Ken Livingstone don't give a fuck

The furore over Ken Livingstone and his remarks about Hitler and Zionism last year has resurfaced. Finally the verdict is in: Livingstone has not been expelled from the Labour Party for his comments, but he has been suspended for another year. Before all this happened Ken was on the NEC and posed as a key ally to Jeremy Corbyn. Now he is out of the game until the summer of 2018.

The story has been covered as if the Labour Party should have stripped Livingstone of his membership and anything short of this makes them cowards. The Blairites and Brownites have been queuing around the block to hurl dog muck at the Labour leadership. One anonymous MP told the New Statesman: "Years from now, the foul stench of anti-Semitism will become one of the defining characteristics of the Jeremy Corbyn era in the Labour Party. A shameful and totally unforgivable chapter in our history."

Every wing of the British media establishment has taken part in the shit storm around Labour and anti-Semitism – from the BBC and The Guardian to The Telegraph and The Spectator. The Naz Shah scandal, and Ken Livingstone’s unhelpful intervention, is just the latest to be picked up. The British press has manufactured this scandal in a bid to create a crisis and, in turn, undermine the Labour leadership. But this hysteria also represents the high emotional stakes in Israel among the commentariat.

As a critic of the Israeli government, I have defended the Palestinian cause and its supporters against charges of anti-Semitism. And I have defended Ken Livingstone and his loose lips on more than one occasion. Still, I wish Ken had not brought up Hitler and Zionism in the middle of the Shah case. I do not think it was anti-Semitic, though I do think it was reckless and played into the hands of the Blairites.

Ken Livingstone ran into the Shah scandal like a bull into a china shop. Hopefully, we have just  heard the last vase smash against the floor. Plenty of leftists have pointed out the Haavara agreement, the Nazi plans to deport European Jews to Madagascar and elsewhere. However, the facts of Nazi Germany are not really relevant or helpful here. The real controversy is over Livingstone’s use of the term ‘Zionism’ to describe Nazi policy.

Laying out the historical record cannot dispel the outrage (even as much of it phony). The damage is done, sadly. Even before this, Livingstone was rated as an anti-Semite by certain people thanks to the media. Vilification campaigns are successful because it is virtually impossible to resist mudslinging. If you explain yourself, deny the claims or even apologise, you’re screwed. It’s too late. It’s never enough.

In this sense you can understand why Ken Livingstone has not apologise or concede ground, he just fires back against the press and his opponents in the party. Journalists kept asking him: "Do you recognise that you caused offence?" He does not, clearly. Much like the honey badger, Ken Livingstone don't give a fuck.

The Labour Party and anti-Semitism

There is no upsurge of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. There is a moral panic being instigated by the media due, to a handful of cases, almost all of which took place before Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader in the summer of 2015. In fact, the Corbyn leadership has demonstrated it is not afraid to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism against Labour figures, including allies like Ken Livingstone. But this is not all there is to say.

The perfect storm over anti-Semitism and Labour has been building for a long time. Every wing of the British media establishment has taken part – from the BBC and the Guardian to the Telegraph and the Spectator. The Naz Shah case, and Ken Livingstone’s intervention, is just the latest to be picked up. The British press has manufactured this scandal in a bid to create a crisis and, in turn, undermine Corbyn. But this hysteria also represents the high emotional stakes in Israel among the commentariat.

The Anglosphere is culturally and politically invested in Israel in a way which other world powers are not. Make no doubt about it, this is the result of settler colonialism. Israel fits into the imperial ambitions of Western powers. The American intellectual class fell in love with Israel after the 1967 war, which came as a welcome sign that the world was not in total disarray. So the conflation of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a coincidental part of our political discourse – it is necessarily a part of the way the conflict is understood in the West.

For these reasons, we might say Ken Livingstone ran into the Shah scandal like a bull into a china shop. We still may not have heard the last vase smash as it hits the floor. Plenty of leftists have pointed out the Haavara agreement, the Nazi plans to deport European Jews to Madagascar and elsewhere. However, the facts of Nazi Germany are not really relevant or helpful here. The real controversy is over Livingstone’s use of the term ‘Zionism’ to describe Nazi policy. Laying out the historical record cannot dispel the outrage (much of it phony). The damage is done.

Sadly, honest voices like Jamie Stern-Weiner are lost in the storm. Vilification campaigns are successful because it is virtually impossible to resist mudslinging. If you explain yourself, deny the claims or even apologise, you’re screwed. It’s too late. It’s never enough. There is no way of adequately deflecting, let alone dodging, the mud. You’re always guilty in the eyes of some people. Even before this, Livingstone was rated as an anti-Semite by certain people thanks to the media.

Even if we presume innocence, it’s worth examining why Livingstone’s use of the term ‘Zionism’ was problematic. First off, Zionism is a broad church, much like feminism or conservatism, so it’s hardly a clearly defined target to begin with. For example, Noam Chomsky was a Zionist youth organiser and Alan Dershowitz was apart of the same Hebrew summer camp. But Chomsky’s childhood Zionism would not recognised by the devotees of the state of Israel. There is a big difference between the left-wing, anti-statist currents of the 1930s and present day right-wing Israeli nationalism.

That’s not to say that Zionism did not always suffer from major, and potentially unreconcilable contradictions. Left-wing nationalism, for example, as rarely, if ever given way to non-nationalism. This is what the left-wing problem with Zionism is at its root all about. Politically, the ideology has failed to be secular, becoming increasingly violent and ethnocratic. The British left’s version is compounded by the UK’s history as an imperial power, whose policies created the regional divisions, in the Middle East, at the root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This is why term “Zionism” is so loaded, and why, in a British context it is especially toxic. It connotes support for a status quo that goes to the heart of a history of ruinous foreign policy, and, in its contemporary form, the chauvinism of settlers towards an indigenous people. This is why the Blairite goon John Mann was so furious with Ken Livingstone. The presuppositions are evident: Israeli policy is so morally immaculate, it can only be opposed by closet Nazis.

Of course, the obvious point cannot be made too often: not all Zionists are Jews, neither are all Jews Zionists. Yet this game is played by the Israeli right, and its reactionary Diaspora boosters. Never mind the fact that Christian Zionism, for example, is a huge movement with deep roots, while anti-Zionism has a long history among, err, Jews. Note the American Christian right tend to be fanatical supporters of Israeli colonialism, but they do so as they yearn for the Rapture and end for Jewish people worldwide. But this anti-Semitism is rarely called out, if ever.

