Zionism, as both a political and a religious project, is not cosubstantial with Judaism. Your mistake is to conflate the two, (if I have not misunderstood you). Why do you back Israel? Why do you back the aggressor, the occupying power, against the victims? If it is not on the grounds that as a Jew you support the Jewish homeland, then on what grounds is it? I don't imagine you would have supported America against the Viet Congs, and yet the Viet Congs were infinitely more violent and bloody than the Palestinians, even on their most extreme edge.
You cannot be unaware that the vast majority of bloody corpses mounted up during the history of the State of Israel have been Palestinian corpses. You cannot be unaware that the State of Israel was founded upon violence, terror and ethnic cleansing. It doesn't matter whose story you accept, even the Zionists admit there was killing (even though they claim it was one-off, exceptionial or whatever). You cannot be unaware that Israel only survives because of the backing of the world's biggest imperial power. Now, I know a number of Jews who oppose Israel, and I see no schism between myself and them. Mike Rosen, who writes regularly for Socialist Worker, is opposed to the State of Israel. I don't imagine he is a one-off renegade. There is a growing minority of Jewish people coming to the conclusion that the idea of having a Jewish State was flawed from the beginning - the idea of having a state founded on the dominative power of one group of people over another, such as we have in Northern Ireland, is a recipe for war and strife.
Also, as I have suggested elsewhere, the whole Zionist project is based on an inversion of the antisemitic 'Jewish Question'. It is the idea that there is something inherently wrong with Jews living among Gentiles, that the two must be seperated. Herzl himself believed that Gentiles were automatically antisemitc and there really wasn't a great deal that could be done about this, therefore Jews must "get out, get out of the ghetto" as one of his plays had it. Israel resembles nothing more than such a ghettoized society today, except that it is the Palestinians are ghettoized, carrying water around in jerry-cans while Israeli settlers lie in their swimming pools.
So, again, why do you support Israel if not because it is the Jewish homeland? If not, in other words, because you are a Zionist? Zionism is a rank project, my friend, neither challenging antisemitism nor escaping it. It is, and I use this term in it's more delicate meaning, genetically flawed. There is no choice now but for anti-imperialist Jews to rally behind the Palestinians and root for their success. In their liberation lies the future of Jewry.

Yeah all the intellectual chit chhat is fine, what is an isn't Zionism, what constitutes anti semitism, who are the jews ect ect . But in the death it's a simple case of rich against poor. As the original writer says, he is nice and comfy middle class. The jewish community is basically rich and affluent, the palestinians are poor.
As everyone knows poor people don't count for much, anywhere.
Israel has made it so the Palestinians lifes are not worth living, hence suicide bombers and the like.
But the Palestinians are poor so who gives a fuck.. Duck

How are you going to eradicate Israel, which you think should not exist? Exterminate its Jewish inhabitants? Expel Jews, just as European governments have done throughout the centuries? Are you going to examine every Jew to see if they have committed the thoughtcrime known as Zionism? Is a Jew only good if he supports Islamic fundamentalists who want to destroy him? Is that what you are implying?

This is the policy of your precious 'freedom fighters' who blow themselves up in cafés, bars and supermarkets to murder as many Jews as possible. This is what the Islamic fundamentalists hanker for and what you promote on your marches and in your rallies by inviting them to speak. This is underlies what you left-wing racists are saying when you claim that Jews are rich conspirators controlling the world's power and wealth and therefore they deserve death.

And how do you expect Jews to react? Lie back and wait for the impending ethnic cleansing? No, Jews will defend themselves and they won't let it get to the situation Europe faced in the 1930s and 1940s. All you are doing is helping to corral Jews under the Israeli flag, rather than encouraging a peaceful solution where Arabs and Jews can live in peace.

