognise Aboriginal land rights because Aboriginals were living here when our European mob arrived and dispossessed them. Likewise, Palestinian aboriginals were living in Palestine before Israel's European mob arrived and set about dispossessing them. However, not only does that particular mob NOT recognise Palestinian land rights but is still as busy snapping up Palestinian land as it was when it first arrived, and, to add insult to injury, claiming that God gave it to them!

"It is the kind of association of a people with a land that is the basis for many civic identities around the world."

Oh really? Name one other civic identity based on the X-ness of one's mother.

"But now, alone among all such claims, Zionism has become a dirty word in all progressive circles. But what is really disturbing is how many other rivers of anti-Semitism are all flowing together."

Presumably, "progressive circles" should instead be backing the Zionist in this imagined conversation:

Zionist (banging on Palestinian door): Hey, we're baaack!
Palestinian: Who the hell are you?
Zionist: We're the guys who own this place.
Palestinian: No you don't, this is my place. It's been mine for untold generations.
Zionist: Sorry, rootless Arab, before it was your place it was our place.
Palestinian: Says who?
Zionist: God, of course.
Palestinian: God! What if I refuse to leave?
Zionist: That'd be anti-Semitic.
Palestinian: Oh well then, I guess I better start packing...
Zionist: Correct. You've got 5 minutes to get your stuff out before the bulldozers roll.

Give us a break, Greg.

Why even bother with Sheridan's shit? Well, he is Tony's Suppository of All Wisdom, and not only do he and Tony go back a long way, but so does their anti-Palestinian bent:

"In 1977, Abbott and I drove down from Sydney to Melbourne to attend an AUS conference at Monash University... No doubt the silliest thing we did at the conference was to attend a Palestinian film night... we heckled the film a bit... the film was stopped and we were told we had to leave..." (See my 13/9/12 post Greg & Tony Do Monash 1 for the gruesome details.)

More Hounding of Jake Lynch 3

November 2, Day 4 of The Australian's attack on Professor Jake Lynch, finally saw the sound and fury move from the front page into the paper's equally arid interior, probably because the attack's principal spear-carrier this time around, Ean - with an E - Higgins, was getting too little joy from Education Minister Christopher Pyne, who "condemned the BDS campaign against Israel, but backed down on a Coalition promise to cut funds to academics who promoted it." (Coalition backs off on BDS)

That "promise," of course, had come from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. However, "[i]n response to questions from The Weekend Australian, Mr Pyne... declined to say he would uphold the categoric policy enunciated by Ms Bishop..." (ibid)

Higgin's fizzer notwithstanding, one of the paper's bigger guns, associate editor Cameron Stewart (rambammed: 2005), was wheeled out to blaze away at the BDS campaign in an opinion piece, which oddly never even got around to mentioning Professor Lynch. Stewart's aim was simply to smear the campaign, in the usual fashion, as a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Much of it consisted of a recycling of the nonsense trotted out on Day 1 of the current attack.

First, there was that convenient springboard, the "violent assault on a Jewish family at Bondi... last weekend." This obviously random attack, by a group of Islander youths, although typical of countless other unprovoked, alcohol-fueled, Saturday night bashings of people of every stripe by thugs of every stripe in Sydney, allegedly had "[t]he Jewish community on tenterhooks," and, according to Cameron, became the occasion for an outpouring of support for the community by religious (including Muslim), ethnic, and sporting groups, and federal and state politicians such as Turnbull, Danby, and O'Farrell.

Juxtaposing an alleged "deep unease" in the Australian Jewish Community with a bald assertion that "anti-Semitic acts are on the rise overseas," Stewart then cited "an anti-Israel protest in Denver, Colorado, as well as demonstrations in France and Belgium" as evidence of the latter. Thus is the dross of a vicious and deplorable, but not particularly unusual, assault, having bugger all to do with genuine anti-Semitism, let alone Palestine/Israel, transmuted by the Murdoch press into yet another manifestation of a supposed rising tide of anti-Semitism, of which anti-Israel protests are, of course, merely the current manifestation.

So let's pause and take a closer look at the "anti-Israel" protest in Denver. Here's The Times of Israel account: "Advertisements accusing Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' appeared on Denver-area buses while the Jewish National Fund held its annual conference in the city. The ads, which include the slogan 'Want Peace? Stop ethnic cleansing in Palestine', were sponsored by the website Notaxdollarstoisrael.com and the Colarado BDS Campaign... Colorado BDS held what it called a 'counter-conference'... to coincide with the JNF session. It included plans for protests outside the Governor's mansion and the JNF conference..." (Denver buses carry anti-Israel ads during JNF conference, 29/10/13)

Photos of the protest at another website show people, including anti-Zionist religious Jews, holding placards reading: Jewish National Fund: Racist; JNF: Violation of Judaism & Godly compassion; Judaism Condemns the State of 'Israel' And its Atrocities.

Enough said.

Interestingly, even Stewart felt compelled to play down the hysteria being whipped up by his own paper over the incident at Bondi: "A closer examination... suggests it was almost certainly a random attack..." This statement of the bleeding obvious, however, was not going to deter him from his work of smearing criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism: "... but it has served to cast a spotlight on anti-Semitism in Australia as some anti-Israel fringe groups are blurring the boundaries between race and politics." The sly implication here, of course, is that anyone who criticises Israel is a demented fringe-dweller who just can't help crossing over to the Dark Side at times.