As much as it is absurd to conflate Zionism with Jewishness, the Z-word can be dangerous for progressives to use carelessly. In many ways, it would be much better for leftists to talk about Israeli or Jewish nationalism today. Precision of language is vital here. Clear distinctions have to be maintained. Not only because the misuse of the term ‘Zionist’ can easily be painted as anti-Semitic, but because it can be received as such by actual racists. This means the Left should deepen its vocabulary about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Too often do we hear talk of the ‘Israel lobby’, or even the ‘Jewish lobby’, and this is not unproblematic. The only reason why lobbyists are welcomed in Washington and London is because there is an underlying interest in the first place. In other words, US policy favours Israel due to its own interests in the Middle East, not because of Israeli interference in American political life. The Left should not presuppose Western innocence in all of this, as if the US is being led astray by foreign interests. This is not inherently anti-Semitic, but it is seriously flawed.

As Didi Herman argues, the Left should probably stop using the word ‘Zionism’ and try to grasp the problems at hand in clear terms. By using ‘Zionism’, the Left opens itself up to right-wing offensives and infiltration by genuine anti-Semites. At the same time, there is little engagement with Jewish nationalism as a historic movement and the reasons for its appeal. It was once that the Left was avowedly pro-Zionist and many supported Israel up to the 1967 war, whereas today leftists are eager to pronounce themselves anti-Zionists. But posturing does not always translate into good politics.

Speaking of posturing, the self-described ‘anti-totalitarian Left’ is heavily involved in the smear machine. Many of these soi-disant leftists and liberals supported the invasion of Iraq on supposed progressive grounds.

They see Israel as a Western liberal democracy encircled by Arab dictatorships and Islamic fascist regimes. Therefore, all criticism of Israel is painted as anti-Jewish. The reality is much less convenient for this herd of independent minds.

Localising anti-Jewish prejudice on the Left is a form of externalisation. Much like child sexual abuse, we’re meant to believe it’s always someone else who is guilty of it. The terrible truth is sexual violence is far more common and banal. And the same can be said of Judeophobia. It’s not the preserve of student activists, intellectuals and conspiracists. The global financial crisis set the conditions in place for a resurgence of racism. Anti-Semitism is the handmade of Islamophobia. To assume that it would not reemerge now is to not take anti-immigrant politics seriously.

As for the Labour Party in particular, there is little to no anti-Semitism among its ranks. The last leader, Ed Miliband is of Belgian Jewish heritage – his father, a refugee from Nazism served in WW2 – yet the British press was comfortable mocking him for his inability to enjoy a bacon sandwich. His father Ralph Miliband was a refugee from the Nazi onslaught, and the right-wing press insinuated the man was ‘disloyal’ to Britain. There was no discussion of anti-Jewish undercurrents in the midst of this.

Jew-bashing is an old game for the Right. The times haven’t changed so much. As Sam Kriss argues, the contemporary Right is now philo-Semitic – it is fascinated by Israel and by Jews – but this supposed love is really its opposite. Jews who criticise Israel are deemed insufficiently Jewish. This is why Norwegian fascist Anders Breivik drew a line between ‘loyal’ and ‘disloyal’ Jews (Zionists in the one hand, left-liberals in the other). A Jewish state is one kind of solution for the anti-Semite, as Jews are taken, in this view, as essentially deracinated.

The Right is trying to destroy Jeremy Corbyn by any means necessary. The coalition includes the Blairites, the Conservatives and the media. Guido Fawkes started this scandal by digging up Naz Shah’s Facebook posts from August 2014, and the media quickly took it up. This was before she was selected to run against George Galloway in Bradford West. It was also long before Jeremy Corbyn triumphed over the attempts to renew the New Labour project. So it should be obvious why there is a moral panic now of all times.

Actually the media has been pushing this line for a long-term. The BBC’s John Ware, who writes for Standpoint magazine, produced a documentary attacking Corbyn as supporting anti-Semites and terrorists. The good news is Corbyn has overcome every attack on his character. This scandal may be harder to trounce thanks to Livingstone’s comments. It’s possible the local elections could be hit by this, but it’s also true Labour is facing the prospect of long-term decline anyway. Corbyn may not be able to save the party. But the Blairites lack anyone capable of filling the void.

At the same time, it’s less likely to sway Londoners away from Sadiq Khan and to the shameful, racist campaign mounted by Zac Goldsmith. The Khan campaign has kept to its ‘soft left’ script and made simple, uncontroversial pledges. It’s possible we’ll see the Corbyn vote turnout for the mayoral vote, while Labour takes serious losses in the local elections. Neither would necessarily be turned by the events of the past week. Not that this would ever be acknowledged by the BBC.

This article was originally written for Souciant Magazine.

Zionism: An Unhelpful Term

A big part of the controversy around Ken Livingstone's remarks is the use of the term ‘Zionism’ in relation to Hitler. The historical record can be looked up, though it may be better to question the use of language here. After all, words matter.

The Zionist movement was a broad church and included everyone from Noam Chomsky to Jackie Mason. However, Professor Chomsky is not a right-wing Jewish nationalist. Yet he was a Zionist youth leader and Alan Dershowitz was apart of the same Hebrew summer camp. But Chomsky’s childhood Zionism would not be recognised by the devotees of the state of Israel. He remembers the foundation of the so-called Jewish state as a “day of mourning”.

Of course, the obvious point cannot be made too often. Not all Zionists are Jews, neither are all Jews Zionists. For instance, Christian Zionism is a huge movement with deep roots and remains strong in the American Bible Belt, while anti-Zionism has a long history among Jews. Note the Christian Right tend to be fanatical supporters of Israeli aggression, but they also yearn for the Rapture and the end of Jewry worldwide.

Zionism is not synonymous with Jewishness, but it’s a highly imprecise term. In many ways, it would be more accurate to talk about Israeli or Jewish nationalism today. Precision of language is vital here. Clear distinctions have to be maintained. Not only because the misuse of the term ‘Zionist’ can be painted as anti-Semitic, but it can be received as such. This means deepening the vocabulary of the Left on Israel-Palestine.

Too often do we hear talk of the Israel lobby, or even the Jewish lobby, and this is not unproblematic. The only reason why lobbyists are welcomed in Washington and London is because there is an underlying interest in the first place. In other words, US policy favours Israel due to its own interests in the Middle East, not because of Israeli interference in American political life. The Left should not presuppose Western innocence in all of this, as if the US is being led astray by foreign interests. It is not necessarily anti-Semitic, but it certainly can be to talk in this way.