I don't want the slaughter or oppression of Palestinians, I don't want the humiliation they face, I don't want the colonialism that has come with the settlements and the illegal occupation of the West Bank. But equally I am not going to support those who incite genocide and those, such as the SWP, who collaborate with jihadic groups.

lenin -

I agree with you almost entirely and I don't want you to get in a tizzy - but you did misunderstand me slightly. As far as I recall I never concluded by saying I support Israel. What this piece - which incidentally is the intro to a longer investigation into Jewish youth and their attitudes to religion/Israel/community - is about is putting me in a context, explaining how although I was brought up into a traditional, right-wing Jewish family, I have grown disaffected with thew mesaages I was spoon fed.

Maybe the confusion comes from my claim, 'and still I felt a strange attachment to Israel' - but that was aged 16. Since then I have travelled, learned and watched in horror as this abstract expression I was told to cherish has acted against every principle I have come to value in life.

Unfortunately, that does not mean I am an anti-zionist, or someone who wants to wipe away the state of Israel. Believe it or not, I am politically active mainly in my mind. I am a pragmatist who enjoys the debates I find here but is deeply sceptical of movements like the SWP. I prefer not to take steps backward, but to try and make things better in future - cursing Israel for its very existence is never going to help the Palestinians, but working for a profound change in the attitudes of both peoples might.

You are right that there is a significant number of Jews turning against Israel - that is what is fascinating me at the moment. But there is no need to paint this black or white, Israel or no Israel, Zionist or not. That is how we got here in the first place. That is what you speak of when you write of inverted anti-semitism, with which I fully agree. Would my father, who blames the gentiles for everything, be happy in Israel. No. He would still blame the gentiles, and the Arabs. Only it would be the ones outside Israel.

I am trying to understand what is going on in the heads of the thousands of Jews who are not active in left wing or radical politics but feel a deep sense of confusing unease about the current events in the middle east. To accuse me of Zionism simply because I have not discarded everything I was indoctrinated with as a child is a cheap shot.

lenin -

I agree with you almost entirely and I don't want you to get in a tizzy - but you did misunderstand me slightly. As far as I recall I never concluded by saying I support Israel. What this piece - which incidentally is the intro to a longer investigation into Jewish youth and their attitudes to religion/Israel/community - is about is putting me in a context, explaining how although I was brought up into a traditional, right-wing Jewish family, I have grown disaffected with thew mesaages I was spoon fed.

Maybe the confusion comes from my claim, 'and still I felt a strange attachment to Israel' - but that was aged 16. Since then I have travelled, learned and watched in horror as this abstract expression I was told to cherish has acted against every principle I have come to value in life.

Unfortunately, that does not mean I am an anti-zionist, or someone who wants to wipe away the state of Israel. Believe it or not, I am politically active mainly in my mind. I am a pragmatist who enjoys the debates I find here but is deeply sceptical of movements like the SWP. I prefer not to take steps backward, but to try and make things better in future - cursing Israel for its very existence is never going to help the Palestinians, but working for a profound change in the attitudes of both peoples might.

You are right that there is a significant number of Jews turning against Israel - that is what is fascinating me at the moment. But there is no need to paint this black or white, Israel or no Israel, Zionist or not. That is how we got here in the first place. That is what you speak of when you write of inverted anti-semitism, with which I fully agree. Would my father, who blames the gentiles for everything, be happy in Israel. No. He would still blame the gentiles, and the Arabs. Only it would be the ones outside Israel.

I am trying to understand what is going on in the heads of the thousands of Jews who are not active in left wing or radical politics but feel a deep sense of confusing unease about the current events in the middle east. To accuse me of Zionism simply because I have not discarded everything I was indoctrinated with as a child is a cheap shot.

i don't mean to clog up the board. and it's nothing to do with zionist propaganda.