That other hyped 'incident' of Day 1, involving a pair of UNSW student buffoons and your stereotypical 'offended' Jewish student - "Today I had the worst experience of anti-Semitism in my life" - was again trotted out, and reflected on at length by a "child survivor of the Holocaust and an expert on trauma," called upon by Stewart to dilate on the nature of such 'suffering': "It's like their nightmares coming true again."

Amusingly, in stressing Australia's "relatively easy assimilation of Jews into all aspects of Australian society," Stewart must unwittingly have offended the usual suspects by citing as an example of Jewish success in Australia onetime (1931-36) governor-general Sir Isaac Isaacs, who was firmly of the view that political Zionism "is founded on principles that bear a striking resemblance to the slanderous doctrines that Hitler put forward in justifying Anti-Semitism" and "detracts from the noble principles of our religion." And how right he was when he predicted that the Zionist project in Palestine "would deny equal rights of citizenship to Arabs and others, and would imperil the security of the Holy Places of other faiths." (Isaac Isaacs, Zelman Cowan, 1967, p 234)

Finally, there was the usual spray of letters, falsely conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Too wearisome to repeat, I'll leave you with the shorter of the two more clear-thinking efforts (the other was by Greens senator Lee Rhiannon):

"George Fishman (Letters 1/11) goes much too far saying 'supporters of the BDS are a mask for hatred of Jews.' The fact is there are many people like me who want to see Israel treat Palestinians in a humane and just way. Supporting the BDS is one small way of protesting against Israel, not the Jewish population." Judy White, Rose Bay, NSW

Judy must be one of Cameron Stewart's fringe-dwellers.

PS: Response (4/11/13) from Daniel Lewis, Rushcutters Bay, NSW: "While I'm sure Judy White would never identify with anti-Semites, there is a simple test. Besides Israel, who else are you boycotting? Syria has killed more Palestinians in the past year than Israel. Hamas killed more Palestinians in 2008 than Israel did. Jordan killed more Palestinians in a single week than Israel did in the following 50 years..." So says Daniel Lewis, but here's a question for him: What were those Palestinians doing in Syria, the Gaza Strip and Jordan in the first place?

The Tel Aviv Declaration on Combating Criticism of Israel

My o my, Gillard's really started something here. Have you ever seen a more blatant display of political one-upmanship than this:

"More than 40 members of the federal opposition banded together yesterday to sign the London Declaration on Combating Anti-Semitism after they were incensed by comments from the head of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Stuart Rees, attacking the document. The Australian yesterday reported Professor Rees had lashed Julia Gillard for signing the declaration, calling the gesture 'childish, thoughtless but easily populist'... She was joined last week by opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne... To counter [Professor Rees'] comments, Victorian Liberal Josh Frydenberg arranged for a group of colleagues to gather in is office immediately to sign the declaration. Close to 30 Coalition members from all states and factions joined him, ranging from veteran parliamentarians such as Philip Ruddock and Judi Moylan to newcomers such as Wyatt Roy, Scott Bucholz and George Christensen. Opposition leader Tony Abbott and frontbenchers Bruce Billson, Peter Dutton, Greg Hunt, Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull and Sharman Stone also signed. As news spread, a steady stream of MPs beat a path to Mr Frydenberg's office to add their names, taking the total to 49.... Yesterday's events mean that close to a quarter of the global parliamentarians to sign the declaration are Australian. NSW Liberal senator Marise Payne is expected to repeat the process for members of the upper house today." (MPs unite to sign anti-Semitism pact, Christian Kerr, The Australian, 15/5/13)

Now in case you're inclined to applaud Frydenberg and Co. for endorsing what appears on the surface to be merely an anti-racist initiative, ask yourself just how many of those who beat a path to Frydenberg's office actually sat down and read the 'fine print', or if they did, how many fully comprehended what they were signing on to - essentially a commitment to defend Israel and all its works based on the illegitimate conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. (See my 28/4/13 post The Latest Prime Ministerial Kowtow).

To cite but one sentence from the declaration's preamble: "We are alarmed at the resurrection of the old language of prejudice and its modern manifestations - in rhetoric and political action - against Jews, Jewish belief and practice and the state of Israel." (my italics)

Not, of course, that any of this lot, even if they were aware of what they were doing, would bat an eyelid at such a conflation. Or, for that matter, having taken this first step, at going on to support legislation criminalising expressions of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.

Now I introduced this post by saying that Gillard had started something here. But in fact the buck didn't start with her. If you've read my earlier post on the declaration, you'll see that she's just another link in a chain of useful fools stretching back to the Steering Committee of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, the outfit sponsoring the declaration. And at the head of the committee you'll find none other than former Minister for Public Diplomacy & Diaspora, now Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, a member of Israel's ruling Likud Party.

If honesty means anything these days - I'm a little old-fashioned here - the so-called London Declaration on Combating Ant-Semitism would more correctly be called the Tel Aviv Declaration on Combating Anti-Zionism, or more broadly, the Tel Aviv Declaration on Combating Criticism of Israel.

