Tadamon means solidarity in Arabic and these images show moments of strength witnessed in the Palestinian struggle for survival.

Moments following extra-judicial killings of beloved members of the community wanted by the Israeli government.

Moments in which people in the West Bank are forced to deal with their confusion and pain brought on by the Gaza war of 2008/2009 – combined with the Palestinian Authority clamping down on protest in the West bank at this desperate time.

Moments such as the bravery of children whose first language has become the politics of survival, out on the streets hurling stones at the wall following yet another bombardment of their cousins in Gaza.

Or moments of the villagers of Nilin and B’lin facing tear gas and stun grenades in their protests, held every Friday since 2004, resisting the illegal apartheid wall built on village lands.

There is a saying in Palestine that ‘to be Palestinian is to exist to resist’ and this essential stubbornness and refusal to disappear, this insistence on being continually present in the face of ongoing repression that interferes in every area of life, is a potent force in the demand for sovereignty.

The price of this is high, and people have been paying it since 1948. But there is no choice but to keep on paying it to resist is to survive.

I love and admire this Palestinian strength in the struggle for self-determination and the moments where dancing and joy overflow despite everything. I am proud to share some of these moments I was honoured to witness during my work in Palestine.

Tadamon Exhibition opens on the 3rd September 2010 at the Freedom Gallery, above Freedom book shop in Angel Alley off Whitechapel High Street. Nearest Tube Aldgate East. Map

The Tadamon Exhibition is open 12.00 – 18.00 Monday to Saturday and Sundays 12.00- 16.00 from 3rd September until October the 5th.

Freedom Bookshop
Angel Alley
84b Whitechapel High Street
London
E1 7QX

Pennie Quinton

http://penniequinton.org

Direct actions in support of Palestine, such as blockades of Ahava or Carmel Agrexco don’t pay for themselves, van hire, D-locks etc all cost cash money. Therefore a network of people who carry out such actions are putting on a fundraiser to pay for future actions. Come on down, with a banging line up and a great social centre to have a party in (the Ratstar comes with 2 rooms of music, a cinema room and even a roof terrace, oh yes), there has never been a funner way to support a great cause.

The day kicks off at 4pm, with workshops on direct action, Palestine related film screenings and a Palestinian cafe. Music kicks off at 8pm.

When: Saturday 11th September 4pm – 4am

How much: free before 8pm, £5 suggested donation afterwards, but pay what you can afford

Where: Ratstar Social Centre, 298 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, London, SE5 0DL (10 mins walk from Oval tube station, well serviced by local bus routes)

MUSIC

from banging techno to punk to hip hop to dubstep to drum and bass to accoustic, whatever you’re into we got you covered.

live bands

• Anarchistwood – punk with a very twisted twist
• 52 Commercial Road – Epic post-rock
• The Lightbulb Amnesty – Quirkyness aplenty
• Sarah Bear – Acoustic songs on a soulful/political tip
• Saul Wright - Psychedelic folk from the man that never really really left the 60’s behind

live hip hop

• Cross Bone T – Hard raps and sick beats with a serious message
• H.L.I. (thewhatsupreme and Sensei C) – two hip hop veterans collide showcasing new material. Expect heaviness
• Deir Yassin – Rising British Palestinian rap star Deir Yassin ain’t afraid to spit the truth about his homeland
• EDMC – EDMC AKA Ed Greens brings some politics for your ear

DJs

• We Are Dubbist – No intro needed, the legendary DJ/MC dubstep crew bless us with their presence
• Random – Bristols finest bringing the Techno/Breaks
• DJ Hamza – eclectic mash up to get you dancing
• Sammy B-Side – Cambridge’s veteran Hip Hop selector takes a break from his album to spin for us
• Krank – Banging, banging Techno
• DJ Deadlybuzz – Whomping Dubstep from the Dissident Island radio DJ
• Skanksta – Drum and Bass with a Reggae twist

WORKSHOPS

The workshop line up is now sorted. A Palestinian cafe will also be running from 5pm.

4pm – 5pm

• A History of Palestine/Israel with Asa Winstanley
• An overview of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement. The BDS movement was launched 5 years ago by a coalition of over 100 Palestinian trade unions, NGOs and community organisations with the aim of promoting a boycott of Israel until the right of return, an end to the occupation and full civil rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel are achieved. The last two years have seen a huge growth in support for the movement, Michael Deas will look at the history of the movement and its future.

5-6pm

• An overview of direct action campaigns against Israeli settler companies Ahava and Carmel Agrexco (what the fundraiser is for) with Matthew Richardson. Both companies trade in products originating on illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.  Through the use of concrete, superglue, drain pipes, bicycle locks and even horse manure, time and time again these companies operations have been brought to a shuddering halt. This workshop aims to give an overview of the two campaigns, their objectives, and how they feed into the wider movement to free Palestine.  It will look at of the kinds of techniques which have been used, and some of the difficulties and dangers which have been encountered.  We will explore at the legal rational behind the actions and explain the recent victory of 4 protestors who were acquitted in court after having “locked-on” inside the Ahava shop.  We will look at what’s next for the campaign, and most importantly, how to get involved!
• An overview of Brighton’s Smash EDO campaign, which recently saw campaigners who caused over £200,000 worth of damage to the EDO arms factory acquitted of criminal damages on the basis that they were preventing war crimes by stopping EDO selling arms to Israel.

6pm – 8pm

• Screening of Bil’in Habibti, a documentary about the popular struggle against the apartheid wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in, who have demonstrated against the theft of their land by the wall every Friday for over 5 years. Directed by Shai Pollack, activist with Israeli Palestine solidarity group Anarchists Against the Wall.

Asa Winstanley is an independent journalist who writes for Electonic Intifada, the New Left Project and others. He first went to Palestine in 2004 and spent two years living and working in the occupied West Bank. He wrote for and was managing sub editor of the Palestine Times, which was the first Palestinian English-language daily newspaper published from the occupied West Bank.

Michael Deas is the Eurpoean Co-Ordinator of the Palestinian National BDS Comittee.

Matthew Richardson is a human rights activist who has been involved in Palestine solidarity for the past 3 years.  He has visited Palestine twice and has been involved in a direct action both in Palestine and also here in the UK.

In celebration of the recent court victory in which four campaigners were acquitted for blockading the Covent Garden Ahava shop in 2009, approximately 60 protesters gathered outside its doors in Monmouth Street, central London, to celebrate and continue promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation. While demonstrators were met by the usual Zionist counter-demonstrators, on this occasion they arrived flanked by the openly racist English Defence League.

Ahava, the cosmetics retailer and spa outlet, manufactures its products on the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem. It has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labeling. The campaign against Ahava supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as a global nonviolent means to challenge the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the ongoing siege upon Gaza.

At the outset the small group of around ten EDL members remained close to the Zionist contingent of Ahava supporters, handing out leaflets. Over the course of the demonstration they began to take an increasingly prominent role, culminating with the unfurling of a flag of St. George and chanting “E-E-EDL.” This was accompanied by racist remarks towards a number of Ahava protesters who were of Asian/Middle Eastern descent. What was more surprising, and unsettling, was the apparent unwillingness of the Zionist contingent to distance themselves from the EDL.

Vice chair of the Zionist Federation of Britain Jonathon Hoffman was present and took no action to put some distance between the two groups. This comes only days after a recent report in the Israeli paper Haaretz claiming that the Board of Deputies of British Jews were not affiliated with the EDL and did not want anything to do with them. The stark contrast between the formal statement and the reality in front of the Ahava shop, in which senior members of the ZF stood along side EDL members, undercuts any public statements and underlines the racism inherent in the Zionists’ agenda.

The EDL’s history of far right opinions and racist chanting and abuse — as well as their violence and hatred towards Muslim communities — have earned them a variety of unflattering labels, including ‘fascist’. Jewish groups have long since been targeted by right-wing, racist and fascist groups, so to see the Zionists and the EDL united against Palestinians illustrates that as far as the Zionist Federation is concerned, the enemy of one’s enemy may become an ally no matter what they stand for. That they were welcomed by the Zionists may be shocking to some, but might also be reflective of their desperation for support in the UK.

This is not the first instance of the two groups coming together in support of each other. In the immediate aftermath of the brutal attack on the Mavi Marmarra flotilla by Israeli commandos in which nine human rights activists were murdered, the EDL joined up with Zionists outside the Israeli embassy in Knightsbridge to show support for the Israeli state’s violent actions.  In addition, the EDL marched to Downing Street two weeks ago with Israeli flags being held alongside British and St. George flags.

Despite their presence and the racist slurs they shouted at members of the Ahava demonstration, the protest took place without violence.  The verbal abuse hurled by EDL members and their Zionist partners was met with a series of police cautions. Numerous members of the public stopped to chat with Palestinian solidarity activists and showed support. A small brass band played music to entertain the masses and build a celebratory spirit as many people chanted for justice and for an end to the sale of Israeli and Settlement produce.

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17th August 2010

Additions:

Since the publication of the original report, a few points have been raised which are felt important to incorporate.

1) In noting that the event passed without violence, it is important to recognise there was no explicit physical violence. Racism is a form of verbal violence and must be acknowleged as such. Similarly, although no physical violence took place, the EDL did threaten physical violence to at least two members of the Ahava protest.

2) Regarding police cautions: There were a total of five referals for prosecution to the Crown Prosecution Service for racially aggravated offences.

3) Where the Board of Jewish Deputies have sought to distance themselves from the EDL, this must not be confused with the lack of efforts by the Zionist Federation at the demonstration itself to do the same. The  two are distinct organisations and must be considered and treated as such.

Four campaigners against Israeli apartheid were acquitted today of all charges related to two direct action protests against the Israeli cosmetics retailer Ahava in Covent Garden, London. The campaigners locked themselves onto concrete-filled oil drums inside the shop, closing it down for two days in September and December of 2009.

The campaigners insist that they are legally justified in their actions as the shop’s activities are unlawful. All cosmetics on sale in the shop originate from Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, and are deliberately mislabelled “Made in Israel”.

