When Jeremy Corbyn Supported a Democratic, Secular State & Breaking Links with Poale Zion (JLM)

On Palestine Corbyn has become a Trappist Monk

Of course everyone is entitled to change their mind.  Sometimes people even change the parties they belong to but I’m not aware of a time when Jeremy Corbyn changed his mind about support a 2 state solution in Palestine or the breaking of links with Labour Zionism. 

The primary purpose of a 2 state solution was and is to justify a never ending peace process (in Israel its known as the ‘piss process’).  As long as the Peace Process can be said to be continuing so long will there be a justification for the present Apartheid situation on the West Bank and the pretence that Gaza isn’t occupied.

Corbyn has changed his tune since becoming leader

Netanyahu made it clear during the General Election in Israel that he did not believe in a 2 State Solution.  His Ministers have made it even clear.  Tsipi Hotoveli, the Deputy Foreign Minister (there is no Foreign Minister as Netanyahu has also taken that position) has made the position of the Israeli Government crystal clear:

Tzipi Hotoveli - the religious nutcase who is Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister

‘This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”

Zionism from its foundation has asserted Jewish sovereignty over all of the biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), which extends up to the Litani, east to the Euphrates and south to the Nile.  There is no recognition of shared sovereignty.  As Moshe Dayan explained to a group of university graduates: 

Moshe Dayan

During the last 100 years our people are in the process of building up this country and this nation, of expansion, of getting more Jews and more settlements to expand the borders.  Let no Jew say that this is the end of the process.  Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road. Ma’ariv, 7.7.1968.

The ‘peace process’ has only one function.  To maintain the pretence that a 2 state solution is possible and therefore to provide justification for the denial of any political or civil rights for over 4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.  It is a pretence that western leaders are happy to play along with.

When you're surrounded by  New Labour sharks it's best not to feed them

But for socialists and Corbyn in particular to play along with this is despicable.  Corbyn was arrested at South Africa house once protesting Apartheid in South Africa yet he is willing to go along with Apartheid in Israel.   Because that is what the 2 State solution amounts to.

The Labour Movement Conference which Corbyn chaired in 1984

Of course the Jewish Labour Movement and assorted hypocrites will pretend they support a 2 State solution, knowing full well it won’t come about.  However they oppose any pressure upon the Israeli state, such as sanctions or BDS, to bring it about.  Sanctions on Iran, a siege of Gaza (which is the most coercive form of sanctions) is fine, but sanctions against Israel – let the heavens fall in first.

Report of LMCP Conference which Corbyn chaired - the Zionists tried to hoax the speakers that the conference had been cancelled

In the Spring of 1984 the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine held a conference at County Hall, London when the GLC was still in existence.  The Conference was sponsored by AUEW-TASS, the engineering section of the Engineering Union, 11 MPs and Palestine Solidarity Campaign as well as the London office of the PLO.   Among the speakers were Peter Tatchell and Richard Balfe MEP (he's now Lord Balfe of the Conservative Party!).

One of its main demands was for the breaking of links between Poale Zion, the British branch of the Israeli Labour Party and the Labour Party.  Poale Zion has now changed its name to Jewish Labour Movement but it is the same creature.  Now Corbyn is happy to preside over an absurd situation where JLM is going to be ‘training’ people to recognise ‘anti-Semitism’ – which in their view is opposition to the Israeli state and Zionism (a word they don't like to use because Zionist, I mean the word, is 'abusive'.

Jeremy Corbyn was the Chair of the Conference and a very good and enthusiastic chair he was.  He was fully in support of the principle aims of the conference so I am interested to know why he has changed his mind about what, if the Trades Description Act applied to politics, would be called the Labour Friends of Apartheid Israel.

