{"id":5360,"date":"2010-05-05T22:07:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T22:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaza.haimbresheeth.com\/?p=5360"},"modified":"2010-05-06T06:47:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T06:47:22","slug":"may-5-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/2010\/05\/05\/may-5-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"May 5, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Obama and Iran, by Carlos Latuff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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EDITOR<\/strong>: The Success of the BDS campaign is getting to Israel’s guts!<\/span><\/p>\n

The following hysterical article is evidence not just of the state of irrationality that Israeli society and its elites are now in, but also very clear evidence of the success of the campaign, and all those who tols us for years that it cannot succeed (including our great friend Chomsky) should now seriously rethink their positions and join the BDS camp!<\/span><\/p>\n

Break the Palestinian boycott:<\/a> Haaretz<\/h3>\n

By Karni Eldad
\nThe Mishor Adumim industrial zone in the West Bank is home to a cosmetics plant that sells 70 percent of its products to Palestinians. Recently, however, there has been a slight turnaround in relations between the factory and its customers. The Palestinian Authority ruled \u2212 in a presidential order, not the small-scale campaign of a few \u2212 to stop buying Israeli products manufactured east of the Green Line.<\/p>\n

How is such an order enforced? Simple. The life of the factory sales manager is threatened, and he is then given an offer he can\u2019t refuse: sell the factory at a ludicrous price, and we\u2019ll transfer it to PA control, because we won\u2019t be buying your products in any case.
\nThose who silently stood by as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad burned Israeli goods made in the West Bank simply accepted the presidential decree. Moreover, the PA recently established a \u201cNational Honor Fund\u201d to finance its boycott activities, to which it injects $150,000 a month. Whence the money? International donations meant to support political institutions.<\/p>\n

Israel remained silent last month when the so-called \u201ccommittee against distributing settlement goods\u201d confiscated and destroyed 7.5 tons of watermelons grown in West Bank fields. Israel stays mum when the Arabs work to impose an economic embargo on settlement products, and when the PA imposes the same on Israeli mobile phone companies, which are not centered in the West Bank. It is indeed remarkable that the cellular boycott has been put in place exactly when the son of a high-ranking PA official is launching a company that will distribute the same services.<\/p>\n

Amid the presidential order on settlement-made goods, Palestinians have been forbidden to work in the factories producing these goods or in construction in settlements. For now, the order applies only to new workers, but veteran employees have been offered one month\u2019s pay from the PA as an incentive to quit.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the accursed Oslo Accords, the 1994 Paris Protocol was signed, establishing interim economic ties between Israel and the PA. The boycott against settlement merchandise is a clear violation of this agreement, by which both sides pledged not to undermine the other\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The same agreement also determined customs and tax issues between Israel and the Palestinians. When a Palestinian individual or company imports merchandise from abroad, Israel collects customs taxes and transfers them to PA coffers. In total, more than $1 billion is collected annually. Reason dictates that in the case of such a flagrant violation of the Paris Protocol by the Palestinians, we should collect the money lost by Israeli companies due to the boycott by recouping it from customs money we transferred to the Palestinians. Such a move requires no law, only a modicum of national honor \u2212 and it\u2019s a step that could bring the economic embargo to an immediate end. At a recent meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, Manufacturers Association President Shraga Brosh \u2212 hardly viewed as a staunch rightist \u2212 proposed another solution: barring the export of Palestinian goods from Israeli ports.<\/p>\n

With Israeli manufacturers facing closure in the face of a Palestinian presidential order, I would expect to hear an outcry from lawmakers from every hue of the political spectrum. The Palestinians\u2019 blatant violation of the Paris Protocol is an affront, but silence in the face of it is a crime.<\/p>\n

UK ‘blocking’ Mossad return to London<\/a>: The Guardian<\/h3>\n

Official reportedly prevented from taking up embassy post after Israel refuses to commit itself not to misuse British passports<\/p>\n

The father of Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was assassinated in Dubai, with his photograph. Israel has never admitted any role in the killing Photograph: Hatem Moussa\/AP<\/p>\n

Britain has refused to allow Israel’s Mossad secret service to send a representative back to the country’s London embassy following the row over the killing of a Hamas operative by agents using forged UK passports.<\/p>\n

Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported yesterday that the Foreign Office is digging in its heels because Israel is refusing to commit itself not to misuse British passports in future clandestine operations.<\/p>\n

Neither Britain nor Israel gave any details of the embassy official who was ordered to leave the country in March after an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency showed that the Mossad was behind the passport theft.<\/p>\n

But the official was understood to be an intelligence officer who was known to the UK authorities and worked as official liaison with Britain’s MI6. There was no suggestion the officer was personally involved in the passports affair.<\/p>\n

Israel has never admitted any role in February’s Dubai assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was described as a key figure in smuggling Iranian weapons into the Gaza Strip on behalf of the Palestinian Islamist movement. It has abstained from signing any material that might be construed as a confession.<\/p>\n

Britain had made clear in public statements and private meetings with the Israelis that it expected formal guarantees that there would be no repeat of the passport cloning. The real documents belonged to Britons living in Israel.<\/p>\n

Forged or stolen Irish, Australian, French and German passports were also used by the hit squad, whose operation \u2013 including the use of elaborate disguises \u2013 was extensively recorded by CCTV cameras in the emirate.<\/p>\n

Israel conspicuously refrained from retaliating for the expulsion of the Mossad officer, apparently accepting that it was no more than a slap on the wrist before a return to business as usual.<\/p>\n

The Mossad and MI6 are known to have a close working relationship especially over terrorism \u2013 despite political differences over the peace process, settlements and the Palestinians between the UK and Israeli governments. Iran’s nuclear programme is likely to be another high-priority issue of common concern.<\/p>\n

Yediot reported that Israeli security officials were concerned about the breakdown in relations between the two agencies. “It is estimated that the affair will only be resolved, if at all, after this week’s UK general elections,” the paper said.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached by the Israelis about a replacement for the expelled official. “However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like,” said a spokesman. “We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”<\/p>\n

Israel yet to replace diplomat expelled in passport row<\/a>: BBC<\/h3>\n

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January
\nIsrael is yet to replace a diplomat expelled after forged British passports were used in the killing of a Hamas leader, it has emerged.
\nThe Foreign Office said no request had been made to replace the official, but added that “specific assurances” would be sought from Israel if one was made.
\nThe Israeli Embassy in London refused to comment on the situation.
\nMahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai in January, allegedly by Israeli agents using forged foreign passports.
\nIt is believed the fake passports – 12 of them British – were used in the plot to murder Mr Mabhouh, the founder of Hamas’s military wing, in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January.
\nDubai officials said they were “99% certain” that agents from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, were behind the killing.<\/p>\n

