‘they took Israel away from the Arabs after the
Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel,
like South Africa, is an apartheid state.
Nearly 30 years ago Apartheid came to
an end in South Africa. Today though, a much more sophisticated form of
Apartheid continues in Israel. There are no signs ‘Jews only’ yet in the West Bank there is a ‘Jews only’ system of
roads which relies on different number plates for Jewish settlers and Palestinians.
It is digital apartheid.
Indian Troops Imposing Martial Law in Kashmir
In India Narendra Modi, of the openly
anti-Islamic BJP, is trying
to make India into a Hindu supremacist state, abandoning the ideals of
Ghandi and Nehru that India would be a secular state of all its citizens,
regardless of religion. To this effect the special status of Kashmir, Article
370 of the Indian Constitution has been repealed and martial law has been in
operation in Kashmir. On 15 April 2020, a hospital in Ahmadabad began
segregating Coronavirus patients based on their religious belief,
allocating separate wards for Muslims and non-Muslims as
they do for maternity patients in Israel.
Petty Apartheid in South Africa - Israel avoids overt displays of racism
For
over one and a half years, martial law has been imposed on
Kashmir. Kashmiris cannot access the internet, cell
phone services or gather publicly. The Indian military presence in the
region swelled after India dissolved Kashmir’s local government in August 2019 and
arrested hundreds of local politicians and activists. The government can hold
these prisoners for up to two years without a trial under India’s Public Safety
Act.
In the West Bank Israel holds hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
under Administrative detention which is renewed every 6 months. All protest
actions are outlawed. Military rule has been a constant for the past 54 years.
The quisling Palestinian Authority have announced that elections will be held
and Israel has been doing its best to stop them by pressurizing the PA whilst
at the same time arresting
militants of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.Despite this Israel calls itself the ‘only
democracy in the Middle East.’
Register and come to the meeting – we have Ronnie Kasrills, former
head of the ANC’s military wing and a former Minister in Nelson Mandela’s government.
Also speaking is the well known Palestinian author and journalist, Ramzy Baroud. Rana Nazir is Chair of
the Kashmiri Women’s Association who will tell us about what is happening in
Kashmir.Also speaking is well known
Muslim anti-racist and former Birmingham City Councillor Salma Yaqoob. Other
speakers include Kweku Martin Peprah from Brighton Black Lives Matter, Rania
Muharebm a Palestinian human rights activist and Ph D student and Tony
Greenstein.
Originally intended to be held on UN Anti-racism day, the
meeting was postponed till today.
When
a member of the SWP proposed that Brighton & Hove Trades Council sponsor a
meeting on UN anti-racism day I was naturally in favour. UN anti-racism day was
originally established in 1966 as a commemoration for the 60 Black Africans
killed by the Apartheid police in South Africa in 1960.
It
was particularly appropriate because on January 12th Israeli human
rights organisation, B’Tselem had declared
that Israel was an Apartheid state. What made this statement important is that
B’Tselem is the quintessential liberal human rights organisation. Founded in
1989 as a liberal Zionist organisation this declaration represented a break
from the view that Israel was a flawed Western-style democracy. In B’Tselem’s own words:
The Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it
controls (Israeli sovereign territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the
Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a
wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one
group – Jews – over another – Palestinians.
The
anti-racist and anti-fascist movement in this country had always opposed
Apartheid in South Africa. How could SUTR not adopt the same attitude to
Israeli Apartheid? What was different?
But
to SUTR and the SWP it was different. A majority of Jews in this country
support the Israeli state whereas South Africa had few expatriates to support
it. Another difference is that whereas South Africa defended the Apartheid
political system the Israeli state and its Zionist apologists have always
denied that it was an apartheid state. Israel boasts for example that Israeli
Arab citizens can vote. Many British socialists used to see Israel as a
socialist oasis in the Middle East. Generations of Labour Party left-wingers had
been ardent Zionists.
Nazis and Zionists gather together at Capitol Hill in support of Trump
It
was only with the war in Lebanon in 1982 that the scales began to fall from
peoples’ eyes. Tony Benn and Eric Heffer resigned from Labour Friends of
Israel. The 1982 Labour Party conference passed an emergency motion calling for
a democratic secular state. But till then Israel had been virtually immune from
criticism and what criticism there was came from the Labour Right, people like
Christopher Mayhew and David Watkins
The
events of the past 5 years, in particular the false anti-Semitism campaign which
was devised to demonise and destroy Jeremy Corbyn have represented a political
setback. Support for Zionism and opposition to the Palestinians have become the
trademark of the Labour Right. Unfortunately some on the left too, like Jon
Lansman and Owen Jones, have also ended up in the Zionist camp.
