Why David Miller is now a liability to the Palestinian cause
In February 2024, we in JVL and others in the Palestine solidarity movement celebrated Professor David Miller’s success at an Employment Tribunal which judged that he had been unjustly sacked from his post at Bristol University for his anti-Zionist views.
The Tribunal’s landmark ruling stated that he had a right under the Equality Act 2010 to his philosophical belief that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist, and colonial, overturning the decision taken by the University after a concerted campaign by Zionist groups accusing him of antisemitism.
JVL as well as organisations such as BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) supported Miller’s fight against unfair dismissal, despite misgivings about some of his utterances about Jews. We had noted in August 2023 that his writings included ” …overstatements at best, flattening and homogenising Jews, ignoring any historical, international or social context and creating an impression of Jews exercising power as a cohesive force.” We also said: “Many were distressed by some of Miller’s statements in the past which seemed to exaggerate Israeli power but we believed they fell within the terrain of academic freedom. This recent tweet, focusing on Jews, is of a different order and has crossed a line.”
Since then, Miller seems to have moved further over this line, giving rise to a long and thoroughly researched critical piece by Tony Greenstein, of which we publish extended extracts below.
It is all too easy for passionate defenders of Palestinian rights to fall prey to arguments like Miller’s, conflating all Jews with Zionism and failing to analyse Israel’s client relationship with US imperialism and its allies in the UK and Europe. Greenstein’s piece should help dispel some of the common misapprehensions in this area.
NWI
Targeting Jews and Jewish anti-Zionists is explained by Miller’s Failure to Understand Why Imperialism Supports Zionism and Genocide in Gaza – As Such It is Anti-Semitic
By Tony Greenstein
(This is a shortened version. Read the original for illustrations and extended argument)
I didn’t want to have to write this blog. There are far more important topics such as Genocide in Gaza. However Miller’s recent social media postings are becoming ever more bizarre and crossing the line into anti-Semitism. Miller has abandoned anti-Zionism.
His behaviour is not only strange it is also stupid. If ‘antisemitism’ is the ritual accusation of the Zionists why try to prove them correct by attacking Jews as Jews? It seems that Miller believes that it is Western Jews who are responsible for the hideous monstrosity that is the Israeli state. This is the Zionist narrative.
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When Biden said that if Israel didn’t exist it would have had to be created he was expressing the views of mainstream imperialist thought in the US. According to Reagan’s Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, Israel was the US’s unsinkable aircraft carrier and cheap at the price in an area of immense strategic and economic interest. Jews in the words of Barnaby Raine are merely the West’s colonial pets.
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I was reluctant to break from Miller because of what had happened at Bristol University where he was fired in a McCarthyist witchhunt. I was elated at his victory in the Employment Tribunal and I hope he wins at the EAT. Initially I pushed back against the criticism of him by JVL and Na’amod, I cannot do so now because David has made it clear that he is going down an anti-Semitic pathway.
In holding Jews responsible for Israel’s holocaust in Gaza, Miller lets imperialism off the hook. The genocide could be halted tomorrow if Trump, or Biden had stopped the flow of arms. It could have been halted if the Arab states had stopped the flow of oil. The fact that that miserable humanoid Starmer, has uttered not one word of criticism speaks volumes.
In a tweet of 24 March Miller said
Those who are interested in ending this genocide must begin by targeting those responsible near them: the entire Zionist movement globally must live in fear of accountability until it is dismantled and its ideology eradicated. And let’s be clear, there are Zionists everywhere. In every town and city. Find out where they are.
Zionism is the worst catastrophe that has befallen the Jewish people next to the Holocaust itself. It is an abomination. It has destroyed Judaism’s moral and ethical traditions.
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I am all in favour of destroying Zionism politically and organisationally but targeting individual Zionists is not the way to do it.
Miller is arguing that we start ferreting out individual Zionists. How will that stop the genocide? Israel isn’t even concerned about killing its own hostages. Why should it be concerned about Miller’s fans tracking down individual Zionists? He says ‘there are Zionists everywhere. In every town and city. Find out where they are.’ And then what?