We look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like
\nForeign Office
\nThe names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects belonged to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel – all of whom have denied involvement in Mr Mabhouh’s murder.
\nTheir passports had been copied and new photographs inserted.
\nDuring the ensuing diplomatic row, in March, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were “compelling reasons” to believe Israel was responsible for the forgeries.
\nHe said the misuse of British passports was “intolerable”.
\nIsrael’s ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, said he was “disappointed”, but Israel confirmed there would be no tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsion.
\nIsrael has previously said there is no proof it was behind the killing at a Dubai hotel.
\nThe name of the expelled diplomat has not been released.
\n‘Specific assurances’
\nSeveral newspapers have reported that the person expelled was a Mossad representative and claimed that UK authorities are now preventing Israel from replacing the individual until it agrees not to use British passports in the same way again.
\nThe Foreign Office said: “We have had no approach from the Israelis about a replacement. However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like.
\n“We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”
\nDubai police said forensic tests showed Mabhouh was drugged with a quick-acting muscle relaxant and then suffocated.
\nEarlier reports had said he may have been strangled or killed by a massive electric shock.<\/p>\n

US envoy George Mitchell meets Israel PM Netanyahu<\/a>: BBC<\/h3>\n

“Proximity talks” were meant to have begun, but the start has been delayed
\nUS Middle East envoy George Mitchell has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the start of indirect talks with the Palestinians.
\nThe three-hour meeting in Jerusalem was described as “good and productive” by the US state department.
\nBut no announcements were made and Israeli officials have said the two are to meet again on Thursday.
\nMr Mitchell is due to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in Ramallah.
\nThe meeting with Mr Netanyahu had been planned as the start of “proximity talks” but the Palestine Liberation Organisation has still to agree to them.
\nThe PLO said it would meet on Saturday to finally decide if talks can proceed.
\nMr Abbas has said the talks need to immediately grapple with the toughest issues at the heart of the conflict.
\nHe said first on the agenda should be the borders of a future Palestinian state.
\nBut the issue, connected to the building of Jewish-only neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, has been a stumbling block.
\nThe talks were delayed in March by a row which strained Israeli-US relations.
\nThe Palestinians pulled out after an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
\nEarlier Obama administration adviser David Axelrod said the issue of Jerusalem would come at the end of the programme for talks.
\nIsrael has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
\nNearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
\nThe settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.<\/p>\n

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Nick Clegg to Haaretz: I admire Israel, but won’t stop criticizing its government<\/a>: Haaretz<\/h3>\n

‘We must distinguish clearly between the Israeli people and certain actions of the Israeli government,’ says the Liberal Democrat leader ahead of British elections.<\/p>\n

I lift the receiver and hear: “Adar?” In recent weeks the voice on the other side has become familiar to millions of people in Britain and around the world.<\/p>\n

A few minutes earlier I was still involved in intercontinental conversations with a dozen other graduates of the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, recently dubbed “the Harvard of the European elite” by the British media.<\/p>\n

Clegg’s dizzying success hasn’t surprised any of us alumni. Many of those old friends are being hounded by Britain’s tabloid press these days, as they search for small crumbs of information to shed light on – or smear – the relatively unknown Liberal Democrat leader.<\/p>\n

Eran Katz, the other Israeli who studied with us at the time, in the early 90s, has become well known in his own right, for the books he’s written on memory theory. On the phone, Katz recalled how he helped along Clegg’s love affair with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a talented and attractive fellow student: how he recommended a romantic vacation spot in the Ardennes Mountains, and how, thanks to his intervention, or so he would like to believe, they eventually married.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard Jose-Ramon Leon Lora, today the European Commission representative in Morocco, reveled as he remembered how Clegg overcame the undisputed star of the exclusive university with his candidacy for head of the student council. Canadian Millie Stanisic, now a film producer in New York, is convinced she could have written the script even back then. She recounts a conversation she had with Clegg in the college cafeteria in which she prophetically uttered: “The day will come, Nick Clegg, when I’ll be your guest at 10 Downing Street.”<\/p>\n

Clegg laughs loudly when he hears this. He has made clear during the election campaign that he is going for gold, betting all he’s got, and that he wants to be Britain’s next prime minister.<\/p>\n

But now’s the time to put things into perspective: “We’re not there yet,” he says modestly.<\/p>\n

His glowing performance in the first televised debate shuffled the deck completely, turning him into the Susan Boyle of British politics, and the campaign’s hottest story. He has been called “the most popular British politician since Churchill,” and “the British Barack Obama.” He has even been compared to Che Guevara.<\/p>\n

The kingmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the surveys are right, no party will win an absolute majority in the British Parliament today, for the first time in 35 years. Clegg, who may take second place, will be the kingmaker who decides whether Labour governs Britain for another four years, or whether there will be an upset in the Conservatives’ favor after 13 years out of power.<\/p>\n

He is the one who will decide whether a minority or a coalition government will rule; and whether for the first time in 90 years, the Liberal Democrats will return to a position of influence, with the implications reaching all the way to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the election, he refuses to make any predictions. He prefers not to talk about his ministerial preferences. It all depends on “these untypical elections,” and “the great desire of millions for change.”<\/p>\n

Instead, he talks about “an opportunity that won’t be repeated, the one-in-a-lifetime chance to change Britain forever.”<\/p>\n

In his mind’s eye he sees “a quick and radical shift in the tectonic plates of politics,” but he’s also cautious. “Our message is that this time there’s no need to return to the old patterns and alternatives. If enough people vote for the Liberal Democrats, then we can make big changes,” he states.<\/p>\n

Commentators say that Clegg’s popularity lies in, among other things, the fact that he managed to steal the banner of change and new ideas from David Cameron and the Conservatives. These new ideas include a new distribution of taxes to benefit the poor, more money for education, canceling an expensive nuclear submarine project in favor of investment in the economy, the development of ecologically sound “green businesses,” granting legal status to illegal immigrants who have spent at least a decade in the country; and above all, changing the anachronistic election system which distorts the will of voters and which allows the candidate less votes than his rivals to take office as prime minister.
\n
\nNo joy in Jerusalem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though Cleggmania is rife in the U.K., Jerusalem is sunk in a Clegg-pression.<\/p>\n

