Showing posts with label Lapid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lapid. Show all posts

1 October 2026

Open Letter to Zack Polanski – Congratulations on Declaring That You Are an Anti-Zionist – Now is the Time to Show That You Mean It

If You Oppose Zionism's Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing Project You Must Support the Zionism is Racism Motion & Oppose My Expulsion




Polanski Declares that he's an anti-Zionist at the Board Of Deputies Hustings

Dear Zack,

Your clear and explicit declaration at the Board of Deputies hustings that you are an anti-Zionist is to be welcomed. I unreservedly support your candidature at the forthcoming Holborn & St. Pancras by-election and I hope that you are the successor to the detested war criminal Keir Starmer who slithered away like the snake he is.

Whereas I supported George Galloway at the Rochdale by-election in 2024 I am firmly opposed to his divisive and reactionary candidacy in this election.

Polanski opposes 'divisive' Zionism is Racism motion

However I am also aware that after winning the leadership of the Green Party [GP] so decisively last year, you equivocated on the question of Zionism and appeased the old Green Establishment of Caroline Lucas and co. So the question is whether you are prepared to break with the GP's support for NATO and imperialism?

The Daily Mail's Proprietor Viscount Rothermere waxed lyrical about the 'youthfulness' and dynamism of the Nazis

In your Zeteo interview you stated that ‘Zionism means different things to different people.’ But that is true of any ideology. Do you think that the Nazis came to power promising to wipe out all Jews? On the contrary they played down anti-Semitism.

The Nazis were seen as a vigorous, young movement that was going to do away with the old corrupt politicians and abolish unemployment. People supported them not because of anti-Semitism but their economic promises and anti-communism.

South Africa had petty apartheid, which Israel didn't have until the advent of colonisation of the West Bank where there are now roads for Jews only - they don't have signs but that is the reality

Apartheid in South Africa was not defended by its supporters as a way of exploiting and oppressing Black people but as "separate development". The Nationalists argued that South Africa was not one nation, but a multitude of ‘nations’ (Afrikaners, English-speaking whites and various Black ethnic groups).

The Apartheid leaders claimed that forcing different cultures to integrate would lead to friction and that each group should live independently within its own territory. This is no different to what Zionism argues. Jews need their own state.

Israeli Labor leaders Ben-Gurion & Golda Meir. Ben-Gurion was the architect of the Nakba & Gold Meir was famous for saying that 'It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist,” 

The Israeli Labor Party’s support for a two state solution was posited on the need to separate Jews from Palestinians in order to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel. Only then could Israel be both democratic and Jewish. In the words of Israel’s main opposition leader, Yair Lapid:

My principle says maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians.

You went on to say that what the present Israeli government is doing is clearly racist thus implying that previous Israeli Labor governments weren’t racist. But this is not true. There is nothing that Netanyahu and Likud have done that the Labour Zionists didn’t do before them. The right-wing Zionists are just more honest.

The Nakba wasn’t organised by the Revisionists but the Labour Zionists. It was primarily the ‘left’ Zionist militias, Haganah and Palmach, who were responsible for the massacres and forcible expulsion of Palestinians in 1947/8 and throughout the 1950s.

The Apartheid structure of the Israeli state, with its confiscation of Arab land and apartheid legislation like the Absentee Property Law was created by Labour not Likud. The concept of ‘Jewish’ Labour, i.e. violently picketing Jewish employers who employed Arabs was a Labour Zionist campaign in the 1920s and 30s.

The expansion of Israel into the West Bank was under the Labour Zionists. The first settlements were created under the Israeli Labor Party and indeed the founders of the Greater Israel movement were stalwarts of the Labour Zionist movement like Yitzhak Tabenkin, Israel Galili and Yigal Allon. [See Between Land and State – ‘Greater Land of Israel’ according to Tabenkin and the United Kibbutz Movement]

Yes many Jews see Israel as a refuge from anti-Semitism but as the Jews of Argentina, 3,000 of whom were murdered, found out in the 1970s, the Israeli state will offer no protection against an anti-Jewish regime with which it is on friendly terms and doing business with the Israeli state. Israel preferred a billion dollar trade with a neo-Nazi Junta to saving Argentinian Jews from the torture chambers.

Just as in 1920 thousands of Ukrainian Jews fleeing the pogroms were turned away by the Zionists who pressurised the British not to admit them.

