Israel and the United States - No the Tail Does not Wag the Dog

Those Who Argue That Israel Controls American Foreign Policy Are Letting US Imperialism Off the Hook

I understand why, for many people, it seems as if Israel controls US foreign policy. After all Israeli politicians, Netanyahu included, boast of how much power they exert and in all probability they believe it.

Donald Trump is a Puppet of Israel

Follow the money…. @Lowkey0nline pic.twitter.com/04srLHU9Cy

— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) February 4, 2025

I must confess that I was surprised by the video of Lowkey whose title was ‘Donald Trump is a Puppet of Israel’. In the video Lowkey explained which billionaires and Israeli/Zionist individuals and organisations had financed Trump’s successful election campaign.

xxxx

This is political idiocy. Trump isn't a puppet of Israel, nor was Biden @doubledownnews - it is such a fucking stupid thing to say

Israel is the attack dog of US imperialism. Israel does what the US can only dream of. Why the fuck do you think Biden said that if Israel didn't… https://t.co/LW5uomYv10

— Tony Greenstein tonygreenstein.com (@TonyGreenstein) February 5, 2025

The heading on the video from Double Down News was ‘Donald Trump is a Puppet of Israel’. Although Lowkey didn’t actually say these words in the video, I assume that he was nonetheless happy with the title..

It was on this basis that I posted a comment making it clear that this was ‘political idiocy’ and that it was a ‘fucking stupid thing to say’. I went on to say:

Israel is the attack dog of US imperialism. Israel does what the US can only dream of. Why the fuck do you think Biden said that if Israel didn't exist it would have to be invented. Christians evangelists wanted an Israel when Jews didn't. Read up on your fucking history and use your brain

@lowkeyonline

the US controls Israel or rather supports her because an unsinkable aircraft carrier is in its interests - that's why the most rabid anti-Semites love Israel

For this I was duly reprimanded by Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada who said there was ‘no need to abuse @Lowkey0nline over a political disagreement. He’s a good man and doesn’t deserve to be sworn at like that.’

I don’t accept I swore at or abused Lowkey but I didn’t pull any punches either. I agree that Lowkey is a good man and an excellent researcher. However it is one thing to do the research and it is an entirely another thing as to what conclusions you draw from that research.

I have no doubt that rich Jewish Zionists like Miriam Adelson funded Trump’s campaign. So did the Hitler saluting neo-Nazi Elon Musk, who is not Jewish.

Elon Musk’s ‘awkward gesture’ according to the Zionist ADL

But it is an entirely different matter to conclude from this that Trump is Israel’s puppet. Or that United States foreign policy is controlled by Israel. Because if Israel, a relatively small state that is entirely dependent on US weapons and finance, does control the US, a much bigger and more powerful state, then the question arises as to how this is possible. A moment’s thought should tell us that this is highly unlikely. Why would the Pentagon, American multi-nationals and billionaire class allow  the Israeli state or indeed any state to control their foreign policy?

Of course there are conspiracy cookies, of whom there are quite a number who, like Glenn Beck, the former Fox News presenter, will come out and say it’s a Jewish conspiracy as predicted in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But for more normal and rational people this is an absurd formulation. American Jews are 5 or 6 million. 40% of young Jews believe Israel is an apartheid state and young Jews are in the forefront of the anti-genocide protests.

Of course the Jewish capitalists, who with the exception of George Soros are all Zionists, are pro-Israel.  But is US support for Israel a result of rich Jews conspiring together? That is the only plausible explanation for how Israel ‘controls’ US foreign policy.

Butcher Biden, whilst always telling us of his red lines, funded and equipped Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Without US support Israel would not have been able to destroy Gaza. The question is why the US did this. The answer is not hard to find.

The Middle East is an incredibly important part of the world. It is the gateway to Asia with the Suez Canal and it is a region rich in oil and gas. Both British and US foreign policy is geared to suppressing the Arab populations through compliant comprador regimes. Arab nationalism with its threat to Western control of the oil is a dire threat to the West’s prosperity and Israel has been pivotal in defeating it.

Israel is the United States’s attack dog, used to frighten and police the region. Although the US uses Saudi Arabia in particular to do this in the Gulf,the Saudi regime is not based on popular support and is thus unstable. Israel is a western settler colonial state whose population is every bit as right-wing and racist as its politicians.

But if Israel is the West’s attack dog then it is important that it retains its bite. If you kick your attack dog too often it becomes afraid to do anything. Far better that Israel murders a few hundred thousands in Gaza than that it’s afraid to slaughter Arabs when the US expects it to.

With the settlers of the West Bank now gaining critical mass in Israeli politics we are seeing a shift from the old secular racism of Israel to  Messianic racist politicians who believe they are fulfilling god’s mandate.