“Clegg is bad news for Israel,” one official here said. “His party is running on a human rights platform, and the atmosphere is hostile to Israel. We remind the Liberal Democrats of South Africa during apartheid. Even if Clegg decides not to take the foreign portfolio, the very fact that Liberal Democrats sit in the cabinet is likely to mean trouble for us.”<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, the Liberal Democrats asked for an arms embargo on Israel, and to suspend its preferential trade status with the European Union. The party was also behind the demand to mark Israeli products made in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

In December, Clegg was at the head of the list of signatories of a letter attacking the Israeli government for the blockade on Gaza. “The confinement and punishment of an entire population is no way to bring about peace for all of the people of the Middle East,” the letter read.<\/p>\n

Most of the bad blood was created by Baroness Jenny Tonge, a former Liberal Democrat MP, who became a member of the House of Lords in 2005. A year earlier, Tonge announced that if she were a Palestinian living under occupation, she would herself have become a suicide bomber. In 2006, she said that the pro-Israel lobby exerted a “financial grip” on her party and on Britain.<\/p>\n

In February, she went even further and called for an investigation into claims that IDF soldiers who were sent to aid Haitian earthquake victims were involved in harvesting body organs from the dead. Her remarks caused a storm and Clegg fired her from her job as shadow health spokesperson.<\/p>\n

“Too little, too late,” a member of the British Jewish community said. “In light of the blood libel, he should have expelled her from the party.”<\/p>\n

Clegg, who called Tonge’s remarks “wrong, distasteful and provocative,” says that he is “a very staunch defender of the people of Israel, of a very staunch defender of the rights of the Jewish community here in Britain, a community which is feeling quite beleaguered at the moment because of the rise in anti-Semitism and the rise in prejudice generally.”<\/p>\n

He recently criticized the cooperation of British Conservatives in the European Parliament with extreme right-wing parties in Eastern Europe, whom he terms, “nutters, anti-Semitic, and homophobic.”<\/p>\n

“As to the accusations that I am hostile to Israel, my actions prove the opposite. I have always sharply opposed various efforts to impose academic and cultural sanctions on Israel. I am also one of those who said that Britain should not have participated in the Durban 2 conference when it became clear that it would turn into an anti-Israel event.”<\/p>\n

“I have tremendous admiration for the state of Israel and its people. When I visited, I was once again exposed to the genius of this nation, which has managed to maintain a democratic regime and a thriving and open economy, despite its existence under a constant threat. This is a great achievement.<\/p>\n

But we must distinguish clearly between the Israeli and the Jewish people on the one hand, and certain actions of the Israeli government on the other. If I have criticism it is focused solely on these actions. I plan to continue to voice my thoughts, which stem from honest and legitimate concern, and in my estimation that the long term interests of the people of Israel are not being met properly at this time.”<\/p>\n

Clegg rejects speaking to Hamas “as long as Hamas continues to nurture an extremist ideology of violence and terror. I totally understand the feelings of the residents of Sderot who are under constant missile attacks that are meant to impose terror. My condemnations of Hamas have always been clear and unequivocal, and the same is true of my attitude toward the fact that Israel has the full right to defend its inhabitants. That is the role of every country and every government.<\/p>\n

“However,” he adds, “I don’t understand the Israeli strategy regarding Gaza. The imposition of the siege against 1.5 million people, many of them young people who become increasingly itter, and the disproportionate use of force.<\/p>\n

Operation Cast Lead did of course bring about a certain neutralization of the attackers and the missile attacks \u00ac but did it reduce the bitterness prevailing between the peoples, did it weaken Hamas’ position, and did it guarantee Israel’s long-term security interests? I’m not at all certain.”<\/p>\n

Clegg comes out against Israel’s “continued development of the illegal settlements,” he welcomes the approaching proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and as far as Hamas is concerned, he says: “The only way to deal with Hamas is to work to split the organization between the extremists who want to destroy the peace process and those who are willing over the long term to recognize Israel and to work to find a solution in a non-violent manner.”<\/p>\n

Clegg rejects out of hand the claim that the British public is today the most “anti-Israel” in Europe.<\/p>\n

“Operation Cast Lead and incidents like falsifying documents in Dubai do create tension, but just as I would never treat any public criticism of some activity or other of the British government as an anti-British attitude, in the same way, British criticism of the policy of the Israeli government should not be treated as ‘anti-Israeli,'” he says.
\nIn December 2009, 51 of the 63 members of the Liberal Democrats stood behind a draft bill in the Parliament in support of universal jurisdiction, which allows private citizens to apply for the arrest of Israeli politicians for alleged war crimes while they are on British soil.<\/p>\n

“I’m very happy that we should review it, but it shouldn’t be reviewed in a sort of panic. It needs to be reviewed in a calm and deliberate way. I was against the Labour government’s wish to try and rush through changes before the election, I think that’s wrong. I think there are issues of principles at stake, which I would like us all to have a look at calmly after the elections.”<\/p>\n

Looking to Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

As befits a graduate of the College of Europe, 43-year-old Clegg is undoubtedly a dyed-in-the-wool “European.” He speaks five languages. His Dutch mother was a captive in Indonesia during the Japanese occupation during World War II. His banker father, who is half Russian, is the scion of an aristocratic family. His wife, a lawyer, is the daughter of a former Spanish senator. His three sons have Spanish names. He himself spent more than 10 years in the corridors of the European Union. This record is already making many people nervous, both in England and abroad.<\/p>\n

Although he supports his country’s joining the eurozone, he says that this is “a totally mistaken move now.” He cannot say anything else, in light of the fears that Britain will become “the Greece of Northern Europe.” Nevertheless he declares that “we have to recall that the crisis in Greece stems from the fact that past governments there were not up front regarding their financial situation. The fault is theirs, not that of the euro bloc.”<\/p>\n

Between the lines, we can perhaps understand that he has not really abandoned the dream of adopting the single currency.<\/p>\n

He is proud of the fact that he was one of the first to oppose Britain’s participation in the Iraq war. His policy is to put an end to the era of being a “poodle” of the United States. He wants to abandon the “exaggerated dependence” on Washington and at the same time to build closer ties with Europe.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem is afraid that Clegg, who sees Washington’s approach to Israel as overly gentle, is liable to oppose joining future U.S. war activities.<\/p>\n

“We cannot leave pressure on the Middle East to the U.S. alone,” he declared recently at a press conference.<\/p>\n