Zionism is not what is in the head of some fragrant young Zionist but what Zionism does. Jewish or Zionist justifications for Zionism are about as valid as the defence of Apartheid in South Africa by its supporters.

Zionism is not a Jewish but a Christian idea. Zionism is the ideology of the Israeli state. It explains why Palestinian children are called ‘little snakes’ by former Israeli 'Justice Minister' Ayelet Shaked, legitimate targets for IDF snipers. Zionism, in all its flavours is first and foremost a movement of Jewish Supremacy, ethnic cleansing and now genocide.

Yes Zionism has had many different strands and currents but all of them were united on the need for a Jewish Supremacist state.

Supporters of South African Apartheid were divided between Jan Smuts and DaniĆ«l Malan. Both however agreed on White Supremacism. The Nazi party too was divided between Hitler and the ‘left’ represented by Gregor and Otto Strasser. However both wings agreed on anti-Semitism.

One of your objections to the ZIR motion was ‘safeguarding Jewish people’. This is wrong. Supporting Palestinians and opposing Zionism does not threaten Jewish safety. If anything increases anti-Semitism it is the Zionist claim that all Jews support the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

If some Jewish Greens are Zionists then far more are anti-Zionist. If you are a Zionist then you are supporting a racist, apartheid state. Why would such a person want to be in the GP?

Jewish people are not under attack, their homes are not being bombed, their children killed, their doctors tortured and raped to death. When the question of Palestine is raised it has nothing to do with Jews. To imply that support for Palestinians threatens the safety of Jews is to buy into the Zionist narrative. Israel is not a ‘Jewish’ state other than in a racial supremacist sense.

Those Jews at the Board of Deputies hustings who shouted that there is no genocide were no different from neo-Nazi holocaust deniers. They are racist monsters and should be treated as such.

The Jewish racists who heckled you would change their tune if it was 20,000 Jewish children who had been murdered. Jewish people in Britain are not experiencing anti-Semitism but a reaction to the carnage most of them support.

Allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ are nothing more than a rationale to support the Zionist agenda. Jews in Britain who declare they are Zionists are holding hands with the far-right and people like Tommy Robinson, a self-declared Zionist.

You raised the red herring about someone who opposes genocide & apartheid but is a member of a Zionist synagogue. You said they should not be treated differently or made to feel unwelcome. I agree. People who are members of Zionist synagogues should not be held responsible for the politics of their synagogue if they oppose Zionism.

Your second objection was about supporting a single Palestinian state. You even said that there was ‘something imperialist about this’. This is untrue. Palestine today is already one state. An apartheid state. There is no possibility of a two state solution nor is it desirable since it would leave an apartheid Jewish state in place. What is required is that there are equal rights for all the inhabitants of that state. What is imperialist about equal rights?

If you ask any Palestinian whether they would prefer one state or two states the overwhelming majority opt for the former. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation only adopted support for 2 states because they despaired of achieving a single state. Today it is clear to all that, in the words of B’tselem, Israel’s main human rights organisation, Israel is a

regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid

In 1919 Chaim Weizmann, later to become Israel’s first President, stated that a Jewish state would be ‘as Jewish as England was English.’ In other words its indigenous population would have no place.

A Jewish ethno-nationalist state cannot be any other than a racist, apartheid state. By definition it is a state that privileges Jews.

Crispin Flintoff Interviews Chris Williamson and Natalie Strecker about Zack Polanski

I also wish to raise my expulsion from the GP, which you have kept quiet about. It was planned and executed by a small group on the Green Party Council [GPC] led by Laura Eccott and supported by Green supporters of Zionism and genocide like Elise Benjamin. It was agreed by the narrowest of margins 7-6.

The Racism of Elise Benjamin – the Green Party’s leading Zionist

According to Benjamin the Nakba is ‘Iran backed propaganda’ the Palestinians being too stupid to have thought of it themselves. She also repeats the fable of an Israeli ‘offer’ to allow the Palestinian refugees to return. Wikipedia’s 1949 Lausanne Conference dispels this nonsense. There was an ‘offer’ to accept 100,000 refugees but it was quickly withdrawn and in return Israel wanted a portion of southern Lebanon and other territories

 

Benjamin fawns over a White Israeli woman, Izabella Gandlin who was apparently killed by Palestinians (we will never know because it is likely that most Israelis who died on October 7 were victims of the Hannibal Directive. Benjamin never profiles Palestinian children or doctors like Dr Abu Safia who to this day is imprisoned and tortured by Israel. Indeed not once has Benjamin said anything about the genocide, starvation and torture.

