The Jewish Grassroots Revolt

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

Special to Canadian Dimension February 19,2007

A grassroots revolt is underway in Jewish communities throughout the world, a revolt that has panicked the elite organizations that have long functioned as official mouthpieces for the community.

The latest sign of this panic is the recent publication by the American Jewish Committee of an essay by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, entitled “‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” which accuses progressive Jews of abetting a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism by publicly criticizing Israel.

This is the latest attempt to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism in order to silence or marginalize criticism of Israel. This approach is widely used in Canada. Upon becoming CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie Farber declared that one of his goals was to “educate Canadians about the links between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.”

It is misleading for groups like the CJC to pretend that the Jewish community is united in support of Israel. A growing number of Jews around the world are joining the chorus of concern about the deteriorating condition of the Palestinians in the occupied territories as well as the inferior social and economic status of Israel’s own Palestinian population.

In a world where uncritical support for Israel is becoming less and less tenable due to the expanding human rights disaster in the West Bank and Gaza, leaders of Jewish communities outside Israel have circled their wagons, heightened their pro-Israel rhetoric, and demonized Israel’s critics. These leaders imply that increased concerns about Israel do not result from that state’s actions, but from an increase in anti-Semitism.

Despite this effort to absolve Israel of responsibility for its treatment of Palestinians, Jewish opposition is growing and becoming more organized. On February 5th a group in Britain calling itself Jewish Independent Voices published an open letter in The Guardian newspaper in which they distanced themselves from “Those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries [and who] consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of the occupied people.” Among the signatories of the letter were Nobel-prize winning playwright Harold Pinter, filmmaker Mike Leigh, writer John Berger, and many others.

This development follows the emergence of similar groups in Sweden (Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace), France (Union Juive Francaise pour la paix, Rencontre Progressiste Juive), Italy (Ebrei contro l’occupazione), Germany (Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost), Belgium (Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique), the United States (Jewish Voice for Peace, Brit Tzedek, Tikkun, the Bronfman-Soros initiative), South Africa, and others, including the umbrella organization European Jews for a Just Peace and the numerous groups within Israel itself.

In Canada, the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) has been founded as an umbrella organization bringing together Jewish individuals and groups from across the country who oppose Israel’s continued domination of the West Bank and Gaza.

Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, nor does it “bleed into anti-Semitism,” a formulation that says essentially the same thing. Some genuine anti-Semites do use Israel as a cover for maligning the Jewish people as a whole, but it is fallacious to argue that anyone who criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic because anti-Semites attack Israel. There are some anti-Semites who support Israel because they are Christian fundamentalists who see the return of Jews to Jerusalem as a precondition for the return of Christ and the conversion of Jews to Christianity, or because they are xenophobes who want to get rid of Jews in their midst. Anti-Semites take positions in support of and in opposition to Israel.

It is wrong to criticize all Jews for Israel’s wrongdoings, yet Israel’s leadership and its supporters in the Diaspora consistently encourage this view by insisting that Israel acts on behalf of the entire Jewish people. This shifts blame for Israel’s crimes onto the shoulders of all Jews. But Jewish critics of Israel demonstrate through their words and deeds that the Jewish community is not monolithic in its support of Israel.

Defenders of Israel often argue that Israel is forced to do what it does – to destroy people’s homes, to keep them under the boot of occupation, to seal them into walled ghettos, to brutalize them daily with military incursions and random checkpoints – to protect its citizens from Palestinian violence. Palestinian violence, however, is rooted in the theft of their land, the diversion of their water, the violence of the occupation, and the indignity of having one’s own very existence posed as a “demographic threat.”

To justify Israel’s continued occupation and theft of Palestinian land, the state and its defenders attempt to deny Palestinian suffering, arguing instead that Palestinian resentment is rooted not in Israeli violence, but rather in Islam, or the “Arab mentality,” or a mystical anti-Semitism inherent in Arab or Muslim culture. Consequently, pro-Israel advocacy depends upon on the active dissemination of Islamophobia. Not surprisingly, engendering hatred in this manner inflames anti-Jewish sentiment among Arabs and Muslims. None of this is a recipe for making Jews safe.

Jewish people can help avert the catastrophic effects of Israeli behaviour, but only by taking a stand in opposition to it.

Being and Time, Jewish Political Discourse and the Palestinian Struggle

Feb 2, 2007

By Gilad Atzmon

The modern discourse of the “political” Jew is a discourse of the orphaned, a self-imposed state of being motherless and fatherless children.

The political man kills his father.

