Defending Israel is not Fighting Anti-Semitism

David Rosenberg 
London UK

09-08- 25

 

What does an anti-racist march look like? I'm guessing most people would say "not the picture below", full of union Jacks, George Crosses, and Israeli flags, which appeared in the Jerusalem Post, reporting on yesterday's so called March Against Antisemitism.

Mind you, the march was organised by the self-styled "Campaign Against Antisemitism", which is anything but that. And even without the picture, you could run through the speakers: the pro-settler, Tory-loving, Chief Rabbi Mirvis, who still helps to financially support the Yeshivah (religious seminary) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where he did a big chunk of his rabbinical training (as did his sons); Michael Gove, a strong supporter of the Tories' "hostile environment" against migrants and refugees, and key advocate of the "Prevent" programme that has fuelled Islamophobia; Richard Tice deputy leader of the far-right Reform-UK party – a party that is currently a fast growing political force that is fostering more racism in society and trying to win support on a programme threatening mass deportations. 

Virulent racism against a range of groups is clearly present, here and in many other societies where the far right is growing. And that racism includes antisemitism. 

In the last couple of weeks, swastikas and other fascist insignia and slogans including "no Jew" were painted on residential garages in a housing estate in the midlands, "F*ck P*kis was painted over a bus shelter in the North East; Chinese girls who had booked a football pitch in north London were recently attacked and racially abused by boys trying to prevent them using the pitch. Meanwhile different far right groups continue to flood the internet with antisemitic conspiracy material. And the level of explicit racism on social media has reached incredibly menacing levels.

When did you last see the CAA report on Islamophobia, anti-Chinese racism, anti-refugee racism etc? It doesn't, because it separates out antisemitism from other forms of racism, and treats it as if it is something unique. It welcomes on its platforms those who tell themselves they are fighting antisemitism by defending and praising the State of Israel: a state committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, encouraging settlers to make pogroms, and which is widely recognised as committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel today, whose flags were flying among the Union Jacks, has its most right wing government in its existence, with self-declared racists and fascists in prominent government positions. Small wonder that Israel's far right ambassador here, Tzipi Hotovely - an open supporter of ethnic cleansing, an apologist for genocide, while denying there is genocide) was on the march yesterday.

How many of the marchers were Jewish? Its an interesting question because there large contingents of right-wing Christian Zionists (just as in the US there are very right wing white supremacist, Christian Zionists, who don't want Jews living nextdoor but appreciate Israel for its racist treatment of Muslims and Palestinians in general.) 

No doubt there were also many ordinary individuals, Jewish and non-Jewish, who joined the march thinking it was genuinely a march against antisemitism. It wasn't. My message to them is you cannot fight racism with racism. But you can fight it by uniting the victims of all racism, spreading the message that there is safety in solidarity with each other, and encouraging people across society to stand up against all racism, without any hierarchies. 

Historically the most virulent antisemitism in parliament has come from the backbenches of the Tory Party, not least in the run up to the Aliens Act of 1905, and in the 1930s when Captain Archibald Ramsey MP said the only correct term for "the mis- called 'antisemite' is 'Jew-wise', and a Jewish Labour MP Manny Shinwell crossed the floor to slap a Tory MP who had shouted at him in a debate "Go back to Poland!". Closer to our times, When Thatcher promoted a small number of Jewish Tories to cabinet posts, the former Tory leader, Harold MacMillan complained there were "more old Estonians in the cabinet than old Etonians."

But there is also a message for those individuals on the left who take at face value the dangerous conflation of Israel and Zionism with Judaism and Jewishness that is regularly promoted by right wing Zionists, like the Chief Rabbi, the CAA, the leaders of the Board of Deputies etc, and are failing to distinguish between them. Antisemitism is a danger to the just Palestinian cause as well as a danger to Jews. 

Against all racism and fascism everywhere, and always with the oppressed never with the oppressors!