Labour Friends of Israel

We repost the introduction and a section on the facts which Labour Friends of Israel ignores.

“Vote for the Zionist list (No. 6), all who believe in the rebirth of our land through Hebrew labour.” (The Zionist List [Russia], 1917)

Labour’s relationship to Zionism and the Israeli state

The authors of this ‘pamphlet’, are all Labour Party members, all members of the health professions. Over the last year there has been a concerted effort to bully the Party into silence on Israel/Palestine, and we have witnessed the Party leadership buckle under the pressure. This campaign aimed, first, to confuse the struggle for civil rights in Israel/Palestine with racial prejudice; and, second, to demonise the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, a grass roots, human rights-based movement of non-co-operation with institutions complicit in Israel’s Occupation, undertaken in response to a call from the collective voice of Palestinian civil society. Our opportunity to express and act upon the compassion and solidarity we feel for the Palestinian people is at risk of being seriously eroded.

Our points of view and those of others like us have been made to sound controversial in the UK, although there is little here that has not been put forward in the pages of Israel’s own daily newspaper, Haaretz. We expect our efforts to be met with counter-arguments, and not further witch hunting. In this way, we hope that the membership will have the opportunity to appraise the relative merits of different points of view in the light of our shared ideals.

Poster from Jewish National Fund, Circa 1950. 

The early emphasis on Hebrew labour, often organised on the collective kibbutz, increased the attraction of Israel to European labour movements.

Click the headline below to download the full ‘pamphlet’

Notes on ‘Labour Friends of Israel’

Labour’s Relationship to Zionism and the Israeli
State

Introduction

Last year there was a spate of accusations of antisemitism levelled against seasoned anti-racists in the Labour Party. Leading politicians, the BBC, the Guardian and the wider media gave these allegations credence, leaving it to an undercover journalist from the Al Jazeera news channel to expose the politically-motivated lobbying that lay behind the ‘scandal’.

Trump’s election, the real racism of the populist Right, and the danger it poses to democratic life and world peace, puts this local hysteria into perspective. But the questions raised by Al Jazeera’s series ‘The Lobby’ remain unanswered, brushed under the carpet by both the Israeli embassy and the British Government.

The Labour Party featured heavily in these programmes: Israeli officials worked closely with Party activists to undermine those concerned with Palestinian rights, fabricating accusations to bully and harass political opponents. The tactics were unacceptable; moreover the cause they were working for is, we argue, fundamentally at odds with the stated aims and philosophy of the Labour Party. Central to the attempt to influence Labour Party opinion was the lobby group ‘Labour Friends of Israel’ (henceforth LFI). In this paper we will not comment further on the behind the scenes shenanigans which ‘The Lobby’ exposed, (they have been going on for a long time), but respond to LFI’s open and public platform, the material it has placed on its own website.

A short while ago, Louise Ellman, then Chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), declared that it was a ‘grotesque smear’ to suggest an Apartheid system operated in Israel/Palestine. With a flourish she dismissed the opinions of many experienced commentators including South African veterans of their own struggle against racism, who report that the conditions faced by Palestinians are in fact worse than those faced by Black South Africans.

What is missing from the public debate has been any attention to detail: to come to a sound conclusion we need to assess the nature of the relationship between the Israeli State and the Palestinian people against the legal definition of Apartheid in the appropriate UN Convention. It is a crucial question: Louise Ellman is using her considerable moral authority to deny the experiences of those on the ground. Additionally Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, recently declared that ‘the things LFI does – promoting a two-state solution, opposing the BDS movement and supporting those fighting for peace and coexistence – are good things to do, but they are a moral responsibility too for all of us, a commandment’.

Demonstration in Madrid. Slogans: L, let’s stop the genocide in Gaza, let’s stop the occupation. R, Yesterday South Africa. Today Palestine, Boycott Israel.  La Constitución Square in Malaga, southern Spain. Photo by Reuters

The ‘enemy’ here is represented by the Palestine solidarity movement. How do we account for this polarisation, when there is such a broad coalition in civil society, including church groups, trade unions and anti-racist movements across the world, convinced that the protection of Palestinian communities and the promotion of Palestinian rights is of critical importance, and indeed a moral responsibility?