Many
trade unions like UNISON and even UNITE tried to square support for the
Palestinians and support for Israel and Zionism. The unions have supported the IHRA
misdefinition of anti-Semitism uncritically. This campaign has also taken its
toll on sections of the far-left, the SWP in particular.
Following
the January meeting of Brighton & Hove trades council I attended two
meetings of SUTR where I proposed that a meeting on UN Anti-Racism Day be
devoted to Apartheid in Israel.
SUTR
is, as most people know, a front for the SWP. It is owned, lock stock and
barrel by them and is their main ‘front’ organisation today.Despite this it often does good work and I
have gone on their demonstrations and attended their meetings.
After
I had made my proposal member after member of the SWP got up to propose that we
do anything other than hold a meeting on Israeli Apartheid. Refugees were the
favourite choice of topic yet no member of the SWP was honest enough to admit
to why they were opposed to holding a meeting on Israeli Apartheid.
In
response to this one of those in attendance, Aidan Pettit, sent an email to
SUTR (which the SWP Secretary refused to distribute to other members) stating that
‘it's not logical to oppose the racism meted out to
refugees when they're in the UK but not the racism that drives many of them
here in the first place
At
the following meeting I repeated my proposal. This time another SWP member,
Jeremy, got up and explained that it was very ‘delicate’.
What
Jeremy and other SWP members meant was that they didn’t want to offend or cut
links with liberal Zionist like Rabbi Sarah (we have a gay rabbi in Brighton).
The SWP calls itself a Marxist, indeed a revolutionary socialist organisation
yet it wasn’t prepared to adopt a consistently anti-racist position for fear of
offending a liberal racist.
A
simple question arises. How can you fight racism if you are not prepared to
confront racists and if necessary offend them? Rabbi Sarah may not want to face
up to the implications of a ‘Jewish’ state for the Palestinian, a state that
vaccinates half of the population (Jewish) and not the other half (Palestinian)
but surely the point of a socialist organisation is that it doesn’t allow
itself to be held back by the more reactionary, backward elements in society?
What
happened in Brighton is not unique. In Scotland for 3 years the Confederation
of Friends of Israel Scotland and Glasgow Friends of Israel, two far-Right
Zionist organisations which have worked with fascists, have been allowed to take
part in the annual SUTR march.
The
reason for the SWP’s political cowardice was without doubt the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign
in the Labour Party and the involvement of trade union leaders who have gone
along with the demands of the Zionists that they be protected from
‘anti-Semitism’. The SWP, which has never had a sophisticated understanding of
how anti-Semitism has been weaponised ran a mile.
In
London on Holocaust Memorial Day they actually withdrew
an invitation to Glynn Secker of Jewish Voices for Labour to speak after the
Board of Deputies sought and obtained from Tower Hamlets Council the
cancellation of a meeting.
However
Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign took the decision that we
would not allow the SWP/SUTR’s cowardice to prevail.We are therefore holding on April 5th
a meeting with a variety of different speakers.
Also
speaking is well known Asian anti-racist and former Birmingham councillor, Salma Yaqoob. Salma has
been the target of the Labour Right and former Labour MP Ian Austin in
particular.
Rania Muhareb is
another speaker. Rania is a legal researcher and advocacy officer with the
Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq. She is currently taking a PhD at
the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway.
Rana
Nazir, the Chair of the Kashmiri Womens Association, is also speaking. The
situation in India under the Islamaphobic BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi is
fast becoming similar to that in Israel. Israel is India’s major arms
supplier and Modi is a member of the RSS
political group that is the core of the BJP. Founded by supporters of the
Nazis, the RSS
aspires for India to become like Israel, an ethno-nationalist state.
Recently
India has promoted legislation that for example excludes the immigration of
Muslim refugees.It has also repealed
Article 370 of the constitution whereby Kashmir is granted autonomy. Instead
India has recolonised Kashmir in a similar way to that of Israel on the West
Bank.
It
is particularly appropriate as the trial of Derek Chauvin, George Floyd’s
murderer, gets underway, that Kweku Martin Peprah of Brighton Black Lives Matter
has agreed to speak. BLM have organised
a series
of well attended marches in Brighton in protest against police racism.
And
lastly I intend to say a few words on behalf of Brighton Palestine Solidarity
Campaign. The meeting is sponsored by Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council
and I hope that as many people as possible will be able to attend. (Register here)
One
thing we should take away from the meeting is the idea that the fight against
racism, be it in Kashmir, the United States, Britain or Israel is indivisible.
