discussion of this article

Mark H said…

Dead right Stuart. And in my opinion if any supporter of Permanent Revolution was in any way responsible for trashing such wretched placards and the Israeli flag - good on them. There's a war on - and we have taken sides. By the way - last Saturday saw another 1000 people marching on the streets of Liverpool supporting the Palestinians.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 00:22

Daisy said…

Stuart - really proud to see you trashing the the democratic right to political expression, good on you! These people are outrageous to be opposing Hamas alongside the IDF. So what if Hamas's politics stand for a theocratic state, and in practice is an enemy to women, LGBT people, workers and the Left. They are the resistance! Just like what Workers' Power said in the early days of the US/UK invasion of Afghanistan - united front with the Taliban! Gosh, your politics is so spot on! Keep it going big man!

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 07:19

Chris S said…

Not exactly 'dead right' unfortunately. The AWL intended to provoke a response that is obvious, but at every demonstration we go on, we will have some group or some loon looking to provoke a response. Is it time that we policed slogans on demonstrations? Why is it acceptable to trash AWL placards but acceptable to march next flags of groups that are misogynist, homophobic and anti working class? It is not for sections of the movement to censor slogans on a demonstration, it is for us to take up the political struggle against such shit politics. Robin should have known what was going to happen and probably had a lucky escape thanks to the police.

Did PR not protest against the removal of HOPI from Stop the War, and cried foul against censoring HOPI politics withing the movement, but now PR seem to be cheering on censorship in the anti war movement? You can be against what the AWL have done on these demonstrations without falling back on macho posturing and censorship, and you can defend democracy and plurality in the movement at the same time.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 12:13

bill j said…

Actually yes dead right.

The AWL are a chauvinist group who fight for Zionism in the labour movement. They were responsible for the RMT abandoning a principled one state position last year. What was the point of this action?

Well you can guess by the fact it was all on film. They wanted to provoke Palestinians justifably disgusted at the slaughter of their people by the Zionist IDF. I imagine, cerainly it is true in Manchester, that there were people on tha protest with relatives who had been injured, killed or with their houses destroyed. Yet we are supposed to be magnamious about their waving of the Israeli flag, or support their right to equate the slaughterers with the slaughtered. Absolutely no way.

It says something very bad about the CPGB that their abstract commitment to democracy means that when there is a real fight on of the the oppressed trying all to vainly to protect themselves from a massacre, that they do not take sides.

Shame on them too.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 12:33

Richard B said…

I find the cries of 'censorship' here to be absurdly over-the-top. On the Sheffield demo, one of the AWL students turned up with a home-made 'No To IDF, No To Hamas' placard (note - the placard shown as the 'offending' one on the AWL site is not actually the same placard, just one of their lies about what happened). Afew people tutted their disapproval, two went over and had a bit of an argument, during which fingers were wagged (which counts as an 'attack on people' according to the AWL's Daniel Randall). Then someone, a Palestinian refugee who had just lost family in the Israeli bombings, came over and tore the offending placard in two, and then went back to the rally. Most people stand around shrugged their shoulders (having recognised that the AWl's intervention was entirely dishonest).

Where exactly is the problem with that?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 12:59

Chris S said…

‘The AWL are a chauvinist group who fight for Zionism in the labour movement. They were responsible for the RMT abandoning a principled one state position last year. What was the point of this action?'

No one is arguing to defend their politics in the movement, your missing the point.

‘Well you can guess by the fact it was all on film. They wanted to provoke Palestinians justifiably disgusted at the slaughter of their people by the Zionist IDF. I imagine, certainly it is true in Manchester, that there were people on tha protest with relatives who had been injured, killed or with their houses destroyed. Yet we are supposed to be magnanimous about their waving of the Israeli flag, or support their right to equate the slaughterers with the slaughtered. Absolutely no way.’

Yes, I have said that they wanted to provoke a reaction, and the use of the Israeli flag had predictable consequences. Were Palestinians meant to be magnanimous about the AWL stunt? No, but is it acceptable for people who carry a placard that you disagree with to be ripped up? No, it was not racist, it was not calling for support of Israel, it was an ill placed slogan on a placard. Why should it be censored?

‘It says something very bad about the CPGB that their abstract commitment to democracy means that when there is a real fight on of the oppressed trying all to vainly to protect themselves from a massacre, that they do not take sides.

Shame on them too.’

How wrong, it is pretty clear that we are for the defeat of the Zionist army and state. The episode says something bad about PR’s commitment to democracy in the movement. Instead of actually denouncing thuggish actions against people you disagree with you are endorsing it and cheering it on. You seem very happy to replace political struggle with macho posturing and censorship.

‘I find the cries of 'censorship' here to be absurdly over-the-top. On the Sheffield demo, one of the AWL students turned up with a home-made 'No To IDF, No To Hamas' placard (note - the placard shown as the 'offending' one on the AWL site is not actually the same placard, just one of their lies about what happened). A few people tutted their disapproval, two went over and had a bit of an argument, during which fingers were wagged (which counts as an 'attack on people' according to the AWL's Daniel Randall). Then someone, a Palestinian refugee who had just lost family in the Israeli bombings, came over and tore the offending placard in two, and then went back to the rally. Most people stand around shrugged their shoulders (having recognised that the AWL's intervention was entirely dishonest).

Where exactly is the problem with that?’

It is not over the top to say a placard with a slogan on which organisers disagreed with was tore up and removed from the demonstration is censorship. I would be interested to see what the offending placard actually said? It was a dishonest intervention, but we have dishonest interventions in the movement all of the time, why is it acceptable for the ‘No to IDF, No to Hamas’ or slogans you disagree with to be removed from demonstrations?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 14:17

John Thames said…

Chris, when the AWL shouts out about being censored what they are really saying is "Oh look at us, we're the plucky under-dog fighting the evil overlords of the left even though nobody appreciates us". In short, they WANT this sort of thing to happen so they can look like self-sacrificing martyrs.

The word censorship holds conotations of somebody in power abusing that power. So whilst it's technically correct to call what happened censorship, it definitely isn't what the AWL is implying it is.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 15:38

Chris S said…

John, I am not disputing that the AWL wanted to get a response, that is obvious. I am not excusing the AWL or their shit politics what I am against is slogans being moderated in the anti war movement, unless they are racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. If we can have Hezbollah flags then we will also have to accept that the AWL will turn up with shit placards and slogans that we disagree with. The task for us is to take on such politics not to use thuggish methods to stamp it out. Granted, what Robin did in London was ridiculous and had expected consequences.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 15:51

bill j said…

When socialists discuss democracy we consider for which class? Were the AWL - a pro-Zionist war mongering group - in seeking to provoke this justified action from Palestinians protestors - making a legitimate point in line with free speech?

For the CPGB a group which embraces abstract extreme democracy of course they were. But for the rest of us, socialists and anti-imperialists they were baiting the oppressed. And that is out of order.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 16:08

Chris S said…

'When socialists discuss democracy we consider for which class? Were the AWL - a pro-Zionist war mongering group - in seeking to provoke this justified action from Palestinians protestors - making a legitimate point in line with free speech?'

Who decided what is and what is not legitimate? You? the PSC? Stop the War? You would do well to use your memory and think a little bit about how the slogans PR raise through HOPI are frowned upon and have saw attempts by sections of the anti war movement to remove them. It is not about whether they are making a legitimate point in line with free speech, it is about who decided what slogans can and cannot be used in the movement. If you are up for policing slogans, you should just come out and say it.

'For the CPGB a group which embraces abstract extreme democracy of course they were. But for the rest of us, socialists and anti-imperialists they were baiting the oppressed. And that is out of order.'

Abstract to those who seem incapable of reading what has actually been written unfortunately. No one disagrees that the AWL, their politics and slogans are out of order. What i disagree with is slogans being policed in the movement, i am against thuggish behaviour in the movement and I think it is illuminating that you seem happy to push aside pluarality and democracy in the movement for macho posturing and censorship. If our commitment to democracy is abstract, PR's commitment seems to be an illusion.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 16:23

bill j said…

Do you think when this is all over people are about to forget that the AWL paraded Zionist/Israeli flags and slogans on pro-Palestine protests?

They won't forget.

Who decided it was legitimate to remove the Zionist provocateurs?

A Palestinian refugee who had just lost his family in the bombings.

Excuse me for preferring his judgement to yours.

Was it thuggish? Not according to Richard who was there.

I'm amazed he kept his temper as well as he did.

Yet you have judged him.

What gives you the right?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 17:26

Tina said…

Chris, I fail to see how you can side with the AWL here. You are defending their right to provoke against the anger of a Palestinian activist who has direct links with the suffering in Gaza. The media is full of lies about Hamas, blaming them for ending the ceasefire, saying they came to power through a coup, their members are summarily executed by Israeli death squads, Israel is explicit about wanting to eliminate Hamas - the freely elected government of the Gazans and you expect us to condemn this man for pulling down the banner.