Labour’s support for Zionism goes back a long way. There are many reasons why, in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide, the establishment of a Jewish homeland appealed to the Left’s humanitarian ideals. Left-wing interest in Zionism was encouraged too by the idea of the Kibbutz as the basis for a more egalitarian society, and the expectation that a socialist Israel could, by example, undermine the feudalism thought to characterise Middle Eastern societies. How Labour’s identification with the Zionist project has survived the subsequent history of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people down to the present day is much more difficult to understand. Despite the election of the most extreme right wing, pro-settler government in Israel’s history, LFI claims that their support amongst Labour MP’s is growing. We need to turn to the information provided by LFI to find out how this group of activists understand and promote Israel, and in what sense they are its ‘friends’.

What is Zionism?

Within the Labour movement heavy pressure has been applied to deter us from discussing Zionism as a political ideology, giving it the oddest kind of protection. It is said that Zionism runs in the DNA of the Jewish people, that it is part of Jewish ‘identity’, and that therefore to criticize it is to commit a hate crime. Attempts to shield Zionism by manipulating guilt over our antisemitic history go back a long way. They seem to have intensified at the prospect of a Labour leader knowledgeable about and sympathetic towards the struggle for Palestinian rights, during a period when Israel’s public relations teams have had just too much ‘bad news’ for world opinion to overlook.

The critical question, however, is this: why do our political elites parrot this strange assertion, to the point where they seem ready to pass it into law, thereby jeopardising the liberties they should be protecting. Clearly, we need to clarify what is meant by Zionism, and here we outline three positions which, while inevitably involving oversimplification, might help us consider why LFI and other pro-Israeli forums are so keen to discourage discussion of it. Each of these positions has support both amongst Jewish Israelis and their friends abroad (although not, of course, in equal measure).

1. Following the suggestion of Israeli psychology professor Daniel Bar-Tal, [above] we call the ideology behind all recent Israeli governments, ‘neo-Zionism’. By this Bar-Tal indicates the belief that the whole of the occupied Palestinian territories belong, by God-given right, to the ‘Jewish people’, resulting in policies pursued by Israeli governments over recent decades to incorporate them into Israel while disenfranchising the land’s inhabitants. Neo-Zionism is willing to sacrifice democracy to keep the land and exclude the Palestinians who reside there. They will certainly not consider recognising the rights of the Palestinian refugees, and they frequently reveal their determination to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, although at times the alliance with the United States has required them to conceal this.

2. Bar-Tal himself speaks from a position we shall call ‘Left Zionist’, which regards Israel only within its internationally recognised borders as belonging by right to the Jewish people. They see clearly that the expansionism advocated by neo-Zionists means either a democratic state that is no longer exclusively in Jewish control, or a Jewish state that is in no meaningful sense democratic. Left Zionists believe passionately in a two-state solution, as the only way to preserve or rebuild Israeli democracy. They want a real state for Palestinians so that their aspirations can be realised, including perhaps the return of the refugees, without infringing on the ‘Jewish’ character of Israel itself.

3. Non-Zionists and anti-Zionists are those who consider that a state should represent those who live within its borders, regardless of their ethnicity or religious background. They do not repudiate the Jewish Israeli desire to live in peace and security, however they are committed to building an Israel/Palestine in which everyone has equal political, civil and human rights. They recognise that there are two national peoples living in this small area, both of whose interests must be guaranteed and protected. This third group is distinguished from the other two by its concern not with ‘the Jewish people’ – indicating all people identifying as Jewish across the world – but with the tangible rights and responsibilities of an actually existing Jewish Israeli national community. Non-Zionists do not therefore privilege the claims of a ‘Jewish nation’ above the rights of the Palestinians: they recognise that both communities exist and have rights which need to be respected. Their concern is with the quality of the relationship between the two.

We suggest that progressives in Britain ought to argue for the third position as the only one likely to provide a sound foundation to a lasting reconciliation among the inhabitants of Israel/ Palestine. From a pragmatic point of view, we can imagine that some might advocate support for the second variety, ‘Left Zionism’, on the basis that Jewish Israelis will never accept a situation of real equality between themselves and Palestinian citizens of the same state. What we cannot imagine is that people with any real concern for democracy and social progress could support option 1. As we shall argue, LFI, although ostensibly supporting the second position, is, by its actions, actually promoting the first and the least progressive position.