I am not referring here to the Oedipus Complex, nothing libidinal. He is not jealous of his father, for you see, he doesn’t like his mother either.

This metaphysical murderous tendency applies to the left and to the right as well; to the Zionist and his opponent, the so-called socialist 'anti-Zionist'.

The rightwing Zionist is there to execute his Diaspora Father.

The leftwing anti-Zionist is there to eradicate Father Lord.

They both kill their fathers. They want to join a new family, a better one, so to say.

For the Zionist it is the Nation that becomes his new family. He wants to become a Nation like other Nations.

For the leftist anti-Zionist it is the ‘working class’. He wants to be a man like other men.

But they both fail.

Rather than just Being in the world, they indulge themselves in Becoming. They insist upon Becoming that which they aren’t.

Looking at it from another perspective, the Jewish political discourse, with centrality as Jews, is all about forgetting the Being. The political man specialises in the erection of phony authenticity.

---

Ideology can be realised as a resurrection of motherhood and the elevation of fatherhood, the revival of the soil (motherland) and the renaissance of the soul (fatherland). Zionism, anti-Zionism and Jewish politics in general are the abolition of all that. The modern political man denies the soil and the rejects the soul.

The Soil, rather than being ‘here and now’, is occurring in a faraway land (Zion).

The old soul: God, the spirit, is to be dismissed for being non-material. ‘Opiate of the Masses’ he calls it.

Ideology can as well be understood as a relatively new intellectual framework that lets the past form a logos, a principle that shapes the vision of the future. Yet, within the Jewish political discourse, time is in constant disintegration.

For the political man, it is the future that forms a past.

Rather than ‘the past’, an abstract notion, for him it is ‘a past’, a lucid chain of isolated events selectively chosen.

Jewish political discourse reveals itself as a crude attempt against history and historicism. It prefers the notion of ‘the best of’, it picks and chooses only very selected historical chapters.

Within the Jewish political discourse, history is rather a set of sealed events i.e., axioms.

For the Zionist the Bible is an historical axiom (a land registry). Anti-Semitism is another axiom.
Together they form the epos of return.

For the socialist anti-Zionist, it is the emerging of Working Class Politics together with the rise of Nazism that are the keystone to understanding a past. The holocaust is an axiom. It serves as a point of departure, a sealed and isolated tale of destruction.

Jewish History is unique amalgam of precious events sailing confidently in an ocean of blind spots.

The Jewish political narrative, both left and right, is a chain of fake slogans.

The Zionist fakes the love for Eretz Israel while destroying it and its indigenous inhabitants.

The leftist anti-Zionist, fakes love for the working class (all the way to the bank).

They both love ‘a past’, they both resist the notion of ‘the past’.

---

The above explains why political Jews (both Zionists and anti-Zionists) will never be able to grasp what the Palestinian cause and the discourse of liberation are all about.

Palestinian liberation is all about soil. It is all about soul. It is about holding your Grandfather’s door key for 6 decades. It is about real sacrifice, it is about the real pain that is rooted in an organic past that is not really different from the present or even the near future.

While Jewish political discourse is all about conveying the image of a new Becoming, Palestinian resistance is all about Being. Being who you are, craving the soil that is rooted in your soul like an olive tree.

Palestine is the true homecoming.

Palestinian resistance is indeed the revival of the soil and the resurrection of the soul.

To be Palestinian is to find oneself at the forefront of world struggle for liberation. To be a Palestinian is to be what the political Jew has been dreaming about being but never has been.

To be a Palestinian is to be human.

Unlike the Jewish political discourse that is obsessively engaged in a presentation of a virtual historical narrative of belonging and possession, Palestinians are the pre-Socratics of our time, they have never tried to set a narrative, their narrative is their present. They are the epic of creation and recreation. They are the Being, being in the midst of Being, they are as well the true Becoming of their true liberation.


Raised as a secular Israeli Jew in Jerusalem, Gilad Atzmon witnessed and empathised with the daily sufferings of Palestinians and spent 20 years trying to resolve for himself the tensions of his background. Finally disillusioned, he moved away from Israel and went to England to study philosophy. Yet when he met Asaf Sirkis, a drummer from his homeland, Atzmon recovered an interest in playing the music of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe that had been in the back of his mind for years. Atzmon founded the Orient House Ensemble in London and started re-defining his own roots in the light of political reality. He now regards himself as a devoted political artist.