Jeremy Corbyn was one of the LMCP's original sponsors - the LMCP's platform included support for a democratic, secular state not a Jewish Apartheid state

It’s not terribly difficult to discern the strategy of Corbyn’s advisers.  Keep you head down when it comes to anything to do with Palestine.  Above all don’t say anything about how the current campaign about ‘anti-Semitism’ is really about criticism of Israel.  If you concentrate on the bread and butter issues of austerity then other things will disappear into the distance.  This is a particularly stupid strategy because the Zionists, aided by their chorus in the Mail, Guardian etc. will not let the issue of Palestine and Zionism die.  They will continue to root out ‘anti-Semitism’ in the party even if it does mean ludicrously examining every tweet for the past decade in the hope that some minor misdemeanour might be discovered.  In my own case it has taken ludicrous lengths.  

The idea is to focus on economics and ignore the political and questions of the State.  Pretend that the capitalist state is neutral as opposed to an instrument to be used by one class against another.  Leave the question of monarchy and control of the army to another time.  That is why there was such a fuss made about Corbyn singing the national anthem.  Deference to the Crown and the institutions of the State is important for Labour’s servile worshippers at the altar of the capitalist state.  The monarchy provides the icing over the division of the cake between rich and poor.  However rich or poor you are you can identify with Mrs Windsor.

Even the mild-mannered PLO representative in Britain, Manuel Hassassnian lambasted Corbyn’s silence over Palestine.  Palestinian ambassador says leaders won’t stand up to Israel for fear of being labelled anti-semitic.  Corbyn used to attend every AGM I can remember of Palestine Solidarity Campaign.  He was vocal on the oppression of the Palestinians.  Now he has taken a vow of silence as if he were a Trappist monk when it comes to Palestine.

As Hassassnian said:  ‘“Jeremy Corbyn (who) was an ardent, staunch supporter of the Palestinians and now we hardly see any statements coming from him in support of Palestine.’

Naturally ‘when the Star contacted the Labour Party for comment on Mr Hassassian’s statements’ it ‘did not receive any responses.’ 

Blairite clone Fabian Hamilton accuses BDS supporters of 'anti-Semitism'

Corbyn’s silence led to the ludicrous appointment of arch-Zionist Fabian Hamilton to a junior shadow foreign office minister who in the Jewish News has accused supporters of BDS of being ‘anti-Semitic’.  According to this useless New Labour clone, opposing the military and police state that is the life of Palestinians on the West Bank is ‘anti-Semitic’ and yet Corbyn appointed him despite knowing of his views.  

Corbyn has also gone along with the 'anti-Semitism' smears made against anyone those who are deemed a political threat by Labour's Blairite civil service.  He has been attacked repeatedly by the Jewish Chronicle's editor Stephen Pollard yet not once has he pointed out that Pollard acted as an apologist and worse for anti-Semitic politicians Robert Zile and Michal Kaminski, Latvian and Polish MEPs, whose anti-Semitism was only exceeded by their support for Zionism.

If Corbyn is so willing to bow down to the Zionist lobby today, he will bow down to the financial lobbies tomorrow.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Retreat from Palestine

Elected as supporter of the Palestinians - beating the retreat

Jeremy Corbyn's recent statements to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is a wholly Zionist and establishment group, that he recognises Israel's 'right to exist' [no one doubts the State exists, the question is what type of State it is] is a formula indicating acceptance of Israel's right to be an Apartheid state. When this is coupled with Corbyn's appointment of an overt Zionist Fabian Hamilton, to join Hilary Benn in the Shadow Foreign Office team, it is clear that Corbyn has retreated in regard to his previous support of the Palestinians.

Stephen Pollard - Jewish Chronicle Editor, launched attack on 'anti-Semitic' Corbyn.  Has no problem defending real anti-Semites like Michal Kaminski

Corbyn's overt support for a 2 States solution, which no Israeli government minister supports and which no observer believes is possible, given the extent of colonisation and settlement of the West Bank, is a code for accepting the current status quo. Over 4 million Palestinians are subject to a different legal system (military) from that of the Jewish settlers (civil Israeli law) in the same area, the West Bank. This is Apartheid.

