A Call to Action to Anti-Zionist Jews: We must do the work to defeat Jewish Zionist institutions

The genocide in Gaza is being committed in our name as Jews. Thus have a duty to organize as Jews against the Jewish Zionist institutions aiding and perpetuating the annihilation of the Palestinian people.

BY JEWS AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY 

NOVEMBER 22, 2023 

ISRAELI TANKS CARVE A STAR OF DAVID INTO A FIELD IN GAZA DURING ISRAEL’S ONGOING GROUND INVASION OF GAZA. THIS PHOTO WAS SHARED BY DANIEL HAGARI ON THE @IDFSPOKESPERSON X/TWITTER ACCOUNT ON NOVEMBER 17, 2023.


At a time when the Israeli settler state has murdered over 12,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, with thousands more missing, and millions displaced, it cannot be stated enough the importance of how we orient ourselves in organizing against the Zionist settler colonial genocide.

We must be explicitly, unabashedly anti-Zionist, and make clear that our organizing does not stop after a ceasefire, it does not stop at the end of the siege on Gaza, it must not stop until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.

It is imperative that Jews understand that while Zionism and Judaism are different, this is a genocide that is being actively committed in our name as Jews, just as the entire Zionist settler colonial project has been committed in our name. While Jewish voices absolutely must not be made the priority, Jews have a duty to organize against Zionism.

The Good Shepherd Collective and writer Em Cohen recently released a Guide for Jewish Anti- Zionist Allyship where they specifically made it a point to mention that Zionism’s international infrastructure is made up of “many Jewish communal organizations and institutions. From organizations that host propaganda trips or directly fund zionist settlement to organizations that spread zionist propaganda, the Jewish organizations that structurally support zionism are many. This is a form of direct zionist harm that exists around us that anti-zionist Jews can and should struggle against.”

For decades, Palestinians have been demanding that Jewish anti-Zionists organize around fighting Zionism within their own communities, and the Jewish left has not made it a priority.

This has been made especially clear with how in this moment the ways that the Jewish left has failed completely in giving support and solidarity to the Palestinian people.

There has still not been a reckoning with how so many among us acted in the wake of October 7th, centering Jewish or Israeli grief, and actively condemning an act of anticolonial resistance in Operation Al Aqsa Flood against the Zionist settler entity which has systematically massacred, displaced, and dehumanized Palestinians for over 75 years. Organizations which claimed to support the Palestinian struggle completely abandoned them when they dared to resist colonial oppression.

This is reflected in the messaging and action of so many “liberal Zionist” and non-Zionist organizations like IfNotNow in the United States, Independent Jewish Voices in Canada, and Na’amod in the United Kingdom, and even organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace which call themselves anti-Zionist, but who have refused to identify as such in any of their messaging as of late.

All of these organizations actively cater to and enable Zionists within their spaces. There is a steadfast refusal to call for the end of the Zionist settler colonial project, the very root of the genocide in Palestine. There is also a failure to support the Palestinian resistance by any means necessary.

This is a genocide that is actively being facilitated by a high majority of the Jewish institutions which claim to represent us, ones which are actively Zionist and have aided and perpetuated this settler colonial genocide.

From our very start Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) was founded on the notion that we must be explicitly anti-Zionist and approach anti-Zionism from an anti-colonial perspective, we must support Palestinian resistance by any means necessary, and it is imperative that we organize as Jews against the Jewish Zionist institutions that have been aiding and perpetuating atrocities and now an annihilation of the Palestinian people.

When mainstream Jewish leaders, leaders of Jewish Zionist organizations and institutions, and rabbis, have been openly calling for genocide and the annihilation of Palestinian people, there is no greater evidence that we must organise as Jews to defeat Jewish Zionist institutions.

While we absolutely give organizers within INN and JVP credit for putting their bodies on the line and getting arrested, we reject the liberal framework of the crux of their organizing. Direct action is needed not just against Jewish Zionist institutions but also secular Zionist institutions, especially arms manufacturers.

Ultimately, JAWS believes Palestinians must always be in the forefront of anti-Zionist organizing, and their voices prioritized. We as Jews however, not only have a duty to speak out and be overt in our anti-Zionism, but we have a responsibility to do the work within our own communities to fight to abolish Jewish Zionist institutions. This fight is a global fight and JAWS is uniting anti-Zionist Jews around the world to get involved in the anti-Zionist solidarity struggle and challenge the Zionist institutions in our own communities.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!!!

“Jews Against White Supremacy” invites all individuals who share our values and commitment to fighting for a more just world to join us in organizing as revolutionary socialist anti-Zionists to fight Jewish Zionist institutions. Together we can fight against settler-colonialism and the institutions which perpetuate it, and for a revolutionary transformation of Jewish community life.

JAWS currently has branches in Philadelphia, the Bay Area, Brazil, the Philippines, New York City and UC Santa Cruz with many more to come.

For more information about “Jews Against White Supremacy” and how you can get involved please visit our website (jewsagainstwhitesupremacy.org) and follow us on social media

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For further inquiries, please reach out to jewsagainstwhitesupremacy2023@gmail.com

Jews Against White Supremacy

Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) is a newly established anti-Zionist Jewish organization that aims to challenge and abolish Zionist Jewish institutions through mobilizing anti-Zionist Jews, direct action, educational campaigns, and building community. Committed to internationalism, equality, and liberation, JAWS seeks to educate and radically transform Jewish communities around the world, while challenging settler colonialism and fighting for a free Palestine. To learn more and support our mission, please visit (jewsagainstwhitesupremacy.org)

Israeli protests seek to uphold the settler colonial status quo, Palestinian resistance is the means of liberation


Tara Alami
06 Apr, 2023

The New Arab

The anti-government Israeli protests that have taken place over the last months highlight an unravelling of contradictions within the Zionist project. But ultimately, they seek to continue flying the colonial flag, writes Tara Alami.

