Israel: the End of the Line
The murderous assault
launched against the Palestinians of Gaza in January 2009, the courageous
spirit of resistance exhibited by those under attack, and the failure of the
aggressors to achieve their desired aim of driving a wedge between the people
and their chosen Hamas leadership, together had the effect of bringing into
sharp focus a development which had been long brewing: the turning of the tide
of world opinion against Israel.
The steadfastness of the Palestinian people has
endured through in all the twists and turns taken by the liberation struggle.
For many years unity was hammered out behind the inspiring leadership of Yasser
Arafat despite qualms over the bold tactical retreat embodied in the Oslo accords. Now, in the struggle to unify the nation and lead it to victory, other
leadership has come to the fore, building upon the foundations established
during the Arafat years. As Norman Finkelstein points out in his new book on
the Gaza struggle, ‘This Time We Went Too Far’, “Public outrage at the Gaza
invasion did not come out of the blue but rather marked the nadir of a curve
plotting a steady decline in support for Israel.” Despite all the efforts
by Israel and its backers to sow discord in the camp of liberation, it is Israel itself which is now on the back foot, more widely than ever recognised as a pariah
state devoid of historical legitimacy and an affront to civilisation. The
murderous attack by Israel upon the international Freedom Flotilla has
reinforced its isolation a hundred fold, reminding one of the saying: Those
whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Israel loses friends in
Europe, the United States and Britain
It is peoples, not governments, which are driving
this change of perspective. Finkelstein quotes Gideon Levy on “the surreal
scene at the height of the brutal assault on Gaza when the heads of the
European Union came to Israel and dined with the prime minister in a show of
unilateral support for the side wreaking the killing and destruction.”
Yet this flagrant complicity with Israel’s war crimes stands in stark contrast to the public mood developing in Europe. Records
Finkelstein, “Whereas Israel won many adherents in the West after its
lightning victory in June 1967, in recent years it has been reduced almost to
the status of a pariah state, especially in Europe. A 2003 poll of the European
Union named Israel the biggest threat to world peace. A 2008 survey of global
opinion named Israel the biggest obstacle to achieving peace in the Israel-Palestine
conflict. In a BBC World Service poll taken on the eve of the Gaza invasion,
fully 19 of the 21 countries surveyed held a predominantly negative view of Israel.”
Even in the belly of the imperialist beast, the United States itself, public opinion is turning its back on Israel after the horrors of Gaza. Finkelstein tells us that “American voters calling themselves supporters of Israel plummeted from 69 per cent before the attack to 49 per cent in June 2009, while voters
believing that the U.S. should support Israel dropped from 69 per cent to
44 per cent.” Whilst lunatic fringe Christian fundamentalism may continue
to make common cause with Zionism, the same is not true of other Christian
bodies in the USA like the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the United Church of
Christ and the World Council of Churches, all of which have “supported
initiatives, including corporate divestment, to force an end to Israel’s occupation”.
Nor can Zionism rely upon its claim to a monopoly
on Jewishness to sanitise its butchery in the eyes of US Jews. Finkelstein
cites a poll of American Jews taken back in 2005, long before the most recent
outrages, which found that “the attachment of American Jews to Israel has
weakened measurably in the last two years . . . , continuing a long-term
trend.” Another poll in 2006 found that “among American Jews under 40,
fully one-third felt ‘fairly distant’ or ‘very distant’ from Israel”. This trend was confirmed in 2007, when a poll found that “among Jews under
35 fully 40 per cent registered a ‘low attachment’ to Israel (only 20 per cent registered a ‘high attachment’).” Lest any doubt might linger
as to the real import of these figures, that same poll also found that “less
than half responded affirmatively that ‘Israel’s destruction would be a
personal tragedy’”. And that was all before Operation Cast Lead made Israel stink in the nostrils of all civilised humanity!
Things look no brighter for the Zionist
supremacists on America’s college campuses. Finkelstein cites another study,
one “commissioned by Jewish advocacy organizations”, which reports that
“Jewish college students are clearly less attached to Israel than in
previous generations,” concluding that “Israel is losing the battle for
the hearts and minds of this cohort.”
In Britain too, despite media coverage heavily
biased in Israel’s favour, public outrage greeted Israel’s atrocities against Gaza. As hospitals, schools and a UN compound were being blitzed there were very large
and very angry demonstrations right across Western Europe, not excluding Britain.
So rattled was the British establishment by the
vehemence of these expressions of solidarity with the oppressed of Palestine
that the criminal prosecution of some of those who demonstrated outside the
Israeli embassy was delayed until this year, on the cynical anticipation that
memories of the horrors would have dulled sufficiently to let the state get on
with hounding and incarcerating the Muslim youth targeted for revenge. It is up
to the solidarity movement to prove the cynics wrong.