Of course the old Israeli Labor Party politicians weren’t really secular. There was no civil marriage in Israel as that would have enabled Arabs, Christians, Muslims and Jews to inter-marry and in a Jewish state based on racial purity that is not kosher. 

Israel prefers to keep its version of the Nazi Nuremberg laws which prevents Jews and Arabs inter-marrying. It was the ILP government which conquered the West Bank because it too signed up to the idea that the biblical territories of Zionist mythology must be conquered.

Noam Chomsky - Why Does the U.S. Support Israel?

As Noam Chomsky explains in the video, Christian Zionism predated Jewish Zionism by hundreds of years. This was the theology of Christian imperialism.  The first imperialist to dream of a Jewish state was Napoleon and he was followed by a variety of British politicians, Lords Palmerston and Shaftesbury in particular.

Why were the British so keen on Zionism that they agreed to sponsor the Zionist project via the Balfour Declaration? The answer is simple. They saw a British run client settler state as being in their interests although things did not turn out as they expected because after 1945 the British and the Zionist militias fought a war against each other. But at no stage did the British arm the Arabs. This was a repeat of the American War of Independence. Even though the British were losing to the American colonists, they never entertained the idea of arming the Black slaves.

When Israel defeated the combined Arab armies in 1967 they also defeated the Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel-Nasser. Arab nationalism died with Nasser.

US President Joe Biden: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

Alexander Haig was right when he described Israel as an unsinkable aircraft carrier.  Biden was right when he said that if Israel didn’t exist it would have to be invented. A ready made friendly settler state in the region that supported and was dependent on the US fitted in with imperialism’s plans.

The Conversation gets it about right when it describes how:

Regardless of which political party or coalition is in power in Israel, and regardless of where public opinion in the U.S. is moving, the U.S. government’s “commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad,” as Vice-President Kamala Harris put it.

The U.S. sees Israel as a critical “strategic ally” in the Middle East….

Why would the U.S. need to invent an Israel? Biden has always seen Israel as an investment which produces the best returns for U.S. interests.

In 1986, when he was a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he opposed the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia because they were not able to become “agents of .U.S interests in the Persian Gulf region.”

He stressed that his opposition to the weapons sale was not about whether the Saudis were good guys or bad guys, but about the ability of the Saudis to help advance and secure U.S. interests.

He emphasized that the “naked self-interest of the U.S.” should always guide their Middle East policy, and that his support for Israel is situated within that self-interest. As he bluntly explained: “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.”

Biden’s frank comments make clear that the U.S.-Israel “bond” is not about defending democracy. Rather, it has always been, and still is, about American imperial interests in the region.

That is why although the US has cajoled and tried to persuade Israel to come to some form of two-state bantust-type settlement with Israel, they never contemplated forcing Israel to disgorge its territory.

That is why, although Israel is the most powerful actor in the region, American and British politicians have always gone along with the fiction of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ which really means Israel’s right to attack whoever it wants.

Of course in the United States there is a competition as to who can give Israel the most support, because it is taken for granted that Israel is an adjunct to American power in the region. It may indeed seem at times as if Israel controls the United States but all I can say to those who believe this is that appearances can often be deceptive.

It pays US politicians to pretend that Israel has them by the throat but when on occasion there really is a clash of interests then it is always the United States that wins. When Reagan wanted to sell AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Israel objected.

Reagan bluntly declared that ‘It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy.’ he won the battle. Similarly when Bush demanded that $10 billion loan guarantees not be used to fund settlements on the West Bank and Prime Minister Shamir objected,

Bush stood his ground, insisting on delaying the entire loan guarantee for 120 days. ….

Shamir thought that with the help of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, he could force Bush’s hand by mobilizing Congress to approve the aid immediately in defiance of the president.

Unmoved, Bush vowed to veto legislation that authorized the aid before the 120-day delay had expired. He took his case to the media, speaking at length about his stance in a press conference on Sept. 12, 1991. He famously portrayed himself as an underdog against the might of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, which had recently organized a massive lobbying day on Capitol Hill.

“I heard today there was something like 1,000 lobbyists on the Hill working on the other side of the question. We’ve got one lonely little guy down here doing it,” he said, eliciting laughs from the White House press corps.

Shortly thereafter, Bush prevailed in his game of chicken with Shamir and AIPAC.

Congress backed down. And when the U.S. finally guaranteed the loans in the spring of 1992, it did so using a new formula designed to offset Israel’s spending on settlements. It guaranteed $200 million less for each billion Israel asked for to account for Israel’s projected settlement spending.

Historically the Republican Party has not depended on Jewish or Zionist financial support. That has always been in the Democrat’s pocket although today it is different. But regardless of who supported which party there was never any doubt that when it came to Israel there was total bipartisanship.

In short it is not Israeli control of US foreign policy that is the problem. It is US imperialism and its Israeli watchdog that are our real enemies.