The self-serving rallies by Israeli settlers remain nothing but a trivial backdrop to decades of genocide and dispossession committed by the state whose colonial flag they uphold and love, writes Tara Alami. [GETTY]

During the past several years, Zionist settlers have periodically organised protests against their colonial government’s tendency towards “extremism.” While so-called progressive settlers fill the streets of the territories occupied in 1948, built on the rubbles of raided Palestinian villages and unmarked mass graves, “Israel” is declared the 4th happiest country in the world. A desperate attempt to curate the image of the Zionist state as a pleasant, democratic, queer haven where citizens manage to thrive despite being surrounded by Palestinian and Arab “terrorism”.

This will inevitably fail as soon as settlers who would quietly endorse the theft of Palestinian land and life, are displeased with state repression directed towards themselves. Like when an elected finance minister calls himself a “fascist homophobe,” undermining years of Zionist pinkwashing efforts.

It’s difficult to hide genocide, dispossession, and occupation behind a translucent veil of civil rights.

''Zionist settlers’ attempts to maintain democracy within a nation-state built on violence and destruction while not only separating themselves from that material reality, but also refusing to accept that such a state can and will have a monopoly on violence towards its own citizens as well, is a sign of a crumbling propaganda machine.''

Like the 2011 protests, settlers in “Israel” are rallying behind basic demands, like a democratic government and social justice issues. Surrounded by hundreds of Israeli flags, some even advocate for an “end to the occupation” and to stop building “illegal settlements" in the West Bank, as if the Zionist state within the borders formed in 1948 is not a settlement in and of itself.

But behind this thin veneer of ostensibly “progressive” slogans and posters is, perhaps at best, a fundamental refusal to reckon with the implications of the existence of the Zionist state on stolen Palestinian land. Or most likely, an endorsement with recommendations for cosmetic changes that preserve individual liberties for colonisers coddled by a genocidal settler-colonial ethnostate.

It’s the freedom to colonise comfortably that matters to settlers, not progressive reforms or lack thereof.

Zionism being witnessed in its clearest form – extremist – is an uncomfortable development for settlers and those bankrolling the Zionist project. In an angsty response to Biden lightly scolding Netanyahu for his proposed judicial overhaul, Ben Gvir contended that the Zionist state is “not another star on the American flag.” And yet, the same “progressive” settlers condemning Netanyahu are rallying behind banners of the intertwined flags of two settler colonies, the Zionist state and the US. Additionally, Zionist cops are using quintessentially American police violence to dispel protestors.

Britain's colonial legacy is still felt in Palestine today
Perspectives
Gabriel Polley

On 2 April, one of the most notorious state-sponsored hasbara propagandists, the ‘Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism,’ was fired by the Zionist government after publicly criticising Netanyahu. But even settlers who vaguely criticise “Israel” or their politicians from within, insist on obfuscating reality. In a typical response by Zionist “critics,” former Attorney General Ben Yair, says that the state practices apartheid, whilst also consciously refusing to acknowledge that apartheid is a tool secondary to Zionist settler-colonialism. This is because doing so would implicate them in more than 75 years of ethnic cleansing and land theft — an admission too damning for the illusion of the Zionist regime’s potential as the only progressive, democratic state in the region.

Zionist settlers’ attempts to maintain democracy within a nation-state built on violence and destruction while not only separating themselves from that material reality, but also refusing to accept that such a state can and will have a monopoly on violence towards its own citizens as well, is a sign of a crumbling propaganda machine.

In reality, the accelerated unravelling of contradictions within Zionist society and politics by settlers’ infuriation with a modicum of state repression as they proudly rally behind a colonial flag, is an imminent consequence for a colonial nation threatened by ongoing, steadfast Palestinian resistance to decades of genocide and dispossession.

The so-called progressive house of cards within which the colonial, genocidal face of Zionism which was loosely hidden over the past several decades, is bound to fall when Zionist settlers themselves cannot reconcile the contradictions underlying their livelihood and existence on stolen land.

Palestinians – whether in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Gaza, the territories stolen and occupied in 1948, or in exile – are seeking and struggling for liberation from a settler-colonial enterprise and imperialist proxy. The clear display of contradictions within Zionist society certainly does not amount to liberation, but signs of a faltering nation struggling with itself are a progressive move towards the unavoidable end of the Zionist project.

Palestinian martyr, intellectual, and revolutionary Basel Al-Araj insists we engage with the Zionist enemy, certainly not in what Kanafani calls “a conversation between the sword and the neck,” but rather in an attempt to understand and properly respond to the weakness of its foundation, to signs of its deterioration, and ultimately to its forthcoming ruin from within.

As a banner at one of the rallies which read: “Save Our Startup Nation” highlighted all too well, the purpose of such callous spectacles is to preserve the status quo — a settler-colonial nation bankrolled by the imperial core, a neoliberal colony founded and upheld by genocide and land theft, but with aesthetically pleasing, digestible individual liberties.

Like they do every year during Ramadan, Israeli Occupation Forces stormed and raided Al-Aqsa during prayer just days ago. At least 400 Palestinian worshippers were reportedly detained, women were beaten and tortured and rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades were used by Zionist soldiers, and more than 500 Palestinians were injured. The self-serving rallies by Israeli settlers remain nothing but a trivial backdrop to decades of genocide and dispossession committed by the state whose colonial flag they uphold and love.

The ultimate goal is to save the ostensible liberty to invest in a security and surveillance tech startup, the liberty to be queer, to wear vegan boots and build national parks, to have five elections within four years, and most importantly, the liberty to also colonise, pillage, and murder — but quietly.



