The Times & Jewish Chronicle Report our Story on Corbyn Backtracking on Palestine

Corbyn's started running - the question is whether he'll ever stop

Last weekend I posted an article on Jeremy Corbyn and his previous support for a democratic, secular state in Palestine.  I also noted that Corbyn chaired a Labour Movement conference whose main theme was that the British Labour Party should sever its ties with Poalei Zion (now the Jewish Labour Movement), the overseas wing of the racist Israeli Labour Party.  When Jeremy Corbyn Supported a Democratic, Secular State & Breaking Links with Poale Zion (JLM)

Manuel Hassassian, the PLO representative in Britain noted that:  British pro-Palestine politicians'scared' to stand up to Israel

‘leading British opposition figures are now "too scared" to stand up to Israel because "Israeli and Zionist lobbyists are monitoring people in public office."  Hassassian ‘directed particular criticism towards UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn and new London Mayor Sadiq Khan.’  

Hassassian said of Khan that "Like Jeremy Corbyn, who was an ardent, staunch supporter of the Palestinians and now we hardly see any statements coming from him in support of Palestine," Hassassian continued.

The article has been covered in both Wednesday’s Times and the Jewish Chronicle.  I decided to release the information because Corbyn’s silence on Palestine and his decision to appease Israel’s supporters in the Labour Party is shameful.  Corbyn fully understands that a Jewish settler colonial state, like any similar state, cannot help being a racist state.  Just as in Ireland, Partition is absurd and would only offer, as James Connolloy remarked of Partition in Ireland ‘a carnival of reaction’ on both sides of the border.

There is never going to be a two-state solution.  Zionism is not based on the idea of shared sovereignty of Palestine/Israel but on the exclusive right of ‘the Jewish people’ to the area which was the Palestine Mandate. The ‘peace process’ has only one purpose.  To legitimise the current status of Palestinians in the West Bank who have neither civil nor political rights and who have been living under occupation for nearly 50 years now.   The ‘peace process’ provides Israel’s only rationale for not giving Palestinians the right to vote and be subject to the same law as Israel’s settlers.

Having sold the pass on Palestine Corbyn has shown himself weak by going along with the ‘anti-Semitism’ heresy hunt inside the Labour Party.  Instead of standing up to the Zionists and making it clear that the ‘anti-Semitism’ they were talking about was anti-Zionism, he has ritually exclaimed that he is against ‘anti-Semitism’.  Appeasement is Corbyn’s only strategy.

Many people have said to me that Corbyn has to concentrate on the bread and butter issues.  Palestine is a marginal issue.  Well Corbyn was the most active supporter of Palestine in the past 30 years so his position is not good enough.  But it is also incredibly narrow minded, something typical of the British Left.  If Corbyn sells the pass on Palestine today then he will do so on cuts and austerity tomorrow if he ever gets into office.

The clear need is to stand up to the Zionist bullies and witch-hunters and make it clear that he will not tolerate the supporters of the world’s only Apartheid state, the Israeli state, trying to have supporters of the Palestinians expelled from the Labour Party.  The privileged position of the Jewish Labour Movement should be ended.  If there was any honesty in politics it would be called the Zionist Labour Movement.  At least Poalei Zion, before it changed its name to JLM, was open about its Zionism.  But today the Zionists bleat that they don’t like anyone mentioning the word Zionism. 

Instead of Momentum standing up to this nonsense and saying that they will stop mentioning Zionism when the Zionists abolish the World Zionist Organisation and all the other Zionist institutions like the Jewish National Fund, the instruments of furthering and deepening apartheid in Israel, we have Momentum’s unelected Chair, Jon Lansman pontificating that we should no longer mention Zionism for fear of upsetting the Zionist children.   Why the Left must stop talking about ‘Zionism’ 

What we are seeing is a deliberate programme of destabilisation, jointly mounted by the Zionist lobby and the Labour Right, whose purpose is to remove Corbyn and make the Labour Party a support club for the Israeli state.  Jon Lansman, who should be removed as Momentum’s Chair as soon as possible, is leading the Corbyn left to defeat.

It is outrageous that the Labour supporters of Zionism, who haven’t said a single word about the assumption of the Israeli Defence Ministry by an open fascist, Avigdor Lieberman, are able to call the tune in the Labour Party.  If we are to have expulsions then Jeremy Newmark, the Chair of JLM, should be first on the list.