Why I am standing for the post of Secretary of Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Self congratulation, timidity and caution bordering on obsequiousness is not the stuff of a solidarity campaign!

Introduction

Why you may ask, after having co-founded PSC 37 years ago, have I decided now to stand for the position of Secretary? I was a member of the Executive for the first decade of PSC’s existence. At my time of life I have better things to do and if I have any ambition left the position of Secretary of PSC is not one of them.

My reasons are that I feel a responsibility to an organisation which could do so much and yet is trapped by a cautious conservatism in its desire to become part of the political establishment. PSC is an organisation which makes a fetish of routinism but which has few response mechanisms. Every year the Executive presents much the same Annual Report to the AGM which dutifully passes it, because it is unheard of for the AGM to hold the Executive to account. Then another year passes by in which PSC is conspicuous by its absence from the political attacks which the Palestine solidarity movement is living with.

Above all I want to stimulate a debate about where the Palestine solidarity movement in this country is going. We should not be afraid of having such a discussion if we are serious about building towards the day when Israel goes the same way as apartheid South Africa. Nonetheless I have no doubt that the Executive will resent the fact that I have decided to raise these issues and stimulate a wider debate.

This is the first time in living memory that there has been a contest for an officer post, yet I am allowed only 100 words to explain my reasons why. I will be allowed 1 minute to speak from Conference floor. Ideally each candidate should be allowed 5 minutes with questions and answers. Instead we have what is in effect a beauty contest. Hence why I am presenting this manifesto.

The Zionist ‘Anti-Semitism’ Campaign

For over 3 years we have seen an unprecedented wave of attacks on the Palestine solidarity movement and BDS with false allegations of anti-Semitism being the main weapon of attack. Israel’s supporters have been joined in this enterprise by the opponents of Jeremy Corbyn. This is not just a British phenomenon but Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has enhanced this phenomenon.

And whereas once support for Zionism and Israel was more evident on the Labour left today support for the Palestinians is found almost wholly on the left of the political spectrum. 80% of Tory MPs are members of Conservative Friends of Israel. The Lib-Dems ditched the 2 parliamentarians who supporter the Palestinians – David Ward and Jenny Tonge.

False accusations of ‘Anti-Semitism’ have become the weapon of choice for a whole range of right-wing, Islamaphobic, reactionary and even anti-Semitic politicians. The press, including the Guardian, sings the same Zionist theme tunes. We have the absurdity that non-Jews, often themselves anti-Semitic, can attack Jewish anti- Zionists as ‘anti-Semitic’ because they reject the idea of a Jewish supremacist state. A list of far-Right luminaries from Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, Steve Bannon. and even the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right Richard Spencer, all combine Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism but are nonetheless described as ‘friends of the Jews’ by the Zionists.

Until 2015 a regular feature at PSC AGMs was the attendance of Jeremy Corbyn, who was our main parliamentary sponsor. His election as leader of the Labour Party should have been the occasion for great rejoicing. Instead Jeremy has been forced repeatedly onto the backfoot by the onslaught against him. Unlike Stop the War Coalition the voice of PSC was silent at this time as the campaign against him gathered steam.

When the attacks on anti-Zionists in the Labour Party – Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and myself – were at their height, PSC was nowhere to be seen. Even though the Israeli Embassy was up to its ears in what was happening, as Al Jazeera’s documentary The Lobby demonstrated, PSC chose to see, say and hear nothing.

A need for debate and reflection

In the wake of the 2005 call for BDS the Zionist movement engaged in a period of internal debate and reflection. The time is long overdue when we need to begin engaging in serious debate about where we are going and how we meet the ideological attacks upon us rather than having puffed up reports whose only purpose is self-congratulation. Is our propaganda as effective as it could be?  Is PSC for example simply concentrating on Israeli human rights abuses to the exclusion of saying anything about what its vision is for a non-racist Palestine?

I have never seen a Report to PSC Conference which said what had gone wrong or which analysed their mistakes. Everything is always rosy in the PSC garden.

Palestine solidarity is not simply a human rights but a political campaign. If all we are concerned about is human rights then what is happening in Burma and Yemen far exceeds the suffering of Palestine. Israel is different because Apartheid and settler colonialism are different. In the words of Albert Luthuli, the President of the ANC and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, you can change your politics but never the colour of your skin. That is the essence of our case against Israel.

On 9^th December and again on 31^st December (repeated in the Annual Report) PSC boasted that ‘In November we had our biggest Parliamentary Lobby Day ever’ with nearly 3000 PSC members and supporters contacting 600 MPs’ on the question of arms sales and the treatment of Palestinian children. Undoubtedly this is a good thing but if this is all we say then it will be futile. There is no point in simply concentrating on human rights abuses to the exclusion of having anything to say about the state that perpetrates those abuses. We also have to emphasise that these atrocities stem from the nature of the Israeli state itself as a Zionist and Jewish supremacist state.