To date, no campaigner has been successfully prosecuted and Ahava has consistently refused to cooperate with the prosecuting authorities.

On the first day of trial, prosecutors dropped aggravated trespass charges. This would have required the prosecution to demonstrate Ahava was engaged in lawful activity. Significantly, the CPS decided that this was not something they would attempt to prove.

The primary witness for the prosecution, Ahava’s store manager, refused to attend court to testify despite courts summons and threats of an arrest warrant leading to the activist’s acquittal on all remaining charges.

Ms Crouch, one of the four  acquitted today said: “This is a small victory in the wider campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. We’ll continue to challenge corporate complicity in the occupation and Israel’s impunity on the international stage.”

Mr Matthews, another acquitted campaigner, added: “The message is clear.  If your company is involved in apartheid and war crimes and occupying Palestinian land, people will occupy your shop.”

The British government, the European Union, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice all consider Israel’s settlements to be illegal, as they are in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention are also criminal offences under UK law (International Criminal Court Act 2001).

For more information please contact the defendant’s solicitor Simon Natas on: 0208 522 7707

NOTES FOR EDITORS

In December 2009, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued guidance to retailers concerning produce grown in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It states that: “The Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers and would therefore almost be certainly committing an offence, if they were to declare produce from the OPT (including from the West Bank) as ‘Produce of Israel’. This would apply irrespective of whether the produce was from a Palestinian producer or from an Israeli settlement in the OPT. This is because the area does not fall within the internationally recognised borders if the state of Israel.”

DEFRA Technical advice: labelling of produce grown in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 11 December 2009

Meet 12pm on Sat 14th August outside Ahava, 39 Monmoutth Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 9DD

On the 9^th, 10^th and 11^th of August 2010, four protestors will appear in court facing the charge of aggravated trespass for having twice blockaded the Israeli-owned cosmetics shop, Ahava. Intending to prevent the sale of illegal settlement goods, the trial forms part of an ongoing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against the cosmetics shop and other consumer goods retailers which trade in products manufactured or grown on Israeli Settlements which have been recognised as illegal under international law by both the United Nations and the British government.

The London based campaign against Ahava compliments a larger international campaign against the company which mis-labels it’s products “Dead Sea: Israel”. Protests against Ahava have taken place in the US, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, with the French collective CAPJPO (Coordination pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient) bringing the case against Ahava to French courts.

Irregular protests had taken place outside the shop over the course of 2009, including the first ever blockade in the midst of Operation Cast. In September 2009 two protestors went into the shop and locked onto a concrete block to prevent them being moved, in December 2009 the action was repeated.  However it was in 2010 that the campaign really gathered momentum and has seen protests take place outside the Covent Garden shop on a fortnightly basis. In addition, the actions have been supplimented by formal complaints to Camden Trading Standards calling for investigations, formal complaints to police, parliamentary questions and lobbying of MPs.

The campaign incorporates a wide number of organisations inclusive of ISM-London, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Kings College Palestine Solidarity, and many others. What the blockaders set out to accomplish was what the government, Camden Trading Standards and the police have so far refused to do; stop the trade in illegal settlement goods. They are now due in court to prove their actions were justified.

In response to the forthcoming court case a large demonstration has been called for the 14^th August from 12 noon till 2pm. Bringing together concerned people to send a clear message regarding the ongoing trade in settlement produce and Israeli produce in general. More information on the trial and what comes from it will be posted in the forthcoming week so do look out for notifications.

——————————————————————————————-

Ahava’s products are manufactured on the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem and where the factory is a cooperative integral to the settlement, consequently profits go towards making the illegal settlement financially viable. Where the Fourth Geneva Conventions state that it is illegal for an occupying power to transfer civilian population into an occupied territory, and that an occupying power must not appropriate natural resources from an occupied territory, Ahava’s business practices thus serve to violate international law. Additional information on Ahava can be found here.

Furthermore, Ahava’s business practices are due to come before the Russell Tribunal on Palestine which will next convene in London in November 2010. The peoples tribunal will place the company’s actions within the context of international law and consider its complicity in possible war crimes

The BDS initiative [7] was born in 2005 through a call by Palestinian civil society groups and organisations seeking a global non-violent means to challenge the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. It has been taken up by numerous groups and organisations internationally and has become a unifying global movement for those seeking justice for Palestine.

Ahava, 39 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London , WC2H 9DD

31^st July 2010: On a humid Saturday afternoon, about twenty campaigners demonstrated once more outside Ahava – retailers of illegal Israeli Settlement good, to express their outrage, raise awareness about the oppression of the Palestinian people and to bring the BDS movement to the streets of London.

Coming from a multitude Palestine solidarity groups, demonstrators carried placards. Leafleted and spoke with shoppers, tourists and passers by, many of whom were receptive, sympathetic and wanted to know more. The J-BIG (Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods) banner was displayed, as were two large Palestinian flags and the colourful Boycott Ahava banner.

Just as in the past, only a few Zionist counter-demonstrators turned up, (including a dog), led by their pied piper, Jonathan Hoffman, Co-Vice Chair of the Zionist Federation. Several times throughout the demonstration, Zionists would enter the shop and re-emerge waving an empty Ahava bag in a bid to provoke demonstrators. These poor attempts were met with indifference as protesters carried on chatting with the members of the public.

Police in overzealous form initially attempted to claim that a poster with a picture of a small forlorn looking Palestinian child holding a barbed wire could offend passers by. Despite threatening arrest, demonstrators successfully argued their case and were able to continue to display the picture which serves only to set out the emotional distress many Palestinian children endure.

During the course of the afternoon, a collection was taken up and £65 was donated for a fund to help free Ahmad Burnat, of Bil’in, a 17 year old Palestinian activist who is being held in Israel’s Ofer military prison until a £1,600 is paid as bail. Bil’in is the site of a weekly non-violent protest against the apartheid wall that has cut through the village taking away precious farmland. Israeli forces in response have deployed tear gas, percussion grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and brute force against protesters and has resulted in a number of injuries and in certain instances death. The Israeli forces have arbitrarily arrested over 90 local Bil’in activists many of whom are languishing in administrative detention, and many of whom are under 18.

The demonstration was the final one prior to a court case between activists and Ahava due to take place on the 9th, 10th and 11th of August. In September 2009, activists blockaded the shop to prevent it from trading with the public, in December 2009 the action was repeated. Where activists set out to do what the government, Camden Trading Standards and the police have so far refused to do, stop the trade in illegal settlement goods, they are now due in court to prove their actions were justified.

The next demonstration is set to take place on Saturday the 14th August and is due to be significantly larger as a response to the forthcoming court case. New faces are always welcome and any and all support is appreciated.

For more background on the Ahava blockades, please see earlier posts on Ahava from September and December 2009.

Ryan Olander and Bridget Chappell have been speaking in cities across Europe about their experiences and observations from their time working with the ISM on the ground in Occupied Palestine and spreading the message of worldwide, popular resistance to the Israeli occupation. Now they are coming to the UK.

More info

BEIT JALA, West Bank — The stream of ships heading to Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade reflects the success of a pro-Palestinian group that’s been creatively confronting Israel for years. High on victory, they are flush with new volunteers.

Activists of the International Solidarity Movement first sailed to Gaza in summer 2008 to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory. Most recently in May, it organized a Gaza-bound flotilla that led to a botched Israeli raid that killed nine activists, sparked an international outcry and forced Israel to ease its 3-year-old blockade.

In recent weeks, Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza.

“Around the world, we motivated people who were frustrated but didn’t know what to do,” said Huwaida Arraf, 34, co-founder of the ISM and its naval spinoff, the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the May flotilla. Since the movement’s ships began, other groups have joined them or imitated them with their own ships trying to reach Gaza’s shores — some of them successfully.

Israel is trying to crack down harder on ISM, and the group has also come under criticism for putting volunteers in danger.

Still, more people are volunteering.

Palestinian activist Hisham Jamjoum says the since the May flotilla, 10 recruits a week have attended his workshop, required for ISM volunteers — double the average.

The ISM was launched in 2001 for sympathetic foreigners to help Palestinians throw off Israeli rule. Its founders are a mix — Arraf, a Palestinian who is a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen; her husband, Adam Shapiro, an American Jew; Neta Golan, an Israeli, and Ghassan Andoni, a Palestinian from the West Bank.

Some 7,000 people — a third of them Jews — have participated since, mainly serving as peaceful, but provocative buffers between Palestinians and Israeli forces, mostly at protests. The group was first noticed in 2002 when its activists rushed past Israeli tanks to shield the besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his West Bank headquarters.

The chance to participate in a compelling conflict is popular with college-age students on summer breaks. For many Jews, it’s a chance to understand the conflict from a radically pro-Palestinian perspective.

But while most activists read about Mideast politics, volunteers can be clueless about conservative Palestinian culture. That’s led to tensions, including sexual harassment. Some Palestinians assume female activists are permissive because they don’t behave like conservative Palestinian women.

During last week’s workshop, Jamjoum, 52, laid the rules out. He asked women to cover their arms and legs. For men: long pants only. Another volunteer explained how to dodge sexual harassment.

Jamjoum taught the volunteers Arabic phrases, including “please,” “thank you,” and “I’m a vegetarian.” Activists don’t realize they are offending Palestinian housewives when they don’t eat their chicken dishes, he explained.

Noting a Palestinian stereotype about unwashed “hippie” activists, Jamjoum told the girls makeup was OK. “Some people think to show solidarity with Palestinians, you have to wear ugly clothes. No. We like you nice and clean.”

Upon graduation, an ISM dispatcher sends activists to demonstrations in coordination with Palestinian protest leaders. They distribute footage of clashes on YouTube, blogs and Facebook.

One ISM veteran — a 23-year-old American calling herself Saegan — highlights an activist’s life. Like other volunteers, she would only identity herself with a pseudonym. During her 6 months with the group, she has been battered by tear gas alongside Palestinians, but also fended off a Palestinian man who tried to rape her while she slept in a West Bank village.