To Haaretz, he says, “No country is allowed to embark on war only out of loyalty to its ally. To this day I’m angry about the way in which Gordon Brown and [former British prime minister] Tony Blair – with the support of David Cameron and the Conservatives – decided to go to war in Iraq, in order to make [former U.S. president] George W. Bush and [former U.S. vice president] Dick Cheney happy. That certainly cannot be a good enough reason for an illegal invasion of another country. We must embark on military actions only when they are in our interest. That’s why we supported and continue to support the international effort in Afghanistan. As opposed to Iraq, Britain has a clear interest in the war in Afghanistan, in spite of the fact that we have growing fears about the way in which the war there is being conducted.”<\/p>\n

Clegg rejects a military option in Iran too. “If they were to convince me that there’s a practical option, then clearly we would have to consider it. I have not been exposed so far to any proof that we can stop the Iranian nuclear program by means of an aerial attack, while a comprehensive and all-out ground war is not an option. Our greatest ally against [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and the extremists in Tehran is of course the Iranian people themselves. The opposition in Iran is widening and it’s our best chance over the long term to neutralize Iran’s nuclear capability. We must find the proper and difficult balance between putting pressure on the Iranian regime by expanding the sanctions on the one hand and creating the conditions that will enable the Iranians themselves to confront their leaders on the other. Talking about a military option does not contribute to that – on the contrary, it makes Ahmadinejad’s life easy and enables him to claim that he is acting as he is because of the external military threats.”<\/p>\n

As far as relations with the U.S., says Clegg, they should be described as “special.”<\/p>\n

“I lived and worked there [at the University of Minnesota], and I love that country. We have a common language, history and culture – it’s a unique partnership that cannot be taken away from us. All that doesn’t mean that our relationship should become a subservient one, in which we automatically do what they tell us to do. At the end of the day, Britain’s foreign policy, just like that of Israel, must be conducted in accordance with British interests rather than those of the White House.”<\/p>\n

“In any case, I think that’s the type of relationship that President Obama and his White House advisers are interested in. What they want is for Britain to be a strong force in Europe, so that it can influence the continent in accordance with our common transatlantic interests. There’s no contradiction between being strong within Europe and being a close ally of the U.S. On the contrary: One is necessary to guarantee the other.”<\/p>\n

When Clegg talks about “common transatlantic interests” he is of course referring to the Middle East as well.<\/p>\n

“I tend to say that the European Union must stop being an economic giant and a political pygmy,” he says. “Since it is Israel’s largest trade partner and one of the largest providers of assistance, infrastructure and money to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza – it must use its influence to bring about the goal to which we all aspire – a peaceful solution of old and bloody conflict, to bring about a situation where the two nations will live in peace alongside one another. That has always been my perspective.”<\/p>\n

Clegg’s attitude indicates that his recent stardom has not gone to his head.
\n“What goes up can come down too,” he says. “The higher they lift you, the more painful the fall. Those are the laws of gravity.”<\/p>\n

But whatever the results, nobody in Britain today will question the fact that the election campaign that has already been described as “the most important since 1918” \u00ac when women were given the vote – will be remembered as such mainly because of one man. His name is Nick Clegg.<\/p>\n

Tikva Honig-Parnass on Israeli Apartheid, Matzpen, and the contradictions of the Zionist Left<\/a>: IOA<\/h3>\n

Israeli socialist activist Tikva Honig-Parnass fought in 1948 War as a Zionist. Years later she would break with Zionism and join the ranks of the Socialist Organization in Israel, also known by the name of its publication, Matzpen (\u201cCompass\u201d).
\nMatzpen distinguished itself as a Marxist anti-Zionist group that was active in Israel during the 1960s and 1970s. The group called for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a regional framework that would involve the unification of the Arab East under a socialist and democratic banner, while also granting Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews equal individual, as well as equal collective national rights. Matzpen exists today as a network of individuals in Israel as well as abroad. Its theory and analysis can be found under a website with the same name.
\nAfter obtaining a Ph.D in sociology from Duke University in the United States, Tikva returned to Israel where she is active in various anti-occupation, Mizrahi and feminist movements until this day. Along with Palestinian activist Toufic Haddad, she co-edited the journal Between The Lines, and later they wrote a book entitled \u201cBetween the Lines\u201d \u2013 Readings on Israel, The Palestinians and the U.S. \u201cWar On Terror\u201d. She is currently working on a new book about the Zionist Left. We now publish a full-length interview she agreed to give to the Flying Carpet Institute in her Jerusalem home.<\/p>\n