I wouldn't have pulled down the banner, PR comrades there didn't. The AWL is involved in mischief making by making exaggerated claims of aggression by PR comrades and others, when the reality was that this was merely heated debate (as you can see from the photos on the AWL site). And what do you do, you call for us to condemn the Palestinian activist, and in doing so defend the AWL. Are you really serious?

Well the AWL seem to have got what they wanted - with your help unfortunately.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 18:08

Kirstie said…

I am amazed how restrained the palestinian was - it is a clear act of provocation by the AWL. Can you imagine what response you would have got if after Bloody Sunday you turned up with the Irish flag and the British flag and a placard that said "No to the British Army, no to the IRA?" Or in the midist of the vietnam war, marching on the streets of London, outside the US embassy, after the Mai Lai masacre, you waved the US flag along side the Vietnamese? The revolutionary youth of that movement called for "Victory to the Viet Cong!" not "down with the Viet Cong, down with the US army!" In that war millions of workers around the world knew which side they were on - and millions know who the oppressed and oppressor is in this war - accept the AWL it seems...

What the palestinians need most is solidarity in their war against an oppressive, racist, settler state that has not ceased in its determination to destroy the palestinian people - the Israel state. The only conclusion that you can draw from the AWL's politics is that the Palestinians should give up and except their oppression - that they should take the battering without fighting back! Would they give the same advice to a woman suffering domestic violence?

Surely the most basic right is the right to self defence? At the moment, this defence is under the military leadership and political influence of Hamas, a democratically elected government. To me it's abc that socialists support the right of Hamas to conduct a war against Israeli aggression. If you were in Gaza today - what would you be doing? Trying to organise militias that could defend your family, your schools, your hospitals and fight off the IDF - in all likelyhood you would be working alongside Hamas, while trying to develop an independent working class movement - a difficult task in the current situation I imagine. Or is the AWL's advice that palestinians should give up?

In the end lasting peace in the middle east can only come about if the source of war and oppression is dismantled. In the first instance this remains the Israeli state.

In the struggle against Israel the current political leadership is dominated by the reactionary politics of Isalamic organsations such as Hamas. However if socialists stand aside, then it will remain so. We must be at the forefront in the struggle for a free palestine in the hope that we can win arab workers and youth to a socialist solution. The AWL have made it clear that they will stand aloof from the reality of war - which they can only do because they view the world from a British perspective. If they continue to support the Israeli state, then they must accept that they will be challenged.

As for censorship, as socialists we are completely against the state intervening and using their powers to censor our movement. But that doesn't mean that we don't censor our movement when individuals react in provocative or offensive ways - If someone in my union put up sexist poster of a woman in the staff room, I would take it down, or deface it with a witty piss-take (or at least try!) This is called workers action and in that sense each case has to be judged by the workers in that context. In the context of a demo against the IDF's destruction of Gaza and the attempted genocide of the palestinians, I think it is perfectly understandable why the brother reacted in the way he did.

Zionists are not welcome in our movement.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 18:30

Llin Davies said…

"Can you imagine what response you would have got if after Bloody Sunday you turned up with the Irish flag and the British flag and a placard that said "No to the British Army, no to the IRA?""

Isn't that the problem? Real socialists should have been saying "No to the British Army, no to the IRA", and should have been promoting the idea of the unity of the Northern and Southern Irish workers as the means to defeat British Imperilaism rather than tailing a petit-bourgeois, reactionary nationalist gang. They should have been able to arguie those socialist politics and won the support of a decent Labour Movement based on the principles of Proletarian Internationalism, not bourgeois nationalism. Clearly we are a long way from those politics on which Marxism was built.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 19:19

Chris S said…

‘Chris, I fail to see how you can side with the AWL here. You are defending their right to provoke against the anger of a Palestinian activist who has direct links with the suffering in Gaza. The media is full of lies about Hamas, blaming them for ending the ceasefire, saying they came to power through a coup, their members are summarily executed by Israeli death squads, Israel is explicit about wanting to eliminate Hamas - the freely elected government of the Gazans and you expect us to condemn this man for pulling down the banner.’

I am not siding with the AWL, I am against people removing banners or slogans that they disagree with, the guy who removed it is a PSC organiser in the area, it understandable what his reaction was to the AWL, however, it is not acceptable for slogans that you may not agree with to be removed from the anti war movement. It is not about condemning the PSC organiser, all I am saying is such actions should not happen in the anti war movement unless it is against racists, homophobes, misogynists etc. The best way to deal with the AWL is to deal with them politically, not help turn them in to martyrs which is what PR members seemed to have done.

‘I wouldn't have pulled down the banner, PR comrades there didn't. The AWL is involved in mischief making by making exaggerated claims of aggression by PR comrades and others, when the reality was that this was merely heated debate (as you can see from the photos on the AWL site). And what do you do, you call for us to condemn the Palestinian activist, and in doing so defend the AWL. Are you really serious?’

You wouldn’t of pulled down the placard but are quite happy for such actions to take place in the movement, so instead of doing it yourself you are happy to cheer it on? As I said above it is not about defending the AWL, it is not about condemning the PSC organiser, it is about whether it is acceptable to police slogans on anti war demonstrations.

‘Well the AWL seem to have got what they wanted - with your help unfortunately.’

Actually I think you will find it was with PR’s help that they got what they wanted. They wanted to cause a response and instead of actually taking up the politics PR seem happy to go along with censoring their ill though out slogans.

We should reject the policing of slogans on anti war demonstrations beyond the exceptions I have said before, and of course I think the idiot who waved the Israeli flag at the demo in London had a lucky escape, the waving of the aggressor nations flag on an anti war demo is clearly unacceptable.

There are definite reasons why people would have been angry with the AWL on the demonstration, and I have no problem with them being ridiculed or politically challenged. The placard can be interpreted as drawing an equal sign between Hamas and the IDF and this would no doubt outrage people on the demonstration. I think you cannot draw an equals sign between Hamas and Israel and any outfit which does so needs opposing in sharp and political way.

Our opposition to Hamas should be posed through the use of leaflets, like PR did, where you can explain in a more thought out way why socialists oppose Hamas. The AWL definitely knew that they would be provoking a response. It was still wrong to tear down the placard though.

Kirstie, I agree with the majority of your post but a couple of points.

‘If they continue to support the Israeli state, then they must accept that they will be challenged.’

How should they be challenged? Should we be moving on their stalls and removing their slogans from anti war demonstrations from now on? Or should we rip them to pieces politically, drive their apologist and Zionist politics out of the movement and take up any discussion on Hamas in a more principled and serious way.

‘As for censorship, as socialists we are completely against the state intervening and using their powers to censor our movement. But that doesn't mean that we don't censor our movement when individuals react in provocative or offensive ways - If someone in my union put up sexist poster of a woman in the staff room, I would take it down, or deface it with a witty piss-take (or at least try!) This is called workers action and in that sense each case has to be judged by the workers in that context. In the context of a demo against the IDF's destruction of Gaza and the attempted genocide of the Palestinians, I think it is perfectly understandable why the brother reacted in the way he did.’

The AWL turned up to an Gaza solidarity demo not with a sexist, homophobic or racist placard but with a placard with an ill though out slogan against Hamas and the IDF. I agree with workers’ action in such instances as you described, but I am not for censoring a tendency in the anti war movement however backward its position on Palestine is. It is understandable how people reacted, however, that does not make the ripping up of placards with slogans you disagree with acceptable.

‘Zionists are not welcome in our movement.’

No they are not, but how do you see removing them from our movement? Surely it is through political struggle not thuggish policing of slogans?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 20:04

Kirstie said…

In response to Llin Davies...

Marxism is built on a fundamental question - that the struggle of the oppressed against oppression is a just one. When the masses of an oppressed nation fight back against their oppressor, communists give their unconditonal support and join the struggle. In the course of such struggles the possibility of turning these struggles into the struggle for socialism is the main task of communists.

Historically it has often been the case that these struggles are lead by political movements who are petty bourgois and bourgeois in their character. The struggle of the Indian masses against British colonial rule was lead by Nehru, hardly an example of proletarian leadership. I suppose you were indifferent to their struggle, would have refused to take sides and would have stood aside until the right leaders turned up? Luckliy the masses across the colonial world didn't take your advice and they drove the colonial powers out of their countries - something that every internationalist and anti-imperialist supported.

You pose the question of 'unity' in the abstract - "lets all get on with the class struggle and ignore these divisions" - as if these divisions aren't part of the class struggle. Where one group of workers, in the case of the Irish struggle, British workers, were mobilised to kill their brothers and sisters in the name of British imperialism, then real unity means mutiny and a refusal to fight, as Israeli soldiers are doing today in Gaza. In the Vietnam war, unity not only meant mutiny, but some units actually joined the Viet Cong. Lasting unity can only be achieved through active solidaryt and the victory of the oppressed who in the course of their struggle hope to win all workers to their cause.