On a routine day, she joined a demonstration in the town of Beit Jala against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier in June. The barrier protects Israel against militants — but also swallows chunks of Palestinian land.

Some 20 Palestinian youths and activists scrambled down an olive grove, where Israeli soldiers guarded a crane clearing land for the barrier. Soldiers fired tear gas. Palestinian youths hurled rocks. Saegan stood close Israeli soldiers. “You are stealing Palestinian land,” she said.

To Israeli officials, the activists are misguided idealists and troublemakers. This year, Israeli forces stormed ISM offices three times, seizing equipment and arresting activists. In March, military officials broadened the definition of who is an “infiltrator,” allowing them to speedily deport foreign activists.

The ISM takes its own measures: They don’t keep databases, and activists use pseudonyms. Hardcore activists legally change their names to dodge an Israeli blacklist of ISM volunteers.

Stepping into confrontations can be dangerous. Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from demolishing a home in Gaza. A British activist was killed by an Israeli soldier in Gaza in 2003. A Palestinian ISM activist was killed by a Palestinian militant in the West Bank town of Jenin.

And the May flotilla went lethally wrong.

Israel says it responded with deadly force when activists on the ship — from a Turkish group that joined the ISM’s flotilla — attacked commandos with iron bars. ISM activists weren’t involved in the violence, but Arraf told Israeli naval officials that everybody was unarmed.

“They have become the useful idiots of Islamic extremists,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

Palestinians have mixed views about their foreign friends.

Bassam Tamimi, a protest leader, complained activists often pressured Palestinians to stop hurling rocks at Israeli soldiers. Another leader, Shady Faraghwa said volunteers boosted morale. The volunteers say the Palestinian conflict is their emblematic issue — as explained by a 24-year old from Denmark who calls himself Carl: “This is the Vietnam of our generation.”

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ryan Olander and Bridget Chappell have been speaking in cities across Europe about their experiences and observations from their time working with the ISM on the ground in Occupied Palestine and spreading the message of worldwide, popular resistance to the Israeli occupation. Now they are coming to the UK.

Whilst in Palestine they set legal precedents by arguing in the Israeli Courts whilst threatened with deportation that the policy of raiding area A (Ramallah) to arrest International activists was illegal. They have spent extensive time in Nablus and East Jerusalem, and will talk about their time there, as well as about the post-Second Intifada political & social landscape of Palestine & Israel.

All events are free entry

30 July –  Swansea

7.30pm @ the Environment Centre, The Old Telephone Exchange, Pier Street, Swansea SA1 1RY. (between Morgan’s Hotel and the Evening Post)

31 July  - Bristol

6-9pm @ ‘The Black Kitten’ Radical Info Shop, 38 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3HB. (Opposite Bristol Free Shop & Emporium Gallery)

2 August – London

7.30pm @ (room G3), School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

4 August  - Brighton

dinner with films 6pm, talk with Q & A 7pm, film and Palestinian music afterwards @ the Cowley Club, 12 London Road, Brighton, BN1 4JA

6 August  - Oxford

7pm @ St Michael at the North Gate church, Cornmarket, Oxford OX1 3EY

9 August –  Cambridge

7.30pm @ Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RR

RYAN OLANDER

Hailing from the northern wilds of the United States, Ryan Olander decided to halt his complicity in the Occupations of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. He achieved this aim through his cessation of work for money in the United States thereby freeing his labor from funding such vile acts of the country in which he was born. However, alleviating himself from complicity was not enough amidst the atrocities and human rights abuses visited upon Palestinians by Israel. He decided to use his life to physically stand with the Palestinians in their plight for liberation and justice.

In November 2009 he began working with the International Solidarity Movement. He spent last 4 weeks in Ramle Givon Detention center fighting illegal deportation, which he would win some months later. After his release from prison he was unable to return to Sheikh Jarrah (where he had been working with families struggling against illegal home evictions), so he coordinated media for ISM, attended demonstrations in the west bank, participated in direct actions against the construction of the Wall and taught English in the East Jerusalem community of Silwan. Alas, after nearly 6 months in Palestine Ryan’s process was over and he had to leave so ISM could retrieve the 10000 shekel bail that was paid in his name.

BRIDGET CHAPPELL

Spurred on by the shocking images of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, Bridget Chappell left Australia last August to join the popular struggle against the illegal occupation of Palestine. Her work as international co-ordinator and in the Nablus area of the West Bank brought her to focus on the annual olive harvest, settler and military violence, demonstrations and steadfast resistance. She was arrested by the Israeli military in an illegal night raid operation in February this year, as Israel’s crackdown on popular resistance surged. Determined to fight her deportation order, she managed to remain in Palestine a further four months before heading to Europe to continue cultivation of the new global intifada.

UPDATED, 8th September: Tom’s Killer was released this morning. The Hurndall family was not informed by any representative of the Israeli government. The British Foreign Office did contact Jocelyn this morning, but not before the news had reached her via ISM London. We are re-publishing our press release from July as our statement today.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

20th July 2010

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) condemns the early release from prison of the Israeli soldier that murdered photography student and ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall in Gaza in 2003. The Israeli press yesterday reported that Taysir Hayb will be released three years early from an already short eight-year sentence.

His murder was only a symptom of a much wider culture of impunity in the Israeli army. This early release serves to reinforce the notion that the Israeli army can continue to commit war crimes against Palestinians without fear of serious consequences.

Tom’s mother Jocelyn Hurndall told ISM London that: “this reduced sentence comes at a time when the world is becoming more sceptical about Israel’s investigations into its own actions. It’s a reminder of Israel’s disregard for international law and opinion.”

When Hayb was sentenced in 2005, human rights activist, Raphael Cohen, who was with Tom on the day of the shooting said, “On the very street where Tom was shot, two children had been shot just days before. This is why he and the rest of the group went to that spot, to protest against the shooting of children as they played outside their homes. There has never been any investigation into the shootings of those children.”

To this day, there has still been no investigation of these deaths or of the thousands of other Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli soldiers. Only last month in Jerusalem Ziad Joulani, 41, a Palestinian shopkeeper and father of three with no criminal record or history of political activism, was killed when Israeli police opened fire as he got out of his car. [1] His killing is not being investigated.

Tom’s family had to fight hard to achieve even the eight-year manslaughter conviction that they won in 2005, against a system of Israeli obfuscation and lies, and an indifferent British government. In a statement yesterday the Foreign Office merely said: “We note the court’s decision to release Taysir Hayb and recognise the grief this decision will cause to the Hurndall family,” describing the deliberate act of murder as “a tragedy”.

Tom’s father Anthony hit back in the Guardian today, condemning this as a “weak response” by the British government, and demanding to meet with ministers. He said: “I would like them to say that this is not just a tragedy but that the Israeli government is directly responsibile for Tom’s death and should acknowledge this and take steps to put matters right by changing policies to ensure that civilians are not shot or killed indiscriminately.”

Israel did not even bother to inform the Hurndall family in advance of the news reaching the Israeli press, and Tom’s sister Sophie only learnt the news when ISM London contacted her yesterday.

Hayb shot Tom in the forehead with a high velocity bullet using a rifle with a telescopic sight, while he attempted to rescue Palestinian children in Gaza from Israeli gunfire. According to an Observer report from the 2005 trial, Hayb was “an award-winning marksman”. [2] Tom never regained consciousness, dying nine months later in a London hospital at the age of 22.

Jewish nurse and peace activist Alice Coy, who saw Tom shot, said Hayb was only part of “a culture of impunity in which generations of Israelis are taught that Arabs hate them and are subhuman. They are then given guns and they know they can get away with killing Palestinians. The occupation and aggression of Zionist policy is harming ordinary Israelis as well as Palestinians.”

Amnesty International says that: “The shocking truth is that Israeli soldiers kill civilians in Gaza with near-total impunity, week in week out” [3]

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, report that “From the beginning of the [second] intifada, on 29 September 2000, to the end of 2008 (not including Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which began on 27 December), [Israeli] security forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians who were not taking part in the hostilities at the time they were killed. However, a Military Police investigation was opened in only 287 cases of suspected illegal shooting by security forces. This number includes investigations into cases in which civilians were wounded. Only 33 of these investigations resulted in the filing of indictments” [4]

Israeli human rights group Yesh Din clarifies that of these, Haib is the only soldier to have been convicted for an offence causing death: “From the beginning of the second intifada until the end of 2009, Courts-Martial convicted soldiers of offenses connected with the deaths of only four civilians: three Palestinians and one British national. One soldier was convicted of manslaughter, and he was the only one convicted of an offense of causing death. Four other soldiers were convicted of offenses of negligence.” [5]

For more information:

Alice Coy, UK: +44 7828 540512

ISM Media Office, Ramallah: +972 59 760 6276 or +972 2 241 0604

ISM London: +44 7913 067 189

References

“Family of Palestinian driver killed by police demands investigation”. LA Times online, 14th June 2010 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/06/israel-family-of-palestinian-driver-killed-by-police-demands-investigation.html

“Parents fight to learn why Israeli sniper shot their son”. Observer, 30th January 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/30/israel

“Hurndall case: Israeli military forces still kill civilians with ‘near-total impunity’” Amnesty International statement, 7th October 2008 http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17897

“Military Police investigations during the al-Aqsa intifada” B’Tselem http://www.btselem.org/English/Accountability/Investigatin_of_Complaints.asp

“IDF Investigations of IDF offenses against Palestinians” [PDF] Yesh Din, Februrary 2010

REVISION, 21st July: The initial version of this press release erroneously stated that Ziad Joulani had been shot “last week”. In fact he was killed on the 14th of June, as stated in the text of our reference. This online version has been revised to read “last month”. The final paragraph with the Yesh Din figures on convictions was also added.

On Saturday the 17^th July, activists gathered outside Ahava for the ongoing campaign against a company profiting from Israels occupation of Palestine.

