I am surprised and disappointed to see that Bob from Brockley - a normally sensible left-wing blogger - appears to have embraced the one state solution. The reasons he offers are the following:
Many of my friends on the anti-anti-Zionist left think that the one state solution is essentially equivalent to the genocidal destruction of the Jewish nation. They argue that the Arabs (who have demography on their side, and formidable military allies in the form of the Saudis, Iran and so on) have proven themselves unable to share space with Jews. I reject this fatalistic view, and having recently been in Northern Ireland am more confident than ever that we can forge our own futures if we unshackle our imaginations. It feels to me that the idea of the two state solution [I think this must be a typo and that he means “one state solution”. Otherwise the rest of the text makes no sense] is steadily gaining ground, not just among the hardcore advocates of a “free Palestine”, but among younger Jews in both Israel and the diaspora. This slow awakening comes with a growing sense that another Zionism is possible, and a recovery of the memory of pre-1948 Zionism, the Zionism of Ahad Ha’am, Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Joseph Trumpledor, AD Gordon and Judah Magnes, which called for a “national home” for the Jews and not necessarily a nation-state. By the way, I have at various other times in my life called for a one state solution also for South Africa, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Ireland and Cyprus.
This BBC World Service documentary about the persistence of the longest hatred comes highly recommended. Many friends of (and occasional contributors to) this blog are featured, among them Anthony Julius, Mark Gardner and David Hirsh.
Voltaire - anti-Semite that he was - should be alive today to mock the hypocrisy of the new high priests calling anathema on the heads of Jews in Israel.
So says Denis Macshane in a searing op-ed which marks “Buycott Israel” day. For what it’s worth, my personal view is that you should buy Israeli goods because they are worth buying - but as long as there’s a BDS campaign, initiatives like this one can play a valuable role. If you’re in the United States, visit here for shopping tips.
Z Word contributor Karl Pfeifer draws my attention to this important article by Yale Professor Eva S. Balogh. It’s about a demonstration organized by neo-fascist Jobbik Party at the Budapest statue of Count Mihály Károlyi, the democratically-elected leader of Hungary after World War One, and a much-detested figure on the far right.
A brief coda to this post. Enric González is the correspondent of El País in Jerusalem and he has just posted some rather dull (Islamophobia exists too you know!) reflections on antisemitism on his blog. What interests me here is how the post begins:
Jonathon Narvey of The Propagandist has written a compelling, if sadly nauseating, series on the effort by Adbusters - a Vancouver-based alternative media network - to associate the State of Israel with the crimes of Nazi Germany through a photo essay comparing Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto. Sounds like that would win some awards in Tehran, at least. Read Jonathon here, here and then here.
1. In response to my post about Ireland’s law of return, a reader who signs himself “lapsedmethodist” asks,
Who would the potential Irish citizen be displacing upon his/her return to Ireland should he/she avail of that option?
I think that this question reflects a view of history that plagues much commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Those who hold it see the Zionist enterprise as unjust from the outset because it sought and seeks to persuade a great number of people to move somewhere else, to a place where people who are not part of that enterprise already live.
The Boycott-Israel conference that ended Sunday in Montreal was supposed to show the growing momentum for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. With barely 100 activists attending the closing plenary Sunday afternoon at UQAM, it is clear that the BDS movement has no noticeable traction or support in Quebec.
El País is a leading liberal and progressive newspaper in the Spanish, Roman Catholic and Democratic Kingdom of Spain. It has long campaigned to put an end to Jewish self-determination and today’s contribution to that campaign comes in the form of an op-ed from M. Á. Bastenier, one of its most senior journalists.
My Gurvitz-Goldman and Gurvitz posts generated a lot of debate but they’ve now slipped off the first page of the blog so readers would be unlikely to see two valuable comments that arrived last night from Judy. You can follow the links to see them where she submitted them or just read the extracts I copy below. If anyone has anything further to contribute would they please do so here rather than on the original comment threads.