The irony here, of course, is that the declaration is actually bad news for anyone genuinely concerned about combating anti-Semitism, as a former Jewish member of the Zionist cult has pointed out:

"Whenever I was asked to speak on contemporary antisemitism, I took the opportunity to explain the Israel-antisemitism connection. A panel discussion organised by the Faculty for Israel-Palestine Peace at Birkbeck on 14 May [2007] focused on how the politicisation of discussion about antisemitism, through the labelling of forms of criticism of Israel as antisemitic, was hampering free and open consideration of Jew-hatred. I outlined how Israeli governments had successfully sought to control efforts to define and combat antisemitism at the international level. Increasing acceptance of the so-called 'Working Definition' of antisemitism of the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia had helped Israel in this regard. It had led to a situation where 'We cannot discuss Israel-Palestine without getting entangled in arguments about what critique of Israel is antisemitic; and we cannot discuss contemporary antisemitism without getting entangled in arguments about Israel-Palestine'." (The Making & Unmaking of a Zionist: A Personal & Political Journey, Antony Lerman, 2012, pp 176-177)

Behind the Anti-Semitism Industry

"Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem [in the United States], fortunately. It's raised... because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control... they want to make sure there's no critical look at the policies the US (and they themselves) support in the Middle East." Noam Chomsky, 2002

Here are the opening lines of The London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism, which Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed earlier this month:

"We, Representatives of our respective Parliaments from across the world, convening in London for the founding Conference and Summit of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, draw the democratic world's attention to the resurgence of antisemitism as a potent force in politics, international affairs and society. We note the dramatic increase in recorded antisemitic hate crimes and attacks targeting Jewish persons and property, and Jewish religious, educational and communal institutions."

"... resurgence... potent force... dramatic increase..."

Is Kristallnacht coming to a street near you? Or is someone perhaps pulling a swiftie here?

Before you get too carried away, consider this extract from Antony Lerman's revealing new book, The Making & Unmaking of a Zionist: A Personal & Political Journey (2012):

"The World Jewish Congress's ten-year-campaign against the President of Austria and former UN secretary general Kurt Waldheim, for hiding his Nazi past, which kept it at the forefront of international Jewish political activity, had run its course. Prompted by the surfacing of antisemitism in post-communist Europe, they now chose 'eliminating' antisemitism for their new blockbuster campaign. We [at the Institute of Jewish Affairs*] were already producing information and analysis on these developments, so when the WJC decided to kick off its new programme with a major international conference on antisemitism in Brussels in July 1992, we knew that IJA had to play a significant role in it. I conceived of the idea of producing an annual, worldwide, country-by-country survey of antisemitism - Antisemitism World Report - modelled on the annual human rights reports of bodies like Amnesty International, to be launched at the conference. Nothing like this had been done before.

"A major problem we faced was the variable quality of the available data. Especially problematic was the worldwide dissemination of often distorted and inaccurate lists of 'antisemitic incidents' by the Israel Government Monitoring Forum on Antisemitism. To overcome these difficulties we developed our own international network of researchers and began working furiously to produce the report in time for the Brussels conference. As we searched for objective experts we discovered that a significant proportion of what purported to be academically-based research was tainted by political and ideological bias. Especially troublesome was the Project for the Study of Antisemitism at Tel Aviv University - a new body, set up with the sponsorship and urging of the Forum and the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service - which was planning to produce its own world antisemitism survey. In fact it was the Mossad that was responsible for gathering the data on antisemitism disseminated worldwide by the Forum.

"At the Brussels conference, where our report was well received, the Israeli Forum coordinated attempts to strong-arm us into stopping production of our report and 'cooperate' with the Tel Aviv Project, and others, on a joint venture. Persuasion turned to threat when we were told that unless we agreed, Tel Aviv would immediately start producing its own annual report. Not wanting to be accused of Zionist bias and deeply suspicious of working with the Forum, we declined. The Forum was seeking to establish Israeli hegemony over antisemitism monitoring undertaken by Jewish groups and individuals worldwide. It was also establishing networks of young Jews tasked with supplying it with country-specific data, which was then crudely collated and repackaged for worldwide dissemination. Its aim was to sensitise those young Jews to the danger of antisemitism and thereby encourage aliya.

"So, in short, the Israeli government's civil arm devoted to monitoring and dealing with the problem of antisemitism, working hand-in-hand with the Mossad, was acting as a Zionist recruiting tool of the crudest kind." (pp 98-99)

[*Research arm of the WJC]

Eric Hobsbawm on Zionism & Israel

Sadly, British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) died on Monday. In the following extract from his 2002 memoir, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life, he reflects on his rejection of Zionist tribalism in favour of internationalism and universal values:

"What exactly could 'being Jewish' mean in the 1920s to an intelligent Anglo-Viennese boy who suffered no anti-Semitism and was so remote from the practices and beliefs of traditional Judaism that, until after puberty, he was unaware of even being circumcised? Perhaps only this: that sometime around the age of 10 I acquired a simple principle from my mother on a now forgotten occasion when I must have reported, or perhaps even repeated, some negative observation of an uncle's behaviour as 'typically Jewish'. She told me very firmly: 'You must never do anything, or seem to do anything that might suggest that you are ashamed of being a Jew.'

"I have tried to observe it ever since, although the strain of doing so is sometimes almost intolerable, in the light of the behaviour of the government of Israel. My mother's principle was sufficient for me to abstain, with regret, from declaring myself konfessionlos (without religion) as one was entitled to do in Austria at the age of 13... It has been enough to define my Judaism ever since, and left me free to live as what my friend the late Isaac Deutscher called a 'non-Jewish Jew', but not what the miscellaneous regiment of religious or nationalist publicists call a 'self-hating Jew'. I have no emotional obligation to the practices of an ancestral religion and even less to the small, militarist, culturally disappointing and politically aggressive nation-state which asks for my solidarity on racial grounds. I do not even have to fit in with the most fashionable posture of the turn of the new century, that of 'the victim', the Jew who, on the strength of the Shoah (and in the era of unique and unprecedented Jewish world achievement, success and public acceptance), asserts unique claims on the world's conscience as a victim of persecution. Right and wrong, justice and injustice, do not wear ethnic badges or wave national flags. And as a historian I observe that, if there is any justification for the claim that 0.25% of the global population in the year 2000 which constitute the tribe into which I was born are a 'chosen' or special people, it rests not on what it has done within the ghettos or special territories, self-chosen or imposed by others, past, present or future. It rests on its quite disproportionate and remarkable contribution to humanity in the wider world, mainly in the 2 centuries or so since the Jews were allowed to leave the ghettos, and chose to do so. We are, to quote the title of the book of my friend Richard Marienstras, Polish Jew, French Resistance fighter, defender of Yiddish culture and his country's chief expert on Shakespeare, 'un peuple en diaspora'. We shall, in all probability, remain so. And if we make the thought experiment of supposing that Herzl's dream came true and all Jews ended up in a small independent territorial state which excluded from full citizenship all who were not the sons of Jewish mothers, it would be a bad day for the rest of humanity - and for the Jews themselves." (pp 24-25)