 

In response to an article about Israel’s sexual assault on Palestinian girls, Benjamin reaches for another Zionist fabrication about Hamas intercepting aid and abusing Palestinian women. She also only has words for the fake allegations of mass rape on October 7, not the documented and videod IDF rape of Palestinians.

On April 16 I was suspended. The complainant was allowed to remain anonymous contrary to GP policy. Just 11 words justified my suspension: ‘Documented history of antisemitism, including court decisions and recent terrorism charges’

On May 7 I was expelled, the reasons being that I had:

  1.           ‘displayed no contrition or regret (or remorse)’ for ‘the repeated                instances of anti-Semitism that led to TG’s suspension.’
  2.         That I had had the audacity to publicly criticise those who had                   engineered my expulsion.   

My expulsion was based on a series of lies. ‘Repeated Anti-Semitism’ was not a reason for my suspension so how could I show contrition? If the GP wishes to expel anyone then it should be those who make false allegations of anti-Semitism - Elise Benjamin, Laura Eccott and Andrei Frieze. It is the Green racists not the Green anti-racists who should be expelled.

I was also suspended for the ‘crime’ of being charged with ‘terrorism’. Thousands of people face ‘terrorism’ charges today for supporting Palestine Action. The most recent Home Office statistics reveal that the average ‘terrorist’ is no longer a 31 year old male but a 59 year old White woman.

The GPC assumed that being charged ‘terrorism’ meant that I was guilty. GPC acted contrary to one of the most basic principles of law, the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. It is enshrined in Article 6(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights. I completely understand why Laura Eccott and Elise Benjamin prefer Israeli ‘justice’, where you are assumed to be guilty and gaoled without even the pretence of a trial (if you are a Palestinian).

On August 18 I went on trial under the Terrorism Act 2000. It ended on August 21 when the jury unanimously acquitted me after just 2 hours. They accepted that what was at stake was freedom of speech not terrorism. I was fortunate that the jury did not consist of members of Green Party Council.

My closing speech to the jury was described by the right-wing Libertarian Alliance as ‘maybe the most important speech made this century in an English court of law’. I explained why the Terrorism Act 2000 was not about terrorism but about suppressing free speech. It is something that members of GPC might take the time to acquaint themselves with.

It is bad enough that the British state accuses Palestine activists and protesters against the banning of Palestine Action of terrorism. What is grotesque is the fact that the GPC gave their support to those accusations.

Zionism is a reflection of the European racism that led to the Holocaust. The Palestinians are the Jews of Israel. Christian Zionism predated Jewish Zionism by 4 centuries. It believed in the idea of a ‘Jewish return to Palestine’ an anti-Semitic idea which assumed that Jews do not belong where they live.

44% of young British Jews now declare that they are anti-Zionist or non-Zionist. The GP no longer needs to walk in fear of the ‘anti-Semitism’ scarecrow. The GP needs to abandon support for Zionism and become an anti-racist and anti-imperialist party.

The GP has the most pro-Palestinian policy of any political party yet it is distrusted by Palestine solidarity supporters because its main interest lies in harvesting the votes of those opposed to genocide rather than putting its policies into practice.

The IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism is still GP policy and you have said nothing about this. Recently New South Wales Supreme Court Judge Desmond Fagan ruled that the IHRA:

propounds a concept different from that which ‘antisemitism’ has long been understood to describe and appropriates that word to the novel concept.... The [purpose of IHRA] is to graft onto the community’s abhorrence of antisemitism a parasitic rejection of protest against Israel.

The GP Establishment has mobilised against the Zionism is Racism motion and you Zack have equivocated. It is time for you to come out in its support now you are an anti-Zionist.

James Baldwin

The West’s support for Israel has nothing to do with the Holocaust. Jews are the moral alibi for a racist state guarding Western interests in the Arab East.  As James Baldwin remarked:

But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests.