Tara Alami is a Palestinian writer and organiser from occupied Jerusalem and occupied Yafa. She is based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal).
Follow her on Twitter: @taraxrh

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Jonathan Freedland Rewrites History To Hide An Ugly Truth About Israel

By Jonathan Cook

August 29, 2024

Source: Jonathan Cook's Blog





The Guardian columnist has to twist the story of the first Jew to escape Auschwitz because a true biography of Rudolf Vrba would expose the Zionist movement’s collusion with the Nazis

Tony Greenstein offers an excoriating account of how Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland distorted the historical record in his biography of Rudolf Vrba, the first Jew to escape Auschwitz.

One might wonder why Vrba’s incredible story has been buried for decades, given how keen Hollywood is to make Holocaust movies.

Greenstein explains. Vrba’s efforts in early 1944 to warn other Jews of their coming fate in the Nazi death camps were betrayed by European leaders of the Zionist movement, who silenced him.

That movement was prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Jews in return for the Nazis escorting the Zionist elite out of danger in Europe to Palestine. There the Zionist movement was already well-advanced in its preparations to expel the native Palestinians and build a self-declared Jewish state on the ruins of their homeland.

The Zionists’ attitude reflected that of the movement’s founding father, Theodor Herzl: “The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.”

Vrba was hugely critical of the Zionist movement for collaborating with the Nazis, and had no love for the Jewish state it spawned.

In 1961, the Daily Herald published an extract from Vrba’s memoir, cited by Greenstein, in which he wrote:


“I am a Jew. In spite of that, indeed because of that, I accuse certain Jewish leaders of one of the most ghastly deeds of the war. This small group of quislings knew what was happening to their brethren in Hitler’s gas chambers and bought their own lives with the price of silence … I was able to give Hungarian Zionist leaders three weeks’ notice that [Adolf] Eichmann [key architect of the Holocaust] planned to send a million of their Jews to his gas chambers … [Rezso] Kasztner [leader of Hungary’s Zionist movement] went to Eichmann and told him, ‘I know of your plans; spare some Jews of my choice and I shall keep quiet.’”

Kasztner’s betrayal of those Jews, dooming them to the Nazi gas chambers, was later justified by Israel’s attorney general, Haim Cohen, in the following terms:


“He was entitled to make a deal with the Nazis for the saving of a few hundred and entitled not to warn the millions… That was his duty … It has always been our Zionist tradition to select the few out of many in arranging the immigration to Palestine… Are we to be called traitors?”

It is on that basis that Israel’s Holocaust museum Yad Vashem has effectively excised Vrba’s astonishing story from its halls, and why Israeli schoolchildren learn nothing of Vrba. It’s also presumably why Hollywood has never picked up the most Hollywood story to come out of the Holocaust.

The anti-Zionist Vrba’s story exposes the ideological foundations of Israel to be fully in sympathy with ugly European ethic nationalisms that culminated in Nazism. His story explains how Israel was always capable of, and is now committing, a genocide in Gaza.

When ideology becomes more important than human life, people – even those you see as your own – become expendable. They come to be treated as a pawns in a savage game of power politics. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, gave voice to precisely this sentiment in December 1938, as Nazi pogroms against Jews in Germany raged:


“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”

Freedland’s task in his book The Escape Artist was to appropriate Vrba’s story, strip out its anti-Zionist message, and incorporate it into the now-dominant Zionist narrative carefully crafted after the Second World War.

That is why the biography has received awards and endless gushing praise from the usual suspects. Vrba’s life story is doubtless now ready for a Hollywood makeover – one that, should it happen, will greatly enrich Freedland.

Thanks to his efforts, the threat posed by the true story of Vrba has been neutralised. That accords with the wider fate of anti-Zionist Jews – their existence is either ignored or sanitised to accord with a self-serving Zionist interpretation of history.

That process continues to this day:

The many anti-Zionist Jews who supported Jeremy Corbyn were either ignored or driven out of the Labour party because they undermined the bogus antisemitism narrative Freedland and many others promoted to get rid of a leader who genuinely supported the Palestinian people’s right to statehood.

And the many anti-Zionist Jews who attend the marches to protest the genocide in Gaza have been disappeared because they give the lie to the establishment media’s efforts to paint those marches as antisemitic.

Note that Israeli leaders like prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made close alliances, just as Herzl recommended, with openly antisemitic states like Viktor Orban’s Hungary. They have continued in the tradition begun by Kasztner, who saved himself and his Zionist friends by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Note too that for decades Israeli governments have been moving relentlessly rightwards, to the point now that senior government ministers like Bezalel Smotrich openly declare themselves to be “Jewish fascists”.

Nonetheless, their Zionist ideology is little different from their supposedly “moderate” predecessors. The chief difference is that they are unapologetic in their Jewish supremacism and loud-mouthed in their contempt for Palestinian life. Zionism is simply coming out of a closet it was partially forced into by the rhetorical need to claim a moral basis for its actions and by concerns about placating western publics.

It is not the self-declared fascist Smotrich committing a genocide in Gaza. It is Israel’s establishment generals and its citizen army.

Greenstein recently published an important book, Zionism During the Holocaust, that deals extensively with the collusion of those who helped to found Israel with the Nazis. I recommend everyone seek it out.



Jonathan Cook
British writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His books are Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State (Pluto, 2006); Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto, 2008); and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed, 2008).

 

Hamas fires long-range missile at Ramon Airport (+VIDEOS)

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – The spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades said the armed wing has for the first time fired a rocket towards Ramon Airport south of the country.

“The Ayyash 250 missile, with a range greater than 250km has been launched at Ramon Airport, about 220km from Gaza,” Abu Obeida said.

The rocket is named after Yahya Ayyash, one of Hamas’s leading operatives before he was assassinated by Israel regime in 1996.

Abu Obeida called the rocket launching part of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ response to the killing of its senior commanders.