Reality Overboard in the NSW Knesset?

On June 12, I posted Goings On in the NSW Knesset, in which I reported that NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell announced at an Israel Independence Day function that he would be establishing a parliamentary committee "to examine how the government can strengthen racial vilification laws in NSW." I went on to speculate that he could actually be moving to criminalise criticism of Israel by defining it as anti-Semitism.

If this sounds a little far-fetched, allow me to draw your attention to Resolution HR 35: 'Relative to anti-Semitism', passed just last month by a vote of 66 to 80 in the California State Assembly, the lower house of the state legislature. HR 35 defines not only the daubing of swastikas and Holocaust denial as anti-Semitism, but the following:

* "language or behavior [that] demonizes and delegitimizes Israel;"
* "speakers, films, and exhibits" that indicate that "Israel is guilty of heinous crimes against humanity such as ethnic cleansing and genocide;"
* describing Israel as a "racist" or "apartheid" state;"
* "student- and faculty-sponsored boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel;"
* "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination;"
* "applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation;" and
* "actions of student groups that encourage support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah."*

[*Taken from California passes resolution defining criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, Tom Carter, globalresearch.ca, 4/9/12.]

This bill, of course, has absolutely nothing whatever to do with combating genuine manifestations of anti-Semitism, which would be quite rare in any case. Rather, it is aimed squarely at anti-Israel activism on college campuses, in particular such campaigns as Israeli Apartheid Week and the BDS strategy. As such it not only criminalises free speech but gives official sanction to the discredited and false narrative and ideology of political Zionism.  It is akin, if you will, to the state coming to the rescue of the flat earth brigade, with the exception that the latter, if they still exist, are mere harmless eccentrics.

Certainly, if this kind of sleight of hand, or a variation thereof, is in fact what is being contemplated by the O'Farrell government (in collusion with the Labor opposition of course), it will be a black day indeed for free speech and open debate in this country. And, it should never be forgotten, if it ever finds its way into law, it will constitute a quantum leap in the already advanced Zionist process of gutting the term anti-Semitism of meaning by conflating it with principled opposition to Zionism and its crimes in Palestine.

Ersatz Israel 1

Political Zionists like to present themselves as the true representatives of Judaism, and their creed, political Zionism, as a sort of vital ember that had for centuries been smouldering away within this ancient faith, waiting (improbably) only for the likes of Herzl, Weizmann, and Ben-Gurion to fan it into the flames of the toxic settler-colonial power trip we see wreaking havoc today in Palestine.

In fact, political Zionism, while paying lip service to, and exploiting at every turn, traditional Judaism, is nothing more than an aping of the ethno-national volkisch movements of 19th century Europe. As such it is the very antithesis of traditional Judaism.

Few outside the ranks of anti-Zionist religious Jews have so beautifully nailed the artificiality and inauthenticity of political Zionism quite as well as JMN Jeffries. Here, in two parts, is his polemic on this theme, taken from Chapter 24 of his majesterial analysis of the Palestine problem, Palestine: The Reality (1939). Chapter 24 is appropriately (and wickedly) titled Ersatz Israel:

"The 31,000 immigrants of 1919-23... restored the Jewish population to about its pre-War level. Therefore, as has been said, there was nothing so much in their numbers to alter the status of the Arabs. It was their new footing which altered that. It was this arrival of the Jewish immigrants 'by right and not by sufferance,' as Mr Churchill was to define it, which destroyed the status of the Arabs, who found themselves changed in a flick from being the owners of their home to being one of a pair of lodgers in it...

"Hitherto the Turks had been their landlords indeed, but the key of the house had been the Arabs' and the Arabs' only. Now the Arabs were presented with latchkeys to their own hearths, Zionist strangers were given identical latchkeys, and in a day or two were pointing out the rooms in which they had been born.

"There was this too. The immigrants of the early 'twenties brought with them ideas and schemes of life which were incompatible with their own pretensions. Later on, as their numbers grew, these ideas and schemes, developed and propagated, were to threaten the extinction of Arabism. For the moment what they signified was, of all things, the extinction of any Jewish national sense there might have been in Palestine, and of any basis of unity there might have been there between Jews and Arabs.

"The political Zionists often enough advise attention to the good terms on which the pre-War Zionists of Palestine had lived with the Arabs. They add that if it were not for the intrigues of various interested parties these good relations would have continued with themselves. The Arabs draw a different moral from the same fact. They point out that the pre-War Jews were on pretty good terms with the surrounding population primarily because they made no attack on the position of that population, and secondly because their ways and customs fitted in reasonably well with the ways and customs of the land itself. 