The real problem is the GP’s fear of breaking with the foreign policy consensus between Labour and the Tories. The question is whether you want to break from that or adapt to it.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein

Polanski opposes 'divisive' Zionism is Racism motion

Green leader Zack Polanski describes Zionism as racism

Polanski sparks anger after declaring himself ‘anti-Zionist’ at packed communal hustings

Israel lobby group CAA threatens Greens over ‘Zionism is racism’ motion

WATCH: Zionists heckle Polanski even though he’s gone soft on anti-Zionism


20 December 2015

The ‘Only Democracy in the Middle East’ Steps Up Hate Campaign Against Breaking the Silence & Israeli Human Rights Organisations

As the Israeli state makes giant strides from a Jewish state to a Jewish Police State, so left-wing Israelis demonstrate in Tel Aviv.  There is no doubt that the Israeli left, the anti-war left, is extremely isolated today. 

When the Israeli Labour Party/Zionist Union leader, Isaac Hertzog, asked Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn incitement and threats against the Israeli President Rivlin, who is a Likud right-winger who supports the settlements and opposes giving back any land or a 2 state solution but nonetheless believes that Arabs are human beings and opposes racism,  Netanyahu responded by saying that Herzog should condemn ‘Breaking the Silence’.


Ha’aretz reported that Netanyahu's response was that Herzog, should "get up on this stage and condemn Breaking the Silence, an organization that is slandering IDF soldiers to audiences around the world and is working to tie the hands of the State of Israel from defending itself." At this point lawmakers began applauding.’  Herzog Calls on Netanyahu to Defend Rivlin During Fiery Knesset Session 'Slandering' the State of Israel can be translated as telling the uncomfortable truth about what the Israeli army does as opposed to the fairy tales about it being 'the most moral army in the world.'

‘Breaking the Silence’ is not an anti-Zionist group.  Indeed most of its members would identify as Zionists.  They are former soldiers who have come out to tell of their experiences in the Israeli Occupation Forces.  They describe the beatings, the killings, the wanton disregard for Palestinian life.  That is enough to make them an object of hatred for Netanyahu’s government.  

The leader of the Zionist 'left' Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid 
Netanyahu’s coalition government has actively attempted to stop the funding of Breaking the Silence and other human rights organisations such as Btselem by outside organisations such as the New Israel Fund.  But it is not only Zionist right-wingers who are guilty of trying to suppress the truth.  The 'centrist' Zionist member of Israel's 'Opposition' - Yair Lapid - has just announced that he is going to sponsor legislation to prevent what he terms 'BDS supporters' from funding groups like Breaking the Silence.  
'Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said Sunday that he was planning to sponsor legislation to ban Israeli nonprofits that he said “vilify” the state from being funded by organizations that support a boycott of Israel.  
Appearing at a press conference alongside a group of reserve IDF officers and combat soldiers, Lapid singled out the controversial Breaking the Silence NGO, which gathers testimonies from IDF troops about alleged human rights abuses by soldiers. 
“We will lead legislation to prevent BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions organizations] from funding NGOs in Israel that help to vilify Israel,” Lapid said. 
Lapid bids to stop BDS-backers from funding groups like Breaking the SilenceAnnouncing planned legislation, Yesh Atid leader singles out IDF-bashing NGO Breaking the Silence for crossing ‘red line from criticism into subversion’ 
Religious nutcase Hotoveli - Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister - hates Arab-Jewish relatinships  - she was responsible for the funding of the fascist Lehava group dedicated to oppose mixed race sex
It’s ok for right-wing Zionist organisations to be funded by United State billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson but not human rights groups).  Tsipli Hotoveli, the far-right religious wingnut and Deputy Foreign Minister has been waging a fierce campaign to persuade European governments and other bodies to withdraw funding from Israeli groups that are critical of Israel's brutal occupation and human rights record.  


'Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (pictured) has begun a series of consultations with European foreign ministers, their deputies, and ambassadors of several European countries, in which she is presenting evidence that their governments provide financial assistance to NGOs that support boycotts against Israel.'  Apparently these organizations 

“actively blacken Israel’s name around the world, accuse it of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes; deprive the Jewish people of their right to self-determination, call to prosecute Israel in the International Criminal Court at The Hague, and support the right of return”, she said.'