Not only do those who attribute US support for Israel to the Zionist lobbies not understand where power lies but they let US imperialism off the hook. If only the lobby wasn’t so powerful these people claim then US imperialism would be more benign.

Or you do like David Miller seems to be doing and that is chasing individual Zionists in positions of power on the basis that once they are removed from office then Britain will adopt a pro-Palestinian foreign policy.

Such a strategy is a recipe for derailing the Palestine solidarity movement by failing to see where power really lies.

Tony Greenstein

Norman Finkelstein Seems to Have Been Stung by My Criticisms into Responding with an Infantile E-Mail

You Cannot Call BDS a ‘Cult’, Support the Existence of an Apartheid State & Attack the Slogan of the Movement ‘Palestine Must be Free’ & Expect To be Worshipped Like An Ancient God

Norman Finkelstein has been a remarkable analyst and critic but he has also acted like a bull in a china shop.

Finkelstein’s demolition of the fraudulent Joan Peter’s From Time Immemorial, which claimed that it was the Zionist settlement which attracted the Palestinians to Palestine and that there were therefore no refugees, was a classic example of how to deconstruct an opponent’s argument. To say that Finkelstein demolished Peters and her wretched book, whilst swimming against the tide of favourable reviews in all the mainstream press, the NYT included, is an understatement.

When Daniel Goldhagen wrote the execrable ‘The Germans: Hitler’s Willing Executioners’ which said that the Germans killed Jews because they were a particularly sadistic and cruel nation, Finkelstein tore him to pieces. So devastating was his criticism that Goldhagen threatened him with libel initially, rather than reply to the substance of the criticism.

Holocaust Industry

Finkelstein’s Holocaust Industry, helped change the debate over the weaponisation of the memory of the holocaust but it nonetheless refrained from drawing any conclusions about the relations between the Zionists and the Nazis which are surely relevant to the Zionists’ exploitation of the holocaust?

The pre-eminent holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg, author of the Destruction of European Jews was a ‘strong supporter’ of Finkelstein. Finkelstein savaged the Zionist Jewish Claims Conference which has embezzled millions of dollars, intended for the holocaust survivors, for the Zionists’ pet projects (as well as engaging in more mundane corruption).

This was all too much for the Socialist Workers’ Party resident guru, Professor Alex Callinicos [Finkelstein and the holocaust] who declared, in a review which, more than anything, demonstrated that the SWP is incapable of a serious analysis of anti-Semitism today or how the holocaust has been used to undermine Palestine solidarity.

How different is his assertion that “the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not plain fraud” from the Holocaust revisionist David Irving’s rantings during his recent libel case?... so exaggerated is his polemic that at times he comes, quite contrary to his own intentions, dangerously close to giving comfort to those who dream of new holocausts.

Perhaps this is one reason why the SWP front organisation, Stand Up to Racism, continues to march with genocidal Zionist organisations like Glasgow Friends of Israel.

The misnamed Zionist group Honest Reporting was more than happy to take advantage of Finkelstein's attack on BDS as were other Zionists

Finkelstein is not an anti-Zionist

I say all this because Finkelstein has one major flaw. And it’s not just an overweening ego. Finkelstein is not an anti-Zionist nor is he a socialist, despite once having been a Maoist. His support for a 2 State Solution, which he has never disavowed, is based on the myth of the ‘International Community’ which is nothing more than an attempt to cloak the interests of US imperialism in a democratic garb. His faith in International Law as the arbiter of relations between states and nations has been shown to be hollow with the genocide in Gaza.

Gaza has demonstrated that international law is unable to prevent Israel from committing genocide in Gaza because it has no enforcement mechanism. As long as Israel is backed by the United States it can and does act with impunity. International law can’t even prevent states like Germany and Britain supplying arms for the genocide.

Finkelstein is erratic in that he took a correct position on the 7^th October attack by the Palestinian Resistance, namely that it was akin to a slave revolt against their masters, but he refused to draw the necessary conclusion that the slaves destroyed the institution of slavery where they could (Haiti) because it was incompatible with their own freedom and liberty.

Norman has consistently supported the continued existence of the Israeli state and played down its supremacist and apartheid nature. That's what support for 2 States means.

Finkelstein's Opposition to the slogan 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' echoes what the Zionists say

In his interview with the Guardian, Finkelstein made plain his disagreement with the slogan ‘Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea’ when he said:

“What do you mean by Palestine will be free? Do you mean there is no room for Israel?”

But then he went on to say something even more interesting.

 “Palestine will be free” can also mean something else. It can fit into what’s called the settler colonial framework, which basically says, “Settlers do not have legitimate rights to the land. The land belongs to those who are ‘Indigenous’ to it. And everybody else, at most, can live there on the sufferance of the Indigenous majority, or they have to pack up and leave.” And the reason that slogan is ambiguous is because the movement is ambiguous about what its goal is. And if you try to remove the ambiguity, you risk breaking up the movement.