Fabian Hamilton - Zionist who calls Palestinian supporters 'anti-Semitic' - appointed by Corbyn as junior Shadow Foreign Office Minister

“This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.” Tzipi Hotoveli, Deputy Foreign Minister, Israel

In the words of Israel’s religious nutcase and Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotoveli, “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”

Bishop Desmond Tutu - calls Israel worse than Apartheid in South Africa - obviously anti-Semitic!

Giving lip service to a '2 States solution' provides a pretext for the continuation of the present Apartheid situation. Israel cannot grant the right to vote or any other civil or political rights for those living under Israeli military rule because this would threaten Israel's Jewish majority in the Jewish State. The 2 States formula is a means of avoiding having to confront the fact that there is a conflict between being a Jewish State and a Democratic State.

Michal Kaminski - fresh from calling on the remnant of Polish Jews to apologise to their oppressors, pays tribute to the holocaust dead at the Yad Vashem propaganda museum in Jerusalem

My article details the recent history of Zionist attacks on Corbyn and how he has responded by trying to appease those critics. Of course appeasment only whets the appetite of the aggressor, witness the recent attacks on Oxford University Labour Club for 'anti-Semitism'

No backtracking on Palestine

Unfortunately the Labour leader appears to be beating a retreat, writes Tony Greenstein

Jeremy Corbyn: long and consistent record

I first met Jeremy Corbyn over 30 years ago when I chaired the Labour Committee on Palestine/Labour Movement Campaign on Palestine.¹ It would be no exaggeration to say that Jeremy, along with Ken Livingstone and the late Joan Maynard, were the most consistent supporters of the Palestinians. He later became a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a regular fixture at PSC annual general meetings.

Hilary Benn - Shadow Foreign Minister who believes Saudi allies in Syria are part of a socialist, anti-fascist struggle

The policy of the LMCP, which Jeremy Corbyn sponsored, was to support a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine rather than a two-state solution. We did not support the ‘right to exist’ of the apartheid state of Israel, for whom its Palestinian citizens are a demographic threat. We supported the creation of a unitary state of its own citizens, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation, rather than a state of the Jews.

The 1982 Labour Party conference, held in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, passed an emergency resolution calling for a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine. People forget the international reaction to an invasion which killed over 20,000 people. Two thousand Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps were butchered with medieval savagery by Israel’s Phalangist allies. The Israeli army lit up the night sky in order that they could kill their victims, mainly women and children, more efficiently. The Labour Party reaction mirrored that of British society, which was one of horror. In Britain a group of us formed the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

It was therefore no surprise that the Zionist movement, when it was obvious that Corbyn was heading for victory in the Labour Party leadership contest, pulled out all the stops to prevent it. Together with the Daily Mail, Zionists attempted to brand him a holocaust denier. This is somewhat ironic, given that in the 1930s the most pro-Hitler paper was the same Daily Mail. Citing a magistrate who had complained that “The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage”, the Mail commented that “the number of aliens entering the country through the back door [is] a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed”.²

Jonathan Arkus of the Zionist Board of Deputies of British Jews

On the basis of an article alleging that Corbyn had attended a concert organised by a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen,³ the Zionist movement engaged in a conscious and sustained smear campaign. Leading the pack was the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, a member of the cold-war far-right Henry Jackson Society, who posed a series of questions to Corbyn.⁴

Unfortunately, instead of responding with a few questions of its own, Corbyn’s campaign decided to treat them as genuine queries. Needless to say, their answers were never going to satisfy the Zionists. Those of us with experience of the Zionist attack dogs know that they cry ‘anti-Semitism’ whenever support for the Palestinians is on the agenda. Only last month Oxford University Labour Club was the subject of vicious attacks - it was labelled anti-Semitic after it decided to support Israeli Apartheid Week.⁵

Stephen Pollard - Editor of the Jewish Chronicle and friend of anti-Semites who support Israel

It is no accident that the Zionist movement in this country acted as the outrider for those who wanted to keep the Labour Party safe for capitalism. It is an article of faith for New Labour that they must stand firmly alongside US imperialism - which means unquestioning support for the Israeli state. ‘Anti-Semitism’ has become the rallying cry of The Guardian, its Comment is free editor Jonathan Freedland and liberal bourgeois opinion in general.