Hotoveli made a special effort, unsuccessful it should be added, to persuade Switzerland to pull the plug on an exhibition put on by Breaking the Silence.  Perhaps Hotoveli imagined that Switzerland was also a police state or perhaps that it was an Israeli satellite:

It's not for nothing that Israel is known as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’

The demonstration was made up of left-Zionists and anti-/non-Zionists as far as I can tell.  People like Yariv Oppenheimer, leader of the Peace Now organisation.  Oppenheimer posted on his facebook page earlier this year that he had done his military service in the Occupied Territories on the ludicrous grounds that if the 'left' did their duty then when the time comes the army will also obey orders and transfer the settlements into the hands of the Palestinians.  In fact what the Zionist left does by these actions is to reinforce the Israeli state in its brutalities by legitimising it.  A 'left' that is complicit in colonialism is no left and that is the achiles heel of Oppenheimer and most of Meretz.  They want a nicer Zionist state but that is not an option.  Zionism is red in tooth and claw.

Tony Greenstein


+972 Magazine     By Haggai Matar
|Published December 20, 2015

Demonstrators took the streets of central Tel Aviv to show their support for Israeli human rights organizations under attack by right-wing incitement over the past weeks. Breaking the Silence executive director: ‘We were born into the occupation, we can be the ones to end it.’
Photos by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org
Israeli left-wing activists march to protest the recent incitement against “Breaking the Silence” and other left wing NGOs, in central Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Over a thousand Israelis marched Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demonstrate against incitement and occupation, and in support of Israeli human rights organizations, peace, equality, and social justice.
The protest was organized by the group “Omdim Beyachad” (Standing Together) in response to the recent incitement by far-right group Im Tirzu and government ministers against Breaking the Silence and other human rights organizations last week.
Israeli left-wing activists march to protest the recent incitement against “Breaking the Silence” and other left wing NGOs, in central Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
The demonstrators gathered at Gan Meir in central Tel Aviv and headed toward the Likud headquarters just across the street. There a few short speeches were delivered on “the incitement that begins in the government offices,” which then turned into a march on King George Street, ending in the monument for slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The protesters chanted slogans such as “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,” and “The occupation is a disaster — only peace will bring security.”

Two separate counter protests also took place, which included swearing at left-wing protesters and calling out “Kahane lives.” Likud MK Oren Hazan, who previously tried to deceive Breaking the Silence by submitting a fake testimony, was one of the participants. One right-wing protestor threw a bottle at the march and was arrested.

Likud MK Oren Hazan takes part in a right-wing counter protest against leftists demonstrating against incitement coming from the Right against human rights organizations, central Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Representatives of Israel’s peace camp, including Peace Now stalwart Yariv Oppenheimer, MK Dov Khenin (Joint List), MK Ilan Gilon (Meretz) and Breaking the Silence’s Executive Director Yuli Novak, spoke at the Rabin monument. “The incitement and threats do not stop with human rights organizations or the Left, they reach the President,” said Oppenheimer, in reference to the campaign of incitement against President Reuven Rivlin taking place since he participated in the Haaretz conference in New York last week, where members of Breaking the Silence also spoke. “We are in a struggle for Israeli democracy and we have no choice but to win.”
Meretz MK Ilan Gilon speaks during a demonstration against right-wing incitement, central Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
This week saw the release of a devastating poverty report. We saw a devastating gas deal being signed. And now they are trying to blame everything on Breaking the Silence?” asked Khenin. “We see that an occupying nation cannot be free, and that the struggles for democracy, peace, and social justice are connected to one another. We will not give up on our home.”

“We love this country more than the settlers, we are willing to compromise over it,” added Gilon. “What kind of love is greater than that of compromise over this land and the people who live in it?”

Breaking the Silence Executive Director Yuli Novak speaks during a protest against right-wing incitement, central Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Novak, who was welcomed with thunderous applause, lauded the many soldiers who have broken 
their silence over the past week — following attacks by the Right — and described what they went through during their service in the occupied territories. “This situation is not predetermined. We are a generation that was born into the occupation, we are the generation that can end it,” she said.

The police, who accompanied the protest in big numbers, were on higher alert than usual. Many police officers walked around with their fingers on the trigger of their guns, while officers with police dogs encircled the protesters the entire way. The police also shined flashlights on the balconies of all the homes above the route of the protest. I cannot recall this kind of police activity in any protest. The police did their job and allowed the march, as well as the counter protests, to take place safely. How unfortunate that we have reached a point that threats against nonviolent demonstrators in central Tel Aviv have become so tangible.