Finkelstein did not say this to the encampment at Columbia University. At Columbia he beat about the bush and was vague and waffled on about strategic goals. He didn’t say ‘what about Israel’ there because he knows the reception that would have got. As soon as he had he finished speaking the students broke into the very slogan that he was trying to get them to disavow! Clearly his argument was not very convincing.

What Finkelstein said in his Guardian interview is that he doesn’t agree with the settler-colonial framing that apparently sees Israel as a product of western colonialism and imperialism and in which the settlers have no rights. What Finkelstein is doing is deliberately distorting and caricaturing the settler-colonial paradigm. It does not say that the settlers don’t have legitimate rights to the land. That was never said in South Africa, quite the contrary. What it said was that the settlers were entitled to live as equals with the indigenous and that is what Palestinians say today.  Although to be blunt I wouldn’t blame Palestinians for saying for example that the neo-Nazi settlers on the West Bank should fuck off back home.

What the settler colonial framework does say is that the settlers’ rights are no greater than those who are indigenous to the land and they have to jettison their belief that they are superior. All of this Finkelstein disparages and distorts.

In essence Finkelstein is a liberal democrat. That is why he is so fond of the reactionary Mahatma Ghandi whose acceptance of communal electorates helped pave the way for Partition and the present day Hindu Supremacist state of India and the permanent military dictatorship of Pakistan. 

Finkelstein isn’t prepared to say that Israel is a settler colonial state that has got to go. On the contrary he admires the early Zionists, the kibbutzim, their ‘idealism’, the ‘austere life’ and the ‘rugged individualism’ of the early Labour Zionist settlers. This isn’t a matter of speculation. It is what he wrote in correspondence to me.

It is unfortunate that Finkelstein, who is very close politically to Noam Chomsky, who himself has never disavowed Zionism, hasn’t made his position clear on Zionism and the continued existence of a Jewish State. When Finkelstein calls Israel a ‘lunatic’ or ‘satanic’ state what he is doing is saying that the genocide it is carrying out today and the expansion now in Syria isn’t on account of Zionism but relates to the ‘thuggish’ messianic vision of Netanyahu as an individual.

https://t.co/To1e3mOWzT

— susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى (@susanabulhawa) November 30, 2024

Susan Abulhawa & the Oxford Union Debate 

Susan Abulhawa, who made that brilliant speech at the Oxford Union debate on November 28, which was won by 278-59, was highly critical of Finkelstein’s behaviour for many of the same reasons as I've given. Susan wrote:

Finkelstein decided to back out ostensibly because Morris wasn't coming, but in reality, I think he didn't want to be overshadowed by actual Palestinians who can speak more cogently and eloquently than him on the matters pertaining to our own lives, on which he claims expertise, almost exclusively. Norman is a star and shall be treated as a star. Therefore, he demanded to have his own Oxford Union session, undiluted with the voices of pesky Palestinians. That left a gaping hole in the opposition's side, which could not be filled on such short notice. That's why the president of the union, Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy stepped in....

Norman Finkelstein had his own event the following day and everyone fawned over our white American savior. Yes, I'm angry. Norman came to be invited because I suggested he be there to have an academic counterweight to Morris. Rather than supporting Palestinians, he withdrew, apparently because he's too special and important.

The Spires of Oxford

However it wasn’t Finkelstein’s event the next day which made a political impact but the Oxford Union Debate which the pro-Palestinian side won by 4-1. Given that he had been invited at Susan’s suggestion his failure to co-ordinate tactics with her is indicative of his individualistic and egotistical approach when it comes to being part of a collective movement.

Finkelstein's Infantile E-mail

It was because of my recent blog in which I called on Finkelstein to ‘Stop Undermining the Global Movement in Support of the Palestinians’ and then a subsequent challenge by me to debate his objections to the Palestine Must be Free slogan (which he declined) that he sent me an infantile email. I guess I should be amused at finding out how thin Norman’s skin is!

Norman’s email was notionally in response to a circular I sent to people advertising a webinar on December 3, How Anti-Semitism has Complemented Zionism in which Tony Lerman, Barnaby Raine, Michael Richmond and myself spoke. Norman wrote:

I’m tempted to ask readers of my book to email Finkelstein (normfinkelstein@gmail.com/norm6344@gmail.com) to disabuse him of his belief! However that would be to respond in kind.

All I can say is that it’s clear that Finkelstein was stung by my criticisms and  instead of debating it out as we have done before, our usually loquacious academic pundit responded with a temper tantrum. Clearly Finkelstein finds it difficult to defend his opposition to the slogan without having to defend his other views such as the two state solution.

Below is my letter to Finkelstein.