As Didi Herman argues, the Left should probably stop using the word ‘Zionism’ and try to grasp the problem in clear terms. By using ‘Zionism’, the Left opens itself up to right-wing offensives and infiltration by genuine anti-Semites. At the same time, there is little engagement with Jewish nationalism as a historic movement and the reasons for its appeal. It was once that the Left was avowedly Zionist, whereas today leftists are eager to pronounce themselves anti-Zionists. Here is a passage of advice from Herman:

The identification of a generic Zionism with nothing but racist practice in Israel entrenches an understanding of zionism not just as a dirty word, but as a pariah form of thinking unrelated to any other (except apartheid thinking). However, as Balibar (2009), Asharwi (2003), and many others have noted, Jewish nationalisms need to be taken seriously. The left’s wholesale intellectual rejection of an assumed monolithic Zionism does not assist such an endeavour. 

I suppose this post is, in part, a plea to the left to stop saying ‘Zionist’. Use ‘Israeli nationalists’ or ‘Israeli fundamentalists’ or better yet ‘Netanyahu’s regime’ or, as a last resort, at least refer to ‘Israel-zionism’ and not ‘Zionism’ per se, as in ‘media outlets that support Netanyahu’s regime’ or ‘the University of Birmingham is a bit of an Israeli nationalist outpost’. These alternatives won’t provide an easy shorthand in the way ‘Zionism’ does, for example, ‘Israeli nationalism = apartheid’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it, but I suppose that is my point — easy options often sacrifice understanding for rhetorical force. The Zionist shorthand is upsetting to many because it is a very old way of talking about ‘Jewish conspiracy’ (used by antisemites long before Israeli statehood), and no doubt more importantly, it harms the cause of Palestinian solidarity because it allows people with all sorts of agendas to attack the solidarity campaign, and with occasional justification. Of course Israel itself likes to messianically represent itself as the embodiment of a monolithic Zionism, but there is no need for the left to reproduce this erasure of all the other forms of zionism.

It’s not surprising that the self-described ‘anti-totalitarian Left’ is leading the witch hunt. Many of these soi-disant leftists and liberals supported the invasion of Iraq on progressive grounds. Israel is seen as a Western liberal democracy encircled by Arab dictatorships and Islamic fascist regimes. Therefore all criticism of Israel is painted as anti-Jewish. The reality is much less convenient for this herd of independent minds.

Localising anti-Jewish prejudice in the Left is a form of externalisation. Much like child sexual abuse, we’re meant to believe it’s always someone else who is guilty of it. The terrible truth is sexual violence is far more common and banal. And the same can be said of Judeophobia. It’s not the preserve of student activists, intellectuals and conspiracists. The global financial crisis set the conditions in place for a resurgence.

As for the Labour Party, there is little to no anti-Semitism among its ranks. The last leader Ed Miliband is of Belgian Jewish heritage - his father, a refugee from Nazism served in WW2 - yet the British press was comfortable mocking him for his inability to enjoy a bacon sandwich. His father Ralph Miliband was a refugee from Nazism served in WW2, and the right-wing press insinuated the man was ‘disloyal’ to Britain. There was no discussion of anti-Jewish undercurrents in the midst of this.

However, Jew-bashing is an old game for the Right. The times haven’t changed so much. As Sam Kriss argues, the contemporary Right is now avowedly philo-Semitic - it is fascinated by Israel and by Jews - but this supposed love is really its opposite. Jews who criticise Israel are deemed insufficiently Jewish. The Norwegian fascist Breivik drew a line between ‘patriotic’ and ‘disloyal’ Jews in his rambling manifesto. Naturally, a Jewish state appeals to anti-Semites who want to rid their countries of a certain minority.

At this point, we could do far worse than to turn to the words of Judith Butler on Jewish politics and the Western fascination with Israel:

In holding out for a distinction to be made between Israel and Jews, I am calling for a space for dissent for Jews, and non-Jews, who have criticisms of Israel to articulate; but I am also opposing anti-semitic reductions of Jewishness to Israeli interests. The ‘Jew’ is no more defined by Israel than by anti-semitism. The ‘Jew’ exceeds both determinations, and is to be found, substantively, as a historically and culturally changing identity that takes no single form and has no single telos. Once the distinction is made, discussion of both Zionism and anti-semitism can begin, since it will be as important to understand the legacy of Zionism and to debate its future as to oppose anti-semitism wherever we find it.

I rest my case, fellow travellers.

Is Labour anti-Semitic?

No, the Labour Party is not an association of anti-Semites. Yet the media storm over anti-Semitism and the Labour Party has been building for a long time. The Naz Shah case, and Ken Livingstone’s intervention, is just the latest to be picked up by the media. In fact, the British press has manufactured this scandal in a bid to create a crisis. This hysteria represents the emotional stakes in Israel. It is precisely because of the state of British political discourse that this was possible.

The Anglosphere is culturally and politically invested in Israel in a way which other world powers are not. Make no doubt about it, this is the result of settler colonialism. Israel fits into the imperial ambitions of Western powers. The American intellectual class fell in love with Israel after the 1967 war, which came as a welcome sign that the world was not in total disarray. So the conflation of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a coincidental part of our political discourse - it is necessarily a part of the way the conflict is understood in the West.

For these reasons, we might say Ken Livingstone ran into the Shah scandal like a bull into a china shop. We still may not have heard the last vase smash as it hits the floor. Plenty of leftists have pointed out the Haavara agreement, the Nazi plans to deport European Jews to Madagascar and elsewhere. However, the facts of Nazi Germany are not really relevant or helpful here. The real controversy is over Livingstone’s use of the term ‘Zionism’ (an idiotic choice of words) to describe Nazi policy. Laying out the historical record cannot dispel the outrage (much of it phony). The damage is done.

Vilification campaigns are successful because it is virtually impossible to resist mudslinging. If you explain yourself, deny the claims or even apologise, you’re screwed. It’s too late. It’s never enough. There is no way of adequately deflecting, let alone dodging, the mud. You’re always guilty in the eyes of some people. Even before this, Livingstone was rated as an anti-Semite by certain people thanks to the media. But what is the point of all this?

Right now, Jeremy Corbyn is leading the Labour Party and this represents a major challenge to the status quo in Britain. So far, Corbyn has beaten all the odds against him (he has to, there are no half-measures), but the Blairites are desperate to inflict a defeat on the Left. They feel the party has been snatched from them. They want it back. The Blairites already tried to destroy him by branding him an apologist for terrorism, now they're gunning to smear him as sympathetic to xenophobes.