At the time, as Finkelstein recalls, “A wave of
student occupations swept across Great Britain including Oxford, Cambridge,
Manchester, Birmingham, London School of Economics, School of Oriental and
Asian Studies, Warwick, King’s, Sussex, and Cardiff.”
Some of the forces awakened in the course of these
protests went on to join the ranks of the solidarity movement in this country,
with some joining the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and some getting
involved in the subsequent Viva Palestina convoy. Survivors of the
subsequent Freedom Flotilla have returned to the UK with eyewitness reports of
the reality of Zionist barbarism which help further shift the popular
perception of what Israel is really about.
It was significant that the Freedom Flotilla was
being urged on by no less than the Director of Operations for the UN Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA), John Ging, who said that Gaza deserves the same urgent
international assistance that Haiti did. He added, “We believe that Israel will not intercept these vessels because the sea is open, and human rights organizations have
been successful in similar previous operations proving that breaking the siege
of Gaza is possible.” The fact that Zionism went on to display such open
fascist contempt for all such civilised expectations has had an electrifying
effect upon world opinion, further isolating Israel and winning new friends for
Palestine.
Workers’ solidarity faces
down Zionist provocations
Within the British trade union movement, too, there
have been some welcome signs of solidarity. Many trade union members were
active in support of Viva Palestina, and the last annual Trades Union
Congress agreed a resolution urging the boycott of goods originating from the “illegal
settlements” (though carefully sidestepping a more comprehensive boycott
from the whole of Israel).
But the sapping influence of Labour imperialism
within the trade unions can be seen in the continued fraternal relations the
TUC continues to foster with the Histadrut. These cheerleaders for Zionism,
sailing under the colours of a trade union organisation, gave total support to
Operation Cast Lead in 2009, and now claim that the aid volunteers of the
Freedom Flotilla deliberately got themselves slaughtered in order to score propaganda
points for Hamas: “Unfortunately, the conduct of the flotilla organisers,
through the rejection of the Israeli proposal, was to attain provocation to
strengthen Hamas” (Morning Star 11 June). This attempt to smuggle
Zionist lies into the workers’ movement behind a smokescreen of fraternal trade
union relations was firmly rebuffed by the trade union federation of
Palestinian workers in Israel (PGFTU), who declared: “We condemn any
attempt by Histadrut to hide behind union-to-union co-operation in order to
justify brutal assaults against civilians who tried to offer humanitarian
assistance to 1.5 million Palestinians, mostly working people, in Gaza.”
To its credit, the TUC issued a formal condemnation
of Histadrut’s fascist stance over Cast Lead, but then resumed business as
usual! Sadly, the PSC has provided cover for this lack of fortitude,
repeatedly holding back from urging the trade union movement to break
decisively with this Zionist fifth column. Yet the truth is that not only the Palestine solidarity movement but also the trade unions themselves would be immeasurably
strengthened by such a clear breach with imperialism.
It is the influence of Labour imperialism which
still renders the workers’ movement vulnerable to reactionary propaganda from
Zionist quarters. Few British trade unionists would have any difficulty
identifying as clearly progressive the action of those South African dockers
who responded to Operation Cast Lead by launching an operation of their own:
refusing to unload a ship arriving in Durban from Israel. It would be a brave
Zionist who would raise his head at that moment and slander this act of
workers’ solidarity as anti-semitic. Any decent trade unionist would recognise
the truth of the statement issued by the South African trade union
confederation, COSATU, identifying the dockers’ action as following in the
footsteps of earlier anti-apartheid actions by dockers in Liverpool and San Francisco who likewise refused to touch South African ships back in the days of
Apartheid.
No less obviously progressive was the wave of
pro-Palestinian solidarity which ran through South African students at that
time, actively encouraged and organised by COSATU. The strength of this
pro-Palestinian sympathy amongst students and workers alike was evidence, not
of anti-semitism, but of the continuing high level of political consciousness
that persists within South Africa in the wake of the armed struggle against
apartheid and its revolutionary overthrow.
As COSATU’s international officer, Bongani Masuku
had signed the statement applauding the dockers’ action and also played a
leading role in spreading the solidarity message through the colleges. Yet it
was Masuku’s work in this field which has now been targeted for opprobrium by
Zionism, to the satisfaction of reactionaries inside the British labour
movement. Their opportunity came with the news that Masuku had been accused by
the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) of uttering “hate speech” in
remarks he made to students at Witwatersrand University in March 2009.
The university visit, made at a moment when the
memory of recent Israeli atrocities was very raw, formed part of a concerted
COSATU campaign to isolate Israel internationally. In the same statement that
hailed the Durban dockers, stress was laid upon discouraging anyone from giving
any assistance whatever to Israel’s war effort:
“We also welcome statements by various South
African Jews of conscience who have dissociated themselves from the genocide in
Gaza. We call on all South Africans to ensure that none of our family members
are allowed to join the Israeli Occupation Forces’ killing machine.”