Tony Greenstein

Telling Simple Truths – We Will Never Stop Global Warming and Climate Change as Long as We have CAPITALISM

A few brief thoughts - COP26: Glasgow in the eye of the climate storm

Instead of writing a blog I have instead decided to publish an article from a friend's blog. The argument is very simple.  Capitalism is, by its very nature, incapable of preventing climate change.  Anyone who says they are a Green but not a Socialist is lying – not least to themselves.

At the heart of how capitalism works is the blind production of capital. The central driving force of capitalism is profit not human need.  Everything else is subordinate to it.  And in order to protect capital against those who would take it away and use it collectively for the benefit of humanity you have to wage wars.

Capitalism is based on economic competition not co-operation. And sometimes this isn't economic but military. The drive to gain markets and resources is ceaseless.  All the time new pretexts are dreamed up such as in Bush and Blair’s ‘war for democracy’ in Iraq.

COP26: Glasgow in the eye of the climate storm

Posted by tom October 31, 2021

As the eyes of the world fall on Glasgow for the COP26 summit, its significance cannot be overstated. COP26 has been billed as the last chance saloon for us to save the planet by delivering on the promises adopted in the 2016 Paris Agreement which present a tangible route for each country to meet their ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs: agreed timetables for emissions reductions). The NDCs give each country a realistic and equitable path to reach its target, with less developed nations recognised as having a more difficult path to net-zero emissions. These NDCs are due to be updated this year to keep countries on track to meet the Paris targets, with some yet to submit their new proposals. This will be crucial in holding countries to account for the pledges they’ve made.

It is the first of COP26’s four goals that is overarching: to “secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach” [1]. Reaching ‘net-zero’ emissions means adding no more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than we remove. But this terminology and the legislation which backs it up can often be manipulated by big polluting companies who instead of reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, try to offset them by planting trees. This has been characterised as ‘greenwashing’, with the effectiveness of tree planting as an immediate solution under scrutiny. Activists cite the potential for wildfires and the time trees take to grow before they can become effective carbon capturers as major concerns [2]. By comparison, leaving fossil fuels in the ground gives a far greater certainty for the quantity of emissions reductions. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis, the central focus of world governments needs to be on emissions reductions and forcing these companies to transition to green energy- not just allowing for inadequate and unverifiable offsets.

It is important to consider what a world 1.5°C or 2°C hotter (in comparison to the period 1850-1900) would look like to know what we are fighting against. This year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading UN authority on climate science, published its sixth assessment report which gave a stark and frightening analysis. They predict that a world 1.5°C warmer would face increased precipitation, more extreme heat, droughts, higher sea levels, extinction of species and habitats and much more. But this has been common knowledge for decades- the crucial findings of the report are about how much worse the effects will be if a 2°C increase is allowed to occur. The IPCC predict that the additional 0.5°C rise would cause sea levels to rise by an extra 0.1 metres, putting 10 million more people at risk, coral reefs to decline by over 99% (as opposed to 70-90% at 1.5°C) and double the number of people to experience climate change-induced water stress. These are just a few of the many tangible effects that another 0.5°C of warming would cause and should serve as motivation for the world to act in the most ambitious manner possible.

The analysis of pathways to the 1.5°C target, however, makes for sobering reading. Limiting temperature rises to the more ambitious target will require CO₂ emissions to decline by 45% by 2030 in comparison to 2010 levels and reach net zero by 2050. By comparison, the 2°C target require reductions of 25% by 2030 and net-zero by 2070. The report makes clear that pathways to 1.5°C require “rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure and industrial systems”. To keep to this target, by 2050 renewables should supply at least 70% of electricity, CO₂ from industry should be at least 65% lower and an additional $830 billion per year spent on energy-related investments. As of 2020 only 29% of electricity generation was from renewables, showing the scale of the task ahead.

A common theme across all the projected pathways is a dependence on carbon dioxide removal (CDR); in particular bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technologies. These technologies would be necessary to keep to temperature targets only in the cases where emissions don’t drop by enough or we overshoot targets and try to bring the temperature back down. But such technologies are in their early stages, with only five BECCS facilities in operation as of 2019 capturing 1.5 million tonnes per year of CO₂; a miniscule amount in comparison to the 11 gigatonnes needed by 2050 in the most BECCS dependent pathway [4]. It is not just the limitations in upscaling BECCS, but the impact other carbon capture methods could have on land, energy, water and nutrients that make the feasibility of CDR a huge challenge. And the jury’s still out on the effectiveness of CDR in reducing temperatures after they’ve peaked, meaning that the NDCs need to rely on what we can do now rather than on future technology with no guarantees.