Sirens go off warning of rocket attacks at Tel Aviv

The Zionist media reported sirens went off warning of rocket attacks following a large-scale rocket attack by Resistance forces on Tel Aviv. 

Al-Qassam Brigades said it had targeted Tel Aviv, Beersheba and Netivot, as well as Tel Nof and Nevatim airbases.

Israeli TV Channel 12 reports that in the new round of attacks by the Palestinian Resistance, more than 100 rockets were fired at the occupied territories.

It also reported that three people were injured in the town of Kiryat Gat.

Our weapons are for sake of our land, to defend our people: Hamas

The spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, warned Israel there are “no red lines if al-Aqsa is violated”.

Abu Obeida said the decision to bomb Dimona, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities “is easier for us than drinking water”.

“We reassure our people that we have more rockets in our inventory, and our missile strikes have revealed the enemy’s fragility,” he said.

Abu Obedia said the Israeli army will sorely regret carrying out a ground invasion.

“Our weapons are for our land, for the defense of our people and victory for our sanctities,” the military spokesman said,

“What distinguishes this battle is the solidarity of the Palestinians across the country and their unanimous support for resistance.”

Gaza martyrs rise to 83 as Israeli air raids intensify

The number of Palestinians martyred in the Gaza Strip has now risen to 83, including 17 children, the local health ministry has said. 

Israeli fighters jet bomb high-rise buildings and other targets in Gaza while violence also spreads within the occupied territories, Al-Jazeera reported.

Since the Israeli offensive began late on Monday, Gaza’s health ministry says at least 83 people, including 17 children, have been martyred. More than 480 others have been wounded.

Israeli army vehicle hit by rocket

Palestinian news sources reported that a Kornet anti-tank missile hit a military vehicle of the Israeli army in southern Gaza.

Sources say several Zionist forces appear to have been killed in the attack. The exact number of casualties in this attack has not been reported yet.

Yesterday, the Resistance forces fired two Kornet missiles at the Israeli military vehicles, in which four Zionist forces were seriously wounded and one was killed.

Israeli army wounds 35 in occupied West Bank

At least 35 Palestinians were wounded in confrontations with the Israeli army in various locations in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.

According to Al-Jazeera's correspondent, the majority of people were hit by live ammunition and that most injuries occurred in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

“It was an exceptionally high number of injuries by live fire which shows us that the situation could be escalating rapidly,” the correspondent added.

Zionists bomb high-rise buildings as Gaza marks Eid al-Fitr

Israeli fighter jets have attacked high-rise buildings and other targets in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians in the besieged enclave woke up on Thursday to mark Eid al-Fitr under relentless aerial bombardment.

At least six Zionists have also been killed. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.

There have also been more violent confrontations between Israelis and Palestinian citizens in several cities inside the occupied lands.

Zionist regime shuts Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights

The Zionist regime's air officials said Thursday that incoming passenger flights would be diverted from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

Following Palestinian Resistance rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, the Zionist regime shut Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights and diverted them from Ben Gurion Airport to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

It said guidelines were in place for passenger planes to land at Ramon Airport near the southern resort city of Eilat from early on Thursday.

Israeli army says attacked 600 targets in Gaza in 3 days

The Israeli army says it has attacked more than 600 targets in Gaza since the start of the recent fighting against the Palestinians.

According to Al-Jazeera, the Israeli army claimed that 13 missiles were fired from Gaza at Israel from 9 pm last night until this morning, with the Iron Dome intercepting several missiles; But the regime did not release information on the number of missiles that hit the target.

On the other hand, the Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian Resistance Groups announced that on the second day of the clashes with the Zionist enemy, it fired 300 missiles and rockets towards the occupied territories.

Zionist attack on Gaza leaves 72 martyred, incl. 17 children

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that the number of martyrs in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip increased to 72.

The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday morning that the number of martyrs in the brutal Zionist attacks on the Gaza Strip had reached 72, including 17 children and 6 women.

The number of injured has also increased to 390, including 115 children and 50 women.

Palestinian Resistance fires 1,500 rockets at occupied lands

The Israeli army estimates that the number of rockets and missiles fired by resistance groups from the Gaza Strip in the last three days has reached 1,500.

A statement issued by the Israeli army claimed that the regime's fighter jets, helicopters and artillery had targeted more than 600 positions in the Gaza Strip over the past three days.

The Zionist regime claims that these targets belonged to the Islamic Jihad Movements and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance (Hamas).

According to the Times of Israel, the regime's army acknowledged that more than 1,500 rockets and missiles had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards the occupied territories, adding that at least five Zionists had been killed and more than 100 injured.

Zionist regime intensifies attacks on various areas of Gaza

Stating that the Zionist regime's attacks are focused on important infrastructure and roads in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported the regime intensified its attack of various areas of Gaza.

News sources in the Gaza Strip say that the Zionist regime has been carrying out heavy airstrikes and artillery attacks in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip since the early hours of Thursday morning.

The Palestinian Shehab News Agency reported that the building of the Islamic National Bank and other financial institutions in the Gaza Strip have been targeted by Zionist attacks.

"Israeli enemy planes are targeting various areas in the Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and Sheikh Zayed," Shehab correspondent reported from the Gaza Strip.

"Israeli planes are targeting the main roads connecting the provinces of the Gaza Strip," the news agency said, adding that the Sheikh Zayed region alone has been targeted by Zionists more than 30 times in recent minutes.

The Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas had set a deadline for the Zionist military to leave Al-Aqsa Mosque by 6 o'clock local time Monday and free the Palestinians who have been arrested.

Clashes between the Palestinian resistance and the Zionist regime began on Monday after the deadline expired.

