More 'Anti-Semitism' from Banksy at the World Trade Fair

Satirical References to Historic Palestine 'resemble Nazi propaganda'

A post from Banksy's Instagram account November 7, 2018. 

It seems that Banksy, the famous street artist has got up the nose of one of Israel’s tax-exiled billionaires, one of 18 oligarchs, Batia Ofer and her husband Idan Ofer. Batty has taken offence at an artistic representation of the Apartheid Wall at the World Trade Fair.

She doesn’t like Banksy’s representation of the Wall.  She has no problems with the wall itself, but its representation is, well, anti-Semitic. She is at pains to stress that she is ‘totally for a two-state solution and fight for justice on both sides’. Presumably she means both sides of the wall! However Banksy had, according to Batty gone ‘a step too far’.

The 'replica separation barrier' created by British street artist Banksy stands on display at the Palestine tourist stand at the World Trade Fair at the Excel center in London, November 5, 2018.REUTERS/Simon Dawson

Batty is also outraged at the criticism of Israel’s military rule. According to Batty’s ‘logic’ criticising the Israeli military means criticising all Israelis because ‘military service in Israel is mandatory! So your poster is denouncing all Israelis!’

Therefore if you criticise the Israeli military you are also being anti-Semitic!  Batty writes that ‘Your posters resemble Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and spread antisemitism’. I have to confess I don’t recall Nazi pictures of Jewish children swinging from watchtowers in a wall.  However ‘anti-Semitism’ seems to be a term that is capable of infinite expansion. If Stephen Hawking was still around he would probably declare that anti-Semitism was the missing dimension in time and space!  The key to the universe.

Banksy has produced a limited edition poster showing Palestinian children at a funfair swinging from a watchtower in the wall.  Batty has labelled each child with a series of ethnic designations (Muslim Christian, Israeli, Druze etc.) which is a good reflection of the colonial mentality – always break down those whose land you are occupying into their racial/religious categories.  Batty even does a bit of pink washing with an LGBT label!

Batty replaces Banksy’s satirical comment that the Israeli army loved Historic Palestine so much they never left with ‘Historic Israel – All are welcome to the only democracy in the Middle East’.  But of course this is not quite true.  There are millions of Palestinian refugees who are certainly not welcome and if they should try to enter, as the inhabitants of Gaza have discovered, they will be shot down by Israeli snipers, who are only doing their national service for the Middle East’s only democracy.

Ha’aretz describes Batia Ofer, as being ‘known for her left-leaning views on Israeli-Palestinian issues.’ Clearly the term ‘left-wing’ in Israel has an entirely different meaning from the rest of the world.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli billionaire Batia Ofer, known for her left-leaning views, slammed the British artist's poster as 'disgraceful' after it earned Banksy praise from the Palestinian tourism minister

Danna Harman London

Nov 11, 2018 12:16 AM

The 'replica separation barrier' created by British street artist Banksy stands on display at the Palestine tourist stand at the World Trade Fair at the Excel center in London, November 5, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

LONDON – The underground artist Banksy set out this week to promote Palestine, producing a provocative poster that earned him high praise from the Palestinian tourism minister and infuriated others, sparking a social media spat with a top Israeli art collector in London who said the project was anti-Semitic.

Batia Ofer, wife of London-based Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, is known for her left-leaning views on Israeli-Palestinian issues. The Ofers also own an important postwar and contemporary art collection. However, Banksy's latest salvo was, she says, was a step too far.

“We are very pro-peace. But having said that – I will stand up for our right to exist when people try to incite against us,” Batia Ofer told Haaretz in an email exchange.

The saga began last Friday, when Banksy – who most recently shocked the art world by having one of his prints shredded just after it had been sold for $1.4 million at Sotheby’s – announced on his Instagram account that he would be displaying a replica of the West Bank separation barrier at the World Travel Market London international trade show. This is the largest trade show in the world, with some 50,000 travel agents in attendance, conducting $4.2 billion in business deals.

https://youtu.be/1Nwn2xbJLGY

A post from Banksy's Instagram account November 7, 2018. Instagram

 “Opening my first ever stall at a trade fair next week. I’ve painted a replica separation barrier to promote the Walled Off Hotel. … We’ll be at the Palestine stand giving away free stuff,” 

Banksy wrote, attaching a picture of the work to be displayed: Two gray concrete slabs – mimicking the 700-kilometer (435-mile) wall that separates Israel and the West Bank – and featuring two angels representing Israel and Palestine attempting to pry the wall apart.