For the world to change in the manner needed requires huge political will power, which is so far lacking. The current national climate pledges put the world on track for a 2.7°C temperature rise by 2100, a far cry from the 1.5°C goal of Paris [5]. The Emissions Gap Report 2021 found that the figure could be reduced to 2.2°C if pledges were implemented effectively, but that most national climate plans focus on delaying action till after 2030. This is why it is absolutely crucial for world leaders to act now, rather than fob the public off with dubious promises on ‘net-zero’ aimed primarily at appeasing the fossil fuel industry. The new NDCs are predicted to only reduce predicted emissions in 2030 by 7.5% in comparison to the previous NDCs, when a 55% reduction is needed for the 1.5°C target. One potential solution to limit temperatures in this crucial eight year window is to focus on reducing methane emissions, the second largest contributor to global warming. Methane can warm the planet 80 times more than CO₂ and stays in the atmosphere for a far shorter period, meaning that cuts to methane will have a far quicker effect. Stringent cuts to methane may therefore buy the planet a little extra time to cut CO₂, which will only be possible with clearly defined rules and transparent processes to track progress.

It is clear that climate change will disproportionately affect the poor and those living in the tropics, which is why it is particularly important for the developed nations- those with the necessary resources and technology- to take the lead. But so far only ten G20 members are predicted to meet their previous NDCs (let alone their new ones) with the USA the most prominent of those predicted to fall behind. These countries are guilty of duplicity; using vague long term targets to pretend to the public that they care, whilst doing little to back it up with concrete policy. In a similar way, our media have made much of the USA’s pledged promise of $11.4 billion per year in climate finance contributions. Whilst this could end up being another empty promise- Barack Obama promised $3 billion, but only delivered $1 billion per year- it is also a drop in the ocean for what a country like the USA can afford. By comparison the total cost of the Iraq War was estimated to be $1.9 trillion. More recently the USA signed the AUKUS deal with the UK and Australia which will build submarines at a cost of $3.45 billion each, meaning three submarines will cost as much as their annual contribution to the Green Climate Fund. Once again it shows the mixed-up priorities of Western leaders. To paraphrase Tony Benn, there is always enough money to kill people but never enough to help people.

The spotlight of the Western media has however predominantly fallen on China, which is viewed as the determining factor for whether COP26 is a success or failure. There is some merit to this, with China producing an estimated 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but when measuring by emissions per capita, the USA are more than twice as polluting. This measure is a better indicator of how ambitious a country’s path to net-zero can be, as well as being fairer and showing who holds the greatest historic responsibility for a warming planet. China’s COP26 pledge not to build any more coal-fired power stations abroad has far greater significance than current pledges on climate finance, but it should be viewed only as a good first step. This pledge is in keeping with their current investment projects in ‘belt and road’ initiative countries, with 57% of China’s energy investment going to renewables in 2020- a jump from only 38% in 2019- but it crucially makes no reference to coal power inside China [6]. It is also clear that their headline policy of ‘peaking emissions by 2030’ must be brought forward if we are to have a chance of keeping warming under the targets.

The build-up to COP26 has been long, with promises under scrutiny like never before and a groundswell of anger and frustration from populations across the world coming to the fore. If we are to avert climate disaster, people must continue to mobilise to put pressure on their leaders to act now whilst we still have the chance. No matter how bad things get- indeed we are already feeling the effects of climate change- we must continue to fight for a green and sustainable world, staving off every fraction of a degree rise that we can. In such bleak times it is easy to be defeatist, but instead we must be realist, preparing for the worst but fighting for something far better. Glasgow’s COP26 conference is indeed of huge importance in getting the world to turn the corner, but it should just be the beginning. The fight to save our planet from the monstrous greed of capitalism; from those as Noam Chomsky said, “are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organised human life… so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets” must be continued at all costs.

[1] https://ukcop26.org/cop26-goals/

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/reuters-impact-greenpeace-calls-end-carbon-offsets-2021-10-06/

[3] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioenergy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage

[5] https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2021

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/china-climate-pledges-cop26-emissions

See also Capitalism is killing the planet – it’s time to stop buying into our own destruction George Monbiot

I Have Decided to Stand for Secretary of PSC Because That is the Only Way to Start a Debate on Strategy

The Failure to Defend Jeremy Corbyn the Only Pro-Palestinian Leader of a Major Political Party or to Understand What Was Happening Cannot Be Ignored

 

Earlier this year I stood for the position of Secretary of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and, much to my surprise, gained some 40% of the vote. When  giving my reasons I wrote that

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

After reflection I have decided to stand again. Not because becoming Secretary of PSC is my burning ambition but because it is essential to stimulate a debate about the lack of direction of PSC. Questions such as what is its strategy for building a mass movement and how to respondd to the Zionist counter-attack cannot and should not be ignored in a healthy movement. One of the real problems within PSC is that there is almost no internal debate or discussion of these issues. The other question which the leadership of PSC tries to avoid is what are we fighting for, what are our goals, what is our vision? They appear to have none.