Most European capitals are targets for our air force

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Mordechai Vanunu is claiming that the ongoing restrictions on his freedom – including prohibition from even talking to reporters – are as a result of his having revealed that Israel has the bomb, something which the Prime Minister of Israel has now confirmed. The confirmation was not a mistake, but is a veiled threat to the rest of the world, particularly Europe (see also here or here, and here). The intentional ambiguity over the issue had been destroyed – no doubt in Zionist minds as part of a Baker-directed American Establishment ‘anti-Semitic’ plot – by Robert Gates, and the Israeli strategists had to fall back on Plan B, which is to try to make the most of the threat.

Vanunu makes an excellent point: if Israel doesn’t grant him his full freedom, shouldn’t it put Olmert in jail for at least the length of Vanunu’s sentence?

posted at 3:51 AM permanent link Comments (17) | Trackback

Telling it like it is: Jimmy Carter has criticised Israel,e. but to accuse him of anti-semitism is so outrageous as to be laughable.

December 14, 2006 03:46 PM

Soumaya Ghannoushi

Responses to Jimmy Carter's bestselling book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid have varied between indifference and knee-jerk accusations of anti-semitism. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Carter said: "For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts ... It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defence of justice or human rights for Palestinians."

Responses to Carter's book are quite revealing. On the one hand, they show the extent to which Israel has become an untouchable political taboo, beyond criticism or condemnation. On the other, they illustrate the way in which charges of anti-semitism are exploited to silence all critical views of Israeli policies. Carter is neither the far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, nor the revolutionary Hugo Chávez, nor indeed is he Iran's radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is neither a politician of the right nor of the left, but a centre liberal, under whose presidency the Camp David Accords, the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, were signed. To accuse him of anti-Israel bias, as many Democrats fearful of the powerful pro-Israel lobby have been doing, or of anti-semitism is so outrageous as to be laughable.

The truth is that the problem does not lie with what Carter has written, but with the political and media discourse dominant in the US, which equates all criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, with all the consequences that entails for the accused. In Carter's words, criticism of Israel is political suicide. In their detailed study of the power of the Israel lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt note: "Anyone who criticises Israel's actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite ... in other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite."

Sadly, Carter's talk of Israeli apartheid is not grounded in fantasies nor in conspiracy theories, but in the facts on the ground. Reading the critics, one would have thought that Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, the transformation of its people into refugees, the roadblocks and the apartheid wall, which annexes 50% of the West Bank, tearing Palestinian towns and villages apart and destroying the lives of thousands of Palestinians, were all figments of Carter's imagination. In the 18 communities hemmed into an enclave in the Tulkarem district, for instance, the illegal separation wall and military closures have made it impossible for residents to travel, bringing the unemployment rate up from 18% in 2000 to an estimated 78% in the spring of 2003.

In Qalqiliya, where the wall hermitically seals the city with one Israeli military controlled checkpoint, nearly 10% of the 42,000 residents have been forced to leave their homes. Carter was certainly not exaggerating when he said that Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories represented instances of apartheid worse even that those that once held sway in South Africa.

His observations are shared by many of those who have experienced the horrors of apartheid rule first-hand and who have fought for years to bring it to an end. Desmond Tutu, who the Israelis have this week denied entry to the Palestinian territories to investigate last month's Beit Hanoun massacre, says:

"I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."

Moral and political responsibility requires us to call things by their names, regardless of the cost this may carry. Israel's treatment of Palestinians is comparable to, if not worse than, what South Africa's black people had suffered at the hands of the white ruling minority. We must draw a clear line of distinction between criticism of Israel, its oppressive and discriminatory policies against Palestinians, and anti-semitism. Hatred and incitement to hatred of any race, or creed is morally deplorable and must be confronted openly and firmly.

But in the world of politics, nothing, no one, no group and no state is above criticism or condemnation. No one is above the law. If I criticise Saudi Arabia or Iran I am not an Islamophobe. If I denounce China's actions I am not an enemy of communism or Confucianism. If I condemn India's policies I am not a Hindu hater. By the same token, criticising Israel does not make the critic an anti-semite. Criticism has nothing to do with love or hatred for your subject, and every thing with calling what you see before you by its name whatever the risks may be. This means telling the truth as it is. The opposite is complicity with the aggressor and betrayal of the victim.

Soumaya Ghannoushi is an academic and freelance writer. She is a researcher at the school of Oriental & African studies, University of London. Having been awarded a bachelor and masters degrees in philosophy from the University of London with a thesis, on the history of subjectivity from Descartes to Heidegger, she moved on to oriental studies. She has a keen interest in medieval history and is currently completing a doctorate thesis on the medieval origins of the Orientalist discourse. Her research interests range from political philosophy to medieval history and contemporary Middle Eastern politics. She is a columnist on aljazeera.net.