ZZ/FNA14000223000027

News Code 173391

العربية

Under the Pretext of “Antisemitism”, the Suppression of the Palestinian People is Accompanied by an Attempt to Suppress the Defense of their Cause


The intensity of reactions from pro-Israel circles against that movement is only a confirmation of the importance of this development, which it would not be exaggerated to describe as historic.

The global movement denouncing the Zionist war of genocide going on in the Gaza Strip (and in the West Bank, at a lower intensity) – and in the context of that movement, most particularly, the youth movement that has developed in U.S. universities and is spreading from there to other countries – is the only glimmer of hope in the bleak and horrific scene of the destruction of Gaza. The intensity of reactions from pro-Israel circles against that movement is only a confirmation of the importance of this development, which it would not be exaggerated to describe as historic.

Indeed, the emergence of a mass movement sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in Western countries, especially in the home of the superpower without which the Zionist state would not be able to fight the current genocidal war, constitutes a very disturbing development in the eyes of the pro-Israel lobby. It threatens to establish among the new generation a rejection of Zionist barbarism that rivals the rejection of U.S. imperial barbarism more than half a century ago, which was one of the major factors leading Washington to stop its aggression against the Vietnamese people and withdraw its forces from their country in 1973.

This historical precedent is strongly present in the minds of Israel’s supporters in all Western countries, as the anti-Vietnam War movement included them all and even played a prominent role in the wave of leftist political radicalization among the student movement on a global scale at the end of the sixties. The alarm bell has hence rung in Zionist circles and their supporters, prompting them to launch a violent campaign against the movement standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine, seeking to silence it in various repressive ways, from ideological violence to police violence accompanied by legal violence.

These oppressive efforts are not new, of course, but are part of an ideological war that started from the beginning of the Zionist project and intensified as it moved into implementation in Palestine under the auspices of British colonialism. The battle reached its peak in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when the United Nations, which was newly established at the time under the hegemony of countries of the Global North, considered the issue of partitioning Palestine and granting the Zionist movement the right to establish its state there. At that stage, the Zionist effort in the “war of narratives” focused on portraying the Palestinians’ refusal of the establishment of a Zionist state on most of their homeland’s territory as if it were inspired by “antisemitism” of a sort akin to the Nazis’ hatred for the Jews and constituting a continuation of it. They portrayed the Zionist seizure of most of the land of Palestine in 1948, coupled with the uprooting of most of its indigenous people, as the last battle against Nazism, thus distorting and disguising the reality of that usurpation, which was in fact the last episode of settler colonialism (*).

Over time, Zionist propaganda became more fervent in its resort to labelling anyone hostile to the Zionist project as a Jew hater and a contin6uator of the Nazis. Two examples, among others, are Gamal Abdel Nasser, and after him Yasser Arafat, both depicted by that propaganda as counterparts of Adolf Hitler. This equation reached the height of absurdity and grotesque in the response of Menachem Begin, leader of the Likud Party whose fascist roots are well known, and Israeli Prime Minister when the Zionist army invaded Lebanon in 1982, to Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States who, in a letter to Begin, had expressed his concern about the fate of the civilian population in besieged Beirut. In his response, Begin wrote: “I feel as a Prime Minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing ‘Berlin’, where, amongst innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep beneath the surface.”

The zeal of Zionist propaganda increased in its resort to accusations of anti-Semitism and comparisons to Nazism, as the image of the Zionist state became more degraded in international public opinion, and Western public opinion in particular. The fact is that this image has steadily deteriorated as the State of Israel has moved from the myth of a state redeeming the Nazi extermination of the Jews and run by pioneers of a socialist dream led by a “workers’ party”, to the reality of an expansionist militaristic state, led by the far right. This image transformation accelerated with the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories (1982-2000) and the suppression of the first intifada in the occupied territories in 1967, which reached its peak in 1988, and later with the repeated bloody and destructive attacks on the Gaza Strip, starting with the “Gaza massacre” in 2009.

As the image of the Zionist state declined, its supporters’ propaganda focused on rejecting any radical criticism of it by accusing it of antisemitism. In 2005, some pro-Israel circles formulated a definition of antisemitism that included “examples” such as “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” (meaning that the comparison by the Zionists between several of their Arab enemies and Nazism is acceptable, just as the comparison between any state and Nazism is, except for the Zionist state, whose comparison with Nazism constitutes a form of antisemitism simply because it is “Jewish”) and “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” (in other words, describing any project that aims to create a state on the basis of racial or religious discrimination as racist is acceptable, except for the “Jewish State” project, for which that label is taboo).

In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted that definition, prior to a campaign it launched in various Western countries, calling on them to officially adopt it to stifle criticism of Zionism. The campaign succeeded in getting the parliaments of countries such as Germany and France to adopt the definition. It culminated in an attempt to get the UN General Assembly to adopt the same definition. This attempt failed, however, especially after the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism advised in October 2022 against adopting the IHRA definition. Of course, the fervour among the supporters of the Zionist state has returned and reached frenzied forms in the face of the current escalation of global condemnation of the genocidal war that the Zionist state has been waging in Gaza for seven months.

Since the United States itself is a major theatre for this condemnation, especially among the student youth as emphasised at the beginning of this article, the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress adopted on the 1st of May a bill, submitted by a Republican representative in October of last year, calling for the adoption of the IHRA definition as a basis for “the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes”. 320 representatives voted in favour of this bill, compared to 91 who voted against it. 133 Democratic Party representatives joined the Republicans in voting in favour of the bill, while 70 Democratic Representatives and 21 Republican Representatives voted against it (with 18 abstaining from voting). While it was normal for representatives of the Democratic Left to vote against the pro-Israel bill, it was very odd to see representatives of the Republican far right reject it too, including the frenetic reactionary Representative Marjory Taylor Greene, the most extreme of Donald Trump’s supporters – so much so that the latter almost appears moderate in comparison to her.