Many Norwegian media channels are today reporting on how one hundred more or less prominent Norwegians have signed a call for boycott of Israel. Communist football coach Egil Drillo Olsen, who works with the national football team, seems to be the designated leader of the pack this time. This will give prominent Israel-basher Dr. Mads Gilbert more time to manipulate the situation up at the hospital of Tromsø, where he is spearheading the resistance against providing the Norwegian army with doctors for the Norwegian soldiers in Afghanistan.
In Aftenposten today, communist football coach Egil Drillo Olsen claims: This (boycott of Israel) is in line with what 90 percent of the world’s population believes. There cannot be many other opinions then that the occupation is deeply objectionable and illegal.
“Everyone” believes that a boycott is the right strategy? And there “cannot be” many other opinions? This kind of talk sounds familiar.
The boycotters will doubtless the fact the coach of a national soccer team has joined their ranks, but let’s also remember that Norway is hardly a soccer power. Whether it’s the World Cup or the European Championship, they tend not to even qualify. It’s not like Vicente del Bosque has donned a keffiyeh.
At the same time, I have to ask where UEFA, the governing body of European football, is in all this. Israel, which plays soccer at the club and national levels in Europe because of the Arab boycott, is a member of UEFA. Is Olsen saying that he would refuse to field his side in the event that they were drawn against Israel? Sounds to me that’s exactly what he’s saying.
UEFA needs to take disciplinary action. Readers who wish to politely encourage them to do so should contact them here.
There’s a school of thought, if I may so dignify it, that holds that there’s nothing racist or fundamentally objectionable about anti-Zionism because opposing Zionism just means being opposed to a political system. The collapse of the Soviet Union is often proferred in this context as an example of one political system being replaced by another. “So what’s the problem?” they say, “After Zionism is defeated all the people currently resident in what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories will be able to live together in peace and equality”.
I’ll confess to always having liked Pink Floyd. For anyone who attended, as I did, an English public school, you pretty much have to. And so, amongst my record collection, which spans painfully hip genres like underground techno, dub reggae and first-wave punk, a few Floyd albums can be found discreetly nestling.
At the same time, there was a part of me that found singer Roger Waters appallingly self-indulgent. Next time you listen to “Comfortably Numb,” ignore the Gilmour guitar solo and check out the lyrics. Yech.
In recent years, Waters’s upper class leftism has become increasingly strident. Now, along with other artier-than-thou types like Oliver Stone, Waters has embraced antisemitism.
Here’s a video of a recent Waters gig in Toronto. Notice how, at about 1′30″ into the ballad “Goodbye Blue Sky,” you see bombers dropping Stars of David, rapidly followed by dollar signs, followed in turn by various corporate symbols (Shell, Mercedes and so forth,) all ending in a stream of religious symbols - crosses, crescents and stars.
I need not spell out what message that sends. I will say that it is shameful. Perhaps John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon - a man who gloriously told the Israel boycotters to “f**k off” before playing Tel Aviv - was right after all.
People who today regard themselves as Irish are either perpetuating a fraud or victims of it. That’s because the “Irish” are not a people and the idea that they have continuously inhabited the island of Ireland over a period going back two thousand or more years is a myth invented by the revivers of the ideology known as “Irish nationalism” in the nineteenth century.
This blanket endorsement of the BDS campaign and the PSC is a major change in TUC policy, which used to be committed to a strategy of engagement and reconciliation. No longer.
The next paragraph is clearly the result of compromise, but read it carefully: “Congress instructs the General Council to bring to Congress a report on the impact of the boycott and investment withdrawal strategy, together with the outcome of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)/Histadrut discussions recently facilitated by the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) and TUC. Congress agrees to join unions around the world for maximum coordination internationally for active solidarity to end the siege of Gaza and for a free Palestine.”
…The key bit is the final sentence, which is blatantly anti-Israel. And the clue is the use of Hamas terminology – the call for a “free Palestine.”
Eric Lee of TULIP explains the latest outburst of useful idiocy in the British Trades Union Congress in The Jerusalem Post.
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