If socialists abstain from the struggle because they are lead by petty bourgeois reactionaries then the likehood of the struggle ending up in a reactionary solution that favours the ruling class, is more likely. The oppressed will carry on fighting regardless, they have no other option. The Irish masses then and the palestinians today fight for their existence and their right to self determination. Communists unconditionally support these struggles.

Fine, you wait for the masses to 'select' the perfect leadership and it will never happen. Unless socialists become part the movement and fight to win the leadership of that movement based on class and internationalist politics, the movement will be mislead and end in defeat and this is something that we want to avoid.

Of course we must expose the bankruptcy of these leaderships and where their politics will lead the masses, such as Hamas today. But no one listens to you if you hector from the sidelines and they are even less likely to listen to you if you suggest that the oppressor and the oppressed are one and the same thing - this just reeks of liberal pacifism frankly.

Marx supported the Irish in their military struggle against the British when the masses were under a bourgeois leadership, as did Lenin who developed the programme of the rights of oppressed nations to self-determination. He was not a supporter of the ruling class or of bourgeois nationalism. Lenin and Trotsky understood that the struggle of the nationally oppressed has a revolutionary dynamic and communists must seek to turn this revolutionary struggle into the struggle for socialism. For communists to win leadership, the independence of the working class from bourgeois leadership is essential which is why the question of building a working class communist party is paramount. Your method has nothing to do with this tradition as far as a can see.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 20:18

mike f said…

Kirstie said

'Of course we must expose the bankruptcy of these leaderships and where their politics will lead the masses, such as Hamas today.'

would that be a no to Hamas then?

If we must fight alongside such leaderships and give 'unconditional support' its because national rights are part of our bourgoise democratic programme. The self determination of nations is a 'bourgoise right' we support. to what degree do you think Hamas are asserting that right for Palestinians? I can't believe you have any misconception they would create a democratic secular Palestine nevermind a binational democratic secular state.

In the previous paragraph you said:

'Fine, you wait for the masses to 'select' the perfect leadership and it will never happen. Unless socialists become part the movement and fight to win the leadership of that movement based on class and internationalist politics, the movement will be mislead and end in defeat and this is something that we want to avoid."

I think thats a reasonable summary of what the AWL is trying to do advancing the working classes of Palestine and Israel as the agency for change. Thats not abstaining or as PR seem to do failing to spell out what they believe Hamas really are, reaching out for the Egyptian ruling class to solve the problem or falling back on socialism as the abstract answer for the future.

Unity of our class is the key question and our democratic programme should seek to overcome the divisions of nationalism, race etc. By avoiding the reality of the existence of Israeli nation as some shadow being of imperialism you fail in that duty. Nation's are created and divided in an historical process even if we did not like the way Israel was created we can't deny it exists now.

Here's the AWLs summary programme in our most recent paper that follows on from Lenin's principle of 'consistent democracy' on the national question:

Israel will not have peace until the Palestinians have peace, with justice — until they have a state of their own alongside Israel.

• Israel should stop its onslaught on the Palestinians in Gaza. It should withdraw immediately from Gaza and the West Bank.

• It should urgently seek agreement with those in the Arab world prepared to trade recognition of Israel and normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab states for Israeli agreement to withdraw to the 1967 borders.

• The working class and the internationalist socialists in Israel and in the Arab countries should advocate peace and working-class unity across all the divides, on the basis of a two state settlement: the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and recognition of Israel by the Arab states and peoples.

• Working class socialists in Israel and in the Arab countries should oppose and fight the Israeli chauvinists on one side, and the Islamic clerical fascists and Arab and Islamic chauvinists on the other.

• Socialists in Britain must demand that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders andcall for the immediate setting up of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state in contiguous territory.

• Socialists must oppose the vicarious Arab and Islamic chauvinism of the kitsch left, who combine with Islamic clerical fascists and others to turn the demonstrations against the war in Gaza into festivals of Arab and Islamic reactionary hostility to Israel's continued existence.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 21:50

mike f said…

Sorry the above may be pointless as a comrade has pointed out to me that concern about democracy as essential to a socialist programme is not relevant for those who saw Stalinism as some form of workers state.

I suppose that if you can believe you can have a workers state without the workers having any chance to organise politically you can believe that Hamas are a bourgoise democratic national movement.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 22:08

bill j said…

Except its starting point is "Israeli peace". But there can be no justice while Israel exists - as a precondition for that existence is the oppression of the Palestinians and their exclusion from their land.

Peace built on the bones and blood of Palestinians is no peace at all. You want the unity of the "class" around a racist and oppressive regime. No chance.

The AWL support the racist law of return. They are for partition Jim Crow discrimination and apartheid. That is why they are reviled in the anti-war movement.

Rightly so.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 22:49

Mark H said…

The AWL Zionists on here are excusing a genocidal war in the name of democracy. The Israeli state do exactly the same. The difference is simply this. The Israeli state don't come on our demos to do it. The AWL do. People supporting the Palestinians - and supporting in this conflict the Hamas fighters against Israel, yes supporting them - don't want that message of support sullied by pro Zionist slogans.

As for Chris' panic that this equals censorship - a pathetically insignificant question in the context of the reign of terror that Israel has waged - no it does not. They are free to produce their placards and wave their Israeli flags -but on their own pro-Israeli demos. They just don't belong on pro-Palestinian demos, that's all.

The AWL's position is at odds with those of us who support the Palestinian position, not a variation of it. The AWL's position is not critical support for Palestinian resistance (in this case Hamas, the ones actually fighting back against Israeli terror. It is total opposition to it. As such it seems fairly obvious to me that they do not belong on a pro Palestinian demo. Stewards on demos often take action to stop undesirables participating in demos. In this case the AWL are undesirable on our demos. They are not part of the Palestinian solidarity movement. They are opponents of it. It's really that simple.

And actually, it is all a bit nauseating. Because what the AWL are doing here is cynically manipulating the horrendous slaughter that has gone on for their own pathetic sect ends. By launching a hue and cry about their democratic rights they are focusing attention on themselves. We should tell them to get lost and then forget them.

Let's focus on the growing movement of Palestinian solidarity in the British working class - for the first time in a long time I got a group of workers from my workplace to Liverpool's pro-Palestinian demo last Saturday. They understood on whose side justice lay - and it wasn't with Israel. More and more people are seeing through the lies of Israel. And to help that along the Merseyside Association of TUCs have agreed to organise a local conference with Liverpool Friends of Palestine to organise concrete solidarity action with the Palestinians.

The AWL will be swept away by that solidarity movement in the long run - as will the Israeli racist state. It happened in South Africa with the wretched apologists for the apartheid state who busied themselves worrying about "the white working class Afrikaans" instead of solidarising with the black masses.

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 23:26

edwardm said…

Bill - We're for a secular, democratic Israel. That means an Israel without racist immigration controls - but with the right to self-determination. You cannot build any kind of peace in the immediate term by demanding that the right to self-determination be denied the Israeli Jews; you cannot build any kind of peace if your plan for that peace involves the mass, involuntary resettlement of Israeli Jews. The land might be stolen - but you can't base a programme for peace and cross-border worker unity on the basis that 'it should be stolen right back'.

On Hamas: they're not the same as bourgeois national liberation movements. They're clerical fascists. Look what they do - to LGBT people, sex workers, trade unionists, socialists, political dissenters of any stripe. At what point might a resistance movement under Hamas' leadership be 'won to socialism'? After they've consolidated total control over Palestinian society? Bourgeois national liberation struggles (and the Viet Cong, however you want to characterise them) provide a movement, and a certain - limited - democratic space within which socialists can organise and fight. Hamas are a fascist organisation which doesn't care about bringing peace, from which workers and socialists have to defend themselves (or hide/keep their heads down on pain of imprisonment or death). With Hamas, it's not a question of critical fighting unity - it's a question of self-defense. If they haven't totally destroyed workers' organisations in Palestine, it's because they're too organisationally weak right now to pull it off. And yes, they were democratically elected - but so was New Labour. Or do you also support "the democratic choice of the British People" against the workers' movement?

Our very presence on the demonstrations shows that we're not 'abstaining from the fight until a perfect, pure working-class leadership emerges'. We're going into the demonstrations and the solidarity movement to help such a thing to emerge! The idea that we can only show solidarity with the oppressed by quietly, tacitly supporting their reactionary leaders is so arse-backwards I don't know where to begin - what the hell are Marxists for, if not for fighting for our ideas?

On Israel - our propaganda consistently makes it clear that at this moment the sharp edge of what socialists say should be directed against the Israeli state. They have the power to end the war, they are committing a massacre in Gaza, their war is unjustified. There is no question of drawing an equivalence between the Israeli war machine and Hamas.

But 'not drawing an equivalence between the two' doesn't mean 'abstaining absolutely from any criticism of Hamas'. Criticism of Hamas is after all a crucial part of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians, unless you are untroubled by what Hamas thugs do or intend to do to Palestinians. And what is at issue here is the right of the AWL and other socialists to express that solidarity and make that criticism (and the shame of those that refuse to, or who prefer macho bluster to taking a clear political stance).