Israel, Alone

December 13, 2006

The nuclear cat is out of the bag – and Olmert issues a warning…

by Justin Raimondo

Israel's long-standing policy of nuclear ambiguity came to an end the other day when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in answer to a question about hisnu country's rumored WMD arsenal, replied, "Iran openly, explicitly, and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [the Iranians] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?" Ha'aretz avers, "It is not clear whether this was a slip of the tongue on the part of Olmert or an intended statement" – and his aides and supporters are certainly scrambling to explain his comments away as a linguistic mix-up. Yet, taken in context – not only the context of the interview, but the context of Israel's present position – I would argue the Israeli Prime Minister was sending a message not only to Iran, but also to the U.S. As a rebuke to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rants about wiping Israel off the map, Olmert's is the perfect retort. Everyone knows that Israel has at least 400 nukes, and it isn't hard to guess in which direction they're aimed. Olmert is pointedly reminding the Iranians of what everyone has known for quite some time. All the Israeli prime minister has to do is give the order, and Tehran would be reduced to a pool of molten glass. The message sent to Washington – and, indeed, to the entire world – is that Israel is making a clean break with the policies of the past, based as they were on a strategy of economic, diplomatic, and military dependence on Western allies. Israel feels it has been abandoned by the West, including not only Britain but also the U.S. – and all bets are off. This fear of abandonment, although greatly exaggerated, is not entirely unfounded. It is based on a sensitive reading of the political dynamics in the U.S. and the threatened future of Israel's "special relationship" with the Americans. The Israel lobby in the U.S. has recently taken it on the chin four times in a row, without so much as getting a punch in edgewise: it started with the arrest and indictment of two top AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, for espionage. They are charged with funneling classified information, some of it high-level stuff, to Israeli embassy officials. Then there was the Harvard University research paper authored by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, documenting and decrying what they called "the Lobby" and its distorting effect on American foreign policy. Now there's the Baker-Hamilton commission linking the Palestinian question to our "grave and deteriorating" prospects in Iraq, and, to top it off, the Jimmy Carter book. The Lobby is reeling. For the first time since the Eisenhower era, our Israeli-centric policy in the Middle East is being openly and successfully challenged. In the past, Israel's amen corner in the U.S. has been able to effectively neutralize all critics by smearing them, and the charge of "anti-Semitism" has been applied with an absurdly broad brush to everyone from Gore Vidal to Pat Buchanan and all points in between. However, this case is getting increasingly hard to make. Are we now to believe that the U.S. Department of Justice, Harvard University, Baker and the Bush I crowd, and Jimmy Carter are all part of a vast anti-Semitic conspiracy? Surely not. With the British endorsement of the Baker group's conclusions, one would also have to include Tony Blair among the conspirators. When Mearsheimer and Walt published their paper, the Lobby likened them to David Duke. They can't pull that, however, with Baker's wise men, a former president, and the British prime minister. The Lobby has cried wolf once too often. Tony Judt, who has taken more than a few hits from the tireless efforts of the amen corner, recently noted the new atmosphere of glasnost when it comes to discussing the "special" status of American-Israeli relations: "What seems to me the case is that if you keep pushing, if you insist there at least be a discussion of the Mearsheimer-Walt paper … even a discussion about the failure to discuss it, something does change. And it seems to me there's a shift." The Israelis recognize this shift, and Olmert's alleged slip of the tongue is their answer. The "clean break" strategy embraced by the Israelis, predicated on the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the Americans, has so far played out pretty much as outlined in a notorious game plan drawn up by top U.S. policymakers, including neocon point-man and former Defense Policy Board official Richard Perle, former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser, currently Dick Cheney's top adviser on Middle Eastern affairs. The agenda put forth in this widely cited 1996 document, intended as advice to then-incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was meant to confront the central conundrum at the heart of the Zionist predicament: how to overcome its essential dependence on the West. As a settler colony, implanted by force of arms and sustained by aid