Israelis watch Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address the US Congress in downtown Tel Aviv, Israel, March, 2015. Oded Balilty/Press Association. All rights reserved. There is much in
Jonathan Rosenhead’s reply to my article (The
Contestation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism; openDemocracy, 27 July
2016) with which I agree, albeit he accuses me of wrestling with a straw
person. Given that Rosenhead appears, wilfully or not, to misunderstand the
main purport of my argument, I am inclined to throw the ‘straw person’ metaphor
back at him.

I do not argue
that, to quote him, ‘criticism of Zionism as a whole should be off limits’. Far
from it; I do not regard myself as a Zionist and am highly critical of Zionism;
I thought I had made that clear. However, what I posed was the issue of the
right of the state of Israel to exist; an issue which is ducked by those who
fail to distinguish between civil society and the state. The logic of the
failure to make such a distinction would be, for example, to blame the British
and US populations for the war in Iraq rather than the governments of those two
countries. My point in looking at the various iterations of Zionism
historically was to explain that it is not a monolithic entity and that this helps
to explain why it is that many inside and outside Israel who call themselves
Zionists are opposed to the expansionist policies of the current and previous
Israeli governments.

Regardless of
one’s views on the ‘correct’ definition of Zionism or the origins and
subsequent history of the Israeli state, the question of Israel’s continued
existence cannot be wished away by sloganizing nor by presuming that its Jewish
inhabitants will dematerialise or meet a worse Hamas-style fate. The important
matter is to agree and fight for a different kind of Israeli state; one which
is non-expansionist and which guarantees the rights of Palestinians both within
Israel and outside it in a state of their own. Rosenhead quotes (at length)
Gideon Levy’s Ha’aretz article in
which he bemoans the absence of a radical left in Israel as though this is
revealed truth rather than merely a matter of opinion. Some would say the same
about the state of the left in the UK, the USA and many EU countries – they are
wrong, although that doesn’t mean that those of us who are active in our unions
or on the left can pretend that all is well.

There are two
other issues which prompt a response from me. The first relates to the issue of
anti-semitism in the UK. Rosenhead says that although there is an increase in ‘rhetoric
about antisemitism’ that this is ‘quite divorced from any actually discernible
increase in antisemitism itself’. The Community Security Trust (CST) would
challenge his assertion. According to this organisation, they recorded 557 anti-semitic
incidents across the UK in the first six months of 2016, an 11 per cent
increase on the first six months of 2015. This is the second-highest total CST
has ever recorded for the January–June period of any year. CST, a Jewish
organisation, has been recording anti-semitic incidents since 1984. Does
Rosenhead doubt the veracity of these figures?

I can’t, however,
quarrel with Rosenhead’s mention of the elephant in the room; notably the issue
of supposed anti-semitism in the Labour Party. He makes an incorrect and rather
snide assertion that I wrote my original piece to support the Jewish
establishment’s anti-Corbyn position. Nothing can be further from the truth. To
put the record straight I am now including the paragraphs on this subject which
were lost to my original article due to editorial cuts.

The relationship
between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is a vexed and controversial question
which must be approached with caution and a certain degree of trepidation. This
is especially the case for those on the left in the UK in the wake of the June
20, 2016, Chakrabarti inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party and the
suspension of Ken Livingstone for his ill-judged and incorrect remarks. He has
now announced that if the suspension is upheld he will take the Labour Party to
court. Whilst not advocating the wholesale use of the expulsion penalty,
Chakrabarti does nonetheless counsel that ‘…expulsion may no doubt be necessary
in some cases of gross, repeated or unrepentant unacceptable behaviour.’ (The
Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry p.1)

I wish to set the
record straight on the Labour Party issue and some other questions before I get
to my central purpose. Firstly, neither the Labour Party nor Momentum can, as
organisations, in any way be regarded as anti-semitic although doubtless, in
common with society at large, there may well be anti-semites within their
ranks. It should nonetheless be noted that one of the conclusions drawn by
Chakrabarti (op.cit.) is that:

‘Labour members should resist the use
of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates
about Israel-Palestine in particular’ (p.27)

The Conservative
Party has historically been the place of refuge for anti-semites, racists and
Nazi sympathisers. Despite its support for the present Israeli government, the
Tory Party has never sought to root out and discipline anti-semites and racists
within its own ranks. Secondly, criticism of the Israeli government cannot be
regarded as anti-semitic. The Likud coalition government should be roundly
criticised for its expansionist and intensely anti-Palestinian policies. Many
Jews (myself included) and many Israelis are profoundly opposed to these
policies. Thirdly, it has to be acknowledged that criticism of government
policies, no matter how obnoxious they are, should not be construed as an
attack on the population of the country ruled by the named government,
including, of course, the government of Israel. A distinction must in all cases
be made between the state and civil society. Failure to do so runs the risk of
collectively punishing the people for the crimes of their government. Whilst
this might appear to be an obvious point, it is not a trivial one.

My starting point
was to elucidate an understanding of the meaning of Zionism; a term and a
political concept which is rarely defined and frequently misunderstood. This is
hardly surprising given that today in the twenty first century, Zionism/ist is
construed as an insult by some and is often equated with apartheid and even
worse, Nazism. My understanding of Zionism seeks neither to exonerate, praise
nor condemn. Rather we must seek to comprehend the Zionist movement and
concomitant ideology in its historical, material and constantly evolving
context.

I'm quite sure
that none of this will satisfy Jonathan Rosenhead, especially since he presumes
to know my opinion of Corbyn and wilfully misunderstands my position on BDS. As
an activist in NATFHE and the UCU all my working life and an executive
committee member of both, I argued against the academic boycott. I was in a
minority. Of course, I’m very well aware of the PACBI position, but I don’t
agree with it. Rosenhead’s assertion that the boycott doesn’t target individual
academics may be true but it is specious and a trifle Jesuitical given that
conferences, courses and research are all part of the daily work of individual
academics.

However, this
does not mean I support the Israeli government. I want to ally with all those
who want to work for a genuine and viable two state solution and to my certain
knowledge this includes numerous Israeli academics, regardless of their
institutions’ managements, most of which, as in this country, support the
status quo.

It is quite clear
that the Likud government has no intention of moving in the direction of a two
state solution. Netanyahu said (11/9/16) that support for the removal of
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as part of a two-state peace deal with
the Palestinian Authority, was the equivalent of advocating for the “ethnic
cleansing” of Jews. Remarkably the US government criticized this statement
thus prompting Trump to side with Netanyahu. I earnestly hope that a Labour
Party led by Corbyn will lead to greater support for Palestinian rights and a
genuine two state solution. But at the same time it is essential that the
strictures on the conduct of the debate around issues of anti-zionism and
anti-semitism elucidated by Chakrabarti are adhered to.