"What follows from this deserves every consideration. The ways and customs of the pre-War Jews, which thus fitted into the Arab scheme of things, were essentially Jewish. Therefore when Jews were real Jews and real Zionists, Zionists by devotion and not by 'right,' they were acceptable enough to the Arabs (the question of peril through mass migration not having arisen). When Jews, however, clamoured to enter the Holy Land as though it was theirs by title, yet the moment they were inside behaved as non-Jews and erased or hid the Scrolls of the Law beneath voters'-lists, by-laws of the G.F.J.L. (General Federation of Jewish Labour), agenda for Rutenberg company meetings and other such Occidental commonplaces - then the Arabs would have nothing to do with them. They could accept into their midst Jews who had some national character. They would not accept the new Zionist immigrants who had no national character at all, yet were full of bold and outrageous claims based upon something which they did not possess, and presented Trades-Union certificates and Directors' reports as the insignia of Moses.

"The pre-War Jews had held traces of cousinship with the Arabs, but they had never tried to make capital out of this fact, nor indeed had mentioned it at all. But cousinship had been pressed incongruously upon the suffering Feisal by Jews of the new type, such as Dr Weizmann and Professor Frankfurter and various gentlemen from New York and Boston, who had no trace of it. The Weizmanns and the Frankfurters were men of ability, but when they proffered themselves as 'cousins of the Arabs' they were ludicrous.

"The immigrants of the new 'mandatory' disposition, certainly all those younger ones who set the note for the attitude of the Zionist mass, were of this Frankfurter type, though they did not come from the United States. Mostly these young people came from Eastern Europe, but were hardly at all Eastern. They were European in a generalized way, without territorial connections but breathing the ideas in the European air. There had been indeed not so much physical side to their lives. Theirs was a disembodied existence, with no real home save in what was thought or spoken. They had grown up in books, and they lived in speeches.

"Jewish Palestine, as they found it, did not please them in the least. They thought of the old P.I.C.A. or Rothschild colonies, founded by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, parasitic. They found even such self-supporting farm-settlements as Zichron Jakob or Petach Tikvah not at all to their taste: I was to hear the latter called an 'agricultural ghetto.' As for the Jews of traditional type, the Jews of the 'Wailing Wall' and of the pockets of survival round Safad, they thoroughly despised them.

"The Jews of the 'Wailing Wall' were found good enough by them, it is true, as a means to an end, as living evidence for their claim of historic succession. But that was for the benefit of the outer world. Amongst themselves the newcomers hardly regarded their predecessors as alive. They looked on them as faded parchments employed as proof of pedigree, or as fossilized strata on which they had to gain a foothold ere rearing on the site their own brand-new, blue-print, political, lucus a non lucendo Zion. 

"Some of the apologists of this Zionism, aware of the deadly self-contradiction in its spurning of traditionalism, tried to mask this as a breaking-away from the subserviance and squalor of the ghetto. That excuse will not do. If the newcomers had but set their faces against dirt and overcrowding, there would have been no criticism to make of them, of course. But what they set their faces against was the distinctively Jewish life which lay beneath any superficial dirt and overcrowding.

"It was in squalid passages and peopled tenements and small dark synagogues that the Jewish ideal had persisted at its purist and most individual. This was the experience, not of the Jews only, but of all subjected clans or nations or races. Their national life continued in the houses of the poor and the conservative. The men afterwards called national liberators or revivers came respectfully and lovingly to the homes of the traditionalists, caught from them the vital breath, drew deep of it and exhaled it in power.

"It was not so in Palestine. The political youth who now began swaggering in by right wanted no feeble breaths from the chinks of the past mingling with their modern air-conditioning. They were Zion, or rather Zion was or would have to be what they were. It was take-it-or-leave-it for the spirit and the sanctuary. Once the ancestral deposit in Jerusalem had served its documentary purpose, they had no use any more for the bearded and ringleted Orthodox, who found themselves discarded and driven for self-preservation into violent dissensions with their very determined supplanters.

"So while the new Zionists, in the early 'twenties, outside of Palestine were making all possible capital out of Jewish tradition, inside Palestine, on the other hand, they were doing their utmost to relegate to limbo the pre-War Jews, the only Jews who represented tradition. These latter were appealing continually for redress against the politicians' endeavours to reduce their status, to contaminate their customs, to force them into politically-framed representative bodies. Petitions from them flowed to the Administration, to the Home Government, to the League of Nations, to private visitors of mark even, in a continuous stream.

"Their supersession betrayed the falsity of the whole political Zionist movement. If there was such a thing as the Jewish nation it was the traditional Jews who represented it. The other kind of Jews had, it is true, a vast deal of achievement to their credit. The history of Western civilization was alight with their names. As poets, musicians, thinkers and - in the material order - as men-of-business, they had been amidst the principal makes of of that civilization. There was no branch of it to which they had not contributed. But they paid the penalty of being whelmed by what they created. The Disraelis, Heines, Rubinsteins and Einsteins vanished as Jews in the Western world which they helped to construct.

"But the religious observances, the ways of life, the writings of the traditional Jews - that was something other men had not got, something the West had not absorbed, a separate culture. To have forced this on the Arabs would have been wrong, but at least it would have been something individual to force." (pp 410-13)

To be continued in the next post...

The One Who Got Away

Today is the 45th anniversary of the departure of the ship Exodus from the French port of Sete on 11 July 1947, ostensibly with the mission of running the British blockade designed to stem illegal Jewish entry into mandate Palestine, but actually with the intent of pulling off one of the greatest publicity stunts in history. (See my 17/6/10 post Cannon Fodder for Zion: Exodus 1947 where I cited the assessment of Israeli historian Idith Zertal.)