Haven't we heard enough liberal crap?

The sun scorched grass made for the stomping ground. Organisers estimate 150,000 turned out to express their solidarity with the people of Gaza. It was a great Saturday to march from Portland Place to Hyde Park. The usual suspects made an appearance - from George Galloway and Seamus Milne to Jeremy Corbyn and Tariq Ali - with the addition of impassioned speeches by Palestinian speakers. The day ended with Arabic singing, echoing out by speaker and microphone over a multitude of flags representing different countries. That was solidarity in force - a value all too trivialised today.

I met up with a good friend of mine on the march and we caught up and discussed the issue at hand. We talked about the mediocrity of the liberal consensus in the media. It would sound quite conservative, to an American ear at least, to dismiss liberals and the media as predominantly liberal. Except, as socialists we can't help but remember that the liberals turned their guns on the radicals in 1848 and ever since then they have never ceased to compromise at the expense of the common good. "Compromise is good" they proclaim, even in the face of slavery. Don't have any radical thoughts, you'll end up committing misdeeds if you hold such thoughts. Phil Ochs was right on.

There is a corporate liberal establishment, it has a left-wing and a right-wing and a centreground for good measure. The glossy progressive crowd of liberals gravitate to outlets like The Guardian and The New Statesman. The top prizes go to Hadley Freeman and Eleanor Margolis. It was a tough choice. Freeman stammered about in her column for a while. She bemoaned the Tricycle Theatre story and, implicitly, the calls for a cultural boycott of Israel. She told us that she despised "being told what to think" (by whom?) and "lazy assumptions" (of what?).

It is infuriating that the liberal factions in both countries in which I have nationality insist on taking such a slanted, kneejerk view of Israel. Just as the pro-Israel sentiment in the US so often shades into prejudice against Muslims, so the anti-Israel one in Britain slips all too quickly into anti-Semitism. 

Jews are not Israel (something liberal Jews have been saying for years) but nobody – not a London theatre, not even Steven Spielberg – has the right to tell them what to think about it, or to ask them to prove their good Jewish credentials by either supporting or condemning it. Watch yourself, Europe. Some of your roots are showing.

For a whole month Hadley Freeman has written nothing about the Palestinians. She did find the time to write about Kim Kardashian's ass, George Clooney, the World Cup, Molly Ringwald, and unshaven armpits. One shouldn't have to speculate too hard about her priorities. Not a fucking word about Netanyahu's assault on Gaza. It has nothing to do with Jewishness. War crimes are not unique to particular 'races' or religious sects. The truth is that the liberal base of support for Israel is in a bad shape and has been for a while now. Jonathan Freedland has admitted as much. And Norman Finkelstein has been saying this for yonks.

It used to be easy to pretend that the Israeli government are a force of progress in the Middle East. A liberal democracy surrounded by backward and reactionary dictatorships. Israel is pictured as an encircled state in need of support and defence. Its enemies are too awful, and even more numerous. This narrative was easy to uphold until 1967 for a number of reasons: 1) there was a majority of Arab states opposed to Israel's existence and to any settlement until then; 2) the Palestinian case was unheard and subsumed into this sea of Arab 'barbarism'; 3) Israel was a social democratic country (except when it came to the Palestinians, of course) with a significant degree of equity.

Today, Israel is no longer social democratic and has become a hyper-nationalist state in terms of its internal discourse. Mainstream politicians stand up and label African refugees as a "cancer" without any whiff of self-consciousness. Ethiopian Jews have even been sterilised. That's before we get to foreign policy. At the international level, we find the UN Security Council is completely gerrymandered by the United States on the side of Israel and against any resolutions in favour of a two-state settlement. This began in January of 1976 when a resolution was proposed with the support of the PLO and most Arab countries, in fact, most countries in the world. The US vetoed it.

So now liberal Jews have a dilemma and many have just gone quiet, while others get defensive. On July 24, Eleanor Margolis churned out a blog called 'The left's insistence on Jews apologising for being Jewish is anti-Semitic'. Keep in mind, Ms Margolis had written not a word about Israel and Palestine, and the suffering of Palestinians, in her New Statesman column since she started out there in 2013. At this point, the IDF had launched its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip after the downing of the Malaysian airplane over Ukraine distracted the world media. She equated criticism of Israel and sympathy with the Palestinians with support for Hamas:

... throughout the most recent bout of violence between Israel and Palestine and all the others before it that I can remember, the problem of anti-Semitism on the Left has been illuminated. While you’d basically have to be a brick wall to fail to sympathise with the Palestinians, the Left (as usual) has gone very quiet when it comes to condemning Hamas. Either that, or they’ve actively condoned their actions. Although Lib Dem MP David Ward has since apologised for tweeting his support for Hamas’s rocket attacks, the fact remains that Hamas are often painted as the good guys. Hamas are not just anti-Israel, they’re anti-Jewish, which, can I just remind everyone, is racist. Their charter, which explicitly calls for the mass killing of Jews, makes this abundantly clear. I hate to break this to you but, if you refuse to condemn Hamas on this point, at least, you’re an anti-Semite. I don’t give a shit how much you love Curb Your Enthusiasm: you’re still an anti-Semite. Or at least an anti-Semite by-proxy.

Notice the total absence of evidence for the assertion that the Left has taken the side of Hamas and has an anti-Semitic agenda. She refers us to David Ward's tweet in which he stated "The big question is - if I lived in #Gaza would I fire a rocket? - probably yes." Not a particularly pro-terrorist statement, it was an empathetic statement, just as Ehud Barak was not making a pro-terrorist statement when he said "If I were a Palestinian at the right age, I would have joined one of the terrorist organizations at a certain stage." Of course, Barak was posturing as a great peacemaker and as Prime Minister he would terminate negotiations with Arafat rather than face the realistic chance of a peaceful settlement.

As a self-described "sapphic cynic" Margolis tends to blog about gay liberation and her own lived-experience as a Jewish lesbian. I wonder how much of this thinking applies to lesbians and gays living in the Arab world and living under Israeli blockade and occupation. Instead Margolis tells us that she struggles to dismiss the claims of Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips: first, the claim that the anti-war movement is 'anti-Semitic' and, secondly, the bizarre claim that the critics of Israel deplore its actions as 'disproportionate' because they wish more Jews were dying. This is garbage. Total garbage.