You started out as a committed Zionist and a veteran of the 1948 War. Could you give a description of the factors that convinced you to break with Zionist ideology?
\nTo understand the reasons and the nature of my breaking away from Zionism, I have to emphasize that I crossed over to anti-Zionism from the camp of the Zionist Left, and even the Zionist far Left \u2013 the \u201cMarxist\u201d party of Mapam (an acronym for the Unified Workers Party), which called for \u201cZionism, Socialism and\u00a0 Fraternity Among Nations\u201d without seeing the inherent contradiction within this slogan.
\nBesides being a member of Mapam, I was also the secretary of the party in the Knesset\u00a0 between 1952 to 1955, agreeing fully with its hypocritical stance reflected in its calling for socialism on the one hand, and participating in the great theft of the lands of the Palestinians who remained within the borders of Israel after 1948 –\u00a0 while they were living under military rule (between 1948 and 1966) \u2013 on the other .
\nIt is often argued that Israel was initially founded as a socialist-inspired state since Mapai, the Israeli equivalent to the German SPD or the British Labour, was instrumental in creating the state\u00b4s institutions. How was that possible in a capitalist framework?
\nThe Zionist Labor movement, headed by Mapai, lead the Zionist colonial project in Palestine during the pre-1948 period. Its political, economic and ideological hegemony was the product of a kind of division of labour between it and the embryonic Israeli bourgeoisie. I won\u2019t go into the reasons for this agreed-upon division (they are systematically elaborated by\u00a0 Prof. Zeev Sternhell in his book Nation Building or a New Society? The Zionist Labor Movement (1914-1940) ). It is sufficient to say that the weak emerging bourgeoisie conferred the political hegemony to the Zionist Labor movement, which was responsible for retaining the \u201cindustrial quietness\u201d it needed, while collectively building the political and economic infrastructure for the future state.\u00a0 What I would like to emphasize here, because it has implications for the present, is the role that left Zionist intellectuals, academics and publicists had \u2013 and still have today –\u00a0 in articulating the main narrative of Zionism and legitimizing the Zionist colonial project. Claiming\u00a0 to possess the \u201cscientific\u201c or the moral authority, they have\u00a0 justified the most terrible violations of human rights committed by all Israeli governments \u2013 Left and Right alike. The pre-state Zionist Labor movement created the false theory of \u201cconstructive socialism\u201d, which was a local version of nationalist socialism: It called for the collaboration of labour and bourgeoisie \u2013 the \u201cproductive forces of society\u201d \u2013 which contribute to the\u00a0 \u201ccollective\u201d interests of state and society. This theory and ideology was easily established after 1948\u00a0 as the \u201cstate-centered\u201d system of values which lies at the center of Israeli society\u00b4s culture until this day. What we are dealing with\u00a0 here is an ideology that sees the state and its \u201csecurity\u201d as the most important values, having priority over any individual interests. This is something deeply-rooted in Israeli culture \u2013 a semi-fascist culture, as described by late critical sociologist Baruch Kimmerling. It admires what Left Zionist social scientists from the Functionalist-Structuralist school, lead in the first decades of the state by S.N. Eisenstaedt, liked to call the \u201ccollective goals\u201d of society. These imagined \u201ccollective\u201d goals were pointed out as a justification to subdue individual aspirations and rights which, in an apparent contradiction to any liberal-democratic tradition, are regarded as \u201cegoistic\u201d.
\nBut Left Zionism\u2019s exclusive rule ended years ago. Isn\u2019t all of this a thing of the past now?
\nThe loss of exclusive rule by Labor in 1977 and the ascent to power of the right-wing Likud didn\u2019t lead to an end of the hegemonical status of the ideology and narrative composed by the Zionist Left. There was no change in the widely accepted image of Zionist Left intellectuals, academics, publicists and writers like Amos Oz as the representatives of consciousness, justice and equality. The latter, however, continued to legitimize every atrocity and every war that Israeli governments, whether Left or Right, have launched against the Palestinians or neighbouring Arab countries. At the same time, however, they supported the peace plans initiated by Zionist Left leaders, whose vision of a two-state-solution ensured the continuity of Israeli rule on a fragmented Palestinian Bantustan.
\nThe hegemony of the ideological and political principles of the Zionist Left continues to this day, because it continued to constitute the various elite groups like the Israeli academia, the legal system, the governmental bureaucracy, as well as public and national institutions. This hegemony reaches as far as the directors of economic enterprises in the private sector and even the capitalist class itself. Here lies what seems like a\u00a0 contradiction: The Israeli capitalist bourgeois class has in the last decades supported the Labor governments, which in turn represented its interests. Indeed, it was the Labor government that introduced economic neoliberalism in 1985 as part of a US plan for a globalized economy and military dominance in the Middle East. And, of course, the Israeli capitalist class adopted the US-Israeli peace plans since the Oslo Agreements in 1993, which have been perceived as a necessary condition for the survival of imperial interests in the region.
\nThere was never an actual schism between Left and Right about the central premises of Zionism. As emphasized by historian Avi Shlaim, the only difference between Ben Gurion, the leader of the Zionist Labor movement, and Jabotinsky, the forefather of the right-wing Herut and Likud, was in the sequence of the stages that the project of an exclusivist Jewish state in the entire area of historical Palestine had to take in order to achieve its aims.
\nThis basic affinity explains the gradual wipeout of the traditional secondary differences which existed between Right and Left. Kadima and Likud have adopted the \u201cpragmatism\u201d of the Zionist Left, as well as its hypocritical discourse relating to the \u201cpeace process\u201d. Beginning with Sharon, who won the elections in 2001, Right and Center have declared their adoption in principle of the concept of \u201cdividing the Land\u201d and of the \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d \u2013 previously the position of the Zionist Left alone. No wonder Labor can participate in the present ruling Likud coalition alongside the racist\u00a0 Ivet Lieberman, the chair of \u201cIsrael Beitenu\u201d \u2013 the most extreme secular right-wing party \u2013 who calls for the \u201ctransfer\u201d, ie. the expulsion of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The wide adoption of Labor positions, however, signifies a rather Pyrrhic victory for the Zionist Left, since due to this success it lost its rationale for a distinct political existence and has become an altogether irrelevant political force today.
\nWhat was the personal impact of Left Zionism on you and at what point did you begin to challenge this ideology?
\nI was in fact the prototype of the pre-1948 generation, that is, someone who was committed blindly to the dominant Zionist Left discourse, namely, \u201cour\u201d historical right to \u201creturn\u201d from exile to the entire \u201cLand of Israel\u201d and to regain its sovereignty in an exclusivist Jewish state. In my youth years prior to 1948, I had read all of the Marxist literature published in Hebrew and never saw any contradiction between it and my own Zionist position. For my generation, the Palestinians were considered a kind of nuisance which should be removed from the way leading to the foundation of the Jewish state. This self-dehumanization, as well as the dehumanization of the Palestinians, prepared us for accepting the 1948 mass expulsion of the Palestinian people that was committed under the leadership of the Zionist Labor movement \u2013 Mapai and Mapam. The glorification of the concept of a \u201cJewish state\u201d permitted the prevailing indifference of my generation in taking part in the 1948 ethnic cleansing without any emotion or doubt.