‘Anti-Semitism’ is today’s false anti-racism of the right.⁶ It is sometimes called ‘new anti-Semitism’ to distinguish it from the traditional variety. ‘New anti-Semitism’ has nothing to do with hatred of, discrimination or violence against Jews. It is about opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel.
According to Abe Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League (which specialises in defaming its opponents), Israel has become “the Jew among the nations”.⁷ Criticise Israel and you are criticising the collective Jew, which makes you an anti-Semite! If you criticise Israel for its confiscation of land or locking up Palestinian children and torturing them, then you are a vicious Jew hater. Telling the truth can be equivalent to anti-Semitism where Israel is concerned.

Zionist anti-Semitism

Of course, if you hate Jews but love Israel then there is no problem. Even English Defence League thugs understood this when they physically attacked the stall of Birmingham Palestine Solidarity Campaign, carrying an Israeli flag in one hand, whilst giving Hitler salutes with the other!⁸

Christian Zionism provides the best example of this form of anti-Semitism. According to pastor John Hagee, president of the million-strong Christians United for Israel, Adolf Hitler was not so much a genocidal anti-Semite as a hunter, sent by god to drive the Jews to Israel!⁹ According to Hagee’s interpretation of Jeremiah, Hitler was an agent of God! Abe Foxman, always eager to detect signs of ‘anti-Semitism’ when criticism of Israel is involved, leapt to Hagee’s support: “Pastor Hagee has devoted his life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the state of Israel.”¹⁰

Stephen Pollard is a British replica of Foxman. In 2009, the Tories left the European People’s Party in the European parliament, and joined the European Conservative and Reformist Group. The ECRG contained far-right politicians such as Michał Kamiński of Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Robert Zile of Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom.

Both Kamiński and Zile had a record of support for fascism and anti-Semitism. On July 10 1941, up to 900 Jews were burnt alive in a barn by fellow Poles, under the approving eye of the SS, in the village of Jedwabne. Although the majority of Jedwabne’s population was Jewish before World War II, today there are no Jews left in what was a 300-year old community.¹¹ Polish-Jewish historian Jan Tomasz Gross estimated that 300 Jews had been burnt alive,¹² but a subsequent book by Anna Bikont¹³ revises these figures to over 900. The massacre led to a national Polish apology in 2001.
Jedwabne was represented by Kamiński in the Polish parliament from 1997. He vigorously campaigned against any apology. In an interview with the nationalist Nasza Polska newspaper in March 2001, Kamiński argued that Poles should not apologise for Jedwabne until Jews apologised for “murdering Poles”.¹⁴ Kamiński had previously worn the Mieczyk Chrobrego - the Chrobry sword, symbol of the National Radical Camp, which “practised violent anti-Semitism, including attacks on Jewish students, buildings and businesses, organised boycotts of Jewish businesses and attacks on leftwing groups”.¹⁵

None of this, however, stopped Pollard, who led the campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite, from defending Michał Kamiński. In a quite extraordinary article for The Guardian¹⁶ Pollard claimed that Kamiński was “one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town [Brussels] where anti-Semitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife”. Note the sleight of hand. Kamiński is a “friend to the Jews” because of his support for Israel, notwithstanding the fact that he is an anti-Semite.

Historically anti-Semites have been some of the strongest supporters of Zionism, from Édouard Drumont and Heinrich Class to Adolf Eichmann and Alfred Rosenberg. Next year the Zionists will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, when Britain, in the form of its foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, agreed to sponsor the Zionist settlement in Palestine. Balfour was also the home secretary who, in 1905, introduced the Aliens Act, whose aim was to prevent Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia entering Britain.