Chris S - good to see you taking a principled, unambiguous position on democracy in our movement. But the Weekly Worker calls for the AWL to be "driven out of the workers' movement" - how do you square your democratic politics with a call like that?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 23:30

edwardm said…

Mark H - Where in the slogans "Solidarity with workers, women and the left"; "No to IDF - No to Hamas"; "End the Siege of Gaza" or "Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank" is the AWL "excusing" Israel's war? Which AWL poster on this site has "excused" Israel's war? Where on our website do we "excuse" Israel's war?

If we wanted to "excuse" Israel's war, would we be building for anti-war demos; would we be bringing Israeli refuseniks to the UK; would we be putting anti-war, anti-occupation motions to our union branches and conferences?

We see Israeli and Palestinian workers as the central agency in bringing peace. We call upon them to organise independently and to smash chauvinism on both sides of the borders. What part of that equates to "excusing" Israel's war?

Tue 20, January 2009 @ 23:43

Chris S said…

‘As for Chris' panic that this equals censorship - a pathetically insignificant question in the context of the reign of terror that Israel has waged - no it does not. They are free to produce their placards and wave their Israeli flags -but on their own pro-Israeli demos. They just don't belong on pro-Palestinian demos, that's all.’

It is insignificant against the background of the slaughter in Gaza, yet, it is still an important question. It is odd that PR can cry foul when HOPI has been attacked and tried to be silenced inside the anti war movement, yet you cannot extend your defence of democracy to your political opponents in the movement. Should we support or encourage the policing of slogans on demonstrations? The placard did not say ‘victory to Israel’ was not racist, homophobic or misogynist, the placard had a shit slogan that they knew would cause a response. We put up with that in our movement all of the time, I don’t remember PR members running to smash up the CPGB-ML’s big picture of Stalin on Mayday? Who gets to decide whether the AWL can come on pro-Palestine demos? Who gets to decide which slogans can and cannot be raised inside the movement?

‘The AWL's position is not critical support for Palestinian resistance (in this case Hamas, the ones actually fighting back against Israeli terror. It is total opposition to it. As such it seems fairly obvious to me that they do not belong on a pro Palestinian demo.’

Anarchists have a similar position, are you up for them being removed from the movement as well?

‘the Weekly Worker calls for the AWL to be "driven out of the workers' movement" - how do you square your democratic politics with a call like that?’

Yes, and I would say that call should be taken up more widely. As we have explained before, when we call for the AWL to be driven out of the movement, we wish to see you politically broken and destroyed, we will organise and polemicise against Zionist and pro-imperialist elements in the workers’ movement. That does not mean you will be seeing Mark Fischer kicking over your table or that we are for physical violence against the AWL.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 00:20

Robin Sivapalan said…

Here is my post "your morals and ours" from the equivalent 'debate' on the AWL site

http://www.workersliberty.org/placard#comment-17754

As I say in it, can those who want to cast stones perhaps read what I have to say about the demonstrations in London, which most of the left have been absent from, when the unoffical demonstrations take over. It's far more convenient it seems to battle with the creations of your imagination: how about responding to a detailed report by the AWL activist who has been coordinating our activity in London, spoke for the AWL at our forum, was published in our paper's coverage on Gaza, and has produced most of our progaganda on these demonstrations.

Stuart shows some sign of having skimmed the article for his piece. Most seem not to have. Is it because what a brown person has to say isn't worthy of comment, just like the Muslim people in your head are incapable of being socialists. I note I haven't been accused directly of being a Zionist or racist, just characterised as being tremendously stupid. Thanks

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/01/14/17-days-solidarity-palestinians-london

Also read some very useful articles in one of our journals: particularly on Hamas/FLN and the one by Akis Gavriilidis

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2002/12/21/new-world-disorder-war-and-imperialism

I'd also like to know of what PR comrades think about the fact that the demo in defence of their comrade Adrian had to be scaled down, so not to give a platform to the students who had marched through his school chanting 'kill the jews'. Is this solidarity with the Palestinians as well? You support these politics in the middle east, apparently; why not on your watch?

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 02:02

bill j said…

Agree with Mark. The racist/Zionist AWL are an afront.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 08:58

George B said…

Sad, really, that some otherwise decent, determined comrades, not least Robin S himself, who has done some stellar work in attempting to build solidarity with migrant workers in London, should continue to dwell in the political equivalent of a parallel universe, mapped out from the early 1980s onwards by the likes of Sean Matgamna and Martin Thomas.

Having been on a few of the demonstrations outside the Israeli Embassy I personally have not witnessed examples of the anti-Semitism Robin implies in his posting. That is not to say it wasn't there, of course, and there is indeed a serious question of extreme anti-Jewish sentiment among a layer of Muslim youth, but that is hardly a pretext for branding demonstrations of tens of thousands through the streets of London as 'Islamo-Fascist'.

What I did, however, witness in High Street Kensington was long-time AWL supporter, Mark Osborne, viciously baiting a group of Hasidic Jewish men from the NK sect, who have a theologically based opposition to the current Zionist state and who had turned up to support one of the Embassy pickets. He was branding them anti-Semites, apparently for the benefit of a radio journalist from an Arabic station. That, though, is really a very minor point.

The path of Socialist Organiser/the AWL over the past 25 years has marked a political devolution into a whole series of positions that have much in common with the right-wing of European social democracy (as was) and the mainstream of the Democratic Party in the US, albeit adorned with the rhetoric of class-based solidarity and an often trenchant critique of trade union bureaucracies. Perhaps this is a niche in which they feel comfortable amid the 'socialist' marketplace of ideas, decrying all their opponents as peddlers of 'kitsch' and worse.

I'll refrain from commenting on Sean Matgamna's published verse, but here is a man whose polemics of 2008 included an apologia for a pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike against Iran, while the organisation remains incapable of calling for the immediate withdrawal of US and other occupying forces from Iraq nearly six years after Bush and Blair unleashed 'shock and awe'.

Frankly, though, I don't deny that many AWL members sincerely oppose Israel's most recent war in Gaza, but their organisation's objective position on Israel/Palestine is somewhere to the right of Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP, never mind Gush Shalom activists like Uri Avnery. When the AWL starts supporting resolutions in trade unions calling for a complete halt of arms sales to Israel along with trade union/workers' boycotts and sanctions perhaps we can have a meaningful debate.

In the meantime, though, the lines are drawn and the AWL's leadership seems set to side, however critically, with the oppressor, which just happens to figure among this planet's five most powerful armies with no small help from the United States and European Union.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 09:12

Robin Sivapalan said…

George, have you spoken to any of the young people on the unofficial demonstrations (Muslim or otherwise)- the militant end of these protests - or did you simply hand out, ad hoc, your thousands of leaflets (apparently making clear your criticism to Hamas) while marching along with your insulated Unison clique; have you stood with them and prevented their harassment and arrest by police. Have you any idea of the range of things that motivate them, can you make sense of what is going on for them. In many ways they have got the measure of what's at stake, and see there to be only one option, the military destruction of Israel once and for all, by a united Islamist middle east.

You seem to have no basis to refute my observations but you cover your back with essentially a platitude acknowledging anti-semitism. What do you suggest are the roots of this, how do intend to address it, given it's 'extreme'? Has it nothing to do with Palestine, have you not yourselves helped sow this as you've gone along, side-by-side with the Islamists, such that today, the main slogans on much of the demonstration being taken up by young people have essentially been provided by the Islamist supporters of clerical-fascism, as Sean says.

In my analysis -which it is evidently still not worth referring to seriously - I set out what I think has been at stake over the last few weeks. You'd rather respond by dismissing the possibility that any of our younger comrades might be capable of thinking for themselves, albeit via a back-handed compliment.

Our comrades have by and large had to be fully convinced of our perspectives to join a group like the AWL in a context where pretty much the rest of the left tries to have us be a pariah force within the labour and student movement. It was after five years of knowing the AWL, that I joined; in this time and since you get to know our dear left very well - and have made my choice of where I stand.

For sure, I started out my political life, from school, with your view of Palestine, but then I became a socialist. Please point me to your programme for the Palestinians, your prospects, and I'll read and comment. I've read a lot of dirge Palestine produced by would-be socialists, but I'm willing to set aside time for more because, by the same token as you proffer, on narrow trade union politics I respect your comrades. Btw, it's been clear to me over the last weeks, that in many ways our politics on Palestine sum up our general politics; it is the same conceptions of working-class revolutionary socialism that motivate the hard work being done around migrant workers with our small forces,

the working-class anti-fascism work we have been pushing forward. You form your politics differently if you are a fighting propaganda group, rather than an arm-chair one.

We fight for socialism on the basis of socialism, not just by tailing the populist bigotry of the times to recruit, while murmering our criticisms. Part of the point of the flags gesture was to identify for myself and for others who the Islamist leadership are. They were clear that they were the organisers. They are Hamas supporters, not of the loose kind who identify Hamas as the only resistance in this current context, but actual convinced supporters of Hamas.