\nIn order to comprehend the difference between Zionist Left semi-fascist statism on the one hand, and real liberalism on the other, I will give you a short story: I served in the Palmach unit which conquered the area which included the Palestinian villages of Saris, Beit Jibrin and Zakariya among others, and expelled their residents. I have a letter I wrote to my parents in October 1948 which was written on the stationery of the Palestinian owner of the Har Tuv gas station, who was expelled just a few days before. Typically, however, I don\u00b4t even reflect on this fact.
\nIn my letter I\u00b4m writing about two Jewish American volunteers, liberal Zionists, who had not been brought up in the ideology of the Zionist Labor movement. They were among many American Jewish veterans of World War II that came to support the Yishuv (the pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine) military forces in the 1948 War. One evening, they came from a mission shouting that they met on their way back to the base Palestinian women and children starving to death and begging to go back to their villages. They added angrily that \u201cif this new state cannot take care of its Palestinian\u00a0 inhabitants, then it has no right to exist\u201d. And me, a Left Zionist, who claimed to be a Marxist and an internationalist wrote: \u201cDear mother and father, I\u00b4m sick and tired of these American \u201cphilanthropists\u201d. Notice that I used the expression \u201cphilanthropists\u201d rather than \u201chumanists\u201d. So this is just an example of the difference between liberalism, universalism and internationalism on the one hand, and Zionist \u201cLeft\u201d values on the other.
\nAfter the war, I went back to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to continue my studies. I remember being in a student hall one day when someone burst into it saying that Mao Zedong had proclaimed the People\u00b4s Republic of China. We were cheering and clapping at the news, while at the same time a military government was being imposed on the Palestinians who remained after the 1948 War under Israeli rule and their lands and property were massively been confiscated. At the same time, those expelled who attempted to cross the border back to their homes were shot by the Israeli security forces.
\nMy Stalinist approach to the issues of Israel and the Middle East had even been strengthened when I quit my post as secretary of Mapam in the Knesset and moved closer to the Communist Party. Accordingly, I continued justifying the UN partition plan and the founding of the Jewish state, which was supported by the Soviet Union, and whose satellite, the Communist Party of Israel, had signed the Declaration of Independence.
\nSome years later, in 1961, the book \u201cPeace, Peace And No Peace,\u201d written by Akiva Orr and Moshe Machover, came out. Without access to any official files, which were released over two decades later, and basing their study only on\u00a0 information published in newspapers and professional magazines alone, they succeeded in proving that Israel was indifferent to the will of Arab states to make peace with it and systematically ignored their peace proposals. This was a big shock for me, since the very idea that the state of Israel refuses to make peace was unthinkable, especially when the ruling propaganda depicted the Arab states as aspring to destroy Israel.
\nHowever, the book convinced me to reject the prevailing misleading discourse spread by the establishment. This was the first doubt that appeared in my mind, shaking the firm belief in a peaceful Israel and preparing me to accept wholeheartedly Matzpen\u2019s political position when it was founded in 1962 by a group of about 15 people headed by its four initiators, among whom were Moshe Machover and Akiva Orr.
\nThe meeting with Matzpen was a kind of revelation for me. It wiped out all the misleading beliefs which until then had been part and parcel of my being and self- identity. I learned that Israel was a colonial settler state \u2013 a vehicle for implementing and advancing the Zionist project which \u2013 long before the 1948 Nakba \u2013 aimed at the expulsion of the indigenous residents of Palestine. I accepted the regional perspective of Matzpen which emphasized Israel\u2019s role as the enforcer of imperialist interests in the Middle East and which places the ultimate resolution of the conflict outside the Palestine box. The connection Matzpen made between Marxism, class analysis, anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism has never before \u2013 and never again \u2013 existed among the Israeli Left. The Communist Party, despite its non-Zionism, failed to draw the connection of the first three elements with the last. It had signed the Declaration of Independence in 1948 and saw the alliance of Israel with imperialism as somehow a matter of choice rather than a central characteristic of Zionism and the state of Israel. Until this day, the Communist Party has not put the challenge of the Jewish state at the center of its agenda. It has focused its struggle on achieving equal citizenship and individual rights for the Palestinian citizens, rather than that for national collective rights which the Jewish Zionist state does not and can not recognize.
\nDid Matzpen achieve a degree of significant influence in Israel? What is the status of Jewish (i.e., non-Palestinian) anti-Zionism inside Israel today?
\nMatzpen was the first group to come out against the 1967 War and was at the forefront of the protest movement against the occupation which spread in the first years after the war. This gained Matzpen support among a rather substantial number of young people. Part of this support was then due to the 1968 impact of the student uprising in Europe and the civil rights movement in the United States. Matzpen\u2019s political positions were seen as the right translation of these uprisings to the local version of the oppression of the Palestinians. However, the adoption of the comprehensive anti-Zionist and class-based perspective of Matzpen has been rather limited.
\nThe only real full impact of Matzpen was on the militant uprising of the Mizrahim (Jews from Middle Eastern countries) Black Panthers, which took place between 1970 and 1972. They were second-generation Jews from the Arab countries who had been brought to Israel in order to fulfill the urgent need of the newly born state to settle the \u201cempty\u201d occupied territories the Palestinians had been expelled from, as well as to increase the numbers of the Israeli army. The Mizrahi immigrants were in fact dumped in places without any real economic planning or productive employment, thus creating the \u201cdevelopment towns\u201d which subsequently would become the most neglected Jewish communities in the country. \u201cEmptied\u201d neighbourhoods in originally Palestinian or \u2018mixed\u2019 towns, were also re-settled with Mizrahi newcomers, which soon enough turned into pockets of poverty as well.
\nUnder the ideological influence of Matzpen, a young group of Mizrahim Jews in an ex-Palestinian neighbourhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the Musrara neighbourhood, began to articulate their rage against their systematic discrimination by the Zionist establishment in class terms. Matzpen formed not only their ideological perspective, but also provided them with logistical support. This was truly a movement with a massive potential. But they were crushed by the authorities who jailed their leaders and activists and harshly persecuted them after their release from prison. Moreover, the Black Panthers\u2019 anti-Zionist and anti-capitalist\u00a0 message was twisted since then by identity and culturalist-oriented Mizrahi activists and Post-Zionist academics.
\nFor morally conscious intellectuals since the mid-90\u2032s, Matzpen stood out as a role model. Since then, some of the critical among them (Post-Zionist sociologists like Uri Ram and Yehuda Shenhav) made sure to pay homage to Matzpen as the first to depict Zionism as a colonialist movement. However, by taking Zionist colonialism out of the anti-imperialist framework and the class analysis of Matzpen, entirely distorted its approach and failed to create any alternative to Zionist ideology and praxis. Thus the full impact of Matzpen has been materialized mainly among genuine anti-colonialists, socialists or democrats, both in Israel and abroad, who are willing to apply its principles for a full rejection of Israel as a Zionist state.