I have been disgusted to read the comments by Daniel Brett in recent comments.
He seems to fail to grasp that fifty years ago the Palestinians were driven by terror out of their own country, and that for 35 years on the West Bank and Gaza strip they have lived under a brutal and humiliating military occupation.
The main terrorist organisation in the region is the Israeli Defence Forces who have shot countless civilians, peaceful demonstrators, and children. (For details see website of B'Tselem (the israeli human rights group).
When the SWP and others including Edward Said, Chomsky etc. speak of one secular democratic Palestine (incorporating current state of Israel and occupied territories)they are not talking about exterminating Jews or driving them out of the country, but rather of the creation of a state where Jew, Arab, Christian, Muslim, atheist etc. can live in peace and justice.
The State of Israel is a racist state, Nelson Mandela famously said "apartheid in South Africa and Israel is a crime against humanity).
It's racism can be illustrated in the following points-
It is defined by a law passed in the Knesset as the state of the world Jewish population, not of its citizens (20% are Palestinian).
In 1948 when Israel was created Jews living their got citizenship immediately, Palestinians had to apply.
The right of Return only applies to Jews (this means for instance that somebody in Peru who converts to Judaism can move to Israel, or an American Jew with no family members who have ever lived in Israel can move their, but a Palestinian whose father, grandfather, greatfather lived in Israel has no right of return).
People have to carry identity cards with their religious and ethnic group written on them.
In Israel their are numerous laws and practices designed to discriminate against the Palestinian minority.
Their is also a constant anxiety about how to preserve a Jewish majority to preserve the Jewish identity of the Jewish State.
It is interesting to note that despite the fact that 20% of Israels population is Palestinian there is no Arabic TV channels or Radio.
I also object to Daniel Brett's bleating about people burning Israeli Flags on the recent demo, saying it displays anti-semitism.
This is quite an old form of protest, for instance American Flags were always being burnt at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations.
Given the racism that is built into the Israeli state founded on racial supremacy and the displacement of a the native population more flags need to be burnt.

I have always condemned the treatment of Palestinians and have taken part in the pro-Palestinian movement before the SWP found it fashionable as a recruiting venture. I have always believed that Palestinians have been treated abhorrently over the years. I am not ardent supporter of the Israeli state and if you are bothered to read anything I have written in the past, you would know this. You self-righteous SWPers haven't bothered because it is easier to slander those who criticise you rather than engage in meaningful debate. You sicken me - you vulgarise Marxism and think you have a monopoly on its interpretation, but you are a bunch of prima donnas, preening yourselves as the leaders of the proletariat and bringing any trash, such as Islamic Jihad, along with you.

What I find objectionable - and this is what you fake communists hate to hear - is the tolerance of overt racist anti-Jewish hostility by groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have participated in the mass murder of Jewish civilians in Israel since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000. While the Palestinian body count had reached over 1,000 before the recent reoccupation by Sharon's IDF, the Jewish body count was edging 500. On both sides, unarmed civilians have been targetted and deliberately murdered.

Yet the SWP condones those who spill Jewish blood and offer platforms for those who advocate the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East. Its members defile the Star of David, the symbol of Judaism, in deliberate racist provocation. Its jihadic allies are calling for ethnic cleansing. And yet SWPers call me an advocate of genocide!

While I have nothing against what Edward Said has to say, I do object if he marches with jihadic groups. If you want a harmonious and peaceful state when Jews and Arabs can live together, you don't form friendships with racists like the jehadis.

I don't think this is an anti-Muslim position. All the Muslims I have ever known dislike the jehadis, who have killed thousands of Muslims in the Middle East and tarnished the religion of Islam, which otherwise shares a lot in common with Judaism. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Marxists, anarchists and every humanitarian should march together against extremism, torture, murder and intimidation. That means opposing Likud and Hamas. But if you want a war to exterminate Jews, then I will fight with the Jews just like those who fought against the Nazis.

fact: most jews are the rich
fact: most jews support israel
fact: most jews want palestinians out of there lands
fact: most jews give money for this genocide
fact: the palestinians are so desprate they have to turn themselves into bombs because thats there only option
therefore, fact: most jews are a legit target for resistance. how can anyone who supports palestine say the palestinians should shut up.
daniel brett: you are so full of shit, you zionist. youll burn with your zionist friends.