This is not the first time Banksy has showed support for the Palestinian cause, or the first time he has helped Palestine with its tourism efforts. His nine-room Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, which boasts of offering “the worst view of any hotel in the world,” has attracted over 50,000 tourists since it opened last March.

Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maayah, who has credited Banksy for driving younger people to visit the West Bank, praised the artist’s help at the trade show this week for promoting "Palestine and [focusing] on the occupation, but at the same time … talking about the beauty of Palestine.”

The delighted World Travel Market, meanwhile, took to social media to crow about the artist’s attention.

The Palestine stand, one of the smallest at the trade show, seemed to be the place-to-be when the event opened last Tuesday, with hundreds of travel agents and other travel professionals lining up to get a glimpse of the anonymous artist’s latest work.

Ofer said she is all for tourism to the West Bank and supports some Palestinian causes – including a yearly fellowship she and her husband set up for two Palestinian students (along with two Israeli ones) to attend the Harvard Kennedy School.

What bothered her, she said, was a limited edition poster by the artist, which the Palestinian team handed out at their booth. The poster, which Banksy also promoted on his Instagram account, shows children using a watchtower as a fairground ride. The slogan underneath reads: “Visit historic Palestine, the Israeli army liked it so much they never left!”

“You may criticize Israel for the current situation – and I’m totally for a two-state solution and fight for justice on both sides,” said Ofer, addressing Banksy on both the artist's and her own Instagram page. “BUT insinuating we don’t have a right to exist … is disgraceful. In addition – military service in Israel is mandatory! So your poster is denouncing all Israelis! Your posters resemble Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and spread antisemitism @banksy #antisemitism"

Ofer attached an image making the social media rounds to her post: A version of the Banksy poster, replacing the word “Palestine” with “Israel,” and replacing Banksy’s slogan with the tagline “All are welcome to the only democracy in the Middle East.” The children spinning around the watchtower are tagged, in Ofer’s post, with names: “Christian,” “Palestinian,” “Druze,” “Muslim,” and – one holding a rainbow flag – “LGBTQ.”

Banksy has not responded to Ofer's criticism.

Pictures Don’t Lie, But Israeli Oligarchs Do

November 11, 2018 by Richard Silverstein 

There’s nothing like a picture to convey with graphic, instinctive intensity a political message.  Images also can link historical events or eras or political causes in ways that reams of words may fail to do.  Two sets of images have moved me in different ways over the past few weeks.  The first and most recent is a new Banksy poster designed to promote his Walled-Off Hotel which abuts the Separation Wall in Bethlehem.  The British artist very cleverly took advantage of one of the world’s largest travel exhibitions to promote both the cause of Palestine and his hotel project, which is designed to parody the Occupation and the oppression enshrined in it.

Today, Haaretz published a puerile report on the Banksy art work, which it lamely called “a stunt.”  That makes it appear that the reporter actually has some artistic chops to be able to tell the difference between a piece of art and a stunt.  Much of the world finds Banksy’s art quite significant and it commands huge figures when it comes up for sale. I suppose one reporter’s stunt is another person’s serious artistic expression.

The pro-Israel hook for the reporter was an attack against the artist by the wife of billionaire Israeli oligarch, Idan Ofer.  The couple have their primary residence in England in order to avoid the Israeli tax regime.  They are included among the 18 Israeli oligarchal families which own 60% of the corporate capital in Israel.  They earned their fortune in Israel but refuse to pay their fair share, leaving the average Israeli who can’t afford to live such an extravagant lifestyle abroad, to foot their share of the tax bill.

The Haaretz “journalist” also repeated not once, but twice that Ofer was “known for her left-wing views.”  When you hear an Israeli who you know is not left-wing boast about themselves being left-wing or some other Israeli figure being left-wing, you know he or she is revealing far more about their own views than those they’re describing.  The first thing to consider about this odd claim is: how can an Israeli billionaire oligarch be “left-wing?’  If the Ofers are indeed left-wing then either they’re deluded or the Israeli left exists in some alternate universe in which what’s left has lost all meaning.

Indeed, how does Ofer defend her claim that she is left-wing?  She writes:

…I’m totally for a two state solution and fight for justice on both sides…

Oh and let’s not forget that she’s a champion of Palestinian rights because she funds a scholarship for four graduate students (two Israeli Jewish and two Palestinian) to attend the Kennedy School of Government.  My, that’s mighty white of her.  That’s the extent of her leftism. She’s for two-state and “justice.”  In the context of dominance by the extreme right of Israeli national politics I suppose someone who in any other country would be a milquetoast liberal at best, can claim to be a flaming radical.