Quality is more important than quantity. What is the purpose of lobbying if we don’t aim to build a core group of MP’s who support the aim of a non-racial Israel/Palestine? All but 8 Labour MPs endorsed the IHRA definition without even a free speech caveat.

We should also be having a lobby over the question of a full-scale boycott of settlement produce and sanctions on Israel itself in the wake of the Jewish Nation State Law. The cry we should be taking up is why are sanctions on Iran and Russia ok but it is anti-Semitic if Israel is the target?

ZIONISM

It is not enough to be supporters of Palestinian rights if we are not also opponents of the state that took away those rights. ZIONISM is the official ideology of the Israeli state. It says that when the choice in Israel is between a Jew and a non-Jew then the former has priority. That was the meaning of the Jewish Nation State Law. Discrimination is carried out in the name of the Zionist ideals. Yet Zionism is a word that PSC Executive avoids like the plague. If you go through the whole agenda for the forthcoming PSC AGM, the word is used 4 times – twice in the resolutions and twice in my own 100 words! PSC Executive recoil from describing Israel as it is – Israel Apartheid is a consequence of Zionism. Zionism began from the basis of ‘a land without a people for a people without a land.’ Israel is a Jewish supremacist state just as South Africa was a White Supremacist state and Northern Ireland was a Protestant Supremacist statelet. The Zionists don’t like the term ‘Zionist’.  They say it is a word of abuse.  We should say, ‘yes, Zionism is abusive.’

Without understanding Zionism you cannot understand why Israel does what it does. It is the fact that Israel is a state, not of its own inhabitants but the mythical Jewish People that makes it racist.

Partners

But if PSC Executive are loathe to use the word Zionism, despite there being a World Zionist Organisation and a Zionist Union, they are more than happy to use the word partner.  It occurs no less than 33 times in the Reports. Not once are we told what this partnership entails and whether these are alliances of convenience or genuine partnerships.

I am reminded of Sir Roy Welensky, the Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) who described his ‘partnership between the Whites and Africans as being between the rider and his horse.

We are told that one of the ‘partners’ is Jewish Voice for Labour. If that is so why did PSC not support the counter-demonstration to the Zionist ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration on March 26^th outside Parliament when the false anti-Semitism campaign was in full swing? A demonstration attended by Norman Tebbit and Ian Paisley. JVL, supported by Labour Against the Witchhunt called a counter demonstration but PSC was nowhere to be seen.

PSC claims that it worked ‘with partners to secure the passing of a motion at Liberty’s AGM condemning the IHRA.’  This is not true.  One individual in JVL was responsible for this motion passing and if it were true why has there been no follow-up with these self same partners to ensure that Liberty’s Executive acts on this motion? Liberty has done absolutely nothing about this policy at a time when the IHRA has been used to attack our freedom of speech.

As for the trade union ‘partners’.  Has PSC ever, even once, raised with them the idea that they should oppose the IHRA. In the words of Sir Stephen Sedley, the Jewish former Court of Appeal judge, the IHRA terms anti-Semitic all except anodyne criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism

There has been a concerted attack this year on any criticism of Israel that questions its fundamentally racist nature. The IHRA has been adopted, not only by the Labour Party National Executive but by over 150 local Councils.  At a national level the voice of PSC has been almost wholly absent and it is simply dishonest to pretend otherwise.

When JVL and LAW called a large demonstration outside the Labour Party National Executive Committee meeting on September 4^th where was PSC? There were around 300 people on the demonstration and a variety of Momentum and trade union banners but there wasn’t even one PSC banner. Nationally PSC made no attempts to mobilise support for the lobby. It is as if the IHRA was irrelevant.

The IHRA conflates support for the Palestinians with anti-Semitism. Calling Israel a racist state has already led to workers and trade unionists being victimised yet PSC has remained silent.

Most major trade unions are affiliated to PSC.  What attempts did PSC make with UNISON and UNITE to persuade them not to support the IHRA? UNISON’s Dave Prentis has gone out of his way to be friendly to the Jewish Labour Movement. They have a great deal of influence in the Labour Party yet virtually all of them supported the IHRA.

There is no evidence that PSC even raised the IHRA with the trade unions. It is of course good that UNISON has given support to the campaign over child prisoners and pensions but what use is this if UNISON also gives support to a Zionist campaign that alleges opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is anti-Semitic?

The IHRA is part of an international effort to restrict Palestine solidarity.  In the USA it takes the form of direct attacks on those who support BDS. In France BDS has been all but outlawed. We ignore it at our peril.