Leave that aside, let's take the youth section your group has produced; some of the most sincere and radical and personable comrades in the movement. They are now calling this juncture “a historic opportunity for the Palestinians” and calling for the third intifada! I have been impressed by the rapid cadre-isation process that has taken place in WP who now constitute, as a result of the circumstances the split has forced upon them, one of the most able group of young socialists in our movement. Nonetheless, on Palestine, the cynical and anti-semitic unreason at the root of their politics - which has now led to their overt war-mongering on the behalf of a pan-Middle East Islamist-fascist movement, produces the now familiar pack-mentality of those who have no thoughts or words to justify where they now find themselves.

Yes we live in different political universes: you have constructed a narrative around Israel where you deny it is a class society, you deny the population national rights in principle. Your laughable programme on your leaflet, which has come to mind now, has some extremely basic immediate demands, with a bi-national state as a cherry on the top. How do you see this being achieved? What bi-nationalist state over the corpses of the working-classes of Palestine and Israel? If not over the corpses, what is your political strategy? And does it have any bearing on what we do in solidarity with the Palestinians here?

We should have a public debate rather than spend hours in this atomized format, which most of us would acknowledge, is no substitute for face to face debate.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 11:45

Robin Sivapalan said…

Please actually read Sean's piece on Iran and nuclear (on this link, scroll down to the third heading). I support it fully, it is an exemplary bit of political writing. I've dealt with the unwelcome and welcome effects of this article, and feel I know well now the idiocy it sparked. It has helped good lines emerge, and is of continued use to Workers' Liberty, as a corrective to the unreason on the left. For sure, even just a literate bystander, not sustained by the poisonous waters of the Trotskyist sectarianism, can see it for what it is, and by extension, see the howlers and screamers for what they are.

http://www.workersliberty.org/israel-iran

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 12:25

Dan said…

Robin firstly I’d say that it’s good the amount of effort that some people (such as yourself) have put into turning up to the embassy demonstrations. I agree that the far left could have done far better in mobilising for these demos. Maybe PR could have done better as well, but we are a tiny organisation and have tried to send people there every day. However even in their current state the SWP and SP must have 100s of members in London and they don’t seem to have mobilised for these demos.

“Is it because what a brown person has to say isn't worthy of comment, just like the Muslim people in your head are incapable of being socialists.”

Don’t really see the point of this. PR members clearly don’t think either of these things and I think it’s just a cheap shot.

As for speaking to young people on the demos, of course PR members have done that. Many of our members were penned in on the big Saturday demonstration (where I genuinely thought I was gonna be crushed to death!), we were also on the front lines against the police. I’d also add that the PR member I was with has been to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. Indeed when the ISM was still functioning in Gaza and when we were still in Workers Power many of our members went out to Gaza with the ISM so maybe you should leave off the jibes about leafletting and armchairs. Our members have also been arrested on various demos. I have to say that I think there is a danger that while you have obviously done good work in various campaigns that you are putting yourself on a pedestal as some kind of hero for socialism.

Personally I think that the current conflict has clearly shown the total bankruptcy of a two state solution which not only denies the collective right of return but also puts the idea forward that Palestinians and Jews can’t live together in a secular state. The apartheid/zionist Israeli state will never allow a two state solution past allowing some kind of Bantustan.

Also I think it’s absurd to write off the huge demonstrations as “Islamo-Fascist”. As for bringing out the Israeli flag at a time like this, do you really think that’s not provocative and insensitive to say the least? Can you really condemn someone who has lost family members in Gaza for ripping down that placard? Whatever your intentions I don’t think pulling out an Israeli flag is the right thing to do, anymore than pulling a union jack out the day after bloody Sunday would have been a good thing to do. The Israeli flag, as a symbol, is used to humiliate the Palestinians day in, day out. They drape it all over settlements and buildings that have been taken from Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Also just because we don’t agree with your politics doesn’t mean we don’t think young people can’t be won to a socialist solution, just not by the route you are suggesting.

I have to say I have some doubts that people join the AWL always knowing the full range of your political perspectives on international matters (the same goes for other left groups as well). And you obviously have big divisions over issues like Palestine, “troops out now” etc

As for a programme for the Palestinians you know we stand in terms of a secular one state solution and we are just about to produce a pamphlet on the question.

I would add that I totally oppose groups like the SWP chanting things like “victory to Hamas” which is totally different from the slogan “victory to the resistance”. Just like we never said “victory to the Taliban” or “victory to Saddam”. From that point of view I think you are totally caricaturing the position of WP (and PR).

The reason we deny the right of Israel to exist is because it can only exist on the basis of being an apartheid zionist state and can only exist by denying the right of return. You say how would a one state solution be achieved? To be honest I think it would take a sweeping workers/revolutionary movement across the middle east. This, sadly, might be a way off! But it is something that is achievable. A two state solution on the other hand is totally utopian. A zionist Israeli state will never allow this (why would they when it is against their material interests?). And if it gets to the level where the Israeli working class is demanding two equal states it would mean that a level of working class consciousness had been developed which would surely mean that a secular one state solution would be the answer.

As for solidarity work our members are raising money (often through trade unions) and indeed my branch is sending money to Medical Aid for Palestine. And of course going to the demonstrations and helping to organise them. What else do you suggest?

As for far left debate my experience of it is that it is often pointless. People have entrenched positions that they have gone over 1000 times and to be honest I think it would only be material circumstances which will change their minds, not the debate for the 1001th time. Obviously this is different for newer members of the far left but often they are shunted aside at debates. The AWL vs CPGB debates have hardly been a positive example!!

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 12:31

Dan said…

"Please actually read Sean's piece on Iran and nuclear (on this link, scroll down to the third heading). I support it fully, it is an exemplary bit of political writing. I've dealt with the unwelcome and welcome effects of this article, and feel I know well now the idiocy it sparked. It has helped good lines emerge, and is of continued use to Workers' Liberty, as a corrective to the unreason on the left. For sure, even just a literate bystander, not sustained by the poisonous waters of the Trotskyist sectarianism, can see it for what it is, and by extension, see the howlers and screamers for what they are."

I already have and still think it's a bankrupt piece. Many of your own comrades agree that I've spoken to! Indeed I think many of your members wince whenever Sean writes a new article.......

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 12:35

Robin Sivapalan said…

Dan, you are very reasonable here, in one sense. And fair enough when you wonder whether I'm falling in to some self-styled role of socialist hero. But the fact is, that our tiny young NW London branch has done an important bit of political work that no-one else has been doing on these demonstrations, this is a matter of fact, from the point of view of systematically trying to intervene in the politics of the young people who have stayed on and fought with the police. There may well be exceptions that I don't know about, but at any rate I've seen no sign of any conclusions drawn from such experiences. For me, this dimension of the last few weeks has been the most important one. For sure, our comrades have broader work to be doing to make our working-class socialism a real fighting alternative. I made clear to our own comrades that there was much other work to be done in solidarity with the Palestinians than running around with police and young people.

I don't think it is a cheap shot. I don't say such things, as a serious anti-racist Marxist for many years, lightly. But perhaps there is a better way to highlight the racism and paternalism I have experienced over the years, where my views are not accepted as my own despite being largely informed by being an Asian, Tamil, gay person in this society, hardly able to just fall in with a group with the AWL's demographic. And for sure, we have had to battle with a 'cultural relativism' applied for our brothers and sisters throughout the 'non-western' world that scab on their prospects for socialism, which is at root racist. There is the related phenomenon of accepting bigotry among Muslim young people, as if that is just to be expected, or not taken at face-value. the fact is that the political climate you help create will see many young people I work with recruited to Islamist organisations and run through the mill with the State - and worse - for it. I care about this, it is not just a unfortunate epiphenomenon. Neither is the further death of Palestinians and Israeli working-class people, until the morrow of revolution.

But it's true it really is difficult to reconcile our world views and what follows politically from it. When I say, that Palestine-Israel is a good prism through which to understand what's best about Workers' Liberty and our socialism, I mean this seriously, which is why I persist in these discussions. they have broader implications, which from both our positions and with different conclusions, we seem to agree. So, however many thousands of times, we are right to continue. To do that, we must read each other's writings, hear each other out.

On the flag, for sure I know the very many injurious meanings it has for people. I also know that the flag is one and the same as the people. I didn't just one day arrive with an Israeli flag, we'd brought materials that promoted the struggles of the High School refusers and peace movement in Israel.

There are other circumstances where I would choose to raise the flag of the oppressor, for example were Tamil society under occupation or in diaspora to develop a poisonous chauvinism towards the Singhalese (which has not been at all absent from the movement), then I would raise the Sri Lankan flag. This does not preclude the red flag, but says smoething more direct. I.e that like it or not, and I don't see why socialists should see this as something unsurpising or terrible, that for the Tamils, what will solve their situation is neither the Tamil Tigers with their blood money from abroad, but the movement of the Sinhalese working-class which needs to be fight its own entrenched chauvinism and racism in solidarity and unity with the Tamil poor and working-class.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 13:06

Robin Sivapalan said…

sorry comrades, want to add one other thing, in partial agreement with Dan; we *should* organise trade union 'brigades', there is no reason not to try to. Other than I find it difficult to know how to put down our work here, and might choose to go to Sri Lanka as a priority were I to find a way, personally for that form of internationalism.