One particular eye-witness testimony to that affair you're unlikely to read in most accounts is that of the remarkable Emmanuel Levyne, to my knowledge the only Exodus volunteer to both see through the whole vile charade and blow the whistle on it.

After boarding the Exodus as a volunteer, Levyne began having what he called "revelations" that any attempt to "force the gates of the Promised Land" constituted a "rebellion," not against the British, but against God. In short, as he put it, "I lost the Zionist faith," and when the British eventually returned those they'd removed from the Exodus to Port de Bouc, near Marseilles, he alone of the able-bodied volunteers disembarked, braving the threats and intimidation of the Mossad agents among them whose role it was to enforce discipline.

What follows is a rough translation from the French of part of Levyne's 1969 book Judaisme Contre Sionisme (Judaism Against Zionism), a neglected work crying out for an expert English translation:

"As for the Exodus affair, I've said that it was nothing more than an anti-British provocation - something the Zionists no longer try to hide, as they did at the time when they succeeded in mobilising world public opinion against the British and portraying them as the new Nazis.

"The newspaper Le Meridional, for example, in its issue of November 5 1967, devoted an entire page in homage to the 20th anniversary of the Exodus. Here are the words of one of the Zionist officials involved with the ship, from an interview with the journalist Maurice Sardou:

 'The voyage was planned well ahead of time with the sole aim of stirring up world opinion against the British. We wanted to create a real focus of attention, so we packed the ship with 4,427 volunteers, knowing that the British would intercept it and arrest them. We wanted the British to over-react. The provocation was necessary. And sure enough, when they boarded it and transferred its passengers to British ships, there was an outcry in the international press which characterised them as 'prison ships'.

 'And when these ships returned to Port de Bouc, the French authorities refused to cooperate with the disembarkation of the immigrants. The French government appealed to Jewish community leaders in France to act as interpreters. Those who wished to disembark could do so, but no force was used. The immigrants voted unanimously to remain on board. Only those who were ill were taken off. The ships remained in port de Bouc for a month, attracting the world's press. The Hotel Arbois in Marseilles was full of journalists. Finally, the immigrants were sent to a camp south of Hamburg. This had a profound impact on international opinion, the UN, and even France.

 'What did the voyage of the Exodus mean to you?'

 'It represented the creation of Israel.'

"This is my sin, my crime. By boarding the Exodus, despite the prophetic warnings I had received, including the last on the quay in Sete harbour, I played a part in the creation of the State of Israel, which is to say the martyrdom of the Palestinian people. And it is precisely because I am aware of my culpability that I have become an anti-Zionist mystic and will not cease in my work until the suffering of the world's most disinherited and abandoned people - thus, spiritually, the most Jewish - is ended. That is, when the colonial State of Israel no longer exists."

Come All Ye Faithful

Are young Australian Jews growing deaf to the siren call of Israel? Is Zionism on the nose? A bit of a bore maybe? Are there no Fishmans or Alhadeffs in the wings, ready to run with the latest Israeli talking points?

How else to explain the appearance of the following NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' advertisement in the latest issue of The Australian Jewish News:

Unique Mission to Israel

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, in conjunction with HonestReporting, announces an

Advocates Mission to Israel: November 26-December 4, 1912

*Hear what's really going on in closed-door briefings with highest-level experts from all key sectors
*High profile meetings with ministers and MKs
*Confidential and private briefings
*Eight nights accommodation at the luxurious five-star David Citadel Hotel, within minutes walk of Jerusalem's Old City and city centre

Limited numbers

Inquiries:...

***

After all, despite the movement's constant conflation of Judaism with Zionism,* you'd be mistaken to fall for the lie that they are one and the same. That old standby, History, tells us that Zionism's grip on Jews cannot be taken for granted. Shoring up the willing suspension of disbelief and capacity for selective vision required for the production of true believers takes some prodding and priming, as this most interesting report from the Sydney Jewish News of 9  October 1953 makes clear:

"Zionist leadership in the Diasporah had 'fallen down badly' in spreading the message of Zionism to World Jewry in general and to Jewish youth in particular, Major Samuel Weiser said in Sydney last week. 'Australian Jews must realise that Zionism no longer is the weekend hobby to which it has degenerated,' he declared.

"Major Weiser, an emissary of Menachim Begin, is visiting Australia to raise funds for widows and orphans of Irgun Zvai Leumi members killed in the Israel War of Liberation. He is also trying to interest Jews and non-Jews to make capital investments in Israel's economy. During his recent tour of Victoria, Major Weiser raised about 7,000 pounds for the Keren Tel Hai Appeal.

"In Sydney last week, London-born Major Weiser said World Jewry's apathy to Zionism was one of the tragedies of Jewish life since the re-creation of the State of Israel. He added: 'I have not come to Australia to preach Revisionism or to attack the Israel Government. My views on these matters are well known. I have come to Australia to advocate a re-orientation and revitalisation of Zionist leadership. Australian Jews must be told that Judaism is Zionism and that Zionism is Judaism. The two are indivisible. It must be made clear that charitable collections and general fund-raising - whilst of valuable assistance - cannot be relied upon as a source of maintaining forever the economic and strategic security of Israel. The State of Israel was not created as a refuge for Jews fleeing from persecution; the establishment was paid for with the priceless blood of our youth. And if nothing else, it is Zionism's greatest duty to preserve our one great asset and treasure - the youth of World Jewry. It is they who must be taught either by their fathers, their rabbis or by their Zionist leaders that we can no longer be as we were - a people without a land - but must be a land with a people.'