The fortnightly demonstration saw once again a contingent of approximately 30 protestors gather to inform the public and get the message across about Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions as a means to bring an end to the occupation, as well as highlight the economic links by companies such as Ahava with illegal Israeli Settlements which thieve precious Palestinian land and natural resources.

As per usual, the protest was accompanied by a group of Zionists peddling lies about the history of the conflict and distorting the reality of the Israeli state’s occupation, human rights abuses against the Palestinians and violations of international law. Despite their presence and intimidatory tactics, the protestors continued unperturbed. When the ever-present Richard Millet, a well known Zionist who frequently attends these demonstrations, continued his efforts to harass a lone individual who was giving out leaflets, it came as a relief when police decided to intervene and give him a formal warning for harassment. Where Zionists have made every effort to intimidate participants at the Ahava and other BDS mobilisations, it is hoped the police caution will keep their aggressive tactics at bay.

Protestors however focussed on the task at hand of increasing awareness over the issue of Ahava and the brutal Israeli occupation, and spoke with numerous members of the public about it. The wealth of support from passers by was duly appreciated and always acts as a boost to those who attend each fortnight.

The regular protest continues to see new faces attend each time and the BDS movement steadily grow and gain strength.

Ahava’s products are manufactured on the illegal Settlement of Mitzpe Shalem which sits upon stolen Palestinian land. The settlement is considered illegal under both British and International Law and takes precious natural resources away from Palestinians reducing their capacity to create their own viable economy. The Palestinian call for BDS aims to reduce the international community’s financial, cultural, sporting and academic engagement with the state of Israel as a non-violent means of challenging the apartheid system which sees restrictions on movement, economic restrictions, house demolitions, land theft, indefinite detention without trial and brutal violence against Palestinians and human rights activists in both the West Bank and Gaza.

The next demonstration will be on Saturday the 31^st July from 12pm – 2pm.

Ahava, Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London

For updates, reminders and news on protests and events, please sign up to the ISM-London email list or Twitter feed.

Thursday July 22nd, 8pm

Ratstar Social Centre, 298 Camberwell Road, SE5 0DL

Free Entry

Ten protestors will appeal against their sentences on Tuesday 13 July. If successful, the appeals will impact on all current and any future cases where the courts try to pass deterrent sentences.

A picket has been called at the appeal court at 9am, calling for the release of all those imprisoned, the dropping of any further charges, an end to the intimidation of the Muslim community and in defence of the right to protest.

Tuesday 13 July 9AM
Royal Courts of Justice, the Strand, London WC2A 2LL

Called by Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CND, Palestine Forum of Britain.

About twenty people demonstrated on Saturday 3rd July against Ahava, who sell cosmetics manufactured on the illegally occupied West Bank settlement of Mitzpe Shalem, on the shore of the Dead Sea.

The protest was held outside Ahava’s only UK shop, on Monmoth Street, Covent Garden for just over two hours.

Protesters chanted “Dead Sea Mud, Palestinian Blood” and other
slogans.

There were also about ten Zionist counter-demonstrators, who appear to believe that anything Israel does can be justified as ‘defending itself’.

A reporter from Israeli TV Channel 10 interviewed protesters.

More information about the Ahava and the campaign at:
http://freepalestinefortnightlydemo.wordpress.com/
http://www.stolenbeauty.org/
http://www.ism-london.org.uk/?s=ahava

After many months here I feel I want to write something about the city of Hebron. It’s where I’ve been spending a lot of my time in the past two months, and it is in many respects a uniquely awful example of the Israeli Occupation.

Hebron and Jerusalem are the only cities in which there are Israeli settlers living within the heart of Palestinian communities. (Other West Bank settlements are mostly perched on hilltops, fenced off from reality, heavily guarded by the Israeli military, willingly blind to the fate of the people whose land they have stolen, other than when they choose to venture out to attack these people or their property). Hebron had the first settlements after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, and the settlers there have built up a reputation as amongst the most zealous and violent of their kind.

Our apartment there is in a neighbourhood called Tel Rumeida. Within this area is one of the four settlements inside Hebron. All four, the areas around them, and the whole of the Old City are under full Israeli civil and military control (these areas are collectively referred to as H2). In H2, over 1800 Palestinian shops have been forced to close in the past 15 years. One of the main thoroughfares, Shuhada Street, is closed to all Palestinians, their homes and shops having been sealed shut, making it a weird ghost town, except on Saturdays when the settlers and soldiers come out in force. In most of H2, Palestinians cannot drive vehicles. Tel Rumeida is on a particularly steep hill, and one frequently sees elderly, disabled or pregnant people having to inch up the hill, as settlers speed past in their cars. This ban on vehicles extends, at least most of the time, to Palestinian ambulances, which has led to numerous deaths as people have bled to death for want of medical aid.

One of the hardest things about being in Hebron is hearing the endless terrible stories from people who live there about what has been done, and is being done to them. I heard a story from one man whose wife has twice miscarried when several months pregnant after being attacked by settlers, and whose daughter has had her arm broken on three separate occasions when settlers have attacked her, her teachers and her classmates as they have been leaving school (that school now does ‘intensive learning’, which basically means they take no breaks and move very fast through all topics. The head teacher acknowledges that it is a bad way of learning, but it is the only way they can be out of school and safely home before the settlers get out of their schools).

My friends were shown CCTV footage of two teenage settlers – perhaps 14 years old – tearing open the wire over the windows of a Palestinian home very near where we live, and pointing a gun through into the living room in which the family were gathered. Guns are everywhere in H2. As well as the huge number of soldiers, all settlers are allowed to carry arms wherever they go – the other day, a settler on his morning jog ran past me with a machine gun on his back.

Soldiers and settlers are essentially one and the same. At best, soldiers might stop settlers from attacking the Palestinians, though they would never arrest them. Frequently, they have been known to stand by and watch, and sometimes to join in. The courts are no better. A settler recently got out of his car and started randomly shooting at a group of Palestinians, injuring two. The last I heard, he was under house arrest for this attack.

Every Saturday, we participate in a demonstration in Hebron. Unlike most other demonstrations, soldiers haven’t yet used weapons against us here, but the settlers make up for this by throwing stones, glass bottles, eggs and water down onto us (the settlement in the Old City is literally above the market – houses built on the roofs of houses. There is wire mesh which catches some of the larger objects, but a lot can unfortunately still get through).

Harassment from soldiers can be extremely nasty. I heard a story about two men whose father died in Tel Rumeida. They were not allowed to bring a coffin in, and obviously could not bring in any sort of vehicle to carry the body, so they had to carry it down to the checkpoint wrapped in sheets. There, the soldiers forced them to lay the body down in the dirt while they checked their IDs (in Muslim culture, that is an even worse thing to tell someone to do than it might be in a Christian or secular one). The soldiers then made them carry the body through the metal detector, which went off. The soldiers then frisked the dead body, and decided it was the man’s watch that was the problem, so smashed it with the butt of one of their gun’s, shattering the dead man’s wrist in the process.

I could go on for pages relating these stories. Such things are a daily occurrence. What is incredible, and hugely important, is that the families who live there don’t run and hide. For those that could afford to, moving a few hundred metres would make all aspects of their lives immeasurably easier, but that would mean letting the settlers win. As I have found so often in my time here, the persistent courage and determination of the Palestinian people is the greatest source of strength and inspiration.

Robin

Dear John Lydon and Public Image Ltd,

We are a group of human rights activists from the UK who work on the ground in Palestine supporting the Palestinian non-violent popular struggle against Israeli occupation.

We have heard you have been booked to play in Tel Aviv at the end of August and are writing to ask you not to go.

You may not know, but in 2005 an unprecedented coalition of Palestinian grassroots groups, trade unions and NGOs stood together and asked the world to boycott apartheid Israel in the same way the world boycotted apartheid South Africa (you can see the list of signatories on their website: http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52).

They have three demands: an end to the 43-year-old military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and for the Palestinian refugees — the largest refugee population in the world — to be allowed home.

Not exactly unreasonable is it? But Israel will not concede Palestinian rights unless pressured from outside. Heeding this call to boycott Israeli apartheid is something more and more international artists are doing.

As activists working on the ground in Palestine we have seen the full horror of the occupation: the separate road systems for Israeli settlers, the brutality of Israeli army invasions into Palestinian cities, the way the apartheid wall snakes through the West Bank stealing Palestinian land.

We are not the only ones; many veterans of the South African struggle against apartheid, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have said that Israeli apartheid in Palestine is worse even than in South Africa.

In the 1980s you heard the ANC’s call to boycott South Africa, and recorded Rise with Public Image Limited. Please now join artists such as Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron and Gorrilaz, and cancel your Israeli tour dates.

These are only a few of the famous names that have now cancelled Israeli tour dates in response to the Palestinian call to boycott Israel until it complies with international law. Many other artists, away from the headlines, have heeded the call by not even booking Israeli tour dates in the first place.

Do the right thing, cancel Tel Aviv.

Signed,

International Solidarity Movement, London

“Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”

Nobel Peace Laureate Nelson Mandela.

D
What aspects of Israel do you feel make it an ‘apartheid state’? I see institutional racism in Israel and the actions of many Israeli settlers and military in occupied territories are clearly racist. I struggle, however, to detect a system of formalised, legal racial hierarchy that could accurately be described as apartheid.
J
When you have two sets of people living next to one another, driving on separate roads (one fast and efficient, the other long and winding), subject to different legal systems (one democratic, the other military) and paying different amounts for water (one 4 times the amount of the other), where one side has freedom of movement, the other checkpoints, where one side can build houses anywhere, the other find their houses demolished for building in the wrong (roughly 90% of
the) area. That is apartheid.