from abroad, Israel has from the start been dependent on outside forces to ensure its survival. What was needed, argued the Clean Breakers, was a new offensive that would repudiate the concept of "land for peace" and set Israel free from Western-imposed constraints. Invoking the "right of hot pursuit," Israel would launch periodic invasions of Palestinian and Lebanese territory – and set the stage for strikes against Syria and Iran. The road to Damascus and Tehran would run through Baghdad, however, as the authors of "A Clean Break" put it: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." Syria and Lebanon were seen by the Clean Breakers as the front line in their battle to expand the frontiers of Israeli power. Following a successful campaign to "redefine Iraq," it would be possible to envision a "profound" shift in the regional "strategic balance of power." Jordan would be drawn into the new order, and the Israelis would succeed in "diverting Syria's attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon." A decade after the Clean Break scenario was conceived, its policy prescriptions read like prophecies. However, as the game plan approaches its projected climax – an attack on Iran and/or Syria – there are numerous indications the U.S. is bailing, and not only in Iraq. The appearance on the American political and intellectual scene of forces willing and able to challenge the Lobby's unquestioned hegemony over U.S. foreign policy – especially when it comes to the crucial [.pdf] Middle East – threatens to scuttle the Clean Break scenario. Israel wants regime-change in Syria and Iran, while the Baker-Hamilton folks want to open up negotiations with them over the future of Iraq. And the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis on the Lobby's vanguard role in fomenting war with Iraq is taking root. As the two distinguished professors put it: "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure." Citing Philip Zelikow's by-now infamous remarks that the war was really all about the threat to Israel, and not the U.S., Mearsheimer and Walt reference a report in the Washington Post that "'Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq's Saddam Hussein.' By this point, according to Sharon, strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. had reached 'unprecedented dimensions', and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq's WMD programs. As one retired Israeli general later put it, 'Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq's non-conventional capabilities.'" Now that the full disaster in Iraq is unfolding in all its bloody viciousness and tragic futility, the Israelis are catching a lot of the blame, and the power of the Lobby is being undermined, perhaps fatally. The cord to the U.S., which has sustained Israel for so long, is in danger of being cut – before Israel is ready to make the break. Iraq is destroyed, but the front-line enemies of Israel – Syria and Iran – are still left standing. Not only that, but Iran is moving ahead with its nuclear program, and James Baker is whispering sweet nothings in Bashar Assad's ear. No wonder the Israelis have abandoned all pretenses of reasonableness and are now threatening to plunge the Middle East into the throes of a nuclear Armageddon. Israel is alone against the world, or so their leaders seem to believe: cornered, they are revealing their true face, snarling their resentment and defiance – their ire directed not just or even primarily at the Iranians, but at U.S. policymakers. Olmert has found the elusive "weapons of mass destruction" said to be lurking somewhere in the Middle East, threatening the peace and shadowing the land with the darkest, most ominous war clouds. We know – now – they aren't anywhere in Iraq, and our own CIA tells us the Iranians are a good 10 years away from acquiring nukes. No, they are right where Mordechai Vanunu told us they were. Would the Israelis ever use them? That is the question that we have to ask in light of Olmert's unprecedented admission. After all, why "come out" to the world as a nuclear power at this particular moment? Surely the threat of a nuclear first strike against Iran is implicit in Olmert's "slip of the tongue." The Israeli conceit is that to equate a regime such as the one that rules in Tehran with Israeli "democracy" is an obscene "moral equivalence" that overlooks the obvious: after all, we can trust Tel Aviv with WMD, but not the Iranian ayatollahs. Yet the growing extremism dominating Israeli political life, as demonstrated by the rise of such a dangerous character as Avigdor Lieberman, points to a troubling trend that has culminated in Olmert's stunning announcement. We are now about to experience the consequences –the "blowback" – of our Israel-centric policy, which has fostered and nurtured Israeli ultra-nationalism in the womb of the "special relationship." As in so many other cases of aiding and abetting foreign "freedom fighters," we'll find we have created yet another monster. By the time this realization dawns on us, however, it will, unfortunately, be too late.