When the Zionists threatened venues in Brighton we transferred the meeting with Chris Williamson outside

I hope that in standing I will also encourage other people to come forward to stand for election at because there is a need for a new leadership of PSC.  If PSC is ever going to have a political impact on British politics it needs a dramatic change of direction and personnnel.

The cardinal sin of PSC is not only their inbuilt caution and conservatism but their inability to understand the political times we are living in. Their failure in the past 4 years has been comprehensive.

Palestinian members of the Knesset have given Corbyn more support than PSC Executive

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected in September 2015 as Leader of the Labour Party it sent shock waves throughout the British political system. From the Guardian to the Daily Mail there was wall to wall opposition in the media to his leadership. Yet to PSC it was business as usual.

In Jeremy Corbyn we have had, though maybe not for much longer, the most pro-Palestinian leader of a major political party. He attended nearly all PSC’s AGMs prior to becoming Leader. Defending him should have been a priority.

Ben Soffa - the current PSC Secretary

Why? Not because PSC supports any political party but because Corbyn and what he represented was under attack from the combined Zionist movement. The Israeli Embassy had no hesitation in interfering in British politics but PSC treated it as an internal Labour Party matter. Indeed PSC sought to maintain its relationship with a section of Corbyn's critics by not intervening in the 'antisemitism' smear campaign.

It should have been obvious in 2015 that there would be a major fightback by the British Establishment together with supporters the Israeli state. You didn’t need to have a crystal ball to predict that!

Paid for by the United States, PA Police attack demonstrators in Ramallah - PSC has never criticised the Quisling PA

It was also obvious very early on that this fightback against Corbyn would involve allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and being a ‘supporter of terrorism’. ‘Anti-Semitism’ was the pretext and Jews were the alibi. It was incumbent on PSC to take the lead in fighting back against these allegations. Instead it kept silent and kept on keeping silent.

This excellent initiative was not backed by PSC

In August 2015, before Corbyn was even elected, the Daily Mail and the Jewish Chronicle ran stories about how Corbyn was associated with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland quickly followed suit with Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem. He has written many such articles. This is his latest.

Very quickly individuals such as myself and Jackie Walker, often Jewish anti-Zionists, began to be targeted as anti-Semites. Yet we received no help and no support from PSC. When there was just talk of Margaret Hodge being disciplined the Zionists reacted as one.

One of the key supporters of the IHRA has been UNISON's right-wing General Secretary Dave Prentis

On March 18^th 2016 I was suspended, without warning and without reason. On 11^th April 2016 I wrote to the Secretary Ben Soffa suggesting that PSC should start doing something as it was clear that what was happening was not random. There hadn’t been a sudden upsurge in anti-Semitism. This was a state inspired campaign supported by the mainstream media with Corbyn as the target because of his previous support for the Palestinians.

Ben replied on 20^th April. Despite admitting that ‘recent months have seen a significant uptick in a whole range of efforts attempting to drive a wedge between supporters of the Palestinian people and wider public opinion.’ he argued that PSC should do nothing, writing that:

we do not engage in every debate some would wish to involve us in. As the Reut Institute set out [ a report in 2010], there is a plan to force us to ‘play defence’ on the terrain chosen by those wishing to preserve the status quo in Palestine. We must not fall into the trap of allowing our opponents to set our agenda

In other words, apart from a submission to the Chakrabarti Report there was little if any response to the Zionist weaponisation of ‘anti-Semitism’.

The same was true when the Zionists increased the tempo of their attacks in 2018 over the mural and held an ‘anti-racist’ demonstration outside Parliament.  It was the first anti-racist demonstration that Norman Tebbit and Ian Paisley had ever attended!

Jewish Voices for Labour and Labour Against the Witchhunt held a counter-demonstration.  PSC was nowhere to be seen.

Yes PSC largely paid for an Opinion by Hugh Tomlinson QC on the IHRA and that was very welcome but when it came to campaigning PSC was and is conspicuous by its absence.

In 2018 the Zionists waged a massive campaign to force the Labour Party to adopt the IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism. PSC has been absent from opposition to this campaign.

The IHRA has been slated by a whole series of academic and legal scholars - Brian Klug, David Feldman, Antony Lerman; Hugh Tomlinson QC, Stephen Sedley, Geoffrey Bindman QC, and Geoffrey Robertson QC. Even the original drafter of the IHRA, Kenneth S. Stern has described it as having a chilling effect on free speech.

If it were merely a question of logic then we would have won long ago. The success of the IHRA is because it conforms to the needs of the British State and its foreign policy. The IHRA has been adopted, not because it has anything to do with anti-Semitism but because it accords with the interests of the Establishment.

PSC invites the very same Labour MPs who run with the 'antisemitism' attacks to its meeting at the House of Commons

How do we respond?  In the Labour Party it is the trade unions who have the most influence. It was their representatives that were responsible for pushing through the IHRA in the September 4^th meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee. These same unions are affiliated to PSC yet not once did PSC raise the IHRA with the unions.