Leaving aside his paranoia, are individual Zionists in Britain, many of whom are Jewish, really responsible for what Israel does? Is that how imperialism operates?
But if like Miller you dismiss imperialism as an interconnected system of war and political domination motivated by economic exploitation, then it is far easier to focus on individual Zionists. In so doing you let off the hook US imperialism and the complicity of Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia’s MBS.
Because Miller fails to understand why Western capitalism supports Israel, he believes that it is all due to ‘infiltration’ of government bodies. Since about two-thirds of Jews are Zionists this will inevitably be portrayed as Jew hunting. Is that what Palestine solidarity is about?
Miller’s call for targeting individual Zionists lays him open to Police attacks. Of course the hysterical reaction of the Zionists is hypocritical. For years now Zionist organisations like the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and UK Lawyers for Israel have gaslighted and doxxed anti-Zionists and Palestinians like Miller himself and Shahd Abusalama.
Of course if the Police were to act as the Board of Deputies enforcers, we would defend Miller despite his stupidity.
I am currently being prosecuted for support for the Palestinian Resistance. I was targeted by Heidi Bachram, who follows in a long tradition of Zionist informers who in countries under Nazi occupation betrayed Jews to the Gestapo.
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The idea that the West supports Israel because Zionists have crept into powerful positions barely merits a response. Are the Christian Zionists in Trump’s cabinet all infiltrators? Is Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State a Zionist infiltrator?
Does the German state support Israel and attack Palestine solidarity demonstrations because of Jews? Why does the AfD, which is riddled with neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers, love Israel so much?
Far-right and neo-Nazi groups are happy to support Zionism and Israel, not because they love Jews but because they hate Muslims and love imperialism. In appearing on anti-Semitic and White Supremacist platforms like Stew Peters he is mixing in some very unsavoury company. Miller seems to have no sense of self-awareness.
A Reply to Some of David Miller’s Comments
In his first controversial tweet Miller made 3 points:
Jewish Power and Discrimination Against Jews
1. Jews are not discriminated against.
2. They are over-represented in Europe, North America and Latin America in positions of cultural, economic and political power.
3. They are therefore, in a position to discriminate against actually marginalised groups.
In reaction to criticism of this tweet I defended it although I had grave misgivings, in particular about the third point.
Miller was correct to say that Jews are not discriminated against or experiencing racism. There is no state anti-Semitism in Britain. Anti-Semitism is a marginal prejudice not a form of racism with all its power dynamics. I was saying this long before Miller, as was Norman Finkelstein and others. I could even go along with his observations on Jewish ‘overrepresentation’ in positions of power, because statistically and sociologically it is true.
However where I parted company was Miller’s third point that this enabled Jews to discriminate against those who were oppressed. If Jews in powerful positions discriminate against others they do it as part of the group or organisations they are part of, not as Jews.
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In this long rambling tweet Miller declared that ‘the State of Israel is at war with you’. That when activists or Muslims are arrested by ‘counter-terror’ police, “that is being done directly on behalf of the State of Israel”
Miller is arguing that Islamaphobia in the West is a product of Zionism and Israel. “the soldiers of Zion have penetrated the security establishment of your state to make its policy.” How they managed to achieve this is not explained. To call this conspiratorial is an understatement.
At a stroke Miller erases the racism that results from colonialism and imperialism. Trump’s Muslim ban was a consequence of the Israeli state not racism in America. What of the racism against Hispanics in the United States? Did Trump labelling all Mexicans as rapists arise from the soldiers of Zion? Are the deportations to Latin America all Israel’s fault? Apparently so.
It is not difficult to see how this kind of conspiratorial fantasy degenerates into anti-Semitism. When I was young British fascists condemned Israel. Not because of what it did to Palestinians but because in their eyes it was a ‘Jewish’ state. The Palestine solidarity movement wanted nothing to do with them but Miller with his appearance on the Stew Peters Show and other tweets seems to be embracing them.