"Major Weiser said during the last 5 years the people of Israel had carried a tremendous economic burden; they were willing to continue to do so if they could see that Jews outside - for whom the State was created - would 'come forward' to shoulder the burden, by assisting in the development of the State, either through capital investments or through personal effort. 'The people of Israel look towards Jews throughout the entire world to assist them in the upbuilding of the State. This requires the vision, foresight, courage, and wisdom of all our people and, above all, their faith that Israel alone offers the solution to the age-old Jewish question. Zionism is no longer the weekend hobby to which it has degenerated; World Jewry must realise that mere fund-raising will not overcome the dire needs of Israel.'"

I'll spare you the rest of the old Irgun terrorist's spiel, but on quite another subject, namely Zionism's influence in the Australian mass media, check out the final paragraph of this SJN report: "During his two weeks in Sydney, Major Weiser made a number of broadcasts for commercial stations and the Australian Broadcasting Commission." (Quoted in Sydney's Jewish Community (1951-1953), Dr Hans Kimmel, 1955, pp 225-26)

[*Here's one of the latest variations on the theme: "I am a Zionist because I am a Jew and without recognising a national component in Judaism, I cannot explain its unique character as a National Liberation movement for the Jewish people." Gil Troy]

Greg Sheridan's Worst Nightmare

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan is a troubled man these days. The Australian's foreign editor is wracked by this terrible thought:

"Ireland is the land of my ancestors. I still have close family connections there. Without any qualification, I love Ireland deeply. It has, sadly, again fallen on tough economic times, but it is facing up to them resolutely. And it remains an astonishing source of culture. But if it elects [Martin] McGuiness, a former IRA terrorist, as president, for the first time in my life I will be thoroughly ashamed of the Irish... If they elect a wretched terrorist like McGuiness, the Irish will have demonstrated a loss of faith in themselves, their own inherent decency and moderation." (A figurehead should not be elected, The Australian, 27/10/11)

Needless to say, as far as I'm aware, Sheridan's never had a problem with Israeli terrorists, such as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, becoming prime ministers of his even more beloved Israel (1977-83 & 1986-92 respectively), so there you go.

That aside, if I were Sheridan, I'd be consoling myself with the thought that things could be worse - much worse. How about an anti-Zionist for governor-general of Australia? Or worse still, how about a governor-general who actually was an anti-Zionist?

And why raise what for Sheridan must be the ultimate in nightmare scenarios?

Well, in the same column, having noted that the Irish presidency is largely ceremonial, he blithely alludes to "the solid steady people who have been our governors general - Quentin Bryce, Mike Jeffery, Bill Hayden, Zelman Cowan, going all the way back to Isaac Isaacs," seemingly unaware that the first of these native-born G-Gs, Isaac Isaacs (G-G: 1931-36), who was a Jew, was also an anti-Zionist!

The following quotes, which may be found at isaacisaacs.blogspot.com reveal that not only was Isaac Isaacs solid and steady, but remarkably clear-thinking and utterly principled as well:

"[T]here is no warrant, legal or moral, for making Palestine a Jewish State, any more than an Arab State, but there is every reason for making it what the Mandate terms it, a Palestinian nationality, that is bi-national..." (The Nationality of the Australian Jew, 9/9/47)

"[Political Zionism] has run the entire gamut of racial nationalism from the... very modest hope of restoration of Palestine as the centre of a new, positive, and intensive Jewish cultural life to the extreme theory of Jewish nationalism practically identical with Nazist and Fascist theory, which holds that the bonds of Jewish racial nationalism are eternally indissoluble, that there can only be ever one Jewish homeland, only one land in which the Jew can ever feel himself completely at home, that eternally he is a member of the Jewish racial nation, however that term may be defined, that he resides among the nations, as at present, only a temporary sojourner, that he is in Diaspora, in 'Galut', in exile, and that Israel's redemption from the sad fate of the last 1500 years or even the last 2500 years will be only when it will be restored to the role of completely and predominately Jewish independent statehood in Palestine, in whatever form and however achieved this Statehood may take, Commonwealth, Republic, or Dominion." (Palestine: Peace & Prosperity or War & Destruction? Political Zionism: Undemocratic, Unjust, Dangerous, p 23-4, 14/1/46)

"A most serious responsibility... for affording a just and acceptable basis for a peaceful and harmonious solution rests primarily on the shoulders of Political Zionism because it is actively pressing for political measures intended to swamp the Arab population [of Palestine]..." (ibid, p 5)

"[The demands of political Zionism are] inconsistent in demanding on one hand, on a basis of a separate Jewish nationality everywhere Jews are found, Jewish domination in Palestine, and at the same time claiming complete Jewish equality elsewhere than in Palestine, on the basis of a nationality common to the citizens of every faith." (ibid, p 11)

Israel's Friends in Low Places

The corporate press being what it is, you're most unlikely to learn that Norwegian Christianist terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, is a strong supporter of Zionism:

"Were the majority of the German and European Jews disloyal? Yes, at least the so-called liberal Jews, similar to the liberal Jews today that oppose nationalism/Zionism and support multiculturalism. Jews that support multiculturalism today are as much of a threat to Israel and Zionism (Israeli nationalism) as they are to us. So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists... Whenever I discuss the Middle East issue with a national socialist he presents the anti-Israeli and pro-Palestine argument. He always seems unaware of the fact that his propaganda is hurting Israeli nationalists (who want to deport the Muslims from Israel)..." (From Anders Behring Breivik's 'manifesto', quoted in Anders Breivik, Norwegian terror suspect, admirer of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, richardsilverstein.com, 23/7/11)

Breivik's words will only come as a surprise to those ignorant of the symbiotic relationship between anti-Semitism and Zionism: the former, whether real or hyped, being used by Zionists to justify the creation and maintenance of an ethnographic 'Jewish' state in Palestine. As the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl predicted: "The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies." And so it came to pass.