For starters, more Israeli soldiers have died in this bloodbath than they did in Operation Cast Lead and that's largely a result of the strategy undertaken by Hamas (which they seem to have borrowed from Hezbollah). No one on the Left was cheering on Hamas, they wanted the killing to stop, and wished it had never begun. Actually criticising Israel for being 'disproportionate' is a pretty weak criticism. Israel was not responding to Hamas, they were initiating the attack in the first place. Netanyahu attacked the Gaza Strip after Hamas and Fatah forged a unity government - which agreed to renounce violence and recognise Israel - because he is opposed to a peaceful settlement. Margolis goes on to conclude:

This notion that Jews should be ashamed of themselves over Israel isn’t exclusive to publicity-hungry, aging rock stars. When I was at uni, the student union implemented a campus-wide boycott of Israeli produce, to wit, one slightly manky orange. During the campaign, I remember arguing with one pro-boycott activist who proudly announced that her grandmother, right after the creation of Israel in 1948, had renounced her Judaism out of disgust. It struck me as sad that someone would abandon their identity because of the actions of a select few that share it. This incident, which lodged itself firmly enough in my mind for me to remember it five years later, is a perfect example of the Left’s insistence on Jews apologising for being Jewish.

And, for the record, I’m about as willing to apologise for being Jewish as I am to renounce my homosexuality. In case you’re reading my column for the first time, that translates as “not especially willing.” 

No one on the Left is calling for Jews to apologise for being Jewish or to feel ashamed. The problem with Israel is not a Jewish problem, it's a state problem - the problem of nationalism. It is the same problem which has led to catastrophe after catastrophe in Europe and in a lot of other places too. The Palestinians are an occupied and besieged people and the Israeli state has no doubt been affected by its role as an occupying force. It's political discourse has degenerated.

As for anti-Semitism, the anti-war march was unanimous "Are we anti-Semitic?" asked a speaker. "NO!" shouted the crowd. "Are we anti-Zionist?" he added. The crowd responded, almost as unanimous, "YES!" And that's a distinction that has been lost in the whirlwind faux commentary. This line was heard on more than one demonstration. I saw no anti-Jewish banners or signs and heard no anti-Jewish chanting. I did see one or two Hezbollah flags, granted. I even saw an ISIS flag. But that's more of a rejection of Western foreign policy than anything else. The US has never ceased from interfering in the Middle East and for good reason - oil!

What is Netanyahu playing at?

In all of the whirlwind coverage of the 'conflict' between the IDF and Hamas in the Gaza Strip there are a number of pertinent questions being ignored. I say 'conflict' with inverted commas because the conflict did not begin on July 8. Nor did it begin with the deaths of three Jewish teenagers on the West Bank. The origins go back to 1967 and the absence of any peace settlement acknowledges Palestinian grievances. Israel continues to violate international law in its occupation of the West Bank and its siege of the Gaza Strip prevents any kind of development there since Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from the Strip in 2005 (which came far too late).

It is as though the Israel-Palestine conflict is composed of a series of smaller 'conflicts', such as Operation Cast Lead and the ongoing bloodbath. Of course, for Israelis, peace comes when the rockets stop, but even then there is no peace for the Palestinians. To this day Gaza remains under blockade on all sides, while the West Bank is being gradually broken up into cantons, its most arable land and best resources being taken under Israeli control. The everyday reality of the Occupation does not effect the Israeli public mind and its perception of violence visited upon Israel. The experience of systemic violence in the policing of every aspect of life in the West Bank does not count as a 'conflict'. But it does fit in with the Israeli understanding of 'peace'.

In their search for the murderers, the Israelis arrested 400 Palestinians and, in their raids, killed 5-7 Palestinians. Then came the reprisal killing of a Palestinian boy, the culprits being caught soon afterwards. On July 7 Hamas upped its rocketfire into Southern Israel and Netanyahu sanctioned the first airstrikes on July 8. It was on July 14 that General Sisi offered a ceasefire proposal (without consulting Hamas) to which the Israelis quickly agreed. No doubt Netanyahu knew full well that Hamas would not accept and wanted to retaliate to the airstrikes. Hamas viewed compliance with a non-agreed ceasefire as a surrender and not a truce. The IDF resumed the bombing on July 15 and by the next day the bodycount had risen to 200 Palestinians.

It is all too easy to forget that there are fundamental principles at stake here, in particular the right to self-determination. Netanyahu would like us to believe Israel is a peaceful country trying to secure itself from these outbreaks of irrational violence on its borders. In actuality Israel lays claim to vast swathes of the 22% of Mandate Palestine promised to the Palestinians under international law. As of 1967 the internationally recognised borders of Israel leave the country with 78% of the land of former Mandatory Palestine. Yet the Occupation lays claim to much more than that 78%. The constant expansion of the settlements chisels away at the West Bank and clears land of Palestinian families in the end condemning them to languish in cantons.

On July 16, Hamas put forward 10 conditions for a decade-long truce, which was reported by Ma'ariv and translated by Mondoweiss: 1) withdrawal of Israeli tanks from the Gaza border; 2) freeing all the prisoners that were arrested after the killing of the three youths; 3) lifting the siege and opening the border crossings to commerce and people; 4) establishing an international seaport and airport which would be under U.N. supervision; 5) increasing the permitted fishing zone to 10 kilometers; 6) internationalizing the Rafah Crossing and placing it under the supervision of the U.N. and some Arab nations; 7) international forces on the borders; 8) Easing conditions for permits to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque; 9) prohibition on Israeli interference in the reconciliation agreement; 10) reestablishing an industrial zone and improvements in further economic development in the Gaza Strip.

Without going into the huge problems with Hamas as an organisation it may be said that the group are at least rational actors. To presuppose otherwise really harks back to the racist stereotyping of Arabs which we have seen since 1956 when Nasser fought off an Anglo-French-Israeli invasion. The formerly supine people of the desert became rampaging savages over night. Hamas fires rockets in many directions mainly to terrify the Israeli population, hoping that they will leave if they just fire enough rockets. Edward Said characterised it as a non-strategy, it's the absence of strategy to be more precise. The Palestinians know that the negotiations are rigged as Israeli politicians do not accept international law from the outset and the entire process is managed by Americans.

There was a brief ceasefire agreement in the morning of July 17 to which both sides complied until the afternoon. By the evening the IDF had began its ground invasion of the country. The bodycount has since risen to over 430 Palestinians and more than 3,000 injured. The ceasefire proposal of the Red Cross, covering the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood, was rejected by both sides on July 20.

