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.

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!