Israeli Apartheid

It is good that PSC calls Israel an Apartheid state but if we are serious we need to respond to the Zionist argument that Israel is the world’s only Jewish state. We should be clear that we are opposed, in principle, to any religious state especially those which define ethnicity and nationality in terms of religion because from this flows rights and privileges which are accorded to members of that ethnicity. This is what makes Israel different from Iran and Saudi Arabia and for that matter Britain which is also nominally a Christian state.

We should be explicit - Jews are members of all nations. They are not a separate nationality. This is an anti-Semitic and racist idea. One Jewish state is one too many. A Jewish settler-colonial state i cannot be other than an ethno-nationalist i.e. apartheid state.

What is PSC For?

We have to balance actions and campaigns with politics. I say that as someone who has always been an activist. Support for Israel in the West is primarily political, in a way that it wasn’t with South Africa. South Africa had greater resources in terms of mineral wealth than Israel. Israel is more economically vulnerable.

My first actions as a political activist were with the Boycott of the South African Springbok Rugby team in 1970. We didn’t though face a significant pro-Apartheid lobby in Britain. Ministers didn’t fall over themselves to laud South Africa as the ‘only democracy in Africa.’ Israel does possess a powerful lobby. Crucial to destroying support for Israel is destroying the myth that Israel is a democratic state.

We should also recognise where our strengths and weaknesses lie. The majority of British people support the Palestinians. The majority of the elites support Zionism. We should proceed on that basis.

What are we fighting for?

One difference between South Africa and Palestine is that the former possessed a unified national liberation movement. The Palestinians don’t. The PLO is a shell. There is no one organisation we can take a lead from. We have to listen to grassroots Palestinians who tell us that the two state dream is dead (if it ever was alive).

The growing international support for one-state in Israel/Palestine has passed PSC by. It has become obvious that Israel has no intention, if it ever did, of relinquishing control over the Occupied Territories. The Occupation is there to stay. Those who perpetuate the illusion of a two state solution are effectively condoning the continuance of apartheid.

It is extremely welcome that the new American-Palestinian Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, has come out in support of a one-state solution. Is it too much to ask that PSC now has the same courage?

Our role as a solidarity organisation is to convince people that we have a vision. It is not enough simply to oppose what Israel does. What do we want to see is a question that people ask of us.

If Rashida can do it so can PSC

It is time for PSC to stop using the weakness of the Palestinians as an excuse to say nothing, a lamppost to lean on and say loud and clear that we support a single, unitary, democratic state in the whole of Palestine. 2 States is dead.

Today it is the Zionists who support the two state solution. Why? Because they know it will never happen. 2 States means a Palestinian Bantustan. Labour Friends of Israel proudly proclaim that they support an two state solution. If we believe that Israel is an Apartheid state why would we want it to continue?

Israel is NOT a democratic state – that should be our message

In the bulletin sent out on 9^th December headed ‘An incredible month for the Palestinian solidarity movement.’ there was a photograph of a PSC meeting in the House of Commons with Emily Thornberry, Shadow Foreign Secretary addressing the meeting. This is the same Emily Thornberry who is quoted as stating that

‘People who believe Israel does not have the right to exist should be drummed out of the Labour Party.’

Far from challenging Thornberry to disavow her support for Labour Friends of Israel PSC uncritically gives her a platform. In an interview with The Standard she boasted that “I joined Labour Friends of Israel when I became an MP in 2005. I support the Palestinians’ right to have a state and I support the state of Israel.’

Emily Thornberry supports both the oppressor and the oppressed. At the UK Israel Conference 2017’ organised by the main Israel lobby group in this country, BICOM Thornberry gushed:

‘Let me start by thanking BICOM and the Jewish News for inviting me to today’s historic event and once again for giving me the opportunity to emphasise the Labour Party’s long-standing, unstinting and unequivocal support for the State of Israel’ ‘and continued

 ‘even today despite the challenges that we must address in respect of relations and rights of the Palestinian people modern Israel stands out as a beacon of freedom, equality and democracy... in a region where oppression, discrimination and inequality are too often the norm.’

Electronic Intifada described her speech thus:

The UK Labour Party’s shadow foreign minister Emily Thornberry gave a speech last month that could have been written by a pro-Israel lobbyist.

In a groveling address in front of the Israeli ambassador at the Labour Friends of Israel annual dinner, Thornberry attacked BDS, the Palestinian-led boycott divestment and sanctions campaign.

She claimed BDS was “bigotry against the Israeli nation [that] has never been justified.” She said that “boycott of its products, its culture or its academics” was akin to “hatred of the nation and its people.

Instead of appeasing our enemies perhaps PSC could organise a lobby of parliament on the theme ‘it’s time to Boycott the State of Israel’.