Kamiński has been feted in Israel. Not only has he made the ritual trip to Yad Vashem, the holocaust propaganda museum in Jerusalem, but in 2009 he was a guest speaker at the World Summit on Counterterrorism conference at Herzliya.¹⁷

Robert Zile is also a fully paid up anti-Semite. Every March he marches with the veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS in Riga. Yet like Kamiński he is a strong supporter of Israel.

Appeasement

Instead of responding to the Zionist attacks on him by pointing to their hypocrisy, Corbyn has chosen to appease his critics by playing down his support for the Palestinians and retreating into meaningless soundbites.

For example, Corbyn sent a letter to a Zionist heckler at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting he addressed at Labour Party conference, reassuring him that he was pleased to “have the opportunity to express how I felt about progressing the peace process in the Middle East … Israel has always, and will continue to be, recognised by both myself and the Labour Party.”

Last week, following talks with Corbyn, the Board of Deputies of British Jews was quoted as saying that they “were pleased that Mr Corbyn gave a very solid commitment to the right of Israel to live within secure and recognised boundaries as part of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict”, whilst demanding “more clarity” that the Labour Party “will maintain its longstanding opposition to boycotts against Israel”.¹⁸

People need to face up to the fact that one of the consequences of the attacks on Corbyn has been a retreat from his previous political positions. I have never heard Corbyn previously speaking about the need to recognise the state of Israel. He used to be more concerned about recognising its repressive qualities. Instead of distinguishing between the oppressor and the oppressed, the coloniser and the colonised, Corbyn has depoliticised the issue, calling for peace in the abstract.

It is as if Corbyn had called for peace between white proponents of apartheid and black South Africans rather than supporting the abolition of apartheid. This is one of the political liabilities of Corbyn’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament-style politics. Instead of opposing imperialism and Zionist settler colonialism, Corbyn imagines that ‘conflict resolution’ via United Nations diplomacy will solve what is at heart a political problem - the racist oppression, dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinians.

No-one in Israel seriously believes that a two-state solution is achievable. There is not one government minister who supports it. The leader of the Israeli Labour Party, who is more hawkish than prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, also opposes a two-state solution. In the words of Israel’s religious nutcase and deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotoveli, “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”¹⁹

Corbyn retreats into the weasel words of Israel’s ‘right to exist’. The problem is not Israel’s rights, but the lack of Palestinian rights. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. What does that mean? It is a state which counts how many Jews it has compared to non-Jews. It is an ethno-religious state, in which Jews have privileges compared to non-Jews. So, for example, because I am Jewish, I have an automatic right to ‘return’ to a state where I have never lived. Palestinians who were born in Jerusalem have no such right. But like all settler states, Israel is very good at portraying itself as the victim. Corbyn pays homage to Israel’s right to ‘secure borders’ (Israel frames its racism in terms of its own security needs), while it seems Palestinians have no need of security.

Not only is partition - a two-state solution - neither desirable nor feasible, but it serves as a pretext for Israel’s continuing denial of even the most basic civil or political rights for Palestinians in the occupied territories. ‘Two states’ provides a justification for a situation where there are two legal systems - military law for the Palestinians and civil Israeli law for Jewish settlers on the West Bank. The idea that Israel is going to withdraw over 600,000 settlers behind an imaginary green line is the stuff of dreams.

Jeremy Corbyn, as a patron of PSC, was a supporter of boycott, divestment and sanctions. But this is an issue over which he has recently gone very quiet. Corbyn has forgotten that Israel is a Jewish supremacist state, which defines its Jewishness in terms of maintaining an 80% Jewish majority population. It is a state where virtually all areas of public life, from housing to education and employment, are segregated. A symptom of Israel’s Nuremberg mentality is the decision of the education ministry to ban a book, Borderlife, from the high school syllabus because it depicts a romantic relationship between Jewish and Arab teenagers. In an ethno-religious state, inter-marriage is seen as equivalent to national treason, a betrayal of one’s racial kith and kin.²⁰

Corbyn’s retreat from the Palestinians is best demonstrated by the appointment of a rightwing Zionist, Fabian Hamilton, as a junior shadow foreign office minister. In a recent article Hamilton was quoted as saying that boycotting the Jewish state without taking action against other countries is “simply anti-Semitic”.²¹Perhaps Bishop Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kasrils (a Jewish member of the African National Congress and former government minister in South Africa) are also anti-Semitic for supporting a boycott of Israel?