* * * *

What you will not find on the LFI website

From an examination of its website and its literature, LFI has nothing whatsoever to say about, among other things:

 the history of Israel or its governing ideology, Zionism, or Palestinian perspectives on that history, including the Naqba: the forced expulsion of two thirds of the Palestinian population in 1948, Israel’s refusal to recognise and respect the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages after 1948.

 the experience of Palestinian citizens of Israel since 1948, their progressive dispossession, the discriminatory systems of land allocation, residential housing construction, education, support to agriculture, municipality finance; the expanding number of Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of the State.

 the experience of the Palestinians in the West Bank living under Israeli rule since 1967: the use of settlements, checkpoints and Israeli-only roads to control everyday life, the discriminatory system of justice: military courts for the Palestinians, and civilian law for the illegal colonists of the settlements; the humiliation and degradation of life through the use of checkpoints and other coercive measures; the violence of Jewish Israeli colonists against civilians

 the movement of non-violent resistance that challenges the theft of agricultural land and the illegal Separation Wall. There are no reviews of the moving documentaries that pay tribute to the courage and resilience of West Bank villagers, in Bilin, in Nalin and Nabi Saleh in the face of overwhelming odds. Nor of their support by progressive Israelis.

 the fact that Israel has carried out nearly 50,000 house demolitions59 since 1967.

 the detention and maltreatment of children, and the organisations that face a wall of silence in the West in their efforts to bring the world’s attention to the abuse of these children: Defence of the Child International, and Military Court Watch. The way this brutalizes young Israeli men and women while traumatizing their young victims.

 the use of torture in Israeli prisons, the use of imprisonment without trial of Palestinian activists over long periods of time.

 the crimes committed against the people of Gaza including the three devastating attacks in 2008/9, 2012, and 2014, and their impact on the physical and mental health of the survivors. (In fact there is no mention of Gaza!)

 the names of any Jewish Israeli dissidents: Avrham Burg, Yitzhak Laor, Jeff Halper,Yehuda Shaul, Ruchama Marton, Shlomo Sand, and of the courageous Israeli journalists who – in the face of public acrimony – insist on telling the Israeli people what is being done in their name in the occupied territories and inside Israel itself: Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and David Sheen.

 the existence, let alone the documented findings, of Israeli human rights organisations like B’tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Breaking the Silence, or Zochrot (‘Remembering’). The only voluntary organisation critical of Israeli policies mentioned is the Parents’ Circle – Families Forum (but not their criticisms)

 the increasingly intense official pressure and legislative restrictions by the Israeli government on Israeli and Palestinian human rights workers.

 the intensified racism evident and officially tolerated in Jewish Israeli society, the inflammatory remarks by Israeli ministers, generals and rabbis, encouraging the illegal killing of Palestinians; the fears of many that Israel is displaying increasing signs of degenerating into an openly fascist society, the growing attention that academics are paying to the question whether we are witnessing a genocidal process in Israel/Palestine.

 Israel’s systematic infringements of international law, the Geneva Convention in particular. There is no indication of an expectation that international law ought to form the basis of Israel’s policies or of the West’s expectations of Israel.

 the fact that the PLO were induced by the promise of a Palestinian State to accept the loss of 78% of historic Palestine at Oslo, and that since then Israel has embarked on a policy of ‘creeping annexation’ of the remainder. Nowhere is any criticism voiced of the policies of ‘judaization’ that have involved the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from areas coveted by settlers and the Israeli Government, and the plundering of their resources.

16-year-old Issa Tarawa from Bani Naim attacks an Israeli soldier and is shot dead. Photo from Daily Express

 the reasons why young Palestinians might resort to hopeless acts of violence against Israeli soldiers and sometimes civilians. The absence of any empathic interest in why people resist allows LFI to idealise Israel and to demonise such acts as ‘terrorism’. Nor the scandalous ‘shoot to kill’ policies pursued by the IDF and encouraged by politicians and other senior figures in Israeli society.