Entirely in accord with this statement, Masuku
warned that South African families should not send their children to serve in
the Israeli Defence Force, pointing out the obvious fact that to do so would be
to put them in harm’s way. COSATU could hardly then be blamed “if something
happens to them”. This simple statement of fact was taken out of context and
dressed up as a threat of violence!
What Masuku certainly did make clear was that
solidarity activists would be relentless in rooting out and exposing all those
who helped to sanitise Israel’s war crimes, regardless of religious identity.
He dealt robustly with Zionist barracking at Witwatersrand by pointing out that
COSATU members at the university were prepared to stand up to anyone who backed
Israeli war crimes in Gaza . In its ludicrous “hate speech” judgement,
the SAHRC cites the following words as evidence of anti-semitism and “incitement
to violence”:
“COSATU has got members here even on this
campus; we can make sure that for that side it will be hell,,, COSATU is with
you, we will do everything to make sure that whether it’s at Wits University,
whether it’s at Orange Grove, anyone who does not support equality and dignity,
who does not support the rights of other people must face the consequences even
if it means that we will do something that may necessarily cause what is
regarded as harm.”
Yes, when those who are hostile to “equality and
dignity” are challenged head-on it can be an uncomfortable experience for
them. Clearly they would prefer a quiet life – left in peace to go on cheering
on Israel’s crimes against humanity from the safety of the academic sidelines.
This has got nothing to do with hating Jews or those of any other faith; it has
got everything to do with hating injustice and oppression.
Nailing the Zionist lies, exposing the intellectual
dishonesty of apologists for Israel within academia, unmasking groups and individuals
who hide behind phony charges of anti-Semitism in order to offer aid and
succour to the torturers and murderers of the IDF: undoubtedly all such
activities could be said to “cause what is regarded as harm”. In the
same way, we sincerely hope that “harm” was caused by the action of the Durban
dockers in blacking the Israeli ship – harm to the Israeli economy and war
effort. Only a “human rights” organisation that has allowed itself to
be completely duped by Zionist propaganda could wilfully construe these
context-free phrases as “hate speech”.
As COSATU noted, the charge of anti-semitism
against Masuku is “a pack of lies”, and the SAHRC should instead be
levelling charges of hate speech against the South African Board of Jewish
Deputies who, at the time of the Israeli onslaught, “defended all Israeli
actions in that massacre – including the use of white phosphorous against
civilians, the bombing of United Nations buildings, the murder of civilians,
the bombing of civilian infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and
places of worship”.
The innocuous sounding Tulip (Trade Unions Linking
Israel and Palestine), whose spokesman Eric Lee, as director of the influential
labour movement website Labourstart, is able to get the ear of thousands of
trade unionists, pounced with glee on the verdict. And university and college
lecturers – currently engaged in a tooth and nail struggle to defend higher and
further education from massive cuts next academic year – were invited at UCU’s
Manchester conference at the end of May to join in the imperialist hate
campaign against their fellow trade unionists in COSATU. A motion was tabled
which called on the union to “dissociate itself from Masuku’s repugnant
views” and criticised officers of that union for daring to invite Masuku
(i.e. COSATU’s international officer) to a meeting in December to discuss the
boycott and disinvestment campaign! It is to the great credit to UCU delegates
that they sent this motion down into the oblivion it deserved.
The dirty tricks are only going to get dirtier as Israel’s desperate war crimes intensify and the dismantling of the Israeli entity draws
nearer. After all, as Finkelstein notes, “It might be posited as a general
rule that the lower the depths to which Israel’s criminal conduct sinks the
higher the decibel level of the shrieks of anti-Semitism”. But time and
history are on the Palestinian side, as Finkelstein’s data makes abundantly
clear, and as UCU and others have shown, Zionist mischief-making can be
challenged and faced down in the labour movement. And the best way to expose
the fifth column of Zionism within British trade unionism is to strike at the
ideological root of all such imperialist subversion of the workers’ movement,
by breaking the link with the Labour Party and social democracy.
In its fight against capitalism, the hand of
organised labour in this country is already strengthened by the advance of the
anti-imperialist struggle in the Middle East. It will be strengthened a
thousand times more when the stifling influence of social democracy is thrust
aside for good and the British proletariat learns to recognise its real enemies
and its real friends.
Footnote:
This Time We Went Too Far is the most recent
work by Norman Finkelstein. He previously won the hatred of Zionism and the
warm regard of progressive opinion by his book on The Holocaust Industry,
in which he exposed the cynical fashion in which apologists for Zionism exploit
the historical suffering of Jews in the Second World War to give spurious
legitimacy to Israel’s own war crimes. The new book is available exclusively
from OR Books on the Internet.