Hamilton said that he was “staggered” to have been appointed and that when he initially asked if his support for Israel was a problem, he was “told by Corbyn’s office in clear terms it wasn’t”. I was also staggered by this totally unnecessary concession to the Zionist right. The appointment of an open Zionist suggests that Corbyn has effectively decided to abandon his previous support for the Palestinians.

Appeasement of Labour Friends of Israel will not serve the cause of either socialism or peace in the Middle East. Nor will it help Corbyn’s own precarious position as leader. Quite the contrary.

Notes

1  . In 1982, following the passing of our successful amendment at the 1982 Labour Party conference, the Labour Committee on Palestine was taken over by the Workers Revolutionary Party, with the help of our Treasurer, Ted Knight.
2 . Daily Mail August 20 1938.
3 . Daily Mail August 7 2015.
4 . Jewish Chronicle August 12 2015.
5 . See letter from 22 Jewish people:
6 . See T Greenstein, ‘Redefining anti-Semitism - the false anti-racism of the right’ Return No5, December 1990.
7 . Israel now Jew Among Nations - Foxman
8 . The Fascist EDL Attacks Birmingham Palestine Solidarity Campaign Stall
9 . Hagee: Pro-Israel, Anti-Semitic?  The Nation  23.5.08.  Max Blumenthall.
10 . www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/hagee-still-sells-controv_b_107545.html.
11 . Pastor Hagee Still Sells Controversial 2005 'God Sent Hitler' Sermon, Apologizes To ADL For Wrong Sermon  Huff Post Politics 23.5.11.
12 . T Gross Neighbours: the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland London 2000.
13 . The crime and the silence, which won the European Book Prize in 2011.
14 . The Observer October 11 2009.
15 . Jewish Chronicle October 10 2009.
16 . The Guardian October 9 2009.
17. World Summit on Counter Terrorism: Terrorism’s Global Impact - ICT’s 9th International Conference
18 . Jewish Chronicle February 9 2016.
19 . The Guardian May 22 2015.
20 . ‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’ Ynet 27.3.07.  Roee Nahmias
21 . Jewish News January 13 2016.

Jeremy Corbyn & the Retreat from Palestine

Jewish Chronicle report of Corbyn Backing Down Over Israel/Palestine

Appeasing Zionism and Ignoring the Palestinians

I have know Jeremy Corbyn for over 30 years.  When I was the Chairperson of the Labour Committee on Palestine and Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine Jeremy Corbyn was a regular speaker at our fringe meetings at Labour Party conference.  Jeremy also spoke at a number of other meetings and helped out in other ways. There was no more dedicated a supporter of the Palestinians than Jeremy Corbyn. 

Jeremy subsequently became a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which I was a founder member and he has been a regular speaker at their AGMS.  About 7-8 years ago Jeremy was the main speaker at Brighton PSC’s annual conference. 

Fabian Hamilton MP - Arch Zionist appointed by Corbyn to Shadow Junior Foreign Office Minister

Jeremy’s accession to the Labour Party leadership was greeted with ill-disguised horror and contempt by the Zionist movement.  The Zionists and their friends in the British press, notably the Daily ‘Hate’ Mail smeared Jeremy as a companion of holocaust deniers and the wretched Paul Eisen in particular.  See The Paper that Supported Hitler Accuses Jeremy Corbyn of Supporting Holocaust Deniers

Stephen Pollard, Jewish Chronicle Editor, member of the far-right Henry Jackson Society and former editor of the Daily Express, is an apologist for a raft of Europe's anti-Semitic politicians.  Pollard waged a nasty little smear campaign against Corbyn during the Labour leadership campaign accusing him of anti-Semitism. Ironically Pollard is the best friend of the genuine anti-Semites.  