Racism in the West is not the product of support for Israel and its soldiers of Zion. It is home grown. Of course today Islamophobia in the West goes hand in hand with support for Israel, which is seen as an anti-Islamic state. But that is a very different thing. Miller says
Take Geert Wilders, in the Netherlands, … Wilders can be said to be a creation of the State of Israel and its foreign intelligence assets.
This is completely unsupported by anything in the way of evidence. Geert Wilders is the product of racism in The Netherlands. He is a home-grown fascist. His support for Zionism and Israel flows from that. In his own words
If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next.
Miller therefore exonerates the British and other states of racism by saying that their racism is not the product of their own class societies but solely that of Israel.
Miller talks about ‘the global struggle against Jewish supremacism’. In this phrase Miller conflates all Jewish people with the Israeli state like the Zionists. That Israel is a Jewish Supremacist state is a fact which Israel’s human rights group Bt’selem testifies to. Again it is difficult not to take this as a call to oppose Jews everywhere and to brand them all as Jewish Supremacists.
Even accepting that two-thirds of diaspora Jews support Israel and Zionism, for a whole number of historical reasons, I doubt if any but a fraction are open Jewish supremacists. Most Jews see Israel, wrongly, as some form of refuge against anti-Semitism. Of course a minority are overt racists and Jewish supremacists but even they are not arguing for Jewish supremacism within the societies they live in.
Despite his academic status Miller’s language is sloppy, vague and open to misinterpretation. It is not helped by the fact that instead of putting his ideas down on paper he tweets out his latest undigested ideas and thoughts.
Miller confirms that he is no anti-imperialist or socialist when he says that the British and US states don’t do what they do because of imperialism and their need to subjugate, exploit and conquer, but because of infiltration. He even says that
there’s no such thing as ‘foreign’ policy. The British state has made a colossal miscalculation by participating so directly in this genocide,… The British people will have to repair this trajectory by taking British political and public institutions out of the grip of Zionist fanatics. This is the only way to preserve the balance of British society in the long-term. It is essential that Britain is de-Zionised.
A de-Zionised Britain could be an example to other post-imperial states in how to confront centuries of imperial violence and chart a course away from the suicidal client relationship with the US.
In other words he is arguing that the support of the British state for Israel is on account of a handful of Zionist fanatics. Without them the state would be quite a benign institution. It wouldn’t be imperialist or racist, cut disability benefits or privatise the NHS.
This is utter garbage and has nothing to do with a principled opposition to imperialism, let alone Zionism. It ignores the economic imperative behind imperialism. Anyone who thinks Miller is on the left is wrong. I responded to this here and JVL republished it as Looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
“The global Left is occupied and infiltrated by Zionist fanatics”
In another conspiratorial tweet we are told that the ‘global left is occupied and infiltrated by Zionist fanatics.’ For someone who is a professor, Miller is remarkably imprecise in his language. Who is this global left? One of the problems with the left is that it isn’t united but in Miller’s fevered imagination it is homogenous!
The left is divided into Marxists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, Social Democrats and the unaligned. There is little agreement between them. But in Miller’s fantasies we are all infiltrated.
Miller doesn’t realise that attitudes on the Left towards Israel have changed. In the wake of the Nazi holocaust most people on the left saw the establishment of the Israeli state as some form of recompense. They were wrong not to see that an ethno-nationalist Jewish state could not help but become an echo of everything they had escaped from. I summed this up when I said that ‘Israel was Hitler’s bastard offspring’.
The Labour left around Tribune saw Zionism and Israel as progressive. The Labour Party saw settler colonialism as a positive thing and the natives were invisible. This was why people like Hyndman of the Social Democratic Federation supported the Boers in the Second Boer War.
Much of the Trotskyist movement adopted a position of neutrality during the Nakba seeing the 1948 war as one between British imperialism and its Arab allies and Israel. The Communist Party, after Stalin’s about turn in 1947 supported UN resolution 181 partitioning Palestine and with it the creation of the Israeli state.
