This week’s postings @JfJfP.com


January 22, 2017
Sarah Benton

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Material has been pouring in this week, January 16th-22nd, 2017 not the unstoppable flow of Trump Tweets but reactions to his actually being called President Trump and what he might do with the power invested in him.

For those who can’t bear to read another thing about him and lest they get lost in the Trump deluge we begin with the items that are nothing to do with him.

John Newsinger provides an in-depth essay on Labour’s relationship with Zionism, and, contingent on that, Jews. In the years when Zionism was seen as a noble and creative ambition to create a new society the Labour party was in the vanguard of the admirers. The ideal laid waste to the facts on the ground:
Labour’s long march through Zionism

Two of our signatories take on the issue of Israel and antisemitism. Prof. Avi Shlaim accuses Israel’s propagandists of deliberately conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism in order to make such criticism seem racist. He points out that now, in fact, unstinting support for Israel is largely confined to the business and government elites while Palestinians, recognised as the victims and under-dogs, have far more popular support:
Palestine more popular with the people

This decline in the authority Israel could exercise in the diaspora and the admiration afforded to it has created a serious problem for Israel. Antony Lerman, who has studied the lobbying efforts of Israel as well as the discourse on antisemitism, argues that Israel sustains and expands its definition of antisemitism in the diaspora and presents itself as the only authority on what form this antisemitism takes:
Spotting ‘antisemitism’ gives Israel its dominant role

That has been carried into the Labour Party where the Right wing claim to have discovered that, happily, all antisemitism comes from the Labour Left. Exposing it is their No. 1 priority:
Alleging antisemitism is Labour right’s ‘defining narrative now’

The exposure by Al Jazeera of how and when that particular canard was generated and spread has, astonishingly, been, as they say, batted into the long grass by the FCO (ambassador Mark Regev just delved into his large bag of apologies and tossed one to the FCO). However, all the progressive Jewish groups, including JfJfP, support the demand by Jeremy Corbyn for a public inquiry into this foreign manipulation of British political life:
Jewish groups endorse call for public inquiry

Another example of that manipulation is given by MEMO which has seen an email from an Israel supporter claiming the Tories will lose all Jewish support in the UK unless they apologise ‘to the Jewish people’ for supporting the UNSC resolution on settlements:
Zionist threat to end Jewish support for Tories

Now that the Israeli government has grabbed the coat-tails of the burgeoning far right the ground for progressive politics has shrunk.  The Zionist Camp, the name for the alliance of Labour and Hatnuah in the Knesset, voted with the Right for the expulsion of  Basel Ghattas, Palestinian MK who had taken mobile phones to prisoners. Leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni would rather be attacked by the left for cowardice than the right for being traitors:
Knesset parties gang up to expel Palestinian MK

There are various agencies which strip a Palestinian family from its home. The National Unit for enforcing planning and construction laws is the one currently demolishing the homes of Bedouin families to force them into one of the deracinated, crime-ridden townships built for them. They are planning strikes in protest:
Bedouin strike over home demolitions

PM Netanyahu has coined the term ‘parity of demolitions’ to placate the far Right (forced to leave just one settlement, Amona). The decision to evacuate Umm al-Hiran of all its Arab residents with the force and thoroughness of ‘a military operation’ has spread shock amongst Bedouin who feel they are being treated as terrorists:
Bedouin treated as terrorists

The end of Obama’s presidency means the end of American attempts to nudge Israel into doing the decent thing – actively supporting the creation of a Palestinian state. This prospect features in his last presidential speech:
A president’s final reminder

Right wings in the US and Israel could barely wait for the graceful man to be replaced by the bullying one:
Israeli Right eagerly awaits the coming of Trump

And nowhere is the support more fevered than amongst Christian Evangelists who had a so-called day of prayer for him the day before the inauguration:
All hail the Great Redeemer

Responding to the the declarations of the Trump team about, amongst other things Israeli, the definite ‘promise’ to move the US embassy to Jerusalem there have been protests in most of Palestine’s cities:
You and your embassy, stay out of Jerusalem

The American Right passed a new law a couple of weeks ago – the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act – stating that the US embassy MUST be moved to Jerusalem, ASAP. If the government does not do this protection will be withdrawn from the diplomats and staff:
US Congress demands embassy move to Jerusalem

And starting as he means to go on, Trump’s team clearly signalled that they want to abandon the decades-long US policy that the settlements are illegal by inviting three of the most prominent leaders of settler groups to one of the inauguration balls:
Three settler leaders invited to the ball

 

And more besides.

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