Either you are opposed to racism or you are not. There are no special
exceptions, no get out clauses which exempt people simply because they are
Jewish or Hindu. Racism is a poisonous and pernicious evil, whose effect is to
divide the oppressed. No socialist should, for one minute, turn a blind eye to racism
simply because they see a sectarian advantage to doing so.
I
hope to see you at the meeting.
Below
is an Open Letter which I wrote to SUTR/SWP about what happened. It has been
endorsed by Brighton & Hove PSC.
The Day was established after the
Sharpeville massacre on March 21 1960 when South Africa Police opened fire
killing 69 Black demonstrators against the apartheid “pass laws”.
On 12 January 2021 the Israeli human
rights group, B’tselem, which was founded in 1989 as a liberal Zionist
organisation, issued a statementTHIS
IS APARTHEID – A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan to the
Mediterranean Sea.
The past 30 years have convinced
Btselem that democracy and a Jewish state are incompatible. In a carefully
worded statement Btselem stated that:
The
Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (Israeli sovereign
territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid
regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli
policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over
another – Palestinians.
Btselem is not alone. The foremost
liberal American Zionist Pete Beinart reached much the same conclusion in an article
in theNYT headed I No
Longer Believe in a Jewish State.
When I proposed that SUTR hold a
meeting on Israeli Apartheid to mark UN Anti-Racism Day it met with concerted
opposition from members of the SWP. They suggested that refugee events be held
instead. Such events can be held any day of the year. As Aidan Pettitt wrote in
an email which you refused to distribute to other members:
‘it's
not logical to oppose the racism meted out to refugees when they're in the UK
but not the racism that drives many of them here in the first place
The real reason for the SWP’s
opposition to making UN Anti-Racism Day into Israel Apartheid Day was made
clear by Jeremy. The issue was, he said, ‘delicate’.
I think we all know what he meant. SUTR is afraid of alienating liberal
Zionists.
This is of a piece with Scottish
SUTR’s decision to allow the far-Right Confederation of Friends of Israel to
participate, with Israeli flags, on their demonstrations. As a Joint
Statement from the Islamic Human Rights Commission and other organisations
declared:
we
are dismayed that Stand Up to Racism Scotland will be allowing organisations
that actively support Israeli apartheid and racism to participate in its annual
anti-racism march in Glasgow. We believe that their presence is incompatible
with Stand Up to Racism’s intention of celebrating International Day Against
Race Discrimination
In 2019
SUTR withdrew
an invitation to a Jewish anti-Zionist, Glyn Secker, to speak at a meeting
in Tower Hamlets on Holocaust Memorial Day, after a campaign
by Zionist groups. There is a long
history of SUTR refusing to oppose racism when perpetrated by Israel.
SUTR’s
refusal to confront the issue of Zionism, Israeli Apartheid and its connections
to British racism is because of a fear of being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’
Perhaps you will also refrain from opposition to the BJP’s anti-Muslim policies
and its occupation of Kashmir for fear of being accused of ‘Hinduphobia’? SUTR
is afraid that its Labour Party sponsors will abandon it if it takes a
principled position.
SUTR
appears incapable of recognising the connection between the Israeli state,
Zionism and the far-Right today. Perhaps it has escaped your attention that on
January 6th at Capitol Hill, amongst the Confederate flags and
shirts bearing slogans
such as 6MWE (6 million wasn’t enough) and Camp
Auschwitz were Israeli flags.
In this country
the EDL, Britain First and other fascist groups have long
displayed Israeli flags on demonstrations. Tommy Robinson has stated
that he is a Zionist. The neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, Richard Spencer, openly
declares that he is a ‘White Zionist’.
The
far-Right admire and love Israel precisely
because it is the kind of ethno-nationalist state that they aspire to
create. Fascists and racists support Israel for the same reasons as they
supported Apartheid in South Africa.
The
admiration of the far-Right for Israel is not all one-way. There has long been
a link-up
between right-wing Zionists and the supporters of Tommy Robinson. People like
Katie Hopkins, a guest
at the Israeli Embassy, combine anti-Semitism with Zionism. In return she has
been supported
by many Zionists for her Islamaphobia.
We have
racist regimes such as Orban’s
Hungary, which combine support for Israel with anti-Semitism. The
anti-racist movement in Britain never hesitated to oppose South African Apartheid
but when it comes to Israeli Apartheid you look the other way. Why?
Millions of
people have seen how Israel has vaccinated its Jewish population whilst denying
the vaccine to 5 million Palestinians living under occupation. That is what
racist regimes do and that is what the UN Day Against Racism is about.