However times have changed and the key point was the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 when both Tony Benn and Eric Heffer resigned from Labour Friends of Israel. The scales fell from their eyes. In 1948 most people knew nothing of the Nakba. What they saw were those who had survived Hitler’s genocide struggling again to survive. They were wrong. As we now know Zionism had much in common with the Nazis ideologically and had collaborated with them, as my book Zionism During the Holocaust explains. Israel’s fledgling army had been trained by the British and easily saw off the ramshackle Arab armies with the exception of Transjordan’s Arab Legion commanded by Glubb Pasha.
With the rise in support for anti-imperialist struggles, the revolution in Cuba and opposition to the Vietnam War and Apartheid in South Africa, the left moved into the Palestinian camp internationally. Israel was seen as an arm of US imperialism.
In the Labour Party it was the right-wing which had historically been pro-Arab and pro-Palestinian. People like Christopher Mayhew, David Watkins and Andrew Faulds. After 1982 the Right began to realign and Tony Blair made support for Zionism virtually a condition of New Labour.
So Miller is wrong on this point. The global left is less occupied by Zionists than it ever has been. He says that ‘’Pro-Palestinian’ is a meaningless term’. Perhaps to David but not to Palestinians.
Miller says that ‘A basic tenet of anti-imperialism is to begin with suspicion when confronted by possible agents of Empire.’ Really? A basic tenet of anti-imperialism is support for the oppressed against the oppressor. We are told that:
leftists around the world are constantly deferring to Jewish ‘allies’ for analysis on Zionism… Not only do these leftists refuse to protect their movements from entryism, they actively solicit, privilege and even worship Jewish opinion about Jewish supremacist crimes.
It is impossible to interpret this as anything other than anti-Semitic and a symptom of Miller’s hostility to the left. Jews supporting the Palestinians should be treated with suspicion. Miller fails to acknowledge that Jews might have good reason to oppose Zionism in the same way as Jewish communists and the Bund opposed Zionism in their time.
Jews are part of the Palestine solidarity movement. Of course Jews, including Israeli Jews, might have a special understanding of Zionism having gone through a process of deprogramming but that isn’t because they are Jewish. It is a recognition that anti-Zionist Jews have a special expertise.
We only have to think of people like Moshe Machover, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Haim Bresheeth – even myself! It was the Israeli group Matzpen which was first began calling Israel a settler colonial state.
Jewish activists have been to the fore in occupying Congress. Whilst Jewish Voice for Peace have been organising thousands of its supporters David Miller has been waging war against Jewish ‘infiltrators’ on Twitter.
This kind of attack, which can only turn the solidarity movement against itself is divisive and destructive. Miller is effectively doing the Zionists’ work.
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What really made me sit up and take note of Miller’s direction of travel was his retweeting of an article by Richard Lynn, editor of Mankind Quarterly ‘On the high intelligence and cognitive achievements of Jews in Britain’.
Mankind Quarterly isn’t some obscure academic journal. It was was established in 1960 with funding from White segregationists opposed to civil rights in America. It has been described as a ‘white supremacist journal’ and ‘a pseudo-scholarly outlet for promoting racial inequality.’
When I first saw the tweet I immediately saw that it smacked of the racial sciences:
Are Jews so (relatively) privileged because of ‘intelligence’ or ‘culture’? Or are there other explanations? And what are the consequences in terms of the power and influence of Zionism and the production of genocide in Palestine and Islamophobia in the West?
Miller saw a connection between ‘Jewish intelligence’ and Zionism. I explained in my response that Zionism was the idea of British imperialism and its Christian Zionist advocates not Jews.