I mention in my report that there was a broader anti-cap network that AWL activists from the NW London branch were an active part of. This included former ISM volunteers, and indeed most of us know two comrades who are there now part of the Free Gaza campaign. We've had discussions, some difficult ones, over the last few weeks. They, for instance are flag-burners and disagree with me strongly with what I did. At bottom their solidarity is a politics of straightforward 'resistance'. At the same time, they understand some of what Hamas represents, they are not supporters as such though they are at this juncture. The problem is when you zoom in on Palestine and see it in isolation. When you do this there are only two sides at any one time. Now one side is Hamas apparently. When looked at from our supposed shared viewpoint of seeing the need for revolution in the Middle East as part of a global working-class revolutionary movement, then it becomes impermissible to look at Hamas or Israeli society either simply synchronically, or worse with a corrupted diachronic view which writes out complexity and important inconvenient facts, and concludes that Israel, and its working-class, constitutes an apartheid ruling bloc, which must be simply destroyed. And that Hamas is a national liberation movement, just for now.

Two States for me, is not a principle or a solution, it is a terrible settlement, but one underpinned by the sad reality that we are having to defend basic national rights which are increasingly disavowed. It is in this context that we see a retrenchment of chauvinist and fear-driven political positions of the Isaeli working-class, tying them to their capitalist rulers.

For me raising two-flag, supporting an immediate peace settlement, is not the end of the story, it is a means to move on. Do you, like an inverse of Condoleeza Rice, reject peace and ceasefire, and even a pathetic Palestinian State, until your revolution comes. DO you not see the the absolute denial of Israeli national rights, however much we may be Luxemburgists at heart, is a major obstacle to working-class unity. It is one of those ironies, that our seeming acceptance of nationalist-racist political reality, in the form of a Two State Settlement, is a better transitional step for a unity not on the basis of a national, religious and racial basis. Why would you believe in a bi-national state, when you deny the national rights of self-defining Israelis? I'm for a two state settlement, as the basis for peace and immediate amelioration of the conditions of the working-classes within Palestine and Israel, as a step towards some future revolutionary formation that I can't see could possibly be on the basis of 'bi-nationalism', which would be premised, surely?, on continued chauvinism and racism (though perhaps with the tables turned)

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 13:59

Robin Sivapalan said…

i should say the rhetorical-political denial of Israeli national rights by lefitsts and Islamists internationally, because it is the Israeli State now that is denying national rights to the Palestinians, rights which the majority of workers in Israel still support.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 14:09

Dan said…

I don’t deny that your branch has done work on this and many other matters. Indeed I have a lot of time for the work some of your comrades have done on many matters. But I don’t think that gives you the right to start throwing around insults about armchair socialists etc Especially as our members have done things like go out to Palestine with the ISM and worked tirelessly in many trade union campaigns. Also isn’t someone like Sean a bit of an arm chair socialist throwing out provocative articles? Every organisation has people who are more or less active. PR members have linked up with young activsts on demonstrations, but if you mean more systematic work then I’d be interested to know about it and get involved (networks being set up, legal cards being developed etc). But as I said above I agree that the far left hasn’t done nearly enough and are light on the ground. Other members of the London PR branch have said the same.

I don’t doubt for a moment that you have suffered paternalism and racism by the far left, indeed I’ve seen examples of it myself and anyone who thinks that there can’t be racism, sexism, homophobia etc on the far left is deluded to put it kindly. I just think it was a sweeping generalisation to aim at everyone who has written above. I also accept that people from certain backgrounds can have insights into things that other won’t. The far left is also overwhelmingly white, and disproportionately male. And often that means that certain things are ignored. I remember in Genoa when my best friend came with me and there was a lot of brutality and not many people seemed to appreciate the fact that he might be a target for the police because he is black (given the racism/fascism in the Italian police force). I think Darren and me have taught each other a lot over the years and I’ll never forget when I was about 16 and he said to me “how do you think it feels walking down the street knowing that maybe every other person you walk past doesn’t want you here”. I think it’s a real shame the way the far left has been unable, for whatever reasons, to make more links with black and Asian communities. And in the last 20 years working class communities generally.

I agree that we need to find ways of turning people away from religion and towards pro-working class ideas and organsiations, but I have to be honest I don’t think the AWLs approach towards Israel will do this.

I agree about debating, it’s just that I find many on the far left (and I’m not including you in this) just seem to get a kick out of throwing insults at each other and going round in circles. Loads of debates I’ve seen seem to just be for the sake of it, with no real thought about whether they’re constructive or not.

I’ll have to agree to disagree with you over the flag. Don’t get me wrong I don’t agree with needlessly throwing insults at the AWL (as sometimes happens) but given how provocative some of your articles are and some of your actions are I can see why it happens. I don’t think you’re a bunch of wannabe zionist racists (although it’s appalling that Sean describes himself as a zionist), but I think your politics end up supporting zionism. And I do think it was really insensitive to pull out an Israeli flag. Would you have been ok with someone pulling out the flag for apartheid South Africa along with an ANC flag? Remember that some people on that demo who have been mocked by the Israeli flag all their life may have just lost loved ones in Gaza.

By the way I agree about making links to refuseniks and sections of the Israeli working class where you can but we have to also recognise the material impact that apartheid has on the population (just like with white South Africans). Over 90% of the Israeli Jews supported the attack on Gaza and 80% say they support keeping the blocade on Gaza even if the rocket attacks stop. It is also the case that the overwhelming amount of Israeli trade unions are pro-zionist and there equivalent of the TUC is utterly bankrupt. However someone told me yesterday that there have been some positive developments in that at least some of the unions are now recognising that the attacks are disproportionate. The resolution passed by Lambeth UNISON (where I am a rep) does include trying to make links with Egyptian and Israeli trade unions.

Could you tell me more about this network that has been set up? How can people get involved? I’m happy for you to contact me personally with more information.

In terms of Israel being an apartheid state, I actually think it is a purer form of apartheid than South Africa. Palestinian labour is just marginalised and unemployement massive. Walls are put up and Gaza has become, in a bitter twist of irony, a bigger version of the Warsaw Ghetto.

As said already I think a two state solution is utopian, a one state solution maybe a long way off, but at least a solution that could work.

I don’t think a series of Palestinian Bantustans would be any more progress than when white South Africa set them up for black South Africans. The reason I reject the right of an Israeli state is because it can only exist as a Jewish state if the collective right of return is denied. It can only exist if is underpinned by the ideas of zionism and an apartheid state. That’s the reality of the situation. For instance even if we went back to 1967 borders (which Israel will never allow), then the Palestinians would have the worst land and an unviable state.

However I’ll end by saying that however bad I think the AWLs politics are I don’t believe for a minute that people like yourself (or many others I’ve met in the AWL) don’t have their heart in the right place, as I hope you’d think about people in PR. But we obviously have sharp political disagreements about the best way forward.

PS I understand that the LFI/WP have set up a small section in Sri Lanka. Not sure if it’s still going but maybe you could ask them about it.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 15:38

bill j said…

I must admit I do take issue with George on one point. The idea that AWL members sincerely oppose the war. I've never met any that do.

I saw one selling a Zionist pamphlet on one of the anti-war protests, with the slogan "two peoples two states", echoing the Jim Crow/apartheid slogan of "separate but equal". What a sick lie - racial segregation - separation - can never be equal.

All the AWL members I've spoken to look to slander Muslim youth at every opportunity. They refer to them as "anti-semites". It shows the AWLs racist mind set that they assume that anyone who looks Muslim or supports the Palestinians is anti-semitic.

That's why their leader is free to advocate Israel's right to slaughter Iranians as well as Palestinians.

I was with many of the Muslim youth who so courageously fought to take the Gazan demonstration right to the gates of the Israeli embassy. There wasn't a single anti-semitic chant anywhere.

There doesn't seem to be any concern from the racist/Zionist AWL that these youth were brutally attacked by the racist British police force, with percussion grenades, tear gas and baton charges.

In fact on all the protests that I've attended, and by a rough count that's at least 20, there has only been one instance of an anti-semitic chant - on one of the first demos there was - I was told - chant in Arabic. This chant was rapidly halted through the intervention of Muslim people who disagreed with it, without any prompting from concerned Zionist/racist AWLers, who in general don't speak Arabic. And has not been repeated subsequently, once.

The truth is that the AWL are a very nasty racist group, who believe that the Palestinians only deserve second class rights and that pro-Palestinians and particularly Muslims are necessarily anti-semitic.