\nAs I have already mentioned, anti-Zionists are considered by Left Zionist intellectuals, as well as by wide strata in Israel, as traitors who challenge the very existence of the state. The discourse around this issue blurs and confuses the idea of physical existence of the Jewish citizens of this state with that of its existence as a \u201cJewish state\u201d. Moreover, the Jewish identity of Israel has become synonymous with the notion of its \u201csecurity\u201d and thus further deepens the commitment of most progressive Israelis to its racist nature as well.
\nMuch is heard in Europe about Post-Zionism. What are, in your opinion, its strengths and\/or limitations?
\nYou have to distinguish between the New Historians and critical sociologists\u00a0 on the one hand, and those I depict as Post-Zionists on the other. The first group refuted some basic narratives of Zionism regarding the 1948 War and the Nakba, but without challenging the very nature of the Jewish state as an ethnocratic colonial settler state (Ilan Pappe is an exception). On the other hand, the Post-Zionists had the intention to disclose and refute Israel\u2019s assumed structural inequality as reflected in the discrimination of its Palestinian citizens, as well as other Jewish \u201cminority groups\u201d. Their theoretical base, however, was post-modernism and its related fields \u2013 multiculturalism, post-colonialism and identity politics \u2013 which they have wrongly used for their analysis of the Zionist state. For instance, some of them tend to equalize the oppression of the Palestinians with that of the Mizrahim, perceiving both as the victims of the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) Zionist state. They thus ignore the central feature of Zionism which implies the full exclusion of the Palestinians from the exclusivist Jewish state, while the class-based oppression of Mizrahi Jews does not stem from the colonial character of the state of Israel, whose main dividing line is that between Jews and Palestinians. In fact, their \u201cmulticulturalism\u201d and politics of identity brought many Post-Zionists to turn their backs to the strengthened Palestinian and Arab nationalism among the Palestinian citizens and to their demands, which are far away and even contradictory to the quest for recognizing their \u201cminority group\u00a0 identity\u201d.
\nPost-Zionists have not concentrated upon a thorough analysis of Israel as a colonial settler state. They have not been anti-capitalist or\u00a0 anti-imperialist, as they never challenged economic neoliberalism or Israel\u2019s role in serving US interests in the region.
\nAre we witnessing, in your opinion, a radicalization or an erosion of Zionist ideology?
\nZionist ideology, its discourse and implementation in policies and laws has enormously radicalized. When the false self-identity as a peaceful state is being crushed on a daily basis, there is a need to strengthen the commitment of the people to Zionism. A main feature of this stage of Zionism is the overt confirmation of Matzpen\u00b4s thesis about the regional nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US-Israeli quest for hegemony in the Middle East and the \u201cwar against terror\u201d, aimed at subduing \u201cdisobeying\u201d states like Iran and Syria and crushing Islamic resistance\u00a0 movements like Hizbullah and Hamas, are at the center of public discourse. The establishment, supported by wide strata \u2013 including the Zionist Left \u2013 has been involved in a determined effort to describe this war as a necessary condition for the survival of the Zionist Jewish state. Indicative of the establishment awareness of the role that Zionism plays in harnessing Israelis to support its war policy, is the opening lecture by Benjamin Netanyahu in the last annual Herzliya conference which gathers Israel\u00b4s political, economic and military elites for discussing the most urgent topics that are included in the present agenda of the state. Netanyahu\u2019s lecture focused on the exclusive Jewish right to all of the Land of Israel, i.e., historical Palestine, and the need to strengthen the citizens\u00b4 Zionist consciousness.
\nI will just give you an example from my own experience: Last year, I went to a ceremony at my grandson\u00b4s school in northern Tel Aviv, a known bourgeois, secular and liberal area, where most people vote for \u201cLeft\u201d Zionist parties \u2013 Labour or Meretz. It was a commemoration day for all fallen Israeli soldiers, where all the the pupils and their parents, as well as the bereaved families were present. The event was opened when a boy with a kippa \u2013 in a supposedly secular school –\u00a0 read from the Bible that God said to Abraham, \u201cLook from the place you are there, to the north and south and east and west, because all the land you see, I will give to you and your offsprings until eternity\u201d. This scene just shows the strengthened tendency in education to deepen the commitment to Zionism and the aggressive war policies of the state of Israel. To open the memorial day with this promise of God to Abraham is a message given to the children that you must fight fiercely in the future inevitable wars against the Palestinians and others because this land, which is is exclusively ours, is in danger.
\nIsrael is referred to as \u201cthe only democracy in the Middle East\u201c and the civil rights enjoyed by Israel\u2019s Palestinians are indicated as a proof of this. What is the situation of Israel\u00b4s Palestinian citizens?
\nThe Israeli regime encompasses by now all historical Palestine \u2013 from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Israel has settled half a million of its own citizens there; it has extended its own laws there and uses aquifers and airspace there every single day. In practice, Israel has annexed the West Bank without officially declaring it. Many among the Left Zionists adhere to the misleading claim that the West Bank (and Gaza) are exterior to the state of Israel and that the \u201967 occupation is only temporary and eventually these areas will constitute the independent Palestinian state. They thus conceal the fact that these areas have in fact been annexed and are part and parcel of Greater Israel \u2013 something that allows them to retain the image of Israel as \u201cthe only democracy in the Middle East\u201d.
\nZionism has enforced\u00a0 its government upon different parts of Palestine in different historical stages. Hence the different levels of civil rights and civil status of the Palestinian inhabitants of these parts \u2013 from no civil rights in the West Bank and Gaza, to formal citizenship granted to the remaining Palestinians after the Nakba of 1948, something that was a condition imposed on Israel in order to be accepted as a member of the United Nations.
\nTherefore, the discussion on Israel\u2019s democracy must include both the obvious and observable apartheid regime in the \u201967 occupied territories \u2013 to which the Left abroad is willing to admit \u2013 and the somewhat masked apartheid within the Green Line (\u201cIsrael Proper\u201d), which they are reluctant to depict as such and still regard as a democracy.
\nIsn\u2019t apartheid a bit exaggerated? The Palestinians in Israel are after all able to vote for their representatives in the Knesset\u2026
\nIndeed, one should emphasize Matzpen\u2019s thesis which was elaborated by Moshe Machover regarding one essential difference between the Israeli version of apartheid and that which prevailed in South Africa. Accordingly, Zionism, like the North American or Australian species of colonization, aimed at eliminating the native population instead of keeping them as a reserve of cheap labour power. Unlike the Blacks in apartheid South Africa, Palestinians were considered dispensable, which explains the notion of mass expulsion looming in Zionist thinking long before 1948. This \u201csolution\u201d is still adopted by Israeli political and intellectual elites, as explicitly expressed by historian Benny Morris. However, until the right circumstances appear, a consistent policy of ethnic cleansing in slow motion \u2013 physical, political and social \u2013 has been taking place all over historical Palestine, albeit with different methods and levels; by disconnecting Palestinians from their cultivated lands, banning their access to basic resources of livelihood, not to mention the devastation and massacres which took place in Jenin and Gaza.
