This week’s postings@JfJfP.com

This week, November 14th to 20th, 2016 it has been Trump Trump Trump and the Team. But first, the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration is again anticipated, this time by MPs. A large part of their debate is posted. What makes it historically distinct is that almost every speaker focussed on the second half of the Declaration: “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”:
Balfour and the missing second half

We are all going to learn much more about what effect, if any, this letter from foreign secretary Arthur Balfour had on all parties.

Back to the politics of 2016 about which we are all also going to learn much more. The Trumpettes have frightened commentators in the Israeli and Jewish press from the moderate right leftwards. Attention has centred on the plump dishevelled figure of Steve Bannon, plucked from the far right Breitbart operation to be Trump’s chief strategist. He seems to embody all the hates that characterise the far-right. If they thought Trump was joking they now know he isn’t:
Don’t let Trump & co. be the ‘new normal’

Breitbart feeds on hatred but its chief hate is left-wing Jews: “the left is the enemy, but Jews on the left are worse because they are traitors” who are “selling out Israel”:
Breitbart target – left-wing Jews

According to Breitbart execs, their operation “was founded by Jews, is largely staffed by Jews, and has an entire section (Breitbart Jerusalem) dedicated to reporting on and defending the Jewish state of Israel”. Surely American Jews cannot go on believing that a gentile passion for Israel, or simply being American, protects their rights and dignity from racism/antisemitism:
Now is the time to value Jewish critics of Israel

The above posting includes an article about the shock felt by American Jews that they might be targets of race hatred in the safe, pro-Jewish USA. The Jewish establishment, especially the Anti-Defamation League which has criticised Trump, has been used to having a direct line to the White House. Now they fear that line will be closed:
Jewish establishment confounded by Trump’s team

Like all far-right groups Breitbart nurtures conspiracy theories of power thus attracting many antisemites (who think Jews control the world). Further, as Forward – which has done a good job on covering the Breitbart operation – points out, it is very easy to be antisemitic, conspiratorial and very pro-Israel. Also in Forward a belated acknowledgment that since the mid ’60s many Jews have accepted the charge that all antisemitism comes from the left. They were quite unprepared for an attack from the right:
Look up! The threat is from the right

In the forefront of those alarmed by the Trump team’s hatreds are historians.  Over 200 (so far) specialists in Jewish history have signed a letter warning of the danger posed by Trump and his team, especially the dangerous delusion that the team is ‘only’ against a weak minority – Muslims:
Historians issue call to defend rights of all Americans

Leading historian of German fascism (and JfJfP signatory) Jane Caplan wrote for History Workshop a nuanced and also very sharp critique of uses of the term fascism. Does it matter whether the word fits Team Trump and the rest of the far-right? No; what matters is that we recognise the incremental danger they pose to the structures and values of democracy just as the Nazis did:
Fascism is a creeping fog not just a big bang

A new Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council has been formed in the USA (not in reaction to Trump they say but the stream of alarming statements from Team Trump possibly prompted the public announcement last week):
Muslims and Jews- we have more in common than what divides us

Their first aim is to publicise what people from both religious backgrounds have brought to the USA as a rejoinder to the hitherto disregarded white nationalists who have swelled in confidence since the presidential election campaign:
Last gasp for White Christian America

The demographics of the populist revolts in several countries suggest that it is older white men who identify as part of a Christian tradition who make up the core of those rebelling against politicians and (in their eyes) the favouritism politicians have shown to women, black people, Muslims etc. They grew up on the assumption that white ‘Christian’ men ruled the world. They never imagined this dependence on rigid race and gender divisions would turn out to be what unfits them for the new, more fluid, hi-tech world.

This class/ethnicity gap afflicts all capitalist countries including Israel. A new study by the Shoresh institute of Israel’s education system and labour market is highly critical of state education. A few good schools produce the hi-tech, start-up, professional elite. Schools that Arab and Haredi children attend fit them only for low-grade work:
Poor schools churn out poor workers

Discussion of Palestinian politics is much harder to pass on. There are few English language Palestinian periodicals. The PNA has a poor press operation. The class of people who produce journalists and academics, so large in the capitalist world, is very small in Palestine. And Palestinian journalists face arrest or roughing-up if they try to prise open the closed box of the militaries which control the oPt. In an attempt to make politics more open, less fractious, a ‘committee of elders’ has come into being. Whether or not they will have any effect will have to be seen:
Elders called on to save fractious Fatah

Combatants for Israel, paid or unpaid, are always attracted to a fight if any manifestation of interest in or solidarity with Palestinians occurs. This happened when Lichfield Cathedral held its Palestine exhibition and conference. In buzzed the fighters denouncing the cathedral for antisemitism. Out came those who had been involved in and supported the cathedral’s conference, including JfJfP, Kairos Britain, Amos Trust, Friends of Sabeel UK and Anglican Bishops Richard Llewellin and Michael Doe:
‘Holding Palestine in the Light’

And finally, two articles about settler activities and backing from the Israeli state. Settlers are, apparently, a mix of apolitical Israelis who just want an affordable home and the hardline belligerents who will do anything (they think they’re entitled) to get their hands on Palestinian land:
Settlers’ group uses forgery and theft to get land

Why weren’t they prosecuted? The status of settlers in Israel has been uncertain given the unanimity of opinion amongst even the most pro-Israel countries that all settlements are illegal. As evidence that Israelis don’t give a fig for outsider (or home-grown dissident, including their own Supreme Court) opinion the Knesset has voted that all outposts – the advance troops of a new settlement – should be ‘legalised’:
Bringing settlers into the fold

No good news then.