The parallels in South African and Israeli apartheid can also be drawn in the origin of the apartheid. Apartheid South Africa was like Israel a colonial project, where outsiders, predominantly European, came to take over to take over foreign land and construct a state predominantly for the benefit of the settler population. In that situation the settler population is charged with the problem of how to retain control of the new state. One way is mass expulsion of the native population, which Israel achieved in 1948, attempted in 1967 and was possibly considering in 2009. Another is committing a genocide of the native population, which was achieved in the US for example. A third way is to construct an apartheid regime, where a minority settler population dominates a majority native one through various legal channels, and excludes them both physically from settler land and from the running of the state, hence apartheid. This is what happened in South Africa.

The apartheid analogy doesn’t extend too well into Israel proper itself, although slightly, as after the mass expulsion of 1948 Palestinians only made up 20% of the population, so Jewish dominance could be preserved without full apartheid, so Palestinians there can vote for example (although suffer discrimination and don’t have full land rights, as land is predominantly controlled by the Jewish National Fund). However, when the occupation began in 1967 Israel found it controlled too many Palestinians to grant citizenship too without compromising Jewish dominance, had failed in an attempted mass expulsion (only 300,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1967), so created an apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories. All of the symptoms of apartheid described above stem from Israel’s colonial nature, and inability to comprehend either granting the natives in the occupied territories equality, or hand the occupied land back to the natives.

M
Apartheid in South Africa was notably overt. In Israel the system of apartheid is less formal, the results are similar nonetheless.

A clear example would be settlers and soldiers who can kill with impunity whilst Palestinians (including children) are imprisoned without trial and sometimes tortured. Expediency determines whether Arabs are subjected to IPS proceedings or administrative detention.

The identity card system underpins the logic of Israeli apartheid. They dictate where Arabs and Jews are permitted to live, and more importantly how they are likely to be treated by civil servants, the police, and the military. Jews can speed through checkpoints where as Arabs are made to wait for hours. Arabs are declined planning permission for homes and civic amenities (just one pretext for home demolitions) whilst Jews don’t suffer such problems. Palestinians who
marry Israelis do not receive Israeli citizenship and residency permits whilst everyone else does. A wall has been built to annexe land owned by Palestinians for use by Jews. Six times as much is spent educating Jewish children than Arab children.

The Israelis have a demographic problem: in order to create and maintain the ethnic purity of Israel they require these racist and barbaric policies. Policies which make Palestinians want to leave, which render them dead or injured, which slow the birth rate of Palestinians all server Israel’s greater aims. If you look at
Operation Cast Lead (in which hundreds of children were murdered), and the blockade of essential food and medical supplies through this prism, Israel’s policies are entirely logical.
D
Suffice to say I agree with some of your points re the occupation, but struggle when applied to Israel as a whole. I think it boils down whether you see the area that was mandate Palestine as one nation, in which case the apartheid analogy is closer, or two nations, where it no longer makes any sense.

The areas under Israeli military administration, while not formally having an apartheid system, have such obvious and blatant double standards in the way laws are implemented for your analogy to hold true.

Israel itself is not an apartheid state. Citizens are free to challenge laws and practices they feel to be racist, and several have done so successfully recently, including the ‘Israeli only’ (not Jewish only) road and the impact of JNF land ownership.

To me what is necessary is to end the occupation as quickly as possible. This has been offered in the past, and is most likely to happen by expressing solidarity with progressive Zionist forces in the hope of a more moderate Israeli government. Equally support must be given to those Palestinians who desire such a peace, rather than bolstering the likes of Hamas.

As for your version of the narrative of the events concerning the Zionist / Arab nationalist struggle, I think we differ. I actually teach these events to students as an example of how there are two truths, depending on viewpoint and the argument is trying to prove. J, you point to 1948 and 1967 as attempts by Zionists to expel Palestinians, they could equally be framed as attempts by Arab nationalists to liquidate the Jewish presence in the middle east. Certainly this was the rhetoric of many Arab leaders at the time. In 1948, for every two Palestinians who left what is now Israel, three Jews arrived having been expelled from Arab lands. In the creation of an ‘ethnically pure’ Israel, Zionism had some willing accomplices.
J
Yea I agree that the analogy only really holds up when applied to the area of mandate Palestine, but the occupation is 43 years old now, I think that’s enough time to wait before we call what may have once been a temporary arrangement formalised apartheid.

In terms of different world view, you are right in saying that there are different ways to view the events of 1948 and 1967, but then there are different ways of viewing any historical event.

There are those that still believe (including the mayor of London) that British colonialism brought civility and prosperity to the backwards east. The Ottoman Turks cited security reasons for their genocide of Armenians in the earliest 20th century. Robert Mugabe and his supporters accuse those who want representative democracy in Zimbabwe as being tools of western imperialism. There are always two sides to the story but it is sometimes totally fair to choose to
ignore one side, the side of the oppressor, if facts and reason destroy their argument from a humanitarian worldview.

In 1948 the mass expulsion in accordance with plan Dalet was clearly long planned, and took place before the surrounding Arab armies invaded after Israel declared independence, not after. Yes, Jews were expelled from Arab countries during these events. This was clearly completely morally wrong, and those Jews should receive compensation and/or their right to return home during any peace settlement. However, more focus is on Palestinian refugees as they arguably have had a much worse fate post-expulsion. The Gaza Strip and Lebanese refugee camps are no joke.

In 1967 Israel attacked Egypt, not the other way round. I think the best reading of 1967 is that it was a series of escalating empty threats from all sides, a situation that got out of hand and resulted in war. I think it is also fair to say that ‘in the fog of war’, the Israeli military which seemed to have become completely detached from civilian command decided to attempt an ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Whatever your reading about the origins of the war, or events in
it, ethic cleansing is never acceptable. It is also highly possible that Israel was planning an ethnic cleansing of the south east section of the Gaza strip during operation cast lead.
D
Your account is also problematic in that it casts Israel as the only actor in the region, reducing Palestinians and other Arab participants in this tragedy to mere victims, lacking any choice or agency. It also sees Israel and Zionism as monolithic, rather than multifaceted. Amos Oz, the veteran Israeli peace activist, sums up the situation well when he says this is not a battle between right and wrong, it is a battle between right and right and, unfortunately, a battle between wrong and wrong.

Both sides are right in that they seek to govern themselves and live securely free of oppression; both sides are wrong in that in doing this they all too often fail to recognise the rights of the other community and engage in rhetoric and practices that are murderous and oppressive. The extreme rejectionism, anti Semitism and even flirtation with Nazism that characterised much of Arab Nationalism had the impact of strengthening the more extreme forms of Zionism and often gave Zionists little choice other than to be aggressive in defence of their communities and lives. Likewise the racism that emerged in Israeli policy, it’s failure to recognise the validity of Palestinian nationalism and the overwhelming influence the military came to have in Israel helped fuel the type of extremism we now see in Hamas.

By portraying the history of the Middle East in black and white terms commentators merely prolong the conflict. Those who seek to portray Israel as an island of democracy and its neighbours as terrorist despots are wrong headed and racist. Those who lay all the ills of the region at the feet of Zionism, ignoring context and casting this national movement as a false nationalism, a mere colonial project (whose colony?) are equally wrong headed and often racist.

In the violent confrontation that has ensued one nationalist movement has clearly triumphed over the other. As the victorious power Israel is the partner more able to make concessions and for its own long term good needs to magnanimous in victory. The Palestinians in their turn need to accept Israel and Zionism as valid, legitimate and permanent. Ideally they would both rid themselves of past bad feeling and national identities and embrace one another as brothers. As this is a highly unlikely scenario a separation and acceptance of one another will have to do as a start.

M
If anyone new to this conflict was to read your account they could be forgiven for thinking that the Palestinians were not living in Palestine before they were massacred in their thousands, ethnically cleansed, and their land stolen. Do you recognise that ethnic cleansing took place in 1948?

Your account is problematic in that doesn’t validate the fact that Zionism is indetachable from the massive land grab which has, and still is taking place. Israel has a choice between land or peace, and it has chosen land. Isn’t this a case of a dispossessed people fighting to get back stolen land rather than ‘one nationalist movement triumphed over the other’.

You couch your argument as if there is an equality of power between Israel and Palestine. The state of Israel is militarily immensely stronger than the Palestinian resistance. Israel’s policy has been ‘an eye for an eyelash’ in the words of Avi Shlaim. Simply look at the death count on both sides.

If you are frustrated at not seeing Palestinian peace activists then perhaps you should read this;

Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist … in Graves and Prisons..

J

Can you name one colonised society that took kindly to colonisation?

Modern day America was colonised by all kinds of people and movements, puritans, people fleeing oppression etc… didn’t stop the natives wanting to scalp them and violently resist being thrown from their land.

Blaming Palestinians for turning Zionism rightwards by not taking kindly to colonisation, violently resisting (sometimes going too far, perhaps like the Native Americans) is a severe case of blaming the victim. Just because Zionism was/is not monolithic (what movement is? In my office, a charity employing 20 people, we cant agree on which way to go), does not make the situation too complicated to attribute blame, especially when one side is actively dispossessing the other
every day, and kills with much higher frequency than the other.

Also, although there was/are arguments within Zionism, consensus has been formed around maintaining racial exclusivity and Jewish dominance over Palestinians. Near consensus has also been formed around territorial expansionism. These are the two things that drive the human rights abuses and injustices that we see today. As a test for what I have just said, can you name on self professed Zionist who is ok with the right of return? So it is perfectly legitimate to
criticise Zionism, to stand with the weaker party, the victim.

I think the worst thing you can do in terms of ‘prolonging the conflict’ is adopt the woolly, comfortable ‘extremists on both sides’ narrative. This simply allows the Israeli establishment, which is perfectly happy with the status quo, carte blanche to continue as is. Israel is technically capable of delivering peace and justice in a heartbeat, it just lacks the will to do so as serious concessions (from their POV) will be needed to achieve this. The best way to shorten the ‘conflict’ is to apply pressure, of which BDS is one way.

D
I have no illusion that there is an equality of power between Israel and ‘Palestinian resistance’.