It is for
this reason that Brighton & Hove PSC have decided that it will go ahead and
organise its own meeting on Israeli Apartheid. It is to be regretted that SUTR
refuses to stand up to one of the main sources of racism and Islamaphobia in
the world today for fear of upsetting the British Establishment and its Zionist
outriders.
As the Board of Deputies and Tory Students at Oxford
University Try to Stop Ken Loach Speaking the Time to Defend Free Speech is Now
I cannot remember a time when free speech has been
under attack such as it is today. In the name of ‘anti-Semitism’ there was an attempt last
week by snotty Tory bigots at St. Peter’s College, Oxford to silence the world
famous film producer Ken Loach.
How did these juvenile racists get to ‘prove’ that
Loach, a man who has fought against injustice all his life, was an ‘anti-Semite’?Simple. They used the device of cut and paste
in order to quote him out of context whilst ignoring his massive contribution
to the fight against racism, imperialism and the oppression of ordinary working
class people.
The Board of Deputies Launches Another Attack on Freedom of Speech on Behalf of the Israeli State
Of course these students are training to be our ruling
class and they seek to cover themselves in the mantle of ‘anti-racism’ trading
on the memory of the Jews who died in the holocaust.Their only purpose being to defend Israel, Zionism’s
bastard state which vaccinates
only Jews leaving out 5 million Palestinians.
You might think that if the students of St Peters were
seriously interested in racism they might turn their attention to the statue
of Cecil Rhodes outside Oriel College. Rhodes was a man who hunted Africans
on horseback as if they were game.
A scene from I Daniel Blake
But of course Oxford’s upper class brats aren’t
interested in opposing racism but defending it and who have they chosen to vilify
and ban but one of the few filmmakers who has devoted his life to standing up
against oppression. Loach’s back
catalogue is testimony to his fight for the liberation of humanity and against
the privilege that these Oxford students represent. Films like Kes, I Daniel Blake, The Wind
that Shook the Barley and Land and Freedom. It says something about the British
education system that it can produce a cluster of well-bred philistines.
Unfortunately those that we might expect to stand up
and be counted like Liberty
(formerly National Council for Civil Liberties) are also silent. Meanwhile the IHRA,
a tool for conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is the choice of every
racist and anti-Semite world-wide, from Trump to Orban.
A previous rally for the Campaign for Free Speech
Tomorrow the newly formed (Labour) Campaign for Free
Speech will be holding its founding conference. In the Labour Party free speech
has been under attack by its failing leader Sir Keir Starmer and his glove
puppet David Evans.There have been
suspensions and expulsions all round, of Jews especially, all in the name of
fighting ‘anti-Semitism’! Yet the same Starmer is incapable of saying anything about
a state which bars Arabs from 93% of the land.
Only this week the Guardian, which was as devoted to
undermining Jeremy Corbyn as the Daily Mail, sacked
its columnist Nathan Robinson for having tweeted his opposition to US aid to Israel.
We have a host of interesting speakers tomorrow including
Norman Finkelstein,
author of Holocaust Industry, whose parents were both survivors of concentration
camps. Ronnie Kasrills,
the Jewish Commander of the ANC’s military wing, Umkonte we-Sizwe, is also
speaking as is Jackie
Walker – the Black Jewish former Vice-Chair of Momentum whom Jon Lansman
stabbed in the back.Chris
Williamson, the former MP for Derby North who was hounded out of the Labour
Party and the only MP to stand up against the witchhunt will be speaking as
will Graham Bash of Jewish
Voices for Labour.
Ronnie Kasrils - Jewish former Commander of the ANC's military wing, Umkonte we Sizwe
Also speaking will be Sami Ramadani from Stop the War Coalition, Jamie
Stern-Weiner an expert on the IHRA and Professor David
Miller of the University of Bristol who has also been targeted by Zionist witchhunters
who are demanding that he be sacked for holding what to them are unacceptable
views.
The final speaker will be Esther Giles,
suspended Secretary of Bristol North-West who was removed by Save
Our Socialists and Momentum from a rally last Sunday at the behest of
Liverpool’s Lord Mayor Anna Rothery, for not bowing to political correctness over
trans rights.
You can register here.
For further information go to the Labour Against the Witchhunt page. As the electorate
are turning their back on Starmer’s Labour now is the time to stand up to the
apostles of Apartheid Israel. Come and join us.
As George Orwell said,
‘If liberty means anything at all it
means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ Today the ruling
class and their apprentices at Oxford University are desperate to prevent you
hearing the truth about Israel and what the Zionist movement does and has done,
not least during the holocaust.