But her subsequent claims about the nature of Banksy’s posture are ludicrous:

…Insinuating we don’t have a right to exist (which is exactly what your poster does using the term “historic Palestine”) suggesting Israel has no right to ANY land is disgraceful. In addition- military service in Israel is mandatory! So your poster is denouncing all Israelis! Your posters resemble Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and spread antisemitism

Though Ofer owns a substantial modern art collection, she apparently hasn’t grasped the artistic tradition of graphic art in the service of political satire. The poster doesn’t resemble Nazi propaganda in the least. Nor were Nazi graphic images especially known for use of irony or satire, as Banksy’s are. 

As for her claim about Israeli military service, it’s a complete non-sequitur. Banksy refers to Israel’s military Occupation of Palestine, while Ofer claims that he’s referring to all of Israel as being occupied Palestinian land.

Israeli Border Police menace Palestinian protesters

You can see the crudely reworked image which Ofer appears to have hired a pro-Israel artist to create. It offers an entirely fictional image of Israel in which the many minorities in Israeli society exist in the midst of a gay carnival atmosphere. Druze, Muslim, “Israeli,” Christian, Palestinian, and LGBT all live together in bliss.  All one need do is ask representatives of any of these groups whether they feel as welcome and respected as this image makes them out to be.  How Ofer would know that these groups live in such bliss given that she’s fled Israel for tax purposes is another good question.  Her poster adds the tagline, “Israel: the only democracy in the Middle East.”  One only hopes that her financial and artistic acumen are better than her political sloganeering.

Last week, in the run-up to the midterm elections, the U.S. Border Patrol organized a preparedness drill for the Central American refugee caravan winding its way slowly through Mexico to the U.S. border.  As soon as people discovered the event was scheduled for Election Day and likely to intimidate Hispanic voters from going to the polls, it was quickly cancelled.  But not before a photographer captured this image of Border Patrol mounted-horsemen presumably planning to herd the refugees like cattle back away from our sacred border.  Not to mention our very own president who intimated that any rock-throwing by such deplorables would be “a firearm.” In Trumpese, that amounts to a shoot to kill order from the commander in chief.

This image reminded me of similar ones I’ve seen of mounted Israeli Border Police charging into crowds of protesting Palestinians.  The massive bulk of these ominously-hooded horses as they face down the puny human protesters is genuinely frightening.  Just as Israeli Border Police exploit the power of horses to maintain Occupation and subjugate Palestinians, so Trump’s militarized border presence is meant not only to teach a lesson to foreigners seeking safe haven on our shores; it’s meant to rub salt in the wounds of those Americans who continue to believe this country is meant to offer comfort to the poor, starving and oppressed from around the world; just as we’ve done since the first Dutch and English settlers, many of them fleeing religious tyranny, set down roots on these shores.

Rats in Sheep Clothing

The Vectors of neo-Fascism

November 2, 2017

Guest Post by Yoav Litvin

Rats are opportunistic social mammals that can adapt to – and survive in – a plethora of environments. They are skilled diggers, climbers and swimmers, have highly developed olfaction and hearing and communicate by leaving scent markings and emitting ultrasonic vocalizations.

Rats can serve as vectors for a variety of diseases. For example,  the “Black death” pandemic (aka “plague” and “Bubonic plague”) of the 14^th century that killed up to a third of Europe’s population was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria, which was transmitted to humans by the bites of the Oriental rat flea. The infected fleas were transported to Europe from China through trade routes in Central Asia most likely on the backs of Black rats (Rattus rattus), which typically served as vehicles in a rodent-flea-rodent enzootic cycle, but were sometimes the fleas’ initial victims. Humans entered the plague’s cycle only accidentally due to a convergence of conditions that enabled its propagation.

Rats are nocturnal animals that tend to live in damp, tight and dark places such as gutters and burrows and avoid interaction with humans. As a result, rat sightings during daylight are (correctly or not) associated with major infestations. However, repeated daytime rat sightings may better indicate a diseased population rather than infestation.

Throughout the spread of plague many infected rats likely surfaced during daylight as a result of their disoriented diseased state. Dying and injured rats tend to exhibit abnormal defensive behaviors. Thus, it is likely that sick, Oriental flea-infested rats occasionally attacked humans, and were blamed for directly transmitting the plague via bites or scratches, even though the real culprits were their resident fleas.