Let us emphasise the views that we share: Palestinians are oppressed in that they are denied national self determination as a collective and they are also the subject of individual acts of racism that range from petty bureaucratic humiliation to death. In this struggle they deserve our full support. Part of this support is harsh criticism of Israeli government policy.

I am active in this struggle. I support Israeli groups like Peace Now in their campaigns, both financially and through letter writing. I contribute to Palestinian education and community programs please do not think I take this issue lightly.

There are however two struggles, the one outlined above and the one to defend Israel from demonisation and delegitimisation. One that opposes those who seek to exclude Israeli Jews and only Israeli Jews from the cultural, sporting and economic life of the world. One that opposes those who champion the right to national self determination of one group, while saying that the wishes of another to have the same right is racism or colonialism. Perhaps worst is the ease with which some make common cause with fundamentalists and anti semites, turning a blind eye to their hideous views. I don’t expect Palestinians to be Ghandis, but championing the fascists amongst them helps no one, least of all ordinary Palestinians.

Yes ethnic cleansing took place in 1948, on both sides.

Yes Israel has a choice between land and peace, let us support those Israelis who wish to make the right choice.

Palestinians have the choice between peace alongside Israel or subjugation by it. Those who encourage them to fight for more lock them into a death match they cannot win.

J
I must say I completely one hundred percent support Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until a) the occupation ends b) Palestinian citizens of Israel receive full equality c) the refugees receive their right to return home. I don’t think there is anything there those conditions that ‘champions the right to national self determination of one group, while saying that the wishes of another to have the same right is racism or colonialism’ yet those are the conditions for the boycott to be lifted. For far from BDS activists urging Palestinians into a death match they can’t win, they are doing quite the opposite; following their instructions!

In 2005 an unprecedented coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called for BDS until those conditions are met, they have shown national consensus on the way forward for international solidarity activists. Disagreeing with BDS means either disagreeing that the Palestinians are fundamentally the victims in this situation, or believing that they shouldn’t have to the right to choose how to fight their own struggle.

In terms of singling out Israel, well, no one is doing that. There are lots of states subject to sanctions and embargoes, including Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe etc.. the BDS movement simply recognises that world governments are not going to add Israel to a list it sorely deserves to be on through people power, not government action. There are more states that deserve to be boycotted; but only once their victims have demanded the boycott. Ill boycott China once the Tibettan and Uigars demand I do so. I’d even urge a boyocott of the UK if the Afghans asked me to. But not before. Nobody is singling out Israel due
to anti-Semitism or such, Israel is just unlucky to have colonised quite a well organised bunch of people.

I think supporting peace now et al is a slightly, and I don’t mean to be insulting here, naive way of supporting ‘peace’. I mean, I challenge you name one truly successful peace movement in history. What did peace movement against the wars in Iraq achieve? Vietnam even? Not very much is the honest answer, because people are mostly selfish creatures. They will fight and make sacrifices for their own interest, but not so much others. There is no reason why the Israeli peace movement should be any different. The peace now platform doesn’t go nowhere near far enough in delivering a real peace, peace with justice, to the Palestinian people, and they will never convince the majority of the platform anyway. They are almost irrelevant.
D

I am familiar with the BDS movement as I am an activist in the UCU (formerly AUT), where the academic boycott originated (somewhat before the PACBI call BTW). I abstained on the motion at the first union congress I attended and voted against the motions since. I think there is a huge difference between the type of boycott you mention against Korea and co, or South Africa even, and the one against Israel. No one ever refuses to even watch an Iranian film, or share a stage with a Zimbabwean artist because there are sanctions in place against his or her government. The Israeli boycott seems much more total and personal than that, or has been in the way it comes across within my union. It does not come across as the measured response you describe, but as a wish to make people pariahs on the basis of their nationality.

You are right about ordinary Palestinians being the victims, but I think you are wrong to single out Israelis as the sole perpetrators of the crime. The leaders of surrounding Arab nations and Palestinian leaders themselves are all complicit in the failure to find peace.

I think demanding a right of return for all Palestinians is effectively denying Jewish national self determination. I am cynical that such a huge number of people could be peacefully integrated or that the resultant Jewish minority would be respected. The Jewish refugees of 48 are now settled citizens, that population transfer cannot be undone without harming even more innocent parties. There are numerous other population transfers that have been equally traumatic,
but have been accepted as permanent in the interests of peace (Germany / Poland, India, Greece /Turkey) It is also very easy for us to sit in England, where no one calls for our destruction or blames all the ills of history on our us and our ancestors, and lecture the Israelis about jealously defending their state. Nations without states tend to be easily bullied and oppressed, look at the Palestinians, the Kurds. Given the rhetoric of so many in neighbouring countries I understand
why the Jews wish to maintain their independence in the form of a nation state. What this should not do is deny Palestinians a similar privilege.

Your arguments have been very clearly made and are not without persuasion. You have avoided much of the shrill lecturing I often hear on this subject. You have also avoided a lot of the anti Semitism that tends to creep in to the language of Palestinian solidarity (although there were a couple of moments where I think you flirted). I have more respect for your point of view than I did before this discussion, but I think we still fundamentally differ. I think this comes down to the word ‘colonial’. I do not see Israel as a colonial venture, you do. To describe it in such a way ignores the centrality of the land of Israel to the Jewish nation including a large and continuous presence there. It also ignores the fact that millions of Jews fled to Palestine because it contained the only existing Jewish community able and willing to offer them refuge from violent persecution. This was not colonialism, but mass escape. To me the Jews are in Israel the same
way as the Welsh are in Wales, their claim to live there is as valid (but no more so) than that of the Palestinians.

If I had been a Jew in the 30s or 40s and didn’t live in the relative safety of the USA or UK I imagine (hope?) life would have led me to Palestine. As a socialist I like to think when I got there I would have sought class solidarity with the local Arab population against our common foes. I fear that the already existing divisions would have precluded that option and I would have ended out an Israeli, fighting Arabs not because I want to oppress them but because we found
ourselves on opposite sides. Would that make me a colonist?
J
Yes that would make you a colonialist and you wouldn’t be the first colonialist to have been forced to end up in the orient either; you would have been following the Irish fleeing famine or puritans fleeing religious persecution to get to America. Or Australians who were taken over in chains. I’m not saying that there wasn’t a serious ‘push’ factor in Zionism from European anti-Semitism, but it was still colonialism. Outsiders coming to an area, taking over and establishing a state for the benefit of themselves and the detriment of the natives is always colonialism, no matter why the people arrived in the first place.

In a way though it doesn’t really matter, arguing about the past, because the real problem is that Israel has yet to reach a post-colonial phase of its development, in a way for example New Zealand has begun to, renaming place names by their original Maori names and such.

Israel’s character as a state that defines itself as a home for the Jewish people, not a state for people under its control still drives it to acquire more land and exclude more (non-Jewish) people. This means that on the ground the refugees are still not allowed home, the occupation is still running, with all the brutality that entails and Palestinians in Israel are still discriminated against. All of these things are fundamentally wrong in my view. I think we agree on the occupation and discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, but disagree on the right of return. I’m not sure you understand just how attached the refugees are to their homeland though, and how there will never be peace without the right of return being sorted.

I have spent quite a lot of time in Palestine, and let me tell you when you stand in the hills above Nablus and realise you can see Haifa, Jaffa and the homelands of people who must stand regularly in that very spot before going back to the bullet scarred hellhole that is Balata camp, knowing that you can get Israeli citizenship and go and live in their old house just because you have one Jewish grandparent; well, when you do that you understand what a serious injustice the denial of the Palestinian right of return really is. The right of return is also something more than just an access pass; it is a sorry. It is an acknowledgment of the Nakba, without which people can’t move on and attain peace. To deny this in the name of Israeli self determination I think is fundamentally wrong, as self determination can take many forms, and the ethocratic model is the worst available.

For example, Here in Britain we have self determination, but Britain is not officially a state for white protestants; Britishness is officially (I know racism and discrimination still exists, but serious, largely successful efforts have been made to purge that from the state) defined by whether you are born here and not your skin colour. In America they forged national identity not on race but on the belief in lassez faire capitalism. You accuse supporters of Palestine of a double standard of supporting Palestinian but denying Jewish self determination, but Palestinian identity is built on attachment to the land, having physical roots in mandate Palestine, not on race or religion. Hence you have Palestinian Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bedioun, Samaratans, Jews even. Supporting Palestinian
self determination is simply supporting the right of people who are demanding to live under a democracy not under military rule, not supporting the rights of Arab Sunni Muslims to run an ethnocracy. And to say that the refugees must continue to live in their camps to preserve Israel’s ethnocratic character seems very unjust to me.

In terms of the nature of the boycott, it is a common misconception that it is in any way personal; it is a boycott of institutions and a ban on travelling to Israel. Israeli artists are free to come to the west so long as they aren’t supporting any government organ. Academics are free to pick up the phone and have a chat with Israeli counterparts, just not take part in projects that link their institutions. It is coercion, it is collective punishment, but in an infinitely more mild form to the collective punishment laid down on the people of Gaza for example. After 43 years of occupation, and 62 years of Nakba, I think enough is enough, things need to change, and if that takes a mild form of collective punishment to push the Israel people and establishment towards peace and justice then that’s what it takes.

D
I think you are hopeful if you think the boycott will not become personal and racist. I am not saying it is planned that way, or that you are not mindful and watchful enough to make sure that your actions are not personal and racist, but I am still cynical.

I think your accounts of both Palestinian and Israeli nationalism are caricatures. And I would point out that nations based much more strictly on ethnic and religious lines than Israel is are very common in the world outside of western liberal democracy, especially the middle east. However I think it’s fair to say that you view Zionism as theft and colonialism, I see it is as a valid expression of nationalism and with these starting points we are going to come across many different views of the area.

What is more interesting, as you say, is how we think the current status quo can be best changed. I have spent extended periods in Israel and feel I have some kind of handle on the hopes, fears and aspirations of a number of Israelis. You would no doubt say the same about Palestinians. I think our core differences outlined above are probably representative of those that divide the two peoples. Some of these appear impossible to bridge.