Apart from Breivik, contemporary "friends" of Zionism include such colourful characters on Europe's far right as:

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom: "I believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not territorial. Those who make this claim have no idea what they are talking about. If you return the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, it won't end the conflict. After a certain period of time - a month, a year, a decade - they'll want the rest of the land, because this is an ideological conflict. So the solution cannot be territorial, but ideological. The Palestinians believe - and this is the nature of Islam - that Israel is their country and that they are fighting the non-Muslims in the West through it. The struggle against Israel is a struggle against us. We are Israel. The reason Dutch parents can sleep calmly without having to worry about their kids is that Israeli parents stay awake at night because their children are in the army. This doesn't mean Israel cannot be criticized, but I'm not ashamed to fight for Israel... Jordan is Palestine... I am against ideas of a transfer or ethnic purification. But if Jordan turns into a Palestinian state, Palestinians could be encouraged to move there." (Quoted in Geert Wilders: Israel fighting our war, Eldad Beck, ynetnews.com, 30/11/10)

Tommy Robinson, leader of the English Defence League (EDL): "The EDL was formed 2 years ago. One of the fundamental beliefs that this movement was built on was its support for Israel's right to defend itself. In our first demonstrations, we went to Birmingham, and we flew the flag of Israel, the Star of David. In the first public speech I ever gave, I wore the Star of David in Leeds. The reason for this is because Israel is a shining star of democracy. If Israel falls, we all fall." (Quoted in EDL Chief: 'Any rogue elements within the EDL that go against our mission statement will be removed from the organization', atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com, 30/6/11)

Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom Party: "During their trip [to Israel], the Europeans drove through Palestinian villages in a bulletproof bus to meet Jewish settlers in the desolate West Bank outpost of Har Bracha, set on a windswept mountain bluff with views into Jordan. While their they vowed that the settlements were necessary to defend Israel against its Arab enemies. As if to prove his readiness to defend the Holy Land, Strache donned camouflage war paint and an Israeli Defense Forces combat jacket for a picture with paratroopers of the 101st 'Cobra' Battalion on their base near the Gaza Strip (The last photo of Strache in military regalia became a minor scandal in Austria when it surfaced in 2008. The picture showed him with leading Austrian neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, and was apparently taken around 1990 when Strache was reportedly active in the Viking Youth, an illegal neo-Nazi group.)... In an interview before his death in a 2008 car crash, Jorg Haider, the longtime leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and Strache's predecessor, talked of Strache's plans to use Israel to make the party more respectable. 'If the Jews accept us, then we won't have a problem', Haider said Strache told him... Strache likes to play on history. In campaign literature, he is depicted in Knight's armor, promising a hot sausage [!] to a blond, slingshot-wielding Austrian boy if he 'hits that mustafa'. Kara Mustafa commanded the Muslim armies in the 1683 siege of Vienna - but, in today's Austria, 'mustafa' is more common as a derogatory epithet for any ethnic Turk." (Europe's extreme righteous: Far right European politicians find love - and common cause - in Israel, Stefan Theil, Newsweek, 27/2/11)

Kent Ekeroth, international secretary for the Sweden Democrats: "Europe's right-wing parties have 'realized, whoops, we've been wrong about Israel and the Jews in the past', says... Ekeroth, adding that their newfound love for Israel isn't surprising. 'It's all about Islam', he says. 'You can't be against the Islamization of Europe, and, at the same time, support the Arabs in the Israel-Palestinian conflict'. Ekeroth, who is himself Jewish and says he runs 'the anti-Islam activities' of his party, believes that 'Jews who fight us instead of their real enemy are digging their own graves'." (ibid)

Those done and dusted include:

Adolf Eichmann, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer: "[Eichmann's] new boss... required him to read Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat, the famous Zionist classic, which converted Eichmann promptly and forever to Zionism... From then on, as he repeated over and over, he thought of hardly anything but a 'political solution' (as opposed to the later 'physical solution', the first meaning expulsion and the second extermination) and how to 'get some firm ground under the feet of the Jews'... His first personal contacts with Jewish functionaries, all of them well-known Zionists of long standing, were thoroughly satisfactory. The reason he became so fascinated by the 'Jewish question', he explained, was his own 'idealism'; these Jews, unlike the Assimilationists, whom he always despised, and unlike Orthodox Jews, who bored him, were 'idealists', like him." (Eichmann & the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt, 1963/2005, pp 8-9)

Hans Gunther (1891-1968), German 'Nordic race' supremacist and eugenicist in the Weimar Republic & the Third Reich: "Gunther also synthesized current ideas about Europe's 'Jewish problem'. The Jews were 'a nation' rather than a race. Still, the racial composition of the Jews was 'quite other' than that of most Europeans, with Asian, African, Mediterranean, and east Baltic roots. Moreover, due to 'seclusion and interbreeding' the Jewish nation was 'on the way to become a race, a 'secondary race' '. Europe's 'Jewish problem' concerned the 'influence of the Jewish spirit, and influence won through economic predominance, [which] brings with it the very greatest danger for the life of the European peoples and of the North American people alike'. A solution 'lies in the separation of the Jews and the Gentiles, that withdrawing of the Jews from the Gentiles which Zionism seeks to bring about'." (The Rise & Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity, Bruce Baum, 2006, p 156)