Nonetheless, rats served a critical function in the spread of plague and have been vilified for centuries as purveyors of death and disease.

The Black Death of the 20^th century

In a similarly ruthless fashion to the plague of the 14^th century, the Black Death of the 20^th century – Nazism/fascism – destroyed much of Europe.

But Nazism did not easily infect the German public and by extension everything the Nazi war machine touched. Nazism was able to proliferate due to a convergence of conditions in Europe in general and in Germany in particular and was normalized by its own version of rat vectors who bridged the gap between the plague of Nazism and the German public.

Nazism’s rats, Goebbels and other propagandists, had the essential role of normalizing Hitler and Nazism, a process known as Gleichschaltung, or Nazification, i.e. infection of German society with fascistic thought. This process relied on systematic smoke and mirrors that involved lying, diversion and scapegoating as a means of enabling Hitler and his Nazi party to dominate past the point of no return.

One such example of scapegoating was the Nazis’ portrayal, vilification and targeting of Jews. In an astounding case of psychological projection, Nazi propaganda created images and even a motion picture – Der Ewige Jude (“The Eternal Jew”) – which depicted Jews as invasive species that infested and plagued Europe while devouring its precious resources.

And just like the Bubonic plague, Nazism had its own enzootic cycle, maintaining a healthy population of rat carriers, while infecting and killing a minority; Hitler infamously used people to propagate his ideas, only to kill them once they served their purpose and/or became a threat. The case of Gregor Strasser who was murdered on Hitler’s orders on the purge of the “Night of long knives” in 1934 was emblematic of this phenomenon.

Today’s neo-fascism

Fascism, the plague of 20^th century Europe, had to be forcefully crushed in order to stop its global spread. All attempts to defeat it through diplomacy or attrition failed.

Since its defeat, the plague of fascism has been lying relatively dormant, restricted to local and very limited outbreaks. As such, fascism’s vectors have also been contained to their dark and hidden burrows, away from the general public, confined to esoteric publications and the dark corners of the internet.

But the years 2016-2017 have signified a rise to power of a mutated yet distinctly related form of fascism – a 21^st century neo-fascism, propelled by a unique set of variables, which have enabled its outbreak.

Though dissimilar to the 20^th century version in some ways, 21^st century neo-fascism has many of the attributes of its ancestor. In line with Umberto Eco’s simple and useful characterization of 20^th century fascism, Trump’s contemporary version has, among others, the following symptomatically fascistic attributes: (i) traditionalism (e.g. Make America Great Again!); (ii) a distrust of the intellectual world (e.g. climate change denial, unfounded conspiracies); (iii) fear of difference (e.g. Muslim ban, the US-Mexico wall); (iv) appeal to a frustrated middle class (see here, here and here); (v) militaristic elitism and contempt for the weak; (vi) machismo and; (vii) newspeak.

Donald Trump echoes a form of demagoguery reminiscent of Hitler’s in many ways. Trump’s pathological lying, his buffoonery and his anti-Semitic, misogynist and xenophobic appeal to the masses have kept people off balance and enabled his fascist creep into power.

Trump is skillfully using trial balloons to test public resistance before creating precedents that would serve to shatter acceptable taboos as a prelude to authoritarianism.

Though still incapable of fully consolidating power, Trump has been able to manipulate a corrupt and often times subservient media to serve his purposes of distraction and scapegoating, which mask his ongoing looting of the American democracy and public sphere.

What’s more, the surge of the plague of neo-fascism has stimulated an accompanying emergence of its rat vectors from their hideouts. For example, Breitbart news, a fringe, conspiracy-ridden and White supremacist haven, has been virtually normalized and mainstreamed, tragically also by figures associated with the Left.

Rats in sheep clothing

Infiltration of Left-wing spaces is a common and insidious form of normalization of fascistic ideology, politicians and policies. Such vectors of the fascist plague – rats in sheep clothing – seek to promote “red-brown” alliances, and squash any meaningful threat from a mobilized anti-fascist Left.

Rats in sheep clothing are easier to spot if one knows what to look for. In essence, these propagandists perpetuate a con job by using pseudo-intellectual, ahistorical analyses, and ambiguous, manipulative and convoluted language to mask their underlying motivations.