ANTI ZIONISM=ANTI-SEMITISM? IT SEEMS SO TO SOME

Thursday, November 23, 2006


I have in recent days seen and heard ridiculous charges leveled against Gilad Atzmon, claims that he is an anti semite and should not have been invited to speak for the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in Edinburgh last night.

There were protests coming from renowned anti zionists in Britain as well as from the zionist 'alert rag' Engage. Engage, the very source that referred to me as an anti semite a few weeks ago has now added Atzmon to their 'list'.

All I can say is that if Engage's positions on who or who is not an anti Semite are being taken as Gospel Truth by anti zionists, then our movement is in serious trouble.

Atzmon is a musician not a politician. He is an anti zionist. That's all that matters. If we cannot all work together to defeat the zionist beast,we lose...meaning occupation wins... is that our new agenda? I don't think so... Below is an excerp of the speech he gave last night.... can any true anti zionist say they do not want this mans participation in the struggle?

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)
What is to be Done?
Palestinian Solidarity in a Time of Massacres
GILAD ATZMON
November 22, 2006

Let's face it; while the Palestinian and Arab resistance evolves into an absolute example of the ultimate heroism and collective patriotism, the Palestinian solidarity movement in the UK and around the world is not exactly what could be called a profound success story. In fact, it would be erroneous to state that this is really the fault of those who dedicate their time and energy to it. Supporting the Palestinians is a complicated subject. Though the crimes against the Palestinians have taken place in broad daylight and are not some well-kept secret, the priorities of the solidarity movement are far from being clear.

When thinking about Palestinian society we are basically used to thinking of some sharp ideological and cultural disputes between the Hamas and PLO. Not that I wish to undermine that staunch disagreement, but I am here to suggest an alternative perspective that perhaps could lead towards a different understanding of the notion of Palestinian activism and solidarity both ideologically and pragmatically.

I maintain that Palestinian people are largely divided into three main groups and it is actually this division that dictates three different political narratives, with three different political discourses and agendas to consider:

The three groups can be described as follows:

1. The Palestinians who happen to live within the Israeli State and possess Israeli citizenship - The Israelis have a name for them; they call them 'Israeli Arabs'. These Palestinians are largely discriminated by Israeli law in all aspects of their lives; their struggle is for civil rights and civil equality.

2. The Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories - In most cases those Palestinians are locked behind walls and barbed wire in Bantustans and concentration camps in the so-called 'Palestinian Authority Controlled Area' (PA). Practically speaking, those people live under a criminal occupation. For three decades these people have been terrorised on a daily basis by Israeli soldiers in roadblocks and incursions, they are subject to air raids and artillery bombardments. Their civil system is shattered, their educational system is falling apart, their health system is extinct. These Palestinian people are craving for a single day with no casualties.

3. The Diaspora Palestinians - Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed over the course of the years and denied return to their homes by the racially orientated Israeli legal system (the Law of Return and Absentee Laws). The Israelis do not have a name for them, they simply deny their existence. The Diaspora Palestinians live all over around the world. According to the UN statistics every third refugee is a Palestinian. Millions of exiled Palestinians live in the region in refugee camps, the others can be found in every corner of the globe. The Diaspora Palestinians know their rights and they want to be able to come home if they so choose, they demand their right of return.

Confronting very different realities, the three groups above have managed to develop three competing political discourses: The 1st group, the so-called 'Israeli Arabs', struggle for equality. The means they have to achieve their goals are largely political. They search for a voice within the racially orientated Israeli society.

The 2nd group, namely the 'PA inhabitants', battle against the occupation. They fight for liberation. Their means are political, civil resistance as well as armed struggle (in fact it is within the 2nd group where the bitter struggle for hegemony between the PLO and the Hamas is taking place).

Being out of Israel and lacking international support as well as adequate political representation, the 3rd group is still ignored by the entire Israeli political system and even by major players within the international community. The exiled Palestinians are largely neglected and their demand for the right of return is yet to be addressed properly.

Apparently, the Palestinian discourse is fragmented. It is divided into at least three different, sometimes opposing discourses. Cleverly, not to mention mercilessly, on their behalf, it is the Israelis who maintain this very state of fragmentation. It is the Israelis who manage to stop the Palestinian political and cultural discourse from integrating into a single grand solid narrative. How do they do it? They apply different tactics that maintain the isolation and conflict between the three distinct groups. Within the State of Israel the Israelis maintain a racially orientated legal system that turns the Israeli Palestinians into 10th class citizens. When PA inhabitants are concerned, the Israeli military maintains solid and constant pressure on the civilian population. Gaza is kept starving, it is bombed on a daily basis. Some of it is flattened. More than a few observers regard the situation in the PA as nothing but slow extermination and genocide.

In order to humiliate the 3rd group, the Israelis enforce a racist legislation that welcomes Jews to the country but rejects others (Law of Return). In practice it is a racially orientated system that stops exiled Palestinians from returning to their land.

Paradoxically enough, the more pain the Israelis inflict on any of the groups, the further the Palestinians get from establishing a grand narrative of resistance. Similarly, the more vicious the Israelis are, the further the Palestinian Solidarity movement is getting from establishing a unified agenda of activism. Indeed the Palestinian solidarity campaigner is confused and asks himself what campaign to choose. Who should be supported? The division of the Palestinian discourse into three conflicting narratives makes the issue of solidarity rather complicated.

Seemingly, different Palestinian solidarity groups follow different political calls and Palestinian causes. Some call for an end to the Israeli occupation, others call for the right of return. Some call for equality. Many of the solidarity campaigners are divided amongst themselves. Those who call for the right of return and 'one State' are totally unhappy with what they regard as a watery and limited demand for the 'end of occupation'. Seemingly, Palestinian solidarity is trapped.