Pollard described Michal Kaminiski, a Polish Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the European Conservative & Reform Group (which the Tories belong to), as the best friend the Jews could hope for.   ‘Far from being an antisemite, Mr Kaminski is about as pro-Israel an MEP as exists.’ Pollard was being typically disingenuous because he knows as well as anyone else Zionism and anti-Semitism are different sides of the same coin.  Both the BNP and EDL are enthusiastic supporters of Israel as well as being holocaust denying organisations.  Pollard said of Kaminski that he was ‘‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town [Brussels] where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.’   Poland's New anti-Semitic Government -Israel Keeps Silent 

Kaminski campaigned against a national apology to Poland’s Jews for the burning alive of up to 900 Jews in a Polish village Jedwabne in 1941.  It wasn’t carried out by the Nazis but by non-Jewish Poles.  Kaminski said that it was Poland’s Jews who should do the apologising! The Hypocrisyof Jeremy Corbyn’s Accusers 

Rebecca Simon attacks Jeremy Corbyn as 'rubbish'

Then there was a debate during the Labour leadership campaign hosted by Labour Friends of Israel [LFI] and chaired by Jonathan Freedland.  Jeremy did his best to avoid the question of the nature of the Israeli state and wittered on about dialogue until it came out of his ears.  Jeremy gave the impression of having forgotten virtually everything about the nature of the oppression that Palestinians experience in the ‘Jewish’ state.  He seemed oblivious to the fact that Palestinians are the oppressed and the Israeli state is the oppressor.  He even opposed the boycott of Israeli goods although he eventually partially rowed back from that position when he said that he supported the boycott of Israeli universities who participate in military research and help the Israeli army in its repressive role.

At the Labour Party Conference Jeremy attended, for the first time ever, a LFI fringe meeting.  At the end of his speech he was heckled for not mentioning the word ‘Israel’.  There is no obvious reason why he should have agreed to attend a meeting of a group whose sole purpose is to support the repression of the Palestinians. 

An article in the Jewish Chronicle of 30^th November 2015 exemplifies not only the weakness of Corbyn’s politics on Israel and Palestine but the pitfalls in being pro-Palestinian without, at the same time, being anti-Zionist.  Headed ‘Corbyn admits: 'I will always recognise Israel’ it is one long series of concessions. 

The question is not whether one recognises Israel – it is clearly there – but what does one recognise the Israeli state as?  A normal western state or a racist settler colonial enterprise?  Corbyn is quoted as saying that he remained committed to a ‘comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on a two state solution…a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine.’ 

One might equally aspire to a moon made of cheese, because it’s not going to happen.  Zionism, the movement that formed Israel as a ‘Jewish’ state was based on the exclusive rights of the Jewish ‘nation’ to the whole of the Land of Israel.  Palestine is the Promised Land and the promise was made to the Jews not the Palestinians.  Zionism recognises no shared sovereignty in Palestine.  If it recognised the national claims of the Palestinians, Zionism would have to abandon its own founding ideology.  This is common to both Likud and the Israeli Labour party.

As Tzipi Hotoveli, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister explained:

‘‘This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognize Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”  The Guardian, 22/5/15 

Today when there are 600,000 settlers in the West Bank, it is an exercise in self-deception to pretend that a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state is a possibility. 

Nor is it a question of one, maverick cabinet member.  It was Netanyahu himself who declared during the 2015 election campaign that "Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical Islamic terrorist attacks against Israel,"   When asked if that meant a Palestinian state would not be established if he remained prime minister, he said: "Indeed."  Netanyahu says no Palestinian state as long as he's prime minister, Reuters 16.3.15.  

There was a time when Jeremy Corbyn agreed with the motion passed at the 1982 Labour Party conference in support of a democratic, secular state in Palestine.  Perhaps he still does agree with it but fears the repercussions if he says it out aloud.  More likely Palestine isn’t a political priority. 