Rats in sheep clothing provide the smoke and mirrors necessary for the fortification and domination of the reactionary, White supremacist, anti-Semitic, counter-revolutionary forces they champion, and will attack and ridicule their sworn enemies – anti-fascists and anarchists, from a so-called Leftist perspective.

Rats in sheep clothing will deny the very existence of fascism, scapegoat Jews and other “out” groups such as immigrants (also groups that are more sensitive to growing bigotry), convey opinions as facts, and heavily rely on a contrived “unity” to deflect challenges to their writings and actions (see here).

Finally, due to their syncretistic and often contradictory set of belief systems, rats in sheep clothing will continue the fascist tradition of psychological projection and scapegoating, accusing their enemies of their own inadequacies.

A case study

The recent articles by the writer Diana Johnstone: “Antifa in theory and in practice” and “The harmful effects of Antifa” both published on CounterPunch, are examples of this phenomenon.

The first article begins with a quote by Ennio Flaiano, which equates fascists with anti-fascists. This sort of immoral equivalency was unsurprisingly echoed by Donald Trump himself after the tragic events at Charlottesville.

Johnstone continues by denying the very existence of fascism, a word she often places in double quotes, mocking antifascists as “more inspired by Batman than by Marx or even by Bakunin”, and attributes the alarm over the American and global trend to the “ancestral fear in the Jewish community”:

“The scarcity of fascists has been compensated by identifying criticism of immigration as fascism.  This identification, in connection with rejection of national borders, derives much of its emotional force above all from the ancestral fear in the Jewish community of being excluded from the nations in which they find themselves.”

– Diana Johnstone; “Antifa in theory and in practice”

This ahistorical assessment (one of many in her piece, see here), which depicts national borders only from an exclusionary and limited uniformity perspective and not as borders of oppressive/racist/fascist regimes beyond which is refuge, contradicts the aforementioned symptoms evident in Donald Trump and his administration, blaming them on a sort of Jewish hysteria. What’s more, it denies the indisputable trend in Europe, which has plagued Germany, Austria, and Greece, among other countries.

It is unsurprising that Johnstone would protest against “criticism of immigration”, as she whitewashed the racism and nativism of the far-right French candidate Marine Le Pen before the elections in France, and even went so far as to claim that Le Pen was on the Left of the French political map (for more see here).

The reference to Jews’ “ancestral fear… of being excluded” is a regurgitation of an anachronistic, factually false and anti-Semitic trope. Nowadays, many Jews continue to be in line with the Zionist notion of nation-states and global apartheid rather than “rejection of national borders”. In fact, it is Zionist ideology itself that manipulates Jewish fear to justify its exclusivist national borders, not their rejection.

Palestine solidarity movements, including but not limited to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) one, have been plagued by infiltration of Johnstone’s brand of propaganda, which masks itself as “anti-Zionist”, but is quite harmful to the Palestinian fight for justice. Notably, the BDS movement has explicitly come out against racism and bigotry of all kinds, including anti-Semitism.

Tellingly, in an email exchange Johnstone could not provide a reference for the above quote, claiming it was a conclusion that she arrived at after “a long lifetime of observation”. When probed further she referred to the activities of “influential Jews as George Soros, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and Bernard-Henri Lévy”, and sent a reference from a “totally Jewish source”.

Finally, Johnstone’s writing continues a tradition of psychological projection when she refers to Antifa as “storm troopers of the neoliberal war party” (in “Antifa in theory and practice”). Her brand of writing serves as a vector for the epidemic of neo-fascism, which only expands on and continues the neoliberal establishment policies of its predecessors, and is now at the helm of the American empire.

Lessons from history

The Left must learn the lessons of 20^th century fascism and apply them to the rising tide of 21^st century neo-fascism.

The spread of neo-fascism and the neutralization of its opposition depends on propagandists who normalize fascist ideology and enable it to dominate. In order for the Left to protect itself against infiltration of rats in sheep clothing, it must learn to detect their modus operandi, refuse to coddle them or participate in propagating their ideas. Lefty anti establishment outlets should preserve their integrity and learn from the example of the Munich Post, which relentlessly and fearlessly documented the Nazi party’s atrocities and Hitler’s dubious and duplicitous political maneuvers, up until the outlet was forced to close.

Only by keeping to principles of truth, justice and equality, and chasing the rats/propagandists back to their natural dwellings – the gutters and burrows of the media world – will humanity have a chance to survive the looming neo-fascist plague.

Art by Banksy; Photo by Yoav Litvin