Look, Mr Brett, it does not require an antisemitic purge to abolish Israel as a state. It simply requires a successful conquest of the land by Palestinians. This does not have to entail the extermination of Jewry. You must be aware that there is no equation between the suicide bombers and the attempted industrial extermination of an entire race. You must be aware of that. Yet you insist on the same idiotic equation of the two.
The SWP does not support the tactic of suicide bombings - but it is important to recognise that this is not a matter of simple-minded moralism. The question is of whether it is likely to work. If it could be said that it was the only way the Palestinians could get their land back, how could anyone object? I revert to my previous example of the war in Vietnam. It required violence on the part of Viet Congs to win against the Americans. In the case of the Palestinians, the scales are tipped even further against them. They have rocks, a few rifles and their own bodies which they can strap explosives to. The Israelis have tanks, missiles, helicopters, airjets, tonnes of weaponry (nuclear included). Now, are you honestly saying to me that the Palestinians do not have the right to use whatever weapon they can get their hands on when they are being abused in this way? You ask me what do I expect the Jews to do (again, equating Jews with Zionism). That's stupid. Go and have a look at the Jews for Justice website, and ask yourself what the Jews should be doing. The Jews should be doing what any other anti-imperialist people in the world should be doing. Opposing the state of Israel with all our might.

So, we have the true motivations of the SWP. An SWPer posts a message calling for me 'to burn with your zionist friends' and another says that if suicide bombings by Islamic fundamentalists are the only way for Palestinian victory, then it is okay to slaughter Jews. The ends justofy the means Oh, it doesn't matter when Jewish civilians are killed by semtex, because that's not an 'industrial extermination'. What kind of fucking logic is that?

I ask you again: when your Hamas 'freedom fighters' complete their 'conquest', what will they do with the Jews? How about returning all the Jews to Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Morocco etc etc whence they were expelled forcibly 50 years ago? Will you back them as they turn Palestine into a miniature version of Iran and Syria (which sponsor jihadic terrorism), where their religious clergy will abuse women, torture communists and systematically undermine human rights. You only need to look at all the Arab governments to see how they treat their poor, their supposed 'brothers'. If Hamas take over Palestine and Israel, do you honestly think the Palestinians and Jews will be free?

You SWPers are idiots, fools and conspirators in fascism. As displayed in this thread, the SWP tolerates racists who advocate killing Jews because they are supposedly 'rich' and that unless they bow to jehadis then they must be Zionists and deserve to be killed.

But Daniel,

Why did Israel and the US fund Hamas in the first place? To create extremism and draw support away from the moderates. You see...It's part of Israel's strategy to always seem embattled so that it can forever reject peace in the region. Sure they want "peace" but not one that is based on justice for the Palestinians. As long as the Palestinians are subjects and do as they are told, then all is fine. So long as Palestinians don't make a fuss over continued occupation and settlement of their lands, then all is fine. So long as Palestinians are denied access to their own water, all is fine. So long as they are used for cheap labour, all is fine. So long as they don't have their own viable economy or instituions, then Israel is happy. I don't think anyone voluntarily tolerates being made into a slave. Let's face it. Israel attitude towards the Palestinians and Arabs has been typically that of a white colonial European. But alas, colonialism doesn't last forever. The natives will only suffer so much abuse and then they will stand up for their rights. The rebel, as Camus wrote, doesn't deny the humanity of the oppressor but demands that he be treated as an equal. This is what the Palestinian stuggle is about.

I leave you with the following article that appeared in an American Newspaper.

Israeli schoolbooks promote hatred toward Palestinians

Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule, rather than the exception, in Israeli schoolbooks


By Maureen Meehan


April 21, 2002, 06:48 AM
WASHINGTON - Israeli school textbooks as well as children's storybooks, according to recent academic studies and
surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers,"
"rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and
unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping
of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule, rather than the
exception, in Israeli schoolbooks.

Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124
elementary, middle, and high school textbooks on grammar
and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship.
Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that
Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against
an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the
existence and rights of Jews in Israel.

"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as
hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt
Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of
reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels
as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers'," said Professor
Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.

He also pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave, and determined to cope with the
difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of."

