A political overview in a time of genocide

Though I am the political officer, today I speak in a personal capacity.

What are our priorities?

For the last three years, the Palestinians have been the victims of genocide by the Jewish supremacist state. This after a century of colonisation, displacement and ethnic cleansing.

Our first priority is to be a Jewish voice supporting Palestinian resistance. This ABOVE everything else. To make it absolutely clear that not all Jews support Israel, that there is a strong Jewish anti-Zionist, internationalist, socialist voice.

Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto, taught us this: ‘To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors’. Those words are on the masthead of our website.

So our main task is NOT to reflect ‘Jewish sensitivities’ when it comes to Israel. Jews in this country are NOT under threat by the Palestine solidarity movement. I have run out of patience. Listening to Margaret Hodge saying that under the Corbyn regime in the Labour Party she was waiting for the ‘knock on the door’, comparing herself to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. And now Elise Benjamin, member of the Jewish Greens, who at the recent Green conference wore a yellow star in protest against the Zionism is Racism motion.

These acts were despicable. But they were just the worst examples of a common phenomenon – the weaponisation of antisemitism against the movement for Palestine – against Jeremy Corbyn, against Zack Polanski, against us all. This is Jewish particularism, separating Jewish suffering, elevating it above the suffering of all other people.

In the words of Mohammed El-Kurd, Palestinian poet and journalist: ‘There’s no escaping being accused of antisemitism. It’s a losing battle…There are better things to do: we have coffins to carry. We have kin in Israeli mortuary chambers that we must bury.’

We have to express the resistance and anger of the oppressed peoples, and view the world through their eyes.

And that resistance will not always be a pretty thing. As James Baldwin put it: ‘People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn’t. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand.’

Any movement of resistance will inevitably bear the bloody hallmarks of the society it seeks to overthrow.

There were horrific murders in the Haiti Revolution after 1791 – mainly from the plantation owners of course – but also from the enslaved people. They killed up to 75,000 whites as part of the struggle to dismantle the structures of slavery.

Ditto the Turner rebellion in the United States in 1831, the deadliest slave revolt in US history. Appalling atrocities were committed by those in revolt. Among the victims – women and children. But as Norman Finkelstein pointed out, 19^th century white abolitionists did not issue moral condemnation. Rather, they argued that it was the inevitable consequence of the brutal system of slavery.

And he draws the parallel to the murders carried out by Palestinians of Israeli civilians on October 7^th. Let’s put to one side the shocking lies of the Israeli government about the incineration of babies and mass and systemic rape, and put aside the certainty that under the Hannibal Directive, a number of the victims were murdered by the Israeli state. The fact remains that atrocities were carried out by the Palestine resistance.

Jonathan Cook wrote shortly after October 7^th: ‘We must learn to hold two thoughts in our head at the same time’.

Did we celebrate the break-out of Gazans from their open air prison. Yes! Did we celebrate the murder of Israeli civilians? No! We mourned their murder. It is one thing to recognise the inevitability of violence, another thing to glorify it.

We did not celebrate their deaths – but neither did we condemn the perpetrators. What right have we to condemn? These actions were the direct and inevitable consequence of the colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The surprise was that there had not been many more October 7ths.

These are fine distinctions – but they need to be made.

And so to the Israeli response. The genocide of probably in excess of 100,000 – disproportionately women and children – as well as men who are too easily forgotten. The further ethnic cleansing – the second Nakba – aiming to destroy Gaza, to take over and annexe the whole of the West Bank and ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians. This Israel, this Zionism, is the only one on offer. Israel was born of ethnic cleansing. It was in its DNA. And any other forms of Zionism died 100 years ago.

This genocide was the first to be livestreamed as it occurred.  Israel has become the international pariah. Millions, perhaps a hundred million globally, marching for Palestine. Now dockworkers’ unions are calling an international day of action ​against war and militarisation on October 30th. Never has Israel been more isolated, never has the future of the Jewish supremacist state appeared to be so bleak.

The problem is that while the Zionist state is in crisis in the middle/long term, for the Palestinians the fight for survival is immediate.

The grim realities in Israel/Palestine must of course be set in a global context.

Climate change is reaching a point of no return. This summer the planet has been literally on fire. And it will get worse. Whatever else we are fighting for, this is the overarching issue. There is no socialism on a dead planet. And what of Artificial Intelligence? Where is that taking us?

In Europe, the growing working class and student protest. It’s kicking off in France. The growth of the far right. In Germany, this danger is ever present, and accelerating, though tempered by the electoral successes for Die Linke in Berlin.

Trump – while he is losing wars of his own creation, especially in Iran – is also out of control, waging war on the world – in conflict with his own allies and his own people too.  This is the death agony of Empire. As for the impact of wars on the planet….we will discuss this later on the agenda.

China on the rise with its own economic miracle, eliminating poverty in two generations. The post war global balance further cut to shreds. The political map of the world is being redrawn. And the UK as a client state to the dying American Empire is being destabilised.

In the UK the changes are immense.

In the last year or so we changed our name, from Jewish Voice for Labour to Jewish Voice for Liberation – reflecting a change of orientation that had been years in the making. It was forced on us. So many of us had been expelled or quit the Labour Party as it became a no-go area for anti-Zionist Jewish socialists, indeed any anti-Zionists.

Some of us warned that we could underestimate at our peril Labour’s staying power and capacity to survive. But Jewish Voice for Liberation it was. I think the new name is appropriate to our times.