It's impossible to understand Israel's position without historical context. The same goes for the attempts by Palestinians to forge some kind of body national out of the remnants of their ancestral lands. The so-called 'peace process' is a fraud, as we all know, as they all know too, its main function is to glorify hawks as doves. The Nobel Peace President needs as much of that as he can get after all of those drone strikes he has sanctioned. The whole process is really the wrangling necessary to draw out non-negotiations and, in fact, allow greater time for greater expansion and aggression to take place. You don't have to look too hard to find this.

As Robert Fisk has pointed out, Benjamin Netanyahu has been consistently evasive, first saying he couldn't talk with Mahmoud Abbas because he didn't represent Hamas, but only the Palestinian Authority. When Abbas formed a unity coalition with Hamas - which he insisted would be based upon "recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous agreements" - Netanyahu condemned Abbas for forging an alliance with a "murderous terrorist organisation that calls for Israel's destruction." Netanyahu now claims he can only talk with Abbas if he splits with Hamas. The message is clear: the Israeli government will not talk to Abbas.

The Obama administration used its veto power at the UN Security Council to oppose the Palestinian bid for statehood in September 2011. In February of the same year Obama vetoed a UN resolution that endorsed official US policy on the illegal settlements in the occupied territories. That's right, President Obama went as far as undermining American law to defend Israel's settlements. The Israeli government under Netanyahu has stood in firm opposition to all UN resolutions to the conflict and to the Palestinian bids for statehood. Against all odds, in November 2012, the Palestinians finally achieved a modicum of statehood with 138 countries voting in its favour, 41 abstentions and 9 opposition votes (including Israel, of course).

Here's an important question, Netanyahu is working to break apart the unity between Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and he ultimately sees the Occupation as permanent, what happens if he succeeds? Firstly, the Palestinians will be left in tiny fragmented cantons, they'll have enough autonomy to fire rockets, and then the IDF will bomb the shit out of them from time to time (sound familiar?). Of course, this means keeping Palestinians separate from Israelis for the sake of holding onto a majority Jewish state. To any reasonable observer this is intolerable and unjust, but there are two alternatives:

1) A two-state settlement based on the 1967 border giving states to both peoples. Believe it or not this proposal has had overwhelming international support since 1976 and has been blocked at the UN by the US government.

2) A bi-national settlement where the occupied territories are assimilated into Israel and the Palestinians become equal citizens of Jewish and Arab Israelis. This would almost certainly mean the end of Israel as a majority Jewish state.

If Netanyahu succeeds in his aims then it means the second solution will be more likely than the first. That's an irony I suspect is lost in the heads of so many of his supporters. Certainly it is in the twin-case of Lieberman and Bennett.

Lenin on anti-Semitism.

Vladimir Illyich had his moments. It was in March of 1919 that the White Armies were waging a general offensive on the Siberian front. There Kolchak's forces engaged in mass-floggings, summary executions, anti-Jewish pogroms, the destruction of thousands of villages and farms. The reactionary forces led by Kolchak and Denikin had been incubated by the Tsarist regime and had been stirred to act by the fall of Bloody Nicholas. On the side of counter-revolution the powers of Europe, alongside the US, Japan, and China, intervened to strangle Bolshevism in its cradle. The possibility of defeat was a very real one at this time. Lenin took the time to stake out a political position on the anti-Jewish pogroms being carried out by the White movement and its allies:

Anti-Semitism means spreading enmity towards the Jews. When the accursed Tsarist monarchy was living its last days it tried to incite ignorant workers and peasants against the Jews. The Tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organised pogroms against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. In other countries, too, we often see the capitalists fomenting hatred against the Jews in order to blind the workers, to divert their attention from the real enemy of the working people, capital. Hatred towards the Jews persists only in those countries where slavery to the landowners and capitalists has created abysmal ignorance among the workers and peasants. Only the most ignorant and downtrodden people can believe the lies and slander that are spread about the Jews. This is a survival of ancient feudal times, when the priests burned heretics at the stake, when the peasants lived in slavery, and when the people were crushed and inarticulate. This ancient, feudal ignorance is passing away; the eyes of the people are being opened.

It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism. Among the Jews there are kulaks, exploiters and capitalists, just as there are among the Russians, and among people of all nations. The capitalists strive to sow and foment hatred between workers of different faiths, different nations and different races. Those who do not work are kept in power by the power and strength of capital. Rich Jews, like rich Russians, and the rich in all countries, are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob and disunite the workers.

Shame on accursed Tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations.

Long live the fraternal trust and fighting alliance of the workers of all nations in the struggle to overthrow capital.

This was one of eight speeches by Lenin recorded on gramophone. Significantly, it would later be the speech left out by the Communist Party when they came to re-record these speeches to re-circulate them in 1961. And this was Khrushchev's thaw. It's clear there had been a regression. It would get worse: Brezhnev would later reinstate the Jewish quota in Russian schools. The measure had originally been used by the Tsarist regime as part of a whole swathe of laws instituted to restrict and persecute Russian Jews. This was the same regime we can thank for the word 'pogrom' and the first drafts of The Elders of the Protocols of Zion, which was produced by the secret police and later distributed by the Black Hundreds. The anti-Jewish legislation of the Russian Empire would be obliterated in the revolutionary fervour of 1917. From then on the anti-Semites had a new canard, the Jews had stolen the motherland.

Right from the beginning there was a tension between the secular policies of the Bolsheviks and the official commitment to self-determination. The Jews were not problematic as an oppressed people with a unique culture, what the Bolsheviks found problematic was the Jewish faith and political Zionism offered the potential of an independent current. At first it was secular Yiddish culture which received the patronage of the state, while education remained secular, and Hebrew remained suppressed as it was under the Tsar. Even still the leap to equal rights was a dramatic one for a society that had been in the frenzy of pogroms not long before. Stalin would later set out to establish an autonomous Jewish region in the easternmost corner of Russia. It was meant to be a compromise with Jewish nationalism. Yet Stalin would later back the establishment of Israel in 1948 and arm the Israelis in the war of that same year.

It wasn't over yet. Stalin had hoped that Israel would be a Soviet ally in the Middle East. When Golda Meir and the Israeli delegation came to Moscow in 1948 there was a spontaneous gathering of thousands of Jews. At that point Stalin was frightened of where this could lead and initiated an anti-Semitic campaign of his own against "rootless cosmopolitans". It went as far as purges of doctors and assassinations of actors, not even famous Yiddish poets were safe. Through it all Stalin enjoyed popular support from Kibbutzniks within Israel. Even still the Soviet Union would move to a much more critical position on Israel in the coming decades and align itself with Arab dictatorships instead. The new restrictions on Jews extending to preventing them from emigrating to Israel. It was the birth of the refuseniks, a favourite cause of neoconservatives. And yet today's neo-fascists still see Jewish-Bolshevism under their beds at night.