Joining one call and not another is actually surrendering to a discourse that is violently and criminally imposed by the Israelis.

This is exactly where Zionism is maintaining its hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. It is Israeli brutality that dictates a state of ideological fragmentation upon the Palestinian solidarity discourse. Whatever decision the Palestinian activist is willing to make is set a priori to dismiss a certain notion of the Palestinian cause. It is indeed painful to admit that it is the Israelis who have set us into this trap. Our work, discourse and terminology as activists are totally shaped by Israeli aggression.


The Battle Is Not Lost

However, there is a way around that complexity. Rather than surrendering to the Zionist practice which splits the Palestinian solidarity discourse, we can simply redefine the core of the Palestinian tragedy, which is now turning into a global crisis.

Once we manage to internalise that the discourse of solidarity with Palestinians is dominated by the malicious and brutal Israeli practices, we are more or less ready to admit: it is the Jewish State: a racist nationalist ideology that we must oppose primarily. It is Jewish State and its supporters around the world that we must tackle. It is Zionism and global Zionism that we must confront immediately.

Yet, this is exactly where the solidarity campaigner loses his grip. To identify the Palestinian disaster with the concept of 'Jews Only State' is a leap not many activists are capable to do for the time being. To admit that the Jewish State is the core of the problem implies that there may be something slightly more fundamental in the conflict than merely colonial interests or an ethnic dispute over land. To identify the 'Jews Only State' as the core of the problem is to admit that peace is not necessarily an option. The reason is rather simple: the 'Jews Only State' follows an expansionist and racially orientated philosophy. It leaves no room for other people as a matter of fact and principle.

Yet, once we come to grips with this very understanding, once we are enlightened and realise that something here is slightly more fundamental than merely a battle between an invader facing some indigenous counter freedom fighting. We are probably more or less ready to engage in a critical enquiry into the notion of Zionism. We are more or less ready to grasp the notion of the emerging secular emancipated Jewish collective identity. We are ready to confront the modern notion of Jewishness (rather than Judaism).

Once we are brave enough to admit that Zionism is a continuation of Jewishness (rather than Judaism), once we admit that Israel draws its force from a racist ideology, harboured in national chauvinism and blatant expansionism, once we admit that Zionism, which was once a marginal Jewish ideology, has become the voice of world Jewry, once we accept it all, we may be ready to defeat the Zionist disease. We do it for the sake of the Palestinians but as well for the sake of world peace.

The Gatekeepers

Let's try to think of an imaginary situation in which a dozen exiled German dissident intellectuals insist upon monitoring and controlling Churchill's addresses to the British public at the peak of the Blitz. Every time Churchill speaks his heart calling the British people to stand firm against Germany and its military might, the exiled dissident Germans raise their voice: "It isn't Germany, Mr Prime Minister, it is the Nazi party, the German people and the German spirit are innocent." Churchill obviously apologises immediately.

I assume that you all realise that such a scene is totally surreal. Britain would never allow a bunch of German exiles to control its rhetoric at the time of a war against Germany. Moreover, dissident German intellectuals would not have the Chutzpah to even consider telling the British what should or what shouldn't be the appropriate rhetoric to use at time of a war with Germany.

However, when it comes to the Palestinian solidarity discourse, we are somehow far more tolerant. In spite of the fact that it is the 'Jews Only State' that we struggle against, we allow a bunch of self-appointed Jewish leaders and activists to become our gatekeepers. As soon as anyone identifies the symptoms of Zionism with some fundamental or essential Jewish precepts a smear campaign is launched against that person.

I have been closely monitoring the Jewish left discourse for more than a few years now. I might as well admit that I can think of at least one good reason behind Jewish anti-Zionist activism. I do understand the need of some humanist Jews to stand up and say, 'I am a Jew and I find Zionism disgusting.' At a certain stage of my life I myself was saying just that. As some of you know, I totally admire Torah Jews for doing just that. However, when it comes to predominantly Jewish socialist and secular left groups, I am slightly confused.

Moshe Machover, a legendary Israeli dissident and a Jewish Marxist who happens to be the intellectual mentor of the British progressive Jewish activists, expressed the following view just a few days ago when he stated a complaint he had with a petition:

"anti-Semitism is a Palestinian problem, as it pushes Jews into the arms of Zionism. This has long been understood by all progressive Palestinians. Anti-semitism is an objective ally of Zionism, and the common enemy of Palestinians, Jews, and all humankind."