Do not, dear reader, think that the rabid Republican rightists objected to the effort aimed at suppressing the movement denouncing Israeli barbarism because of attachment to the freedom of speech. They are the most enthusiastic devotees of the Zionist state, especially since the latter’s government has been including people who, like them, belong to the far right. They are also in favour of suppressing freedom of speech whenever it concerns opinions that they hate, and they frantically call for an escalation of repression against the students who oppose Israel’s genocidal war. The reason for their opposition to the bill lies simply in their loyalty to traditional antisemitism, which has long inspired a major section of Zionism’s supporters. These antisemites agree with Zionism in the view that the State of Israel is the Jews’ sole homeland, while hating the presence of Jews in their countries (just as they hate the presence of Muslims).

Whereas one of the traditional antisemitic arguments for hostility towards the Jews was to hold them collectively responsible for “the killing of Christ” on the pretext that the Gospels blamed a Jewish crowd for sentencing Christ to death, and since the examples of antisemitism given by the IHRA definition included “claims of Jews killing Jesus”, the Republicans who voted against the bill justified their position not by the fact that it would prevent criticism of Zionism and its state, which they of course welcome, but by their fear that it would prohibit traditional antisemitic positions, if turned into law. That is why the most enthusiastic supporters of the “Jewish” state objected to restricting the freedom of true Jew haters. Should one laugh or cry?

* My book The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010) is dedicated to refuting attempts to portray the Arab stance as if it were inspired by Nazism. I also refuted the same effort regarding the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation in my recent article “Gaza: October 7th in Historical Perspective”.

• العربية (Arabic)

Gilbert Achcar

Lebanese Academic and Writer

Lebanon

Published on 06.05.2024

A CASE IN POINT 

Penny Mordaunt launches the Conspiracies Guide for MPs for candidates alongside Lucy Powell

New conspiracy theory guide for MPs and candidates warns of threat to UK democracy

New guide was commissioned by the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt MP and put together by the Antisemitism Policy Trust and other experts including Tell MAMA

By LEE HARPIN May 8, 2024, 

A new guide has been launched aimed at preventing MPs and parliamentary candidates from being drawn into conspiracy theories with a warning that they pose a threat to democracy.

Commissioned by the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt MP and launched alongside the shadow Leader of the House, Lucy Powell MP, the  guide provides examples of eight conspiracies including those emerging from the QAnon movement, anti-vaccine narratives and climate change denial.

The guide was put together by expert groups including the Antisemitism Policy Trust and Tell MAMA, the charity working to combat anti-Muslim hate.

Research has identified a key connection between antisemitism and conspiracy theories. 

A recent study conducted by researchers from King’s College London, found that antisemitism is more likely to occur among those who believe in conspiracy theories, whether their views are right or left-wing. Antisemitism is a present thread across all the case studies presented in this guide.

Launch in parliament of the Conspiracies Guide

Penny Mordaunt MP, Leader of the House of Commons said:“The Proliferation of conspiracy theories across the UK is deeply disturbing. They are deliberate campaigns to spread disinformation and fear. If they go unchallenged we risk the public being conned and their wellbeing potentially damaged. These campaigns are also a threat to the health of our democracy.

“It is essential that we give the public and their representatives the tools they need to combat this phenomenon.

“I strongly support this guide, spearheaded by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, as it will help equip us all to combat misinformation and ensure the British people have the knowhow they need to think critically. This guide bolsters the efforts I am leading in the House of Commons and my colleagues in Government to protect the public from the damaging effects of misinformation and safeguard the integrity of our democratic process.”

Lucy Powell MP, shadow leader of the house said: “The rise in conspiracy theories should worry us all. Whilst their existence is nothing new, the proliferation of social media and online channels has multiplied their reach, their risk, and the repercussions they have on individuals, our society, our politics and democracy.

“This guide is a must-read for MPs and candidates, who have an important role in leading their communities, speaking on the national stage with clarity and truth, and against mis and dis information which can harm communities and our country.”

Danny Stone MBE, chief Executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust said:”One doesn’t have to fall particularly far down any conspiracy theory rabbit hole before finding antisemitic themes, tropes, or ideas.

“We were delighted to work with the Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt MP, whose initiative this was, and so many other organisations on this guide. It is imperative that parliamentarians and parliamentary candidates can spot, and certainly avoid promoting and amplifying conspiracy myths. We hope this guide will help them in that endeavour.”

The unexceptional roots of Zionist fragility

Zionist fragility is far from unique. It is the younger relative of every anti-oppressive reckoning forced upon the privileged members of supremacist projects throughout history.

BY OMAR ZAHZAH

OCTOBER 29, 2021 

A MURAL PAINTED ON EYEWITNESS PALESTINE DELEGATION 69 IN AUGUST 2019. THE MURAL WAS DESIGNED BY PALESTINIAN ARTISTS CHRIS GAZALEH AND JUMANA AL-QAWASMI AND PAINTED BY ALL DELEGATES. THIS IMAGE WAS INCLUDED IN THE EYEWITNESS PALESTINE “EXAMINE PUBLIC STREET ART” VIRTUAL DELEGATION.

On Tuesday, October 26th I participated as an audience member in Eyewitness Palestine’s October virtual delegation about Palestinian street art as resistance from Bethlehem to San Francisco. As expected, the content was moving, and the two guides were compelling speakers. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly,) a third party began loudly clamoring for the attention that should have remained focused on the two Palestinians. To be sure, the speakers and facilitator handled the disruption smoothly and effectively. The following comments are not intended to be a reflection of the overall quality of the event, but an analysis of what I believe to be some of the underlying factors that led the individual in question to feel so entitled to attempt to commandeer the proceedings in the first place.