Rumours of Peace.

Few satirists could have conceived of such a scene. It was too perfect in its surreal edge. With Ariel Sharon lying entombed, Tony Blair took his position at the nearby podium and gave one of his usual performances. Sporting a yarmulke, most unnaturally, Tony oozed counterfeit solemnity “The same iron determination he took to the field of war he took to the chamber of diplomacy. Bold. Unorthodox. Unyielding.”

I wander what kind of ‘iron determination’ it takes to slaughter 69 unarmed and defenceless villagers of Qibya. Sharon later claimed that his men had no idea there were still people living in the homes that they were bombarding with gunfire and grenades. It was this sort of conduct that led David Ben-Gurion to dub the young man “a pathological liar”. No doubt the twenty to fifty unarmed and defenceless refugees killed at al-Bureig were witnesses to similar displays of iron. Both took place in 1953 at the hands of Unit 101 led by the departed commander on ‘reprisal’ attacks. We’re talking retaliation for the deaths of two or three people probably. Today the Israeli military still lacks a sense of proportionality, let alone any comprehension of the immorality of revenge. It was just the beginning for young Arik. He would soon be storming across the Sinai alongside Anglo-French forces determined to snatch back the Suez Canal.

Wherever the man went there seemed to be Arabs falling to the ground dead. At the battle of Mitla 260 Egyptians were left dead. The battle became a subject of controversy (a euphemism in common usage) as some claimed Sharon deliberately engaged in unauthorised aggression. General Sharon would later return to the Sinai with Israel’s most powerful forces in 1967 at the battle of Abu-Ageila. Then in the Yom Kippur War, Sharon disobeyed the orders of his superiors and instead set out to engage the Egyptian army across the Suez Canal. In doing so the General initiated a turning point in the war and was set in time as a hero of military might from then on. The fact that the General had graduated by then to terrorizing the inhabitants of Gaza and north-eastern Sinai isn’t so heroic. It went as far as expelling 10,000 farmers, bulldozing their homes, and destroying their farmland to make way for settlement. This is how Sharon earned the title of Bulldozer.

Around this time the Bulldozer had become enamoured with an array of right-wing forces taking shape into what would become the Likud Party. Ever mercurial, Sharon jumped at the chance to advise a Labour Zionist government before attempting to stand as the Likud candidate for 1977 only to find he wasn’t the favourite. He had been refused any support by mainstream parties, so he founded a small party to win himself a seat, and managed to barter his way into Begin’s Likud government. Sharon was the Minister of Agriculture for 4 years before being promoted to Minister of Defence. That was his proper place after all. Notably, as right-wing as Menachem Begin was he did believe in the rule of law to some extent and torture almost stopped for 4 years. The hiatus came to a close when the Bulldozer became Defence Minister.

The new Defence Minister had his priorities in order. Time interviewed Sharon and he showed no time for throat-clearing and spoke bluntly “I believe that the starting point for a solution is to establish a Palestinian state in that part of Palestine that was separated from what was to become Israel in 1922 and which is now Jordan.” He had known from early on that the Palestinians had to be restricted to cantons in order for settlements to be expanded further and further. The end was an Israel with its territory stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. But he knew he could not do this alone.

When it came to regional power Lebanon became the battleground for Israel and Syria and the various forces aligned to either side and those caught in between. The General took the side of the Maronite Christian militias and especially the Phalange Party founded by Pierre Gemayel out of admiration for Hitler. The aim of a client state in Lebanon was what spurred Sharon to action. Then came the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. It just so happened that the camp of Palestinian refugees was under Sharon’s watchful gaze when the Phalange came to flush out the “terrorists”. The Israeli troops stood by and watched for nearly 3 days as the rampage snuffed the life out of 1,700 human beings. Bold. Unorthodox. Unyielding.

This is a rather light overview of the atrocities Sharon committed. Why then would he be heralded as a ‘peacemaker’ exactly? Anyone with this record would expect to never hold such a prominent position ever again. He lost his job after much protest, but he bided his time. After the failures of the Labour governments of the 1990s and amidst the Second Intifada the old man took advantage of the rightward lurch overtaking the country. He pledged no negotiations with the Palestinians until the Intifada ended. The so-called “peace plan” that Sharon proposed, and partially initiated, amounted to relinquishing 42% of the West Bank and establishing a ‘security barrier’ (longer than the Berlin Wall) to annex around 50% of the occupied territories. To this end Sharon reinvented himself as a man of peace and transferred around 9,000 Gaza settlers to the Negev and the West Bank. It’s clear what the real prize was in his mind.

Anti-Semites for Israel.

The younger Bushman has crawled out from under his rock to speak to speak at a fundraising dinner today with tickets going from $100 to $100,000. For the latter you can get a VIP pass for twenty guests to see the anointed one, have your picture taken with him and get a copy of Decision Points autographed. This would not be a noteworthy event if it weren't for the fact that the event is being held by the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute. If that sounds odd here's a little clarification, the Institute's stated mission is to convert world Jewry to Christianity in order to bring about the Rapture. No doubt this is in accordance with the view that the End Times will mean burning in an everlasting lake of fire for all Jews (except for 140,000 Jews who are converted to Christianity). This is just one strategy for those on the Christian Right in its Armageddonist fantasies.

We should not be surprised to find a confluence of this level of fantasy and anti-Semitism. Even if we accept their professions of love for Israel as genuine we should not buy into the assumption that the Jewish state and the Jewish people are synonymous. Faiths and cultures are far too complex generally to be confined to a body national. The history of Christian anti-Semitism is too often whitewashed in an era where Israel seems mired in perpetual conflict with its neighbours and the Palestinians. The Roman Catholic Church only rescinded its accusations of deicide against the Jews in 1965, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. European societies have long found the presence of the apparently unsettled and rootless rather troubling. No wonder then anti-Semitism often combines with anti-Roma sentiments. The solution for some European Christians was to resituate the Jews as rooted citizens, either by stripping them of their Jewishness or by relocating them entirely.