Until only recently, the two party system appeared to be dead. There was a massive threat of a Reform government with Farage as Prime Minister with a mass movement of support from Tommy Robinson’s proto-fascists. The Tories too were in decline. Your Party was stillborn as a mass socialist alternative. That was a heartbreaking lost opportunity – its potential swallowed up by a resurgent Green Party under Zack Polanski.

This was all so recent – yet already it’s looking so different. The two party system is making a comeback. Starmer disintegrated, Burnham succeeded him and – all of a sudden Reform and Farage are in a crisis and possible meltdown, – and Labour and the Tories are fighting back.

As my comrade Jenny Manson pointed out to me recently, we have perhaps been so focused on Reform and the far right, that we have not been sufficiently alert to the danger from the Tory Party under Badenoch, moving to the right, stealing Reform’s programme, and moving up in the polls.

We should not overstate this point about a return to the two party system. This is the beginning of a long road in the direction back to where we were – except things will never again be what they were. There will be many zig-zags on the road ahead, the direction will change – and change again. Change is for the moment one of the few constants.

So what of Burnham? We need to avoid both the errors of over- and under-estimating him. We’ll leave the worst till last!

Those who say he is just the same as Starmer cannot see the realities in front of them. His greatest strength is that he is not Starmer. He seems actually able to communicate. He has roots in the labour movement and may yet save the party as a party of labour with trade union affiliations.

The possibility of Labour winning the next election – or at least being the largest party – is back on the agenda. Under Starmer, it was very unlikely.

But being able to communicate can only get you so far. Burnham is nowhere near the left. He is an old style Labour right winger. How long will his bounce last?

Despite headline grabbing policies, some quite welcome, and his disavowal of neo-liberalism at least in words, his start has not been encouraging – with right wing John Healey appointed as Chancellor, with his support for British bases being used by the US against Iran but only of course for ’defensive purposes’. Then his pledge to be relentless on boat crossings. Then his ending of the triple lock on state pensions – and Healy’s budget is still to come. And the economic crisis, which cannot be resolved within the constraints of a capitalist economy, will not go away.

And finally, just days ago, he ruled out coalition with the Greens because their motion on Zionism was quotes ‘antisemitic’. This was direct from the Starmer playbook, conflating once again anti-Zionism with antisemitism. So much for his admission that ‘we got it wrong on Gaza.’ As this week’s Tribune put it, his ‘refusal to work with the Greens unless they renounce anti-Zionism exposes the hollowness of the Burnham project.’

And it puts Ed Miliband’s decision to impose sanctions on West Bank settlers in some context. It is a worrying sign that Labour’s change of line may well be of limited effect. The political consequence of the Miliband proposals could be, or at least could have been, of some significance. So too his frequent references to Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Of course, he dodged the question of the fundamental nature of the Israeli state which has carried out that ethnic cleansing. Of course no end to arms sales to Israel, no end to British intelligence support. And of course his preamble about his support for Zionism was offensive.

But the fact that even this limited move has occurred is a testament to the global mass movement for Palestine. Under that pressure he has opened the door. And through that door the Greens have marched.

Their ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion is a milestone. I know there are JVL members who have reservations about some of the clauses. But the resolution has been passed and crucially has put the dismantling of the Zionist state on the agenda.

What does the dismantling of the Zionist state mean? Fine distinctions again. The motion means the end of the Jewish supremacist state – which means the end of the Jewish state. Does this mean the expulsion of all Jews from Palestine, as a small minority of pro-Palestinians advocate? Absolutely not! So many have nowhere to go. Those few Jews there whose families have lived there from antiquity. Or the Jewish refugees from Russia, Poland and Germany at the end of the 19^th century and first half of the 20^th. Or the Iraqis in the early 1950s? Ethnic cleansing has no place in the programme of internationalists and socialists. It is not in our vocabulary. And the Green motion makes it clear – equal rights for all. Anyone arguing for the expulsion of the Jews is doing the Zionists’ job for them!

So our job is to support the Green motion, defend its advocates against the usual charges of antisemitism – and spread the politics of it. And to defend Zack Polanski from attempts to overthrow him as leader of the Greens. To date, he seems to have learned the lessons from recent history. He has not apologised for the motion.

And even better was his answer to Burnham’s attack on the motion. Quotes ‘I am the only Jewish leader of a political party. You’re a Prime Minister who arms a genocide and locks pensioners up for opposing it.’

Good for you Zack. And Burnham, shame on you. Burnham, must learn the lessons or pay the price. If you capitulate so quickly to the Zionist lobby, what hope for your attempt to portray yourself as the candidate of change from Starmer’s Labour?

So, again, what are our tasks?

Firstly, ALWAYS to be the voice of the oppressed, especially in Palestine.

Secondly, to continue to express the voice of Jewish universalism, internationalism, socialism.

Thirdly, to keep insisting on the fundamental difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

And finally on Palestine, to remember we are more than ever marching with, not against, the stream. Israel is the world’s pariah state as was South Africa two generations back. The people of the whole world have spoken. The Green Party is moving, even the Labour Party has moved a bit. And we must fight in whatever political formations are available to us.

We need to learn and relearn how to be both be politically intransigent on the fundamentals – and at the same time retain our tactical flexibility. To broaden our alliances whenever we can. We must learn how to march with the tide of history!