I know you have said you think Israel could end this whole affair ‘in a heart beat’ and clearly believe that unilateral Israeli action would be sufficient. However I am sure you admit there is much that would need to be sorted out by negotiation, compromise and reconciliation, even if you regard these issues as the details. I am interested to hear how you envisage the process unfolding, in your ideal world.
J
The way I see things progressing is that BDS plus increased Palestinian resistance can go some way to addressing the power discrepancy between the sides, giving Israel reason to offer settlement terms more in line with international law than the bantustans it has offered in the Oslo era.

Currently, it is not in Israel’s interest to offer anything approaching justice to the Palestinians, they hold all the power and lose nothing maintaining the status quo. No amount of reasoning or negotiating will change this, but measures taken to address the power difference between the sides will allow real negotiations to take place. As for the exact mechanism, well there are so many variables I think it’s impossible to say exactly what will happen.

One thing that would happen for sure though, in the event of a real peace settlement, would be a sea change of opinion inside Israel itself. People’s attitudes and opinions are heavily influenced by the prevailing political situation at the time, and quite a common feature of situations like these is that once justice has been delivered to the oppressed population, the civilian population of the oppressor quickly realises how wrong the old ways were, and distances themselves from their old opinions. Notice how in the 1980s only a tiny proportion of South African whites were in favour of the solution that happened, and post 1994 you could barely find a single person who would say that they were ever in favour of apartheid. I think the same thing would happen in Israel, which is why it is wrong to focus to much on Israeli public opinion, that will change en masse after justice has been achieved for the Palestinian people, but not before.

D
Your sketched outline of a solution I think is typical of many I have heard. It expresses a faith that once the demands of the Palestinians are met everything will be fine. It also falls into the trap, which I believe started this whole debate, of trying to bash a South Africa sized peg into an Israel sized hole. While there are lessons to be learned from the South African experience, the disanalogies are too huge to imagine a similar route to solution.

It is a mistake to think one should not focus on Israeli public opinion. I imagine if you have been to Palestine you have met Israelis. Have you talked to them? Have you asked them their viewpoint on why things have ended out the way they have? It is a slightly disdainful attitude to take that they will simply realise the error of their ways. To many Israelis this attitude is what hardens them to International condemnation. Rightly or wrongly many see it as the Goyim deciding what the nature of their nation will be, where they can live, who will govern them. When other people have defined these parameters in the past it has invariably been disastrous for Jews. They need to be full partners in any solution.

You may be right about BDS and increased Palestinian resistance pushing Israel towards a better offer to the Palestinians. You may also be wrong in that it may harden Israeli attitudes and strengthen the right wing. This is often the case with sanctions.

What it cannot do is force Israelis to give up what their independence. They have faced a complete double boycott by the Arab world; the combined armies of their neighbours, impressively armed by the USSR; they have faced mass murder in their streets and pariah status among large sections of the world’s population. While the creation of Israel spelled dispossession and misery for many Palestinians it has brought liberation and empowerment to half of the
world’s Jews. No stick will be big enough to beat the Israelis into going back to the situation before 1948. If you try to force them into a corner they will fight back, and given the state of their military it will not be pretty.

Instead you must offer a way out that gives them enough of what they crave to bring peace, while giving the Palestinians enough of what they want to also bring peace. From peace a permanent and more just solution can be found.

Alternatively you remove all the reasons why Jews turned to Zionism in the first place. Which would be a very tough task.

J
I agree fully that Israelis have to be full partners in any solution, but as equal and not dominant partners, it must be in both sides interests to find a just solution. I also disagree with the view that granting Palestinians their rights would necessarily deny Israeli Jews their independence.

I think addressing the root causes of Zionism as a route to bringing a solution to Israel/Palestine is problematic. It was Zionism that drove the Jews to Zionism en masse in the first place. Zionism was a minority movement within the Jewish community right up until 1948, when the establishment of Israel created a new reality for Jews to form opinions around. Plus the European anti-Semitism that drove many of the early Zionists has largely disappeared and mostly replaced by
new forms of racism, especially Islamophobia.

I think perhaps in the last reply it was you that was providing a caricature of Israeli national sentiment, admittedly I haven’t spoken to enough Israelis about Palestine to form a general picture of the state of the Israeli psyche (I have mostly spoken in depth to a small, far left subset of the Israeli population, whilst talking to other Israelis I have kept the conversation non-political due to the nature of the work I do in Palestine), but any national grouping of people will swing to the right under external pressure, even if they haven’t had the history that the Jews have had.

However, when the oppressive elite of any population sees concessions as being in their interests, either financial or in regaining lost legitimacy, compromises can be still be found even if the majority population is hardened and right wing. Look at Turkey for example, and the relative improvements in the human and civil rights towards Kurds in recent years under EU pressure. Or again what happened in South Africa. I think that your point about South African sized pegs is
valid, but what I describe is a very broad phenomenon which I think would stand up in a lot of circumstances.

D

I think your first paragraph is great, I agree with it completely. I think it demonstrates that when people get away from accusation and counter accusation or arguing over the past, there is usually much agreement in what they believe. If you think Israelis are equal partners then you need to avoid giving the impression that they are in I/P as imposters whereas the Palestinians are the authentic people. Israelis see that land as their home and have a deep attachment to it, an attachment just as deep and authentic as the Palestinian one. Whatever your view of the past this needs to be acknowledged, just as Israelis need to acknowledge the Palestinian attachment.

You are also right to characterise early Zionism as a minority fringe movement. What changed this was not the creation of Israel, but the Shoah. The central idea of Zionism, that Jews would never be free in Europe, seemed to have been proven. Other movements for Jewish liberation, like the Bund, were wiped out. Even if you weren’t a Zionist, post holocaust there was nowhere else for Jews to go than Palestine. Europe could no longer be your home and the gates to the USA were closed. The dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in the Muslim world was the other factor. This can be seen as a reaction to the formation of Israel, but it was a violently racist reaction nonetheless. It was also fuelled by Arab nationalism. Zionism can be seen as both a reaction to, and an example of, the rise of exclusive and radical nationalisms across the world in the middle twentieth century. But there we are getting back to the past. It’s a moot point to some degree, those people are there, have nowhere else to go so are staying.

What is more worrying is your belief that anti Semitism has ‘largely disappeared’. It is true that Jews in the UK and USA live a largely prosperous life, free to follow their beliefs. There were, even so, several hundred attacks on Jews in the UK last year. Also stereotypes of Jews and warmed over tropes of classic anti-Semitism appear often. As discussions about Israel and the Middle East are the usual arenas where opinions on Jews are aired, it is often here that anti Semitism
occurs. The habit of seeing anti-Semitism as a solved problem combines with a belief that people raise fears of anti Semitism as a ploy to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel. The result is that anti-Semitism is too often ignored or excused. Sometimes it is positively encouraged. For an excellent explanation of this phenomenon I suggest you read Steve Cohen’s ‘That’s funny, you don’t look anti-Semitic- an anti racist critique of left anti Semitism’. Cohen was a staunch socialist and anti racist and supporter of Palestinian rights. He was also shocked at the level of anti-Semitism on the left and in the anti Zionist movement. I’ll happily lend you the book if you like.

Then there’s the anti-Semitism of the Muslim world. I’m sure you are familiar with the views of many Islamists on Jewry. I am sure you also know about the founding charter of Hamas. That the UN could invite someone who has openly denied the holocaust and peddled anti Semitic conspiracy theories to address their anti racism conference was also a shocker. Anti Semitism is alive and well.

J

I thought we would have some areas of agreement from early in the discussion, as left-Zionism and anti-Zionism do overlap to an extent, especially on the occupation. I mean, leaving the discussions about whether Zionism was justified by Jewish history in holy land aside, there are very few people that would argue that they have no right to be there now; many Israelis have been on that land for generations and an Algeria type solution is problematic because not only do the
Israelis have nowhere to go ‘home’ to like the pier noir, but mass forced population transfers are always deeply immoral. That’s also a view shared by the majority of Palestinians I’ve met by the way, most don’t mind the Israelis there they just want the same rights as them.

I think we should probably state how we define anti-Semitism before we discuss it. I think anti-Semitism is simply discrimination against a person simply because they are Jewish, or holding negative stereotypes about Jews in general. I think people’s attitudes to Israel in no way indicate whether or not they are an anti-Semite. Of course there are some that use anti-Zionism as a cover for anti-Semitism, but in fact there are also anti-Semitic supporters of Israel; Nick Griffin for
example.

I never said I thought European anti-Semitism had completely gone away, just that it was reduced compared to yesteryear and against other forms of racism in Europe. I read the CSTs annual report on anti-Semitism and was sickened reading a lot of it, but over the same time frame 4 mosques were firebombed and I’m sure many more Asian people were physically attacked over their skin colour than Jews, we would obviously only know for sure if the Muslim community established a body like the CST. Also, it is patently clear that anti-Semitism is much lower in the West than before WW2. A major point as well is that anti-Semitism is not state sanctioned like in the past. Not that there isn’t still a problem with anti-Semitism in England that needs to be combated, but it isn’t what it used to be. I also think that it is the constant demonisation of those that stand up for Palestine as anti-Semites and self hating Jews by hardcore Zionists (and this is a real phenomenon; I myself have been called a Nazi for simply filming a settler in Hebron attacking a local Palestinian. Jonathan Hoffman and his gang called the Ahava demo organisers anti-Semitic for choosing to hold the demonstrations on a Saturday! These are just my personal experiences, the list goes on and on) that has unfortunately made people sceptical whenever anti-Semitism is invoked against anyone pro-Palestinian.

My view is that a lot of perceived anti-Semitism isn’t anti-Semitism at all, it is justifiable anti-Israel sentiment, I’m with Norman Finklestein when he described the ‘new anti-Semitism’ as ‘neither new nor anti-Semitism’. I would be interested in reading the book you recommend but am sceptical about its conclusions; from spending a lot of time in left wing pro-Palestine circles I have personally seen very little anti-Semitism in accordance with my definition above, and when it has appeared (such as at a demonstration), I have seen people challenge it publically.