 

Even in the liberal Christian states of the 19th Century the problem was that the Jewish tradition was not easily confined to the realm of an individuals' rights and freedoms. Traditions are communitarian rather than individualist. In the past this meant effective conversions and later it led to the proposals of the Nazi Party to relocate European Jewry to Madagascar. By contrast the Muslim world had little beef with Jews as a people without a land, it was once the state of Israel was founded (and the way in which it was founded) that the problems really heated up. In this way we find that the Christian anti-Semites have a vested interest in a Jewish state as a solution to their problem. You find this with people like John Hagee, a televangelist who has even suggested that the Holocaust was a part of God's plan to turn the Jews back toward Israel. This is not an exceptional case.

 

That old mountebank Pat Robertson wrote a book of conspiratorial fantasy in which the Jews play a role in a new world order set up. Then there was Billy Graham who was caught on tape to President Nixon (another remarkable bigot) agreeing that the Jews have a 'stranglehold' on the American media and referred to a 'synagogue of Satan'. And of course, you can't forget Jerry Falwell, the spiritual godfather of the Moral Majority, who once stated that the anti-Christ is among us and that he is an adult male Jew. Yet all of these men professed support for Israel and pledged a great deal of political support for the Israeli government in wars from 1967 onwards. One of the prerequisites for the Rapture is that the Jews return to Israel. The compatibility of this restorationist agenda with anti-Semitism should not be ignored. Evidently, Judeophobia is not unique to the Old World. It's a country where hotels once bore the label 'restricted' to mean they wouldn't take in Jewish guests.

 

Given that George W Bush gave up Johnnie Walker Black for the Nazarene we may not be so shocked that he is at least sympathetic to the most fervent depths of nuttiness. This is one of the main sources of votes harvested by the GOP machine (not that Bush much needed votes). The former President is in good company as the last big speaker was Glenn Beck, the same man who tooted a horn for Elizabeth Dilling's crackpot tirades against Jews and Communists. Let alone the way he scapegoated Hungarian-Jewish banker George Soros as a 'puppet master' of the Left. In the end Beck lost his platform at Fox after he started to cost them advertising dollars and the dip in ratings. He had gone too far for Abe Foxman, but never too far for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute who gave Beck its Defender of Israel award and then chowed down on a mighty hog-roast. Seriously treif scenes.

Non-Negotiable.

 

Click on the map above and you’ll see just what isn’t going to be discussed seriously in the newly resumed ‘peace process’. When Ariel Sharon fell into a coma (not even a tenth of what he deserved) in one his better moments Christopher Hitchens thought it timely to summarise what he described as the “four alternatives in the Israeli-Palestinian quadrilateral”:

1) The status quo of mingled apartheid and colonization that would eventually see the Israelis ruling without consent over a people as large as or larger than themselves and that is now almost universally seen as intolerable and unsustainable.

2) Move towards a state where those under its jurisdiction are equal citizens with the right to vote, which would be the end of Zionism.

3) The destruction or removal of one people by the other or their common ruin in a catastrophic war.

4) A partition between two separate states.

 

Since the negotiations are underway, once again, we should keep these possibilities in mind. The process of expansion is fully underway to the extent that the Israeli election acknowledged the question of stealing large chunks of the West Bank. Naftali Bennett proposed that 60% of the West Bank should be annexed, whereas it seems Netanyahu is looking to grab 10%. Netanyahu’s government is backing 1,200 more settler-colonies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank where a ’security barrier’ longer than the Berlin Wall is being built to secure the major concentrations of arable land for Israeli settlers. This is out of more than 3,000 housing units approved in December 2012 just after the Palestinians won a modicum of statehood. Incidentally, the Palestinians can now pass war crimes charges against the Israeli government thanks to the new status they have attained. Every year the UN General Assembly votes on resolutions to establish a two-state settlement and every year the votes are overwhelmingly behind the peaceful solution. And yet we find that there is an obstacle sitting on the UN Security Council, as highlighted by Professor Norman Finkelstein:

1989 – 151 to 3

1997 – 155 to 2

1998 – 154 to 2

2002 – 160 to 4

2003 – 160 to 6

2004 – 161 to 7

2007 – 161 to 7

 

The United States votes on the side of Israel regularly and works to block all progress at the UN (where there is a consensus on this question), occasionally finding allies in a coalition of votes from such countries as Dominica, Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. In 2011 the US went as far as to veto a resolution which was consistent with its official legal opposition to settlements. This caught some attention because it was an unprecedented level of support. In 2012 the UN voted to bestow on Palestine the same statehood as held by the Holy See. The votes came in at 138 in favour of Palestinian statehood with 41 abstentions and 9 votes against the claim. We can expect the same approach should the Palestinians seek to pass any war crimes charges against the people responsible for the numerous operations carried out to stamp out all currents of opposition. There is a lack of any agreement on principle as well as any kind of framework for peace to be achieved. The Palestinian position is rooted in international law, e.g. that the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied territory, which is exactly what the Israeli government rejects. The preference for ‘direct negotiations’ is mainly about stalling for time as the encroachment into Palestinian territory extends and grows more and more bold.

 

 

The Netanyahu government insists that there must be a referendum on any peace deal, that’s in conjunction with continued settler colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Any such referenda would be a gesture to justify and legitimise the theft of Palestinian land and not to safeguard a solution to the crisis. Ultimately, we find the Israeli government is morally culpable as well as negligent in its preference for expansion at the expense of security. In the meanwhile the Palestinians are accused of ‘rejectionism’, and worse, even when Arafat offered to concede 50% of Israeli settlements in the West Bank which Finkelstein’s calls “a monumental concession”. The international border is based on a 78:22 split of the land between Israel and Palestine, this is the world’s consensus in law which the Israelis have been opposing for 46 years. The border may now be so blurred as to undermine all hope of a two-state settlement. All of this begs the question: how much is enough?

 

Somehow we find ourselves incapable of asking this important question and we haven’t been able to do so for quite some time. The Israeli government has been even more stubborn in its refusal to answer such a question. That’s a part of this tragedy. The eastern border of Israel can’t be pinned down, the international border has been rejected, the ‘security barrier’ seems somehow insufficient and any limitation set on expansion is to be opposed it would seem. Technically Israel could extend its border further down the Jordan river and into Jordanian territory. It’s an ultra-nationalist fantasy, but we shouldn’t dismiss it as impossible. There were problems of this kind from the beginning and even before the beginning. Chaim Weizmann and the Zionist Delegation at Versailles laid out a map of the Promised Land. On that map the northern border of the Jewish state was going to be situated at the Alawi river in Lebanon. Over 65 years later and the borders remain in flux just as Israel remains without a settled constitution and the Palestinians remain without a proper state. It should be obvious to everyone that this is an intolerable state of affairs.

 

This article was originally written for and posted at the Third Estate on August 15th.