Outside Labour’s National Executive meeting there was a demonstration of hundreds of people from LAW, JVL and many assorted individuals.  However there was no mobilisation by PSC. There were no PSC banners. There was no attempt to lobby MPs. Nothing. What happened on September 4^th when Labour’s NEC adopted the IHRA was a matter of supreme indifference to PSC.

It is in the wake of that decision that the witchhunt of supporters of Palestine in the Labour Party has been stepped up.  Hundreds of people have been suspended and/or expelled for criticism of Israel because under the IHRA Israel is a Jew and therefore criticism of it is anti-Semitic.

Yet in a letter to Brighton and Hove PSC Ben Jamal, PSC Director, stated bluntly that

PSC has also made the strategic decision that we should not get publicly involved in issues of Labour disciplinary processes against individual members especially those which are not immediately or directly Palestine involved.

I’m not aware of when and where this ‘strategic decision’ was made but regardless it is an outrageous breach of PSC’s duty to support its own members when under attack. The expulsion and suspension of many fine people has nothing to do with breaches of Labour's ‘disciplinary processes’ and everything to do with a Zionist witch-hunt using ‘anti-Semitism’ as their weapon.

In the run up to the General Election Jewish councillor Jo Bird was prevented from standing for Liverpool Riverside constituency despite overwhelming supporting within the CLP. Colin Monehen, who made such a wonderful speech at the 2018 Labour Party conference was removed from the shortlist in Epping Forest.

Chris Williamson, MP for Derby North and a strong supporter of the Palestinians and an opponent of the Zionist witchhunt was suspended and prevented from standing again as Labour MP for Derby North.  Throughout all of this there was silence from PSC.

When the Board of Deputies and various Zionists threaten places which are willing to hire out rooms for Palestine meetings PSC continues to say nothing. This happened 3 times in Brighton over the summer to a Chris Williamson meeting. The Zionists alleged he was a ‘Jew baiter’. It was only because we defied the Board of Deputies, by holding the meeting in the open air and hiring a PA that we thwarted the Board who sent their President Marie van der Zyl down to Brighton.

During the Labour Party conference we ran a Free Speech Centre to prevent any attempts to disrupt our meetings. Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson and Anne Mendoza of Canary spoke there. Waterstones was forced to cancel a book launch for Bad News for Labour during the Conference because of Zionist threats. Fortunately we staged it. An academic book which looked dispassionately at the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt was too much for the  purveyors of the fake antisemitism witchunt. 

Again PSC didn’t seem to notice. As Greg Philo stated, it is but a short step from banning a book launch to burning books.

It was the decision of PSC not to have a session on the IHRA at the Trade Union conference on October 12^th that was the final straw in my decision to stand. When I gave out leaflets about the IHRA inside the conference I was told to leave!

Week in week out the IHRA is being deployed against Palestine solidarity related activities.  Whether it is the launch of the book Chomsky and the Responsibilities of Intellectuals or the refusal of Tower Hamlets Council to allow a rally in a park for the Big Ride for Palestine. 

Activities are under constant attack on campus because university administrations, such as Manchester University, UCL or Central University of Lancashire, are imposing conditions or even banning events altogether.

And for every event we know about there will be others where there is a silent refusal or even self-censorship. The conversation about Palestine is being chilled as ‘anti-Semitism’ raises its head whenever Palestine is on the agenda.

For example the speaking tour of Israeli  Miko Peled was dogged by attempts to cancel meetings at churches in Soho, Eastbourne and Brighton. What is needed is a national approach. Liberty, the former National Council for Civil Liberties, have policy opposing the IHRA.  Has PSC even approached them about an alliance against the IHRA together with the University College Union?

The Campaign Against the IHRA needs to be prioritised. It is being used throughout Europe and the USA. As long as the Zionists are allowed to wield this weapon none of our activities will be safe.

What is the purpose of a solidarity campaign. Is it simply to stand around giving out leaflets or running a stall, admirable though that is? What is the purpose of convincing the public if we don’t translate that into political strength?  Foreign policy is not an expression of peoples’ opinions but a representation of the interests of the most powerful in society. We therefore need to turn to mass organisations such as trade unions where there is a possibility for debate and discussion. 

We have to change the climate of opinion in this country not bow to it and accept the inevitable.  That is why I am standing because the present incumbent, Ben Soffa, has shown no sign that he understands any of these things.  If Ben is still employed by the Labour Party then that is clearly a severe hindrance to the role of Secretary and he should consider his position anyway.  If PSC continues its passivity in the face of the Zionists’ attacks then we consign ourselves to at best being an irritation and at worst an irrelevance.  That is not why, 37 years ago, I helped found PSC.

Tony Greenstein