I agree there is much anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim world, and agree Ahmadinejad is an anti-Semite who should never have been invited to Durban. However, I disagree with you slightly about Hamas. It must be noted that Hamas have pledged to drop all references to the protocols of the elders of Zion when they revise their charter. I am in no way a Hamas supporter, I’m a leftist I cant support any Islamism, but I think it is worth noting they are not a monolithic
movement, they are not al Qaeda, and they are open to compromise with Israel (their position is in line with other Arab states who all endorsed the Arab peace initiative), they simply are not willing to compromise enough for Israel and are not willing to give Israel concessions such as recognition in the absence of any counter concession such as an end to the occupation. Therefore they are demonised and promoted as total rejectionists, when it is fact Israel that is rejectionist.

D
You are right about the way you define anti-Semitism being an important starting point for this discussion. Openly expressed hatred for Jews is a rarity on the left. It happens, but all political movements attract odd balls and the groups of the far left have more than their fair share, but it is not these people to whom I refer. We have moved onto a more sophisticated understanding of racism when applied to other groups, we need to do the same for Jews. You will see no signs saying ‘no blacks’ outside businesses in this country and even groups like the EDL bend over themselves to avoid the language of overt racism. I think it is fair to say that the black British experience has moved on a long way in the last 20 years, yet no one would deny the continued existence of racism. In fact we on the left
are highly vigilant for its less obvious manifestations, including harsh self appraisal of our own organisations. Even though I do not believe my union is racist, it has standing committees of black members and is will always try to take into account the impact on all equality strands of any policy. This is not the case for anti-Semitism, despite the fact that there is a large campaign within many of our organisations that can often throw up examples of anti Semitism, concerns are quickly dismissed.

I find the raising of the issue of islamophobia in conversations about anti-Semitism confusing. When we talk about anti black racism we do not raise the fact that other groups now suffer more. We recognise that racism against a Sikh is the same as racism against a Jamaican or against a Somali. Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are manifestations of the same prejudice. The victims of one no less hurt than the other.

Unfortunately anti Semitism is too easily dismissed. This is a difficult topic to raise for someone like me who has always been active on the left. I find myself accusing friends and comrades of racism Many of the people whose language makes me squirm are also those who are political allies and, if not heroes, then well respected figures.

One manifestation of anti Semitism on the left are theories of Zionist world domination. Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement in the Middle East, it is not a world wide organisation controlling governments and the media. Clare Short, Jenny Tonge, George Galloway and Ken Livingstone have all expressed concern about the grips Zionism has on media and political organisations. Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell drop the Zionist bit and just complain about ‘cabal’s of Jewish advisors’ or being in hock to ‘Jewish money’. Hugo Chavez is quick to brand opponents as ‘Zionist agents’ These are not fringe players on the left. There is a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding about a ‘lobby’ that supposedly operates behind the scenes and wields great power. This only makes sense if you lend credence to old anti-Semitic myths of Jewish world conspiracy.

Then there is the assumption of collective guilt of all Jews for the actions of Israel. A recent John Pilger article in the new statesman made this pretty crude accusation. In the 1980s there was an attempt by the fore runner of the SWP to have Jewish societies banned from NUS recognition unless they were anti Zionist. Jews will often tell you that in left wing circles they are quickly asked their attitude to Zionism. Imagine judging a Turkish or Pakistani Briton on their response to a far away government’s actions. This is reinforced by some anti Zionists speaking ‘as a Jew’.

Then there’s holocaust and Nazi comparisons. On radio 4 recently Ken Livingstone referred to Gaza as ‘EXACTLY like the Warsaw ghetto’ Clearly this is an exaggeration so huge as to be ridiculous and takes away from the genuine suffering of the people of Gaza. Only someone totally insensitive to Jewish sensibilities would not realise how shockingly offensive it is too. On the Gaza demo in Birmingham, which I attended, there were a number of placards combining the symbolism of Nazism and Judaism.

Then there’s the blood libel, the ancient belief that Jews murder non Jewish children for ritual purposes. Clearly any suggestion that Israeli medical teams were in Haiti to harvest organs is sick. Yet it was reported on a number of pro Palestinian outlets and backed by the lovely Baroness Tonge.

There are other elements too, (sharing platforms with open anti Semites, equating Zionism with imperialism in the same way as early socialists sometimes equated rich Jews with capitalism)but I guess you are getting the picture. I have no doubt that settlers and others of their ilk are quick to brand their opponents as Nazis, but that does not diminish genuine concerns about anti Semitism. I think it is very rare for anyone to ‘play the racism card’ whether they are Jewish,
Muslim, Black or whoever. It has always been an element of anti Semitism to suggest that Jews do this. I think you can hold a very radical pro Palestinian position and avoid falling into the traps above. I don’t think avoiding the practices outlined above would in any way limit your ability to criticise Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. I have more respect for many of your views because you have not done so.

There are some who would go further than I and point out what they see as double standards towards Israel and the obsessive nature of Israeli criticism on the left compared to other injustices. I think they sometimes have a point, but I do not see this as anti Semitism. Perhaps it is ‘anti-Israelism’. Certainly it can seek to smear an entire nation with crude stereotypes. Israel ‘lacks humanity’, Israel is ‘THE terror state’ Israel is the cause of all the problems of the middle east, maybe even the world. There are many who do little to hide their hatred of Israel and Israelis. This could be fuelled by anti Semitism. As the people they hate so much more than any others in the world are all Jews, it is probably likely that some of it is. But this is more contentious ground and imagine you would counter with
examples of Israeli action that spurred on this hatred.

J

I think your last comment was largely pretty fair, I think that your right when you say anti-Semitism is too often ignored or dismissed. I agree with some but not all of the examples given as being anti-Semitism, but its probably best not to go into each and every example. Suffice to say I think that expecting different things from Jews and non-Jews and collectively holding responsible for the actions of Israel are always anti-Semitism, the other actions are context dependant. I also agree that most people rarely play the race card; I actually think that in situations where Israel supporters have branded non-racist Palestine supporters anti-Semites, most of the time they honestly believe they are witnessing anti-Semitism, even if they aren’t.

I also agree that racism against black people anti-Semitism has moved on and is now less overt than before. Of course that doesn’t make it acceptable but I made the reference to Islamophobia as we were discussing anti-Semitism in the context of removing the reasons Jews turned to Zionism, and in fact today’s anti-Semitism is not at the level that pushes Jews out of the country, in fact there are probably more Israelis moving to the UK than Jews moving to Israel.

I made the Islamophobia comparison as that form of racism hasn’t moved on, and is more akin to the black experience 30 years ago or the Jewish one 100 years ago; Balsall Heath has been designated a ’terrorist neighbourhood’ and been surrounded by cameras, fascists are marching on mosques, the state is disproportionately targeting young men from that ethnic background for arrest and repression, etc. I’m not saying that that makes other forms of racism acceptable, but puts into context the level of racism around at the birth of Zionism and now.

I asked about the definitions as in all honesty I haven’t seen such a nuanced definition of anti-Semitism before from a Zionist. Definitions such as the EUMC one seem to go too far in attributing legitimate anti-Israel activity as anti-Semitism, and this makes debate on the subject across the political divide hard.

D
One thing I would like to say is that I do not positively identify myself as a Zionist. Occasionally I have been tempted to in an ‘I am Spartacus’ sort of a way, but not often. In an ideal world I would rather there was no Zionism. But, in a world of nation states, which are all to some extent exclusive, and in a region like the Middle East where the majority of states are explicitly defined on ethnic and religious grounds, and given the experience of the Jews as minorities in those states, I find it hard to judge those who feel Zionism necessary. I also think rejecting this nationalist movement in particular over all others is at best inconsistent.

I don’t think this makes me a Zionist, but if I you feel it does, then I’m glad I am a nuanced one.

I think you make a fair point about the EUMC definition. I don’t necessarily think the definition itself went too far, but it tries to place hard and fast rules on what is a grey area. It would obviously be ridiculous if activists had to criticise every regime they disliked equally, or to brand a campaign racist just because it had well organised or popular backing comparative to other actions.

This issue need some very honest self examination from both sides. Something which is very rare in the confrontational atmosphere that so often dominates these discussions.

I don’t like to use too many analogies when discussing this topic, but I’m getting lazy. Japanese imperialism in the 30s and 40s resulted in massive suffering. Without doubt the manner in which the imperial army engaged in war was cruel by any standards. It deserved to be fought and criticised, vilified even. It was understandable that the US press and public reacted the way they did when they heard tales of rape and murder. Even then though, the image of the ‘Jap’, a man who holds life cheap, who lacks humanity, who believes himself part of a greater race, contributed to a dehumanisation of the Japanese that ultimately
made the terror bombing of 1945 an easy decision to make. I am not for a moment suggesting that demonisation of Israelis approaches that of Japanese, or that Israelis have done anything approaching what the Japanese did. What I am trying to say is that it would have been very tough to point out the racism of US attitudes to Japanese against the backdrop of Japanese imperial conquest, as so much of it would be contained within legitimate criticism.

It’s a far from good analogy, but do you get the point I’m trying to make? You can have racist criticism of evil acts that it is perfectly legitimate to criticise. One side needs to acknowledge that the acts were evil and not defend them. The other need to take a long look at how they criticise them and think how they criticise similar situations with other actors.
J
I think that’s fair, and also agree that the confrontational nature of discussions on Israel/Palestine creates an atmosphere where honest self examination is impossible as any admission of flaws in your movement will be seized upon by the other side, I think that also probably feeds into the in all honesty very real phenomenon of good people sharing the stage with anti-Semites as well, not wanting to denigrate your movement by admitting that someone on your side like is
racist. Think it swings both ways with the pro-Israel crowd giving a platform to Melanie Phillips and her ilk too.