The Palestinian Authority – A Quisling Authority

When the Apartheid regime in South Africa sponsored the Inkatha Freedom Party, under Mangosuthu Buthelezi , in order to portray the anti-Apartheid struggle as riven by Black on Black violence, the Anti-Apartheid Movement denounced this apartheid stooge.

Abbas's security forces prevent demonstrations in Ramallah

In Palestine today we have what Electronic Intifada has described as a Vichy regime. The PA openly collaborates with Israeli security forces, something which Mahmoud Abbas has described as ‘sacred’. The PA is an enemy of the Palestinian people yet PSC has never uttered even one word of criticism. On the contrary it maintains close relations with the Palestinian ‘Embassy’ in London. It is no accident that whilst Trump has withdrawn all funding from UNRWA and Palestinian education he has ring-fenced money for the PA’s security forces. Why are we silent? Is the torture of Palestinians by Abbas’s collaborators more acceptable than their torture by Israel’s Shin Bet?

Debate on Oslo Accords in London Labour Briefing October 1993 (date on article is wrong)

In 1993 I published an article on the Oslo Accords. Virtually everything I wrote in the article has come true.  The faces of Israeli police have been replaced by Palestinians. The PA’s primary role is suppressing the Palestinian struggle.  PSC’s purpose is to support the Palestinian struggle, regardless of whether their enemy comes in the guise of a Zionist or a Palestinian.

The need for a Strategy for the Palestinian solidarity movement

Anyone reading the latest Report from PSC Executive to Annual Conference 2019 would think that the movement goes onwards and upwards.  All we need to do is to work a little harder.

There is no sense that the struggle for Palestine liberation is, above all, a political one. Every victory, be it against HSBC or Veolia is of course welcome but the road is going to be a long and hard one. PSC should also stop trying to claim credit for victories like HSBC when it is clear that  War on Want did the original research that laid the basis for our triumph.

We need to soberly assess our strengths and weaknesses and also our opponents’ strengths and weak points. Self-congratulation and pretending that everything is right are the hall marks of a political sect not a genuine solidarity organisation.

PSC should be encouraging its branches to have programmes of internal political education. Most peoples’ knowledge of the history of Zionism and for example Mandate Palestine under the British is poor. Apart from anything else it would be the most effective means of dealing with tropes about ‘Rothschild Zionism’ and other anti-Semitic nonsense that people come out with. For example how many people know that the origins of Zionism are Christian not Jewish? A series of educational fact sheets would not go amiss.

PSC has barely if at all grown in the past decade. It was 5,000 a decade ago. We are told that growth in membership for the past year has been 31% which would be impressive if we had been told the membership figures a year ago!

We could begin by assessing our own strength.  In most branches national PSC members constitute a minority. It would be useful to know the membership of each branch and for that matter how many branches are genuinely active.

Branch development should be at the forefront of PSC’s activities. There should be a branch membership officer. PSC should be more than the sum of its branches.  At the moment the opposite is true.

Civil Liberties for Palestinian supporters are under attack

In the past year or so there have been frequent attacks and disruptions of Palestine meetings. Speakers such as Tom Suarez and Jackie Walker have had meetings either disrupted or banned altogether. There is a concerted campaign, led by the Board of Deputies and the CAA to try and close down our activities. We even had a group of about 30 or so Zionists halting the Balfour Day march last year.

We should launch a national campaign around free speech on Palestine specifically designed to halt the attempts to close down meetings on Palestine/ Zionism under the pretext of ‘anti-Semitism’. We should approach other organisations such as the Quakers and Liberty to highlight the Zionist attempt to suppress Free Speech on Palestine. We could do worse than having a printed leaflet ready for groups and branches facing attempts to prevent them holding meetings.

PSC has so far done nothing about the group of Zionist fascists who I’ve named and shamed on my blog. This should end. We should be devising a strategy to put an end to these disruptions. We should consider forming a stewards group in London to prevent physical attacks on meetings and we should also be working with groups like the Islamic Human Rights Commission whose own Al Quds demonstration has come under attack by a combination of far-Right Zionists and Tommy Robinson supporters this year.

We should give critical support to this demonstration and rebut the suggestion that Hamas or Hizbollah are terrorists. The political use of the ‘terrorist’ label should be opposed. Terrorism means the use of violence against civilian targets and there is none more guilty of terrorism than Israel.

We should also work with and encourage groups of activists like Inminds.  PSC should stop being sectarian.

PSC Executive

The Executive needs a shakeup. It resembles a clique, a self-perpetuating group of friends. We need to open up the Executive to activists in the branches. The Constitution makes provision for 5 Regional representatives but the Executive has ignored this provision. Their election should be a priority in the coming year.

Tony Greenstein