Indeed anti-Semitism may be a problem, yet, is it really a Palestinian problem? Should the Palestinian solidarity campaign engage in fighting anti-Semitism? Shouldn't we leave it to ADL and Abe Foxman? I think that we better try to do whatever we can to save the people of Beit Hanoun. This is where we are needed. I am certain that the vast majority of the Palestinian activists know that I am right.

Every PSC campaigner I have ever spoken to admits to me that only very few Palestinians find interest in the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. In fact, the statement by Machover provides the reason. According to Machover, those amongst the Palestinians who fail to see that anti-Semitism is the problem are nothing but reactionary, as only the 'Progressive' Palestinians acknowledge that anti-Semitism is indeed a problem. Let me tell you, the Palestinians I know do not like it when Machover or anyone else calls them reactionaries just because they are not that concerned with anti-Semitism. Reading Machover, it is rather clear that such views serve as a body shield for Jewish secular collectivism and the Zio-centric historical narrative. If to be honest, there is not much reason for any Palestinian to join a movement predominated by the obsession with anti-Semitism.

May I tell you, I am not an historian. I am academically trained as a philosopher and particularly as a continental one. I am interested in the notion of essence. For me to attack Zionism is to aim towards a thorough realisation of the essence of Zionism. To a certain extent I am indeed an essentialist. This is pretty worrying for those who try to reduce the discourse into positivistic exchange regarding numbers and historical facts. I am interested in the spirit of Zionism. I'm concerned about that which transforms the Israelis and their supporters into ethically blind killing machines.

Beyond Chutzpah

You may have heard of the book I am holding in my hand. Probably, it's the ultimate Zionist tract: Alan Dershowitz's The Case For Israel. I don't know whether any of you have ever considered reading this banal not to say idiotic text. I did, it fell into my hands a few days ago.

Shockingly enough, this book is structured as a beginner's guide for the Zionist enthusiast, a kind of "Israel for Dummies". It teaches the nationalist Jew how to be an advocate and defend the 'case of Israel'. We know already that Norman Finkelstein has managed to prove beyond doubt that the text is academically a farce. Yet, there is something revealing in this text.

The book is a set of deconstructions of 'the anti-Zionist argument'. It starts with the heaviest ideological and moral accusation against Israel and it gets lighter, more historical and forensic as you progress.

Dershowitz launches with the 'million Shekels' question "Is Israel a Colonial, Imperialist State?" To a certain degree Dershowitz manages to tackle the question. He asks, "if it is indeed a colonial state, what flag does it serve?" Fair enough, I say, he may be right. I myself do not regard Zionism as a colonial adventure. However, hang on for a second, Mr. Dershowitz. It seems you might be getting off the hook easily here. Our problem with Israel has nothing to do with its colonial characteristics. Our problems with the 'Jews Only State' have something to do with its racist, expansionist and nationalist qualities. Our problems with Israel have something to do with it being a Fascist State supported by the vast majority of Jewish people around the world.

Now if you, Scottish activists stop for a second, ask yourselves why Dershowitz starts his book tackling the colonial aspect of Israel rather than facing its Fascist characteristics. My answer is simple. We are afraid to admit that Israel is indeed a Fascist State. It is predominantly the politically correct groups that furnish Dershowitz with a Zionist fig leaf. In fact, it is the Jewish gatekeepers on the left who have managed to reduce Zionism merely into a colonial adventure. Why did they do it? I can think of two reasons:

1. If Israel, the 'Jews Only State' is wrong for being a racially orientated adventure, then 'Jews for peace', 'Jews against Zionism', 'Jewish Socialists', 'Jews Sans Frontieres' etc. are all wrong for the very same reason (being a racially orientated adventure).

2. To regard the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a colonial dispute is to make sure it fits nicely into their notion of working class politics. May I suggest that a universal working class vision of Israel implies that the Jewish State is nothing but a Fascist experiment.

I would use this opportunity and appeal to our friends amongst the Jewish socialists and other Jewish solidarity groups. I would ask them to clear the stage willingly, and to re-join as ordinary human beings. The Palestinian Solidarity movement is craving for a change. It needs open gates rather than gatekeepers. It yearns for an open and dynamic discourse. The Palestinians on the ground have realised it already. They democratically elected an alternative vision of their future. Isn't it about time we support the Palestinians for what they are rather than expecting them to fit into our worldview?

From a talk for the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in Edinburgh.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. His recent CD, Exile, was named the year's best jazz CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk

posted by DesertPeace

http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2006/11/anti-zionismanti-semitism-it-seems-so.html