A lead article in The Times of 17 August 1840, called for a plan ‘to plant the Jewish people in the land of their fathers’ claiming that it was under ‘serious political consideration’ and commending the efforts of Lord Shaftesbury. When Palmerston approached the Board of Deputies in August 1840 to inquire about co-operation in Jewish settlement projects, he got a very lukewarm response. The only ones who didn’t want to ‘return’ were the Jews themselves! In a resolution passed on 7 November 1842 the Board of Deputies resolved that it
‘is precluded from originating any measure for carrying out the benevolent views of Colonel Churchill respecting the Jews of Syria’.
In his latest tweet Miller simply digs himself further into a hole. We are told that ‘there are no ‘Israeli’ anti-Zionists’. Presumably my comrades Ronnie Barkan and Stav, who are currently facing trial for participating in a Palestine Action outing and who are already on suspended sentences don’t exist? Both of them are Israeli.
Miller also doubts that there are ‘more than a handful of Jewish anti-Zionists anywhere, particularly if we assess anti-Zionism on a *material* basis.’ What is this material basis? Apparently we must first become martyrs! I wonder if this applies to non-Jews and if not why not?
Apparently I was one of the few Jewish anti-Zionists he conceded did exist but I suspect that after this article I will also be relegated!
Miller is not only going down an anti-Semitic rabbit hole but a Zionist one too. Zionists claim that all Jews, bar a handful of ‘self-haters’ are Zionists. Anti-Semites too are happy to see Jews as Zionists with anti-Zionist Jews rendered invisible.
It is extremely sad and regrettable that Miller is unable to see that Zionism was the adopted policy of British and then US imperialism well before Jews. Jews provided the imperialists with legitimacy. Winkling out Zionists is not a strategy.
Tony Greenstein
This is so sad. David Miller’s victory in establishing anti-Zionism as a philosophical belief worthy of respect in society – with the aid of his very skilled legal team – was an important landmark. Undoubtedly, pro-Palestinians are sought out by overt anti-Semites, who like to exploit legitimate support for Palestine by trying to ally it with their own sectarianism. As Palestinians, we suffer quite enough racism, so are hardly likely to fall into the trap of abuse of another group of people. I would also emphasise that following the Jewish religion doesn’t confer a separate ethnicity upon said follower. The majority of inhabitants of the state of israel are European, and have NO Middle Eastern connection. That’s why genetic testing isn’t readily available in the zionist entity: Palestinians have far more Semitic DNA than the European invaders! None of this is explained by, nor excused by Miller’s expression of zionism being equal to judaism. That is exactly what the racist establishment in the zionist entity has always been proclaiming and does an immense disservice to the large numbers of Jewish people who are anti-Zionist.
Thanks Tony for a marvellously clear analysis of Miller’s confused perspective.
Colin Lomas
Good points but be careful and go gentle. The Zionists will exploit this.
It’s very interesting to see JVL backing up Tony’s, as it were, “health warning” about David Miller’s recent pronouncements, Initially, I thought Tony was making a Marxist critique, but it is of course more than that, and the point about David holding the Palestinian movement as a hostage to fortune by giving Zionists the opportinity to jump on what he is saying as a “jew hunt” is undoubtedly true. So, it is important that it is called out, but I very much doubt David Miller has an anti-semitic bone in his body.
Like many non jewish pro palestinian anti-zionists, I am very disappointed to see this apparent split in the pro palestinian cause amongst such respected bodies as yourself, and luminaries such as Tony, a historian whose knowledge in this area is unparalleled. Similarly we should not forget David Miller”s really excellent work in dissecting power structures, not least Zionist ones. Only the most disingenuous would seriously entertain the notion that the Ministry of External Affairs in Tel Aviv (who have recently allocated a huge budget increase for propoganda dissemination), do not assidiously cultivate politicians via its proxies, AIPAC being a prime example. However the overall point about Zionism as a political tool of imperialism is certainly true and so in a sense both Tony yourselves and Miller are right. The question I have as a well meaning bystander is, is anyone talking to one another?? It might be good if Tony yourselves and Miller got in a room together because I and many like me would be sorry to see a falling out amongst such important members of the pro palestinian / anti zionist movement when dialogue could prevent such an avoidable ideological rift
I have sent a message to David although I don’t expect a response since none of his behaviour to date is that of a rational person facing a major court case since Bristol have appealed the initial employment tribunal decision.
