The Socialist Worker tendency to portray Israel as a pariah state has become more obvious and widespread across the left in recent years. Some on the left have even associated with extremist anti-Israel organisations, and some have denied Israel’s very right of existence. This betrays both the left’s legacy of helping found the Jewish homeland (though the UN) and our current ambition to bring about lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Most startling of all is the enthusiasm of some on the left in adopting traditionally anti-semitic imagery to reiterate their criticism of Israel. The New Statesman featured the words ‘Kosher Conspiracy’ above a picture of a Star of David impaling a Union flag to advertise its cover story on the perceived power and influence of the ‘pro-Israeli lobby’. The Independent also indulged in such traditionally anti-semitic iconography when it published a cartoon of Ariel Sharon naked, biting off the head of a Palestinian child as helicopter warships bombed villages.
Although in both cases the intention may not have been anti-semitic, this type of image would have been at home in the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer, and played on age-old anti-semitic images of the ‘blood libel’ of Jews murdering gentile children. And these are publications that pride themselves on being leftwing, liberal, and dedicated to fighting racism.
Underlying this supposedly valid criticism of Israel, there lies an insidious form of anti-semitism. It is doubtful either publication would use similarly contentious imagery in relation to the black or Asian communities, which raises the question – why such special treatment for the Jews?
More blatant is the analogy between Israel and Nazi Germany that has been gaining ground in some leftwing circles, particularly in universities. Oxford academic Tom Paulin notoriously made this comparison in his poetry, calling the Israeli army the ‘Zionist SS’. Mona Baker, professor of translation studies at UMIST, sacked two Israeli scholars from the editorial boards of two magazines for no reason other than that they were Israeli. Justifying her actions and support of a wider boycott of Israel she said, ‘Israel has gone beyond just war crimes… many of us would like to talk about it as some kind of Holocaust.’
Such comparisons are simply wrong. As novelist and broadcaster Howard Jacobson has said, ‘examine what is meant by reminiscent of the Nazis and you will find no extermination camps, no master race eugenics programmes, no extirpation of an entire culture, no final solution.’
Some on the left have allowed themselves to pick up some strange bedfellows in their blinkered protests against the government’s foreign policy. Photographs picturing anti-war marchers show a number of individuals dressed up as suicide bombers holding banners with the Star of David and a Swastika linked by an equals sign. At several Stop the War Coalition marches and events, prominent politicians shared platforms with the Muslim Association of Britain. Observer journalist Nick Cohen has exposed how the MAB equate Zionism with Nazism and believe that Israel should be abolished. The organisation would not condemn the al-Qaeda killings in Mombassa because Israelis were the targets.
The apparent embrace of such organisations by the anti-war left is astounding. Would it support terrorism in any other context? Many would claim, however, that they are not being anti-semitic, but rather anti-Zionist. What exactly does this mean? Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland. Is it not anti-semitic to single out Jewish self-determination for special condemnation? As Cobi Benatoff and Edgar Bronfman, respectively presidents of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, commented at the start of the European commission’s summit on anti-semitism, ‘we do not wish to silence those who would criticise the policies of the Israeli government… rather it is the demonisation of Israel as a Jewish state and as a state of the Jews.’
The ‘not in my name’ crowd are happy to criticise every aspect of Israel, but they appear strangely silent on the myriad of human rights abuses that abound in many Middle Eastern countries. Indeed, it is this hypocrisy that most characterises some on the left’s view of Israel. Tom Paulin told the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram Weekly that what he described as ‘Brooklyn-born’ Jewish settlers should be ‘shot dead’.
He said: ‘They should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them.’ He added: ‘I can understand how suicide bombers feel… I think attacks on civilians in fact boost morale.’ Yet despite Paulin’s statement, surely a breech of The Terrorism Act 2000, his position at Oxford university is safe, as is his regular slot on BBC’s Newsnight.
The left prides itself on standing up against intolerance, ignorance and prejudice. Some on the left are now fostering precisely these things. They have to ask themselves who they are sharing platforms with and whether they are crossing the line from valid criticism to distorted prejudice. Demonising Israel does not help bring the conflict to an end.