So they fly the Zionist/racist Israeli flag. How apt.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 17:30

Eleanor Davies said…

Robin

This is partly a reply to your comments on here and on the AWL website. I agree with you that the presence of the left at the demos at the Israeli embassy has been pitiful. I know some of the PR comrades have been as often as they could but possibly “attendance could have been better”. However the Zionist claptrap that the AWL have been spouting is not welcome on those protests. You defend the Zionist state, which by its very definition is built on racist ideology. For what it’s worth I have read a lot of what SM wrote on Israel/Palestine. He either doesn’t understand the difference between Judaism and Zionism or he’s a not-so closet Zionist. I’ve never met him, but I suspect he’s a reasonably intelligent human being so my only conclusion is the latter. The Israeli state and the Jewish peoples are two entirely different things.

The goal of Zionism is to create a Jewish state in the physical space of ancient Arab, Christian and Muslim cultures. It cannot achieve this goal without racist and violent oppression. As long as a Zionist state exists there can be no peace or freedom for Palestinians.

The Israeli flag is the flag of the Zionist state. It’s the flag of an oppressor nation. You weren’t just being provocative on bringing it onto the protest, you were wrong! Equating the IDF with Hamas isn’t just a bad slogan, it’s wrong! The IDF are the army of an oppressor nation Hamas aren’t. It’s not an equation. Representations of Zionism on a Free Gaza, Free Palestine demo are not welcome. Who exactly do you think it was that invaded Gaza last month?

Robin, in answer to your question: “And I ask how have your comrades related to the young radical section of these protests from a Muslim background” Well I have a personal, anecdotal story. Last Thursday as I left the Israeli embassy I got chatting to 3 young Muslim men who had picked up one of your leaflets advertising a meeting called “Free Palestine” (I think). We discussed the various demos, the brutality of the police, the terrible situation in Gaza, what we could do about it, what we all considered the answers to be etc. They are 3 angry, militant, thoughtful young men. We had differences of course, they use Islam as a basis for their world perspective I use Marxism. However we had a really interesting discussion and I think they were looking forward to hearing more progressive ideas at your meeting. The first contribution they heard was an attack on Hamas, next a defence of the existence of the Zionist state which at that very moment was slaughtering the people of Gaza. Finally they heard an attack on young British Muslim men who “have used the demos to vent their hatred towards Jews.” Nothing vaguely pro-Palestinian there. Do you call that building solidarity?

You say:” In many ways they have got the measure of what's at stake, and see there to be only one option, the military destruction of Israel once and for all, by a united Islamist middle east." Not the ones I’ve been speaking to – what more can I say? Their main slogans in their text messages to me and on the demo when I met them are: “Viva Palestine! Viva Resistance! Viva Revolution! Free Palestine!” can’t see what’s anti-semitic about that.

In my discussion with them I did not hide my views when it came to Hamas. But I will not defend a racist state and I will defend the right of an oppressed people to defend themselves by any means necessary. In this instance take arms, which are provided by Hamas to fight the IDF. Those 3 young men and I are clear that we have common ground in that we will support all resistance against the racist violence that the Zionist state perpertrate on the Palestinian people.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 18:39

Mark H said…

On the Liverpool demo two instructive things happened.

1) The Muslim youth cheered to the echo Jewish speakers and accusations from the local press that our demos were anti-semitic were loudly booed and derided by those youth. That is the real face of most of the demos, that is the real attitude of most of the Muslim youth. Any anti-semitism that has occurred is played up by the AWL because for some time now they have been in the game of branding virtually all Muslims as anti-semitic or as supporters of "clerical fascist" islamic groups the better to cloud the issue of their own increasingly rabid zionism.

That should be obvious from the amount of space they give the issue of anti semitism - as well as the comedy outrage they are playing at over getting a placard ripped (get a grip for goodness sake - a placard being ripped is hardly a crime against humanity. All of this is at a time when THE REAL ISSUE for anyone who considers themselves as any sort of socialist or indeed democrat is the desperate need for solidarity with the Palestinians.

If the AWL spent anything like the same amount of time (or indeed any time whatsoever) supporting the Palestinians against the massacre and helping to defeat the racist Israeli state I might be more inclined to listen.

2) An AWL speaker (on the platform as a representative of a local anti-cuts campaign) was listened to politely by all at the demo in Liverpool. Her speech was awful, her comments were abstract in the extreme - the need for working class unity to bring about peace and such like - and left most of those listening underwhelmed.

But as she chose not to wave an Israeli flag or brand the IDF and Hamas as some sort of equivalents, or brand the Muslim youth on the demo as clerical fascist supporting anti-semites and so on, nobody said boo to her or stopped her putting her muddle headed "workers' unity line". In other words she respected the message of the demo and did not launch a provocation.

Her more provocative comrades could probably learn something from her in terms of how to get a hearing. But I suspect getting a hearing is not their primary goal. As I said before, if it was they would be going all out for solidarity with the Palestinians right now regardless of their schema for "solving" the issue.

The AWL just cannot seem to see what many Jewish supporters of the Israeli state who nevertheless came out in total opposition to the Gazan invasion could see - that this massacre was wrong and had to be opposed by every democrat without equivocation. Carrying Israeli flags to pro-Palestinian demos is more than an equivocation. It is an outrage.

Wed 21, January 2009 @ 21:38

Richard B said…

To Chris F:

It was a while ago you made your comment, and the discussion has generally moved on,m but I'd just like to come back on this, as it was to me.

"It is not over the top to say a placard with a slogan on which organisers disagreed with was tore up and removed from the demonstration is censorship. I would be interested to see what the offending placard actually said? It was a dishonest intervention, but we have dishonest interventions in the movement all of the time, why is it acceptable for the ‘No to IDF, No to Hamas’ or slogans you disagree with to be removed from demonstrations?"

The reverse side, the one pictured as 'the placard' on the AWL site read 'Solidarity With Women Workers & The Left'. No one had objected to that side, although it is clearly aimed only at Hamas, which rather contradicts the AWL claim that it was clearly making Israel the 'main enemy'.

That isn't the point tho. The point is, for me anyway, that this whole furore is a lie. AWL members were not 'attacked', they were not generally censored in any way (unlike their website, where three comments I have made pointing out the fact that Mushir, the 'placard killer' had lost family in the onslaught were removed for some reason, as well as comments from at least one other person who was at the demo). They were argued with, and one person who had recently suffered a personal tragedy was so enraged that he ripped a piece of cardboard in two.

Should he have? Well, no. But in the circumstances neither I nor the vast majority of people there at the time would condemn him for doing so.

This non-event should not be allowed to be used as an excuse for attacks on the PSC and the anti-war movement, which is what the AWL are hoping to achieve here.

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 01:12

Robin Sivapalan said…

Hi comrades,

I'm going to try and pull back from this forum, just because of time now, and the sense that the discussion is fairly exhausted (maybe just me) despite there being so many outstanding points that could be made. For my own reference at least, with your comrades' posts more or less in my head, I just want to note some key differences that point us in different directions, factors that amount to aporias in your thinking, and some other smaller clarifications.

1. The analogy does not hold about Aparthied South Africa. A lot flows from this difference of assessment. I gave a free copy of a pamphlet to both Kirstie and Eleanor (who seem not to have read it or see nothing in it to comment on). There is also a good discussion about it mainly between your comrade Jason and Sacha on the AWL website. Jason's argumentation, can be engaged with. It is a far cry from your current article, Israel Must Pay the Price - which is by and large accurate about the Israeli State and Hamas. However, it also erases the working-class in Israel, glorifies Hamas, and is essentially a justification for war, not the boycott you end up proposing.

At least Jason attempts to spell out how he sees the boycott playing out, that it might actually be attached to specific demands. The proof against Jason is now provided by his own comrade: the insidious eliding of theoretically legitimate demands that a boycott might make - into a general demonisation project. For this current editorial, a boycott is not a lever for anything specific (end the occupation, to support the working-class in Palestine and Israel) like the supportable Coke boycott, or the SA boycott (even if the tactic itself is limited), but a general attack on 'Israel' as an undifferentiated whole.

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2007/08/26/boycott-apartheid-israel

2. You seem intent on talking down the prospects of the working-class in Israel and other anti-occupation forces (who often are social-justice 'Zionists'). You don't explain what you think will happen in the region, why you think Israel being made to cede a Palestinian State, along the 67 borders is 'utopian', especially given your apparent future aspiration for a 'bi-national state'. Why cannot a two state settlement be an immediate demand - i.e the creation of a Palestinian State that has been denied for 60 years. Why is that out of the question? How do you account for the results of the first two PLO intifadas; were they wasted blood or did they contribute to a peace process. Is the defeat of this process, through the marginalisation of the PLO and the promoting of Hamas, mean that we now need to support Hamas and its leadership. What does a Hamas victory mean to you.

3.You do not accept Israel's right to exist as a separate nation in any form, which is premised on your conception of righting a historic injustice, resolved for you only by the denial of a sperate Israeli state through the resettlement of refugees in their historic homes. Why, for example, do you not call for citizenship and equal rights for the Palestinians kept in the refugee camps in all the countries of the Middle East.