David
I realise that you find it difficult taking advice from me or anyone but can I suggest that you desist from posting anything on Twitter until your appeal is heard? The victory in the employment tribunal is being appealed and it is quite possible that the Respondent is going to use some of your tweets as ‘evidence’ that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is one and the same and thereby rule that anti-Zionism is not a protected characteristic in a democratic society etc.
I asked him to resist the urge to ramble on incoherently about how there are no Jewish or Israeli anti-Zionists because apart from anything else it isn’t helping his case.
I also said that although I haven’t called him an anti-Semite, in that there is no evidence of personal antagonism to Jews as Jews on a personal level, it is clear that what he said is clearly anti-Semitic.
I also asked him to row back on his previous comments rather than digging himself into a deeper hole. I am not optimistic that he will take this on board.
tony
Once again Tony Greenstein, with his acute perception, knowledge and expertise on Zionism, Antisemitism and the Holocaust, exposes and demolishes David Miller’s subtext, though Miller originally received great support from the solidarity movement against the way he was treated by Bristol University. Ironically, Tony is blatantly called ‘a notorious antisemite’ by the Israel lobby rabble, whom he also takes apart in its thuggish intimidation and fearmongering of universities and other institutions with ugly Israeli hasbarah, hyperbole and distortions on behalf of the Israeli Embassy, literally inciting hatred and assuming the impunity of the rabidly fascist and derange current Israeli regime that is piling genocide upon genocide on Palestine, and surrounding states. Israel is backed by the imperialist powers of the US, UK and much of the EU and the white settler colonial countries like Canada, Australia and sometimes New Zealand. Tony’s learned and meticulous insight inspires and gives as the tools to oppose the crazy anarchy and bullying of Trump, Starmer, German and extreme right populist regimes and to aid us in the struggle for freedom and justice for Palestine and the embattled solidarity movements around the world.
Tony is correct in this assessment, although David Miller’s biggest problem is with his tendency to refer to “the Jew” when discussing Zionist Jews and Zionist influence of politics and the media. To be charitable, this is more probably a lack of care on his part. Still, he needs to be aware of this tendency.
Brian Klug’s highlights this in his ‘Interrogating the New Antisemitism’.
It is essentially one of the problems leading to fallacious argument: not differentiating between ‘some’ and ‘all’.
Thanks Tony. As always, good writing. Where should we place the Labour left, and groups like ‘Stop The War Coalition’ – are they useful or useless for the anti imperialist struggle, and as for the latter, what wars have they actually stopped ?
My esteem for both Miller and Greenstein is invariably high, but I think I have to intervene when Greenstein – for proving his case against Miller – does refer to Geert Wilders, an extreme-right politician in my home-country Holland, who has been exploring (or better: exploiting) the theme of Islamophobia for decades now.
Wilders has done so, all along the lines of the Eurabia mantra, handed to him – and to many other people in Europe and the USA – by the well-known Mossad couple Littman-Oreby (Bat Y’Or). Which from the seventies onward had been preaching the old pro-Zionist myth of “an understanding” between “The Arab League” and “European leaders”, that the oil-boycott from the seventies would be stopped, on condition, that “The West” in exchange, would allow the unconditional influx of Muslim people / the Islam into Europe. This racist Eurabia-theme has been repeated in many other varieties (such as “The Great Replacement”), that are consumed and spread by many Western extreme-right radical parties.
It is self-evident, why the Mossad/Israel would try to enforce this myth on the Western Peoples : (both pro-Zionist Christians and) pro-Zionist Jews are trying to plant the perception in the West, that the justification for the mega-western support for “the State of Israel” is, that “Israel” is an Advanced Post/a Bridge-Head from and for the West, to do the initial fighting against “the Imperialist Islam” for their sake.