However Jeremy needs to understand that advocates of the two states position today are effectively endorsing Israeli apartheid.  The only reason that western leaders don’t condemn Israel for refusing to grant the same political and civil rights to the Palestinians that Israelis enjoy, is that the prospect of governing themselves in an independent state is held out.  The Palestinians have been living under military rule for nearly 50 years.  The situation on the West Bank is one whereby the settlers and the Palestinians are governed by two sets of laws.  The settlers are governed by Israeli law, whereas Palestinians experience military law and the ‘justice’ of military courts with a 99.7% conviction rate.  This is clearly Apartheid yet there are those who pretend that this is a temporary phenomenon. 

Not one member of the Israeli cabinet supports a 2 state solution.  The peace process is a cover for Israeli apartheid.  2 States is a mirage, a conjuring trick intended to deceive.  In 50 years there will still be those who talk about 2 states.

Jeremy Corbyn and much of liberal social democratic opinion supports the Palestinians on human rights rather than political grounds they fail to make the distinction between an oppressed people and an oppressor people.  In short they support the Palestinians but they don’t oppose the Zionist movement which caused their dispossession and oppression and which presides over it today. 

And however much Jeremy Corbyn appeases the Zionist lobby in the Labour Party he will never be acceptable to them unless he dances the hora.  Rebecca Simon Vice-Chair of LFI said of Corbyn:  ‘no one wants to vote for a leader they think is rubbish.  And he is rubbish – never mind about the Israel stuff, he is just not a credible opposition.’ JC 30.12.15.

What though is inexplicable is Jeremy Corbyn’s appointment of  Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North-East as a shadow Foreign Office Minister,.  He is a Blairite who was put into the constituency after Liz Davies was selected and then deslected under Tony Blair’s regime.

In an article in Jewish News New shadow minister: Boycotting Israel and not vile dictatorships is anti-Semitic  January 13, 2016

Hamilton ‘said boycotting the Jewish state without taking action against other countries is “simply anti-Semitic”,  This was the fall back position of supporters of Apartheid in South Africa.  Why are you boycotting us when the Black African states surrounding us have a much worse human rights record.  The conclusion they drew, just like Fabian Hamilton, was that people were either communists or simply anti-White.

The answer to this stupidity was given by Albert Luthuli, the first African Nobel Peace Prize winner, who said that you can change your political views but never the colour of your skin.   But given that Hamilton’s views were no secret, the question is why Jeremy Corbyn appointed him at all.  In  his interview Hamilton was that it was ‘a “huge surprise” to receive the call informing him of his promotion to Jeremy Corbyn’s top team after nearly two decades in the Commons.’  Hamilton was quite explicit:

“I will continue to support the State of Israel and defend my views on Israel. I don’t think I’ll have to defend them much because I can’t think anybody in the team I’m in is going to say we should go for a single state solution or that Israel has no right to exist – that’s absolutely not on the cards. The fact is the foreign affairs team will decide policy and there’s no way the team is going to be anti-Israel. Hilary (Benn) and I are pretty much on the same page regarding the two-state solution.”

Fabian Hamilton’s first reaction was to ask ‘if his support for Israel was a problem, he was told by Corbyn’s office in clear terms it wasn’t.’  If that is true then there are serious questions to be asked of Jeremy Corbyn.  Hamilton admits that his first reaection ‘was they wanted to change the perception of the Labour Party by having a Jewish MP who is strongly pro-Israel and also pro-Palestinian state in that position…. Hamilton ‘was absolutely staggered’ to receive a phone calling him to serve in the Shadow Cabinet.'  

Given that there are large number of Labour MPs who are sympathetic to the Palestinians, why did Jeremy Corbyn choose an out and out Zionist to serve along the tarnished Hilary Benn?  Hamilton believes that ‘power has caused him to modify his positions, pointing to some of the moderates he had appointed to his top team.’

So far Corbyn has done nothing to suggest that Hamilton’s remarks are in any way untrue. 

In politics you cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

Tony Greenstein