Hebrew-language geography books from the 1950s through 1970s focused on the glory of Israel's ancient past and how the
land was "neglected and destroyed" by the Arabs until the Jews returned from their forced exile and revived it, "with the help
of the Zionist movement."

"This attitude served to justify the return of the Jews, implying that they care enough about the country to turn the swamps
and deserts into blossoming farmland; this effectively delegitimizes the Arab claim to the same land," Bar-Tal told the
Washington Report. "The message was that the Palestinians were primitive and neglected the country and did not cultivate
the land."

This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which
featured Arabs as: "unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic." Further, according to the textbooks, the
Arabs were "tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored" and "they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily
inflamed."

Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system contain less direct denigration of Arabs, but continue to
stereotype them negatively. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language texts used in elementary and junior high
schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations. The coordinator of a Palestinian NGO in
Israel said that major historical events hardly get a mention either.

"When I was in high school 12 years ago, the date '1948' barely appeared in any
textbooks, except for a mention that there was a conflict, Palestinians refused to
accept a UN solution and ran away instead," said Jamal Atamneh, coordinator of the
Arab Education Committee in Support of Local Councils, a Haifa-based NGO.

"Today the idea communicated to schoolchildren is basically the same: There are
winners and losers in every conflict. When they teach about 'peace and
co-existence,' it is to teach us how to get along with Jews."

Atamneh explained that textbooks used by the nearly one million Arab Israelis
(one-fifth of Israel's population) are in Arabic, but are written by and issued from the
Israeli Ministry of Education, where Palestinians have no influence or input.

"Fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the Education Ministry, not counting teachers,
are held by Palestinians," Atamneh said. "For the past 15 years, not one new Palestinian academic has been placed in a
high position in the ministry. There are no Palestinians involved in preparing the Arabic-language curriculum [and] obviously,
there is no such thing as affirmative action in Israel."

In addition, there are no Arabic-language universities in Israel. Haifa University, Atamneh points out, has had a steady 20
percent Arab student population for the past 20 years.

"How can that figure have remained the same after all these years when the population in the north [of Israel] has grown to
over 50 percent Arab?"

Answering his own question, Atamneh rattles off statistics that reflect excellent high school scores among Arab students,
which he contrasts to their subsequent lower-than-average performance in Hebrew-language college entrance exams given
by the state.

"No major scholarships have ever been awarded to an Arab; there are no dorms for Arabs and no college-related jobs or
financial aid programs. They justify this legal discrimination by the fact that we do not serve in the army. There are numerous
blatant and official methods used to keep Palestinian Arabs out of the universities."

Dr. Eli Podeh, lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies and Middle East History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
says that while certain changes in Israeli textbooks are slowly being implemented, the discussion of Palestinian national and
civil identity is never touched upon.

"Passages from 'experts' about the existence of a Palestinian identity were introduced, but in general it appeared that the
textbook authors were not eager to adopt it," said Dr. Podeh, adding that "the connection between Palestinians in Israel and
Arabs in Arab countries is not discussed. Especially evident is the lack of a discussion on the orientation of Palestinians to
the [occupied] territories."

"While new textbooks attempt to correct some of the earlier distortions, these books as well contain overt and covert
fabrications," said Dr. Podeh.

"The establishment has preferred - or felt itself forced - to encourage the cover-up and condemn the perplexity."

One Israeli public high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints
expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters' attitudes toward Palestinians.

"Our books basically tell us that everything the Jews do is fine and legitimate and Arabs are wrong and violent and are trying
to exterminate us," the unidentified student said.

This was a Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2001.

The comment from 'S' above is NOT from an SWP supporter. It's a hoax, posted I suspect by Jack or his Nazi mates.

In fact it's an example of real anti-semitism; it tells the classic Nazi lie that all Jewish people are rich and powerful ultra-Zionists, and urges us to attack Jewish people. It's offensive rubbish and should be deleted.

The SWP is against ALL racism.

The comment I'm talking about is the one titled 'the war was delcared by jews'. The other comments seem genuine.