I have a feeling many readers will know the situation I’m about to describe even before I put the words to paper. As a Palestinian, I myself have lost count of the number of times that I’ve felt my nerves begin to twitch in anticipatory unease at a certain familiarity of phrasing, a particular inflection of tone. It’s as though my chest and the pit of my stomach begin to silently mouth, Uh oh… Here we go… as the rest of my body gets the memo, steeling itself for the worst.

We had reached the Q&A portion of the session, and I don’t think it would be exaggeration to say that fascination with the topic combined with the audience’s clear recognition of the speakers’ expertise had allowed for a powerful sense of enjoyment to congeal. That’s what often makes these moments like the one I’m about to dissect so discomfiting: it’s not just a matter of a raised voice, of the very thought of your existence, freedom and resistance being so scandalous as a Palestinian that it reduces Zionists to all sorts of emotional gymnastics in accursed protestation. No: it’s that so much of the time, these things occur after a particular threshold of trust, of release, has been achieved. The very performance of these sentimental histrionics is its own enactment of racial discipline. Know your place, they tell us. Whatever you do, don’t make the shameful gaffe of thinking you can ever stretch out in your own humanity.


“I spent the whole weekend watching Palestinian films…” the questioner began.

So far, so good.

“…and nothing has disturbed me quite like what I’ve heard today.”

Uh oh…

“…to hear the word ‘Zionism’ be so cheapened, so twisted…”

Here we go…

And there it was: Zionist fragility. The questioner went on to dominate the session for the next few minutes. The threat of crocodile tears was ever palpable (even for an online event) as the individual insisted on rehearsing every single aspect of why they were a committed Zionist and how they were personally “so hurt” at Palestinians’ “experiences.” Forget the fact that the Zionist state continues to colonize Palestinian land with impunity, and has just labeled six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist organizations”–the most important thing for all of us to consider was this individual’s hurt feelings.

This person even generously offered to paint a mural with one of the speakers, a celebrated Palestinian muralist, apparently due to some kind of fetishized obsession with ensuring that every piece of Palestinian creativity is appropriately stamped with a Zionist seal of approval. In the moment, it’s laughable, but the takeaway, ever more sobering, more stinging after the fact, is that any aspect of your existence, from the sounding of your voice to the twist and twirls of your paint brush is cause for paranoia when the colonizer realizes they had nothing to do with it. How could we have humanity, a lifeworld, a history without them? Some kind of sacred presumption has been deeply violated. We have broken a contract that no one ever even bothered to ask us to sign, but whose contents remain implicit in every plea to “just hear me out,” every insistence that “we just want peace,” every attempt to redirect the conversation towards a misplaced personal affront.


These exchanges represent the projection of a deep, colonial anxiety that stems from uncertainty. It’s not for nothing that scholars of colonization often insist on quantifying the colonial process in psychological terms.

These exchanges represent the projection of a deep, colonial anxiety that stems from uncertainty. It’s not for nothing that scholars of colonization often insist on quantifying the colonial process in psychological terms. For all of their ruthless bravado, unapologetic Zionists realize, on a level often subjected to disciplined repression, that the Zionist state was and remains a horrendous injustice that necessitates stupendous levels of violence to sustain itself in its current hierarchical form. They realize the price that needs to be paid for an ethno-supremacist, colonial apartheid regime to remain intact, and that Palestinian bodies, lives and histories are the only accepted currencies.

But this commitment, however much it may be defended during the day, is shudderingly undermined by all kinds of insecurities during the long night of moral reckoning. Its inherent injustice is registered and, in an attempt to prove to themselves they feel otherwise, unapologetic Zionists will proclaim, loudly, intrusively, and in a manner countenancing absolutely no objection, that theirs is a good project, even a noble one, that they themselves are decent people, that there are plenty more places for the Arabs to go and, well, can’t we just be friends?

Small wonder that such outbursts often retain the feel of a monologue: to a large extent, the Palestinians who happen to be in the room at the time are mere props for the recalibration of Zionist colonial confidence.

I am not the first person to use the term “Zionist fragility.” Senior Mondoweiss editor Philip Weiss used it in 2019 when describing the nonsensical lamentation from a member of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) that US media was biased against Israel. Weiss describes Zionist fragility as “when Zionists recoil with shock and injury over mild criticism.” Ali El-Sadany and Aidan Place used it when describing how a Zionist representing a normalization initiative began furiously shouting at and insulting them after they refused to be “token Muslims” in an anti-Palestinian propaganda trip. El-Sadany and Place describe Zionist fragility as rooted in fear:

“Since Israel’s foundation during the 1948 Nakba, the Israeli government has fed its people a constant barrage of messaging about existential threats, impending genocide, and Arab aggression, while simultaneously pushing a narrative of an Israeli David bravely and miraculously standing up to these Goliath dangers. This narrative was a lie in 1948, where, in private correspondence, Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion acknowledged that the Zionist militias were stronger than the Arab armies and would have no issue taking control of the entirety of Palestine; and it is also a lie now, when neither Palestinians, nor Hezbollah, nor Iran pose much of a threat to Israel– and certainly not an existential one… This inundation with fear-mongering propaganda has produced an Israeli society (and Zionist community in the diaspora) that is, in many cases, paranoid, fearful, and focused on security to the exclusion of all else. Given this pervasive attitude, it is not surprising that many Zionists buy into simplistic narratives and Islamophobic hate or, in Adam’s case, grow vindictive and spiteful when faced with pushback. Their anger and hate is driven by fear.”

Finally, Rana Abdel-Fattah used it in a Tweet from June 23rd, 2021 describing a heated exchange between the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC:) Abdel-Fattah Tweets, “Whenever Palestinians open their mouths the Zionist lobby launches a frenzied attack. The goal is to silence us, pressure media institutions into censoring our voices, bog media down with complaints. Zionist fragility exposes the fact Israel is indefensible and Zionists know it.”