Wilders however (through his mother’s mother Meijer) is from Jewish descent and a belligerent Jewsupremacist proponent of the settler colonial Eretz-Israel project. The cordon sanitaire around his extreme-right PVV had been removed by his nowadays pro-Zionist coalition-partner VVD, led by Dilan Yesilgöz, who is married to the pro-Zionist Jew Zegerius. Wilders’ second man Markuszower was not allowed to become cabinet-minister because of his prominent Mossad connections.
It is sad to read this, especially the part about harassing Zionists. Seriously, how can protesters claim to be better if they stoop to this level !?!
Zionists do harass people, but in terms of ethics and also as a strategy, such behavior would so easily be used by the opposition in response, with media backing, as proof of antisemitism.
With each day, the hostility to the Israeli Zionist establishment grows further – the rage I felt upon learning about the murder of the medical workers, seeing the footage of them fleeing rifle fire, is testament to this – , but nobody should ever descend into the behavior of the Zionists.
The emphasis is to legitimately stop Israel, as with South Africa in the 1980s. If persons engage in Miller’s proposals – essentially stalking persons – they will not ultimately like what they have become and it will be hard to reclaim their values.
I hope Miller takes a break and reconsiders his approach to this ongoing crisis.
Hi,
The post by David Miller on x.com which is linked to in the above states the following:
“Protests are not enough. Listen to our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
Those who are interested in ending this genocide must begin by targeting those responsible near them: the entire Zionist movement globally must live in fear of accountability until it is dismantled and its ideology eradicated.
And let’s be clear, there are Zionists everywhere. In every town and city. Find out where they are.”
It does not mention Jews at all and insists that Zionists must be held to be “accountable” and that we should find out where they are. Jews number 0.5% (1 in 200) in the UK population and non-jewish zionists might comprise something like 5% of the UK population though figures are not easy to find. Keir Starmer’s “Zionist without reservation” springs to mind as an example. From the above estimates a Zionist in the UK has only a 1 in 10 chance of being a Jew.
Given all the above I do not understand why the post by DM, specifically, is being seen as anti-semitic?
^^^Well, please excuse my message above. I have seen that I took a single x.com post as being the whole of the basis of TG’s critique whereas that particular post by DM was not particulary controversial.
TG’s article points out that DM’s postings on x.com have become increasingly problematic and increasingly open to accusations of anti-semitism.
Obviously, I did not read the article carefully enough, please accept my apologies.
Before we enter any discussion on this subject, one first has to get the right definitions straight: A Jew is a person who chooses to be a Jew, because Judaism is about a religion, and – contrary to the common myth – NOT about a race. A Jew in this respect, does not differ from a Christian, a Hindu, an Islamic. I do insist on this starting point, because most of the discussions do get hopelessly polluted by all kinds of wrong assumptions and subsequent claims attached to those assumptions : So one is not born a Jew, but one is taught to be a Jew, Nurture versus Nature.
The second narrowly connected (wrong) assumption is, that the contemporaneous Jew is genetically/historically connected to the ancient inhabitants of (a part) of old Mesopotamia. Directly following from this, is the next wrong assumption, (because) there are no Diaspora Jews, neither have Jews ever been prisoned by Egyptians, then freed and being led by “Moses” through the desert/redsea towards “The Promised Land of Milk and Honey”.
Following from this set of principles, a Jew does not possess any “birthright” to Palestine. Let alone, that Jews are allowed to forcefully terrorize the autochthonous population of Palestine out of THEIR OWN country.
This is where the “counterproductive” commentaries/premisses (DE-zionisation, as in DE-nazification) of Miller do come in: He rightfully does consider all the (political) Zionist-Jews in the world, being the main pillar under the cruel settler colonial Umvolkungs-project. Although a minority may be “critical”, “they” in all form, manner and proportion are finally beaming out the wrong core-message about this project and so are supporting the curse of exceptionalism, under which the Palestinians are being annihilated. Jewsupremacism is the state of mind, where Zionist-Jews are putting their (non-existing) territorial Rights above the Rights of Palestinians.