There is a lot to be said about redressing injustice. An internationalist working-class notion of justice is different from retribution or restoration or reaction; we pose the possibility of a a redemption or justice through working-class revolution and historical progress, socialism against manifold barbarisms, including Hamas.

3. You don't seem to integrate political Islam as a live force, with agency.

4. Bill j is the predictably product of such editorials as your current one. he may not scream kill the jews like the kids in the East end, but he's not far off.

5. Eleanor. You here what you want to hear, and it's not suprising or necessarily bad that all you took away from the meeting for now are your own issues: your inability to meaningfully oppose Hamas, your refusal to acknowledge national rights for Israelis, and your refusal to see reality even when it's all around. I have held back from writing on any web forum the extent of my observations on these demos. I have done nothing to talk up reactionary politics among young Muslim people where they don't exist. I say again, my interventions are based on solidarity and comradeship with young people of a muslim background who are standing forth and fighting for the Palestinians. But it is a fact that Islamists slogans hegemonise the pickets now. The whole point of everything I;ve written is to urge people to make socialist solidarity and not concede the ground to Islamists. We have met several highly impressive potential Trotskyists of a Muslim background, as we expected, as we have sought out. The proof that our methods of relating are effective will be borne out at some point, I'm sure.

As for this network, I've disengaged because the basic direct solidarity work dealing with the police, the PSC/StW anti-democracy, is now not my primary focus. It is work building our camp more broadly. In moving forward on this, the AWL will be at odds with much of this network, in some of the ways we oppose you.

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 03:07

Robin Sivapalan said…

written early on:

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/12/30/politics-young-muslim-people-palestine-solidarity-demonstrations

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 03:16

Robin Sivapalan said…

“have used the demos to vent their hatred towards Jews.” Eleanor, no one said any such thing, while I was in the room. But perhaps that outrage over Palestine is finding anti-semitic outlets,

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 03:42

Richard B said…

Robin - what were all these anti-semitic/explicitly pro-hamas slogans and placards supposedly on display? From everything I saw, the bast majority were straightforwardly anti-war, 'free palestine, with a fair few religious ones - christian as well as muslim. My arabic isn't up to much, but from what I could tell they didn't go beyond "Allah will set us free', which may or may not have been held by what you would call a 'clerical-fascist', but which to any normal person would just look like a placard with a religious message on it.

Here are some more pics from the Sheffield demo - could you tell me which ones are clerical-fascist? http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheffieldpsc/

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 14:55

Robin Sivapalan said…

Richard, I promise I'm not deflecting. Reality is complex and for young Muslim people at the moment, potentially dangerous. If you want to talk face-to-face about what I've seen, who I've spoken to, what I think I know, fine. But given the reality of state repression of young muslim people, more so it seems than their Islamist leaders, I don't really want to go in to it in any more detail than I have. What we are obliged to do is provide the political outlines as we see them, which is what we have done. From what I understand of the demos across the country, the situation in London is quite different, and even then has so many strands that it is difficult to map out, but from being around practically every day at different points, speaking to a large cross section of people, which is what I do, I've drawn some tentative conclusions and set out work that our branch is undertaking, to address ourselves to political reality. I'd gladly sit down and talk through where I'm coming from, but as I say, I pretty much have said everything I want to say on a web forum.

Robin

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 15:09

bill j said…

Reality is not that complex.

Here we have a racist/Zionist organisation, masquerading as one that is concerned about the Palestinians as a cover for its hatred of Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular.

Robin Silapalan waves the Zionist flag.

He calls me an anti-semite.

Enough said.

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 15:49

Dan said…

Robin you say “The analogy does not hold about Aparthied South Africa.” But then you don’t say why, you just talk about a pamphlet.

My definition of an apartheid state is one whose very existance depends on the oppression of another ethnic group or nationality. When Australia and the US were first colonised they would have been examples. South Africa was an example and now Israel is today. The argument that because Israel doesn’t use Palestinian labour in the same way white South Africa did is a joke. Indeed I would say that Israel is an even purer apartheid state where they have walled people off and deny them any freedom of movement and keep them in mass prison camps. Would you really have said that South Africa would have been any less apartheid if it had started using more and more immigrant labour and pushed black South Africans ever more into Bantustans and unemployment?

The fact is that Israel’s very existence as a zionist state depends on oppressing the Palestinians and denying the right of return. Bill quotes Ehud Olmert out on your site:

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929439.html

What's more in case anyone was in any doubt about what he meant, he pointed out that he had said the same thing four years before in an interview entitled 'Maximum Jews, minimum Palestinians';

"Olmert invokes no such comforting calculations. "We don't have unlimited time," he says. "More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against `occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle - and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state."

As for “talking down” the prospects of the working class in Israel. Well not really. PR members in Lambeth have supported a resolution (passed by the branch and had unanimous support at the AGM, didn’t even see your own comrade vote against it) that didn’t just call Israel an apartheid state but said links should be made to the refuseniks and to the Egyptian and Israeli working classes.

However the fact remains that all the Israeli trade unions I’ve come across are pro-zionists. And as said not only to 90% of Israeli Jews support the massacre in Gaza, 80% say they support a continued blocade even if the rocket attacks stop. Not much to play down really, it’s just the material reality of an apartheid state.

In terms of what will happen in the region with US and Israeli might the Palestinians will probably continue to suffer. But as said while a one state solution might be a way off a two state solution is totally utopian. Why is it utopian? Because the whole zionist project of Israel is based on expansion and the oppression of the Palestinians. Why would any ruling class just change their minds on that? And if the Israeli working class became radical enough to force them to change then I think we’d be talking about a one state solution anyway. But even the 1967 borders would leave the Palestinians in a second class state with little resources. But what reasons do you give to show that even this demand isn’t utopian? All Israel has done in the last few decades is become ever more oppressive of the Palestinians and drive more and more of them off their land. Gaza is now more like the Warsaw ghetto than ever before.

Denying Israel’s right to exist as a zionist state isn’t about historical justice it’s about millions of people being kept in refugee camps here and now. Something that you would rather support than give the collective right of return. As for “equal rights for the Palestinians kept in the refugee camps in all the countries of the Middle East” I wouldn’t be against this but the fact is the Palestinians want to go back to Israel and their homeland, not other countries they have little or no ties to. By going down this road you end up appeasing Israeli racism and blaming other states and saying the Palestinians should just go somewhere else.

As for you saying Bill is not far off from saying “kill the jews” you really are crossing the line now. You turn up to an Israeli demo with an apartheid flag (as said would you have waved the apartheid south african flag?) which was utterly shameful. You now sink into this type of gutter politics. I thought you were better than that. It’s not only pathetic but also shameful as well. You wave the flag of zionism, an ideology that is anti-Jewish and anti-semitic as any around and then you come out with this.

You seem to have a very strange idea of solidarity. You also seem to have a vastly different experience to the demos than me any many other people. And it’s the London demos I’ve been on. But heh why not patronise Eleanor’s experience (maybe I should make a cheap shot that you’re doing this because she’s a woman?).

Thu 22, January 2009 @ 18:50

Camila said…

“An open letter to Sheffield’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Left and socialists committed to Palestinian solidarity” by Sheffield AWL Branch

The AWL is a socialist organisation which is completely opposed to the ongoing siege on Gaza. The recent, brutal bombing campaign by Israel on Gaza represented a mini colonial war, and is part of this prolonged siege. Gaza is an “open air prison”. It forms part of long term attack on the Occupied Territories (for example, it’s carving up into bantustans so as to deny Palestinians any kind of effective, meaningful nation-state). Kadima and Labor (in the run up to elections against their main rival Likud) were demonstrating their toughness, and sought revenge for the 2006 defeat. This was done in a grossly disproportionate, inhumane war. We are for solidarity with the Palestinian people, and for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. We support a viable and consistent democratic solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which in our view means an independent Palestinian State alongside Israel (and with the same rights as Israel). This political position is highly unpopular with some on the British left. Groups such as the SWP advocate a different political perspective and are opposed to the continued existence of Israel. Within the wider Palestinian solidarity movement and within the labour movement there are many varied political perspectives on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We support the view that debate and discussion of these differences is a necessary part of our solidarity work. We also consider it important to highlight the struggles that do take place of working class organisations in both Israel and within the Occupied Territories. We support those in Israel who oppose the actions of the Israeli state, for example, the Refuseniks and the anti-war movement.

We believe our main job at present is to make solidarity with the Palestinians against the Israeli siege. We also believe that solidarity with the Palestinians should not mean solidarity with their Hamas leaders. Hamas rejects a democratic solution on the lines set out above. Their goal, instead, is to destroy Israel and deny the Israelis national rights. Hamas is an Arab chauvinist, Islamist chauvinist, anti-Semitic movement. Hamas are part of an extreme rightwing movement that has played a highly reactionary role throughout the Muslim