All of these definitions capture an important aspect of Zionist fragility. As Weiss and Abdel-Fattah’s descriptions show, Zionist fragility is certainly tethered to a panicked sense of losing one’s monopoly on the narrative. To take the case of the United States (where I currently reside,) after the onset of the Zionist state’s modern military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza strip and Syrian Golan Heights in 1967, the US and Israel cemented a military-imperial partnership that saw both militarized setter-colonial states associate regional stability with Israel’s unchallenged ability to retain total colonial and military supremacy throughout the region. Activist organizations like the Association of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) drew important links between Zionist dispossession of Palestinians in Palestine and US demonization of Arabs and Muslims in news and racist film and television representations. US corporate media and film studios were just as complicit in the manufacture of an anti-Palestinian public “common sense” as US and Israeli generals screaming about “terrorist threats” and “security concerns.”

For decades, the US gladly acquiesced to Zionist propaganda that dehumanized Palestinians, Arabs and/or Muslims in order to protect its geo-imperial interests. This was an arrangement from which US Zionist individuals and organizations also benefited, given that it provided them with the perfect rhetorical means by which to demonize intellectuals, academics, activists and organizers who fight for justice in Palestine. Federal and local law enforcement agencies, which have a long history of tying political radicalism to potentially seditious activity, were frequently all too willing to respond to demonization of pro-Palestine activism with surveillance, incarceration and attempted deportation over the years, while academic administrators, growing increasingly compliant with outside interests, gladly fired outspoken Palestinian faculty without a second thought.

All of this is to say that Zionism has certainly enjoyed a powerful narrative monopoly that has gone relatively unchecked within the mainstream for decades. When revelations of the latest instance of Zionist brutality previously came to dominate the media—such as the exposure of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ involvement in the genocidal Sabra and Shatila camp massacres in Lebanon of 1982, or the grotesquely asymmetrical death toll of assaults upon Palestinians in the Gaza strip such as in the summer of 2014—predictions that we had finally reached the point where the political mainstream must finally set firm limits upon Israeli military and colonial aggression usually proved unfounded.

It is not individual Zionists that must be appeased, but the very sanctity of Zionism’s colonial mandate to continue dehumanizing Palestinians.

Now, however, with the increased sophistication of social media allowing Palestinian activists like Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd to document the inherent violence of Zionist dispossession in Palestinian neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, there has been a slight chink in the armor of Zionist narrative impunity. To us Palestinians, such a development is not even the bare minimum of what needs to occur in order for Palestinian liberation to be realized, yet for Zionists, who have been so accustomed to controlling every aspect of the narrative for so long, it most likely represents a clear crisis of control, the response to which is, as with all privileged classes who face even the slightest inconvenience, to lash out. A fist needs to be slammed on a table, sending the half-hearted moralists scurrying away apologetically. It is not individual Zionists that must be appeased, but the very sanctity of Zionism’s colonial mandate to continue dehumanizing Palestinians.

But El-Sadany and Place are also correct that there is an element of fear to Zionist fragility, that such fragility is the manufactured result of a political movement that spent years indoctrinating its adherents to presume that danger lurks at every corner, but is most directly personified by an unapologetic expression of Palestinian self-determination and commitment to Palestinian liberation. We laughed heartily when the exercise of this fear took the form of patently ludicrous formulations like “social media pogroms” or “Free Parking,” but as pathetic as these are, as much as they betray the growing pains of a privileged and insulated political consciousness that has finally had to face the inconvenient truth of the need to recognize the existence of the other, their author is not wholly to blame. The perpetrators are also the creators of a political movement that appallingly sought to fight antisemitism with colonialism, and their successors who saw no issue with brainwashing scores of youth into believing that the freedom of the Palestinians their movement sought to colonize and ethnically cleanse represents some kind of existential threat.

Among James Baldwin’s many staggering accomplishments is certainly his ability to capture how American whites are emotionally, psychologically and politically stunted by white supremacy. One of the many indignities wrought by this state of affairs was, of course, the psychic tolls felt by countless Black people (including Baldwin himself) who had to entertain the existential growing pains of whites who were acquiring a kind of political adolescence (their actual age notwithstanding,) feeling, on the one hand, that there was something ultimately wrong about the institutional state of affairs from which they wrought so much material and individualistic benefit and, on the other, great resentment at being implicated in the system designed in their name–a resentment that only an underprivileged Black interlocutor could alleviate. As Baldwin wrote in his essay, “The White Man’s Guilt,”

“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations. And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this. In great pain and terror one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one’s point of view. In great pain and terror because, hereafter, one enters into battle with that historical creation, Oneself, and attempts to re-create oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating: one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history.

But, obviously, I am speaking as an historical creation which has had bitterly to contest its history, to wrestle with it, and finally accept it, in order to bring myself out of it. My point of view certainly is formed by my history, and it is probable that only a creature despised by history finds history a questionable matter. On the other hand, people who imagine that history flatters them (as it does, indeed, since they wrote it) are impaled upon their history like a butterfly on a pin and become incapable of seeing or changing themselves, or the world.”

We, all of us creatures “despised by history” across timescapes and geographies, have always had to be more thoughtful, more reflexive in our understanding of organizational socio-political dynamics than members of the privileged, oppressor classes, who have always been able to take the simplistic, dominant narratives of hegemonic history and its assurances of their superiority, of the inherent rightfulness of their claim for granted. The dawning intrusion of an alternative consciousness upon these classes is precisely what inspires their recalcitrance, their reactionary regressions.

There is nothing quite like a mind poisoned by the lures of racial supremacy, of unmitigated colonial power. In this, Zionist fragility is far from unique. Indeed, it is but the younger relative of every anti-oppressive reckoning forced upon the privileged members of supremacist projects throughout–and within–history.

It’s well past time to stop pretending otherwise.