\nThe characteristics of the structural discrimination of the Palestinian citizens qualifies Israel as an apartheid regime which is similar to that of South Africa, albeit, as said, intentionally camouflaged. Unlike apartheid in South Africa, which openly declared its racism in all walks of life, what we have seen until recently in Israel is a kind of racism that avoids any racist language which explicitly points to the discrimination of Palestinians. The legal, political and ideological infrastructure of this form of apartheid regime was laid down during the first decade of the state by Zionist Labor governments in which the \u201cMarxist\u201d party of Mapam was a senior member.
\nAs Saree Makdisi shows in a recent article, every single major South African apartheid law has a direct equivalent in Israel today. For example, the Population Registration Act of 1950 assigned to every South African a racial identity according to which each of them was entitled to (or was denied) a different set of rights. This has a direct equivalent in the Israeli laws that assign to Jews and Palestinians a distinct national identity. According to Israeli law, there is no such thing as Israeli nationality. The only nationality Israeli law recognizes is the Jewish nationality, which encompasses Jews all over the world who Israel claims to be their state. Non-Jews, although they can be citizens of the state, are explicitly not members of an Israeli \u201cnation\u201d.
\nThus, while the Jewish citizens are recognized as having a national identity, Israeli law strips Palestinian citizens of their national identity and reduces them to a mere ethnic minority, the \u201cIsraeli Arabs\u201d. This in itself is the backbone of the discriminative regime, even before any statement is made about discrimination. In Israel, various fundamental rights \u2013 access to land and housing, for example \u2013 are dependent upon national identity, not the lesser category of mere citizenship.
\nThe system of regulations that determine access to land inside Israel exemplifies a wide range of these rights. They constitute a direct equivalent to the South African Group Areas Act of 1950 which assigned different areas of South Africa for the residential use by different racial groups. Palestinian citizens are legally excluded from residing in officially designated \u201cJewish community settlements\u201d. Moreover, they are barred from living on state land or land held by \u201cnational institutions\u201d such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which comprise 90 percent of lands in Israel \u2013 most of which had been confiscated from Palestinians. These institutions openly claim that they are \u201cthe caretaker of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners, Jewish people everywhere\u201d.
\nEven the formal citizenship granted to the Palestinians who survived the Nakba in 1948 is systematically stripped of any solid guarantee for political and individual rights. Thus for example, political parties and individuals, if they don\u2019t recognize the Jewish state and even use the right to challenge it by democratic means, are seen by the Shabak (the internal security service) as a security threat to the existence of Israel and risk being barred from participating in the elections for the Knesset. The right to citizenship or even residency is denied from a Palestinian spouse from the the \u201967 occupied territories or other Arab states.
\nThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a highly divisive issue among the German Left. Some leftists have come to the conclusion, given the shift in the region for Islamic movements like Hamas and Hizbullah (and the subsequent weakening of the secular nationalists and the Left) that supporting Israel\u2019s \u201cRight To Exist\u201d is a necessary step to defeat \u201creactionary\u201d or \u201cmedieval antisemitic\u201c tendencies. What is your response to that?
\n\u201cIsrael\u2019s right to exist\u201d is a slogan that contradicts any aim related to secular democracy. Nor can it replace the role which the current weak Left and secular democratic forces are unable to fulfill in fighting for democratization of the Middle East and defeating Islamic fundamentalism. On the contrary: Precisely this discourse has served as the pretext for the \u201cwar against terror\u201d which US imperialism has been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the US-Israeli wars in Lebanon and the bloody assault on Gaza in 2009. Therefore, those in the Left who believe in fighting for \u201cIsrael\u2019s Right to Exist\u201d should realize that this implies joining the war against the new demon which US imperialism has created after the fall of the Soviet Union. That is, using \u201cIslamic fundamentalism\u201d as a pretext to crush the resistant forces in the Middle East, be them secular or religious \u2013 all this in the name of \u201csecular democracy\u201d.
\n\u201cIsrael\u00b4s right to exist\u201d is the right of US imperialism to consolidate its political, military and economic rule in the Middle East. You cannot separate between Israel as the tool for advancing the Zionist colonial project and its apartheid regime, from its role as the enforcer of US imperialist interests in the Middle East. Israel is the US\u2019s one solid, reliable supporter, the US\u2019s very owned armed watchdog against any state or movement that challenges US imperial interests in the region. As such, its total war against the Palestinians is part and parcel of US strategy to abolish any call for genuine national independence.
\nIndeed it is sad that the\u00a0 anti-imperialist struggle in the region has not been led by Left forces. However, the Left should recognize that Hizbullah and Hamas are by now the only organized forces which fight against Zionist Israel, the US and the collaborative Palestinian and Arab leaderships. Hizbullah plays the most genuine role in fighting for the national independence of Lebanon. If not for Hizbullah, Lebanon would have been ruled by now by the Lebanese fascist Phalanges \u2013 indeed \u201csecular\u201d- in collaboration with Israel and the US.
\nHamas was elected to power through the most democratic general elections. The joint American, Israeli and Palestinian Authority total war against Hamas is in fact a war of ethnic cleansing against the entire population of Gaza. This is the nature of the war, cynically claimed to be waged for the \u201cright of the state of Israel to exist\u201d. Therefore, the position of some in the German Left regarding Islamist movements like Hizbullah and Hamas is in fact nothing else but a call to support the US-Israeli efforts to intensify the fragmentation of the people throughout the Middle East. In this case, to prevent the reunification of Gaza and the West Bank, to which Hamas aspires, and to delegitimize Hizbullah and its integration into the Lebanese political system. The right of Israel to exist is in fact the right of the Zionist apartheid state to continue its project of eliminating the Palestinian people and subduing the Arab nation in the service of Western hegemony over the region.
\nThe recently published insight of Left Zionist academic Zeev Sternhell regarding the alleged rise in European antisemitism contradicts the prevailing rhetoric about a \u201cmedieval antisemitism\u201d relating to Islamic movements:
\n\u201cOne of the research institutions reported a dramatic rise in events defined as antisemitic during \u201cCast Lead\u201d [In Gaza]. It is doubtful if the motives to all, or even to most of these events were antisemitic. It stands to reason that regarding part of them, we are witness to escalating anti-Israeli [attitudes]. Past antisemitism was not dependent upon the objective deeds of Jews. On the other hand, there is a clear and consistent connection between hostility to Israel and the deed it commits. It is not by chance that anti-Israeliness is a phenomenon which appeared in the last generation: It is a reaction to the deepened occupation [of the ’67 territories]\u201c.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR: The Success of the BDS campaign is getting to Israel’s guts! The following hysterical article is evidence not just of the state of irrationality that Israeli society and its elites are now in, but also very clear evidence of the success of the campaign, and all those who tols us for years that it … Continue reading May 5, 2010<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[115,91,74,87,72,92,88,56,89,95,94,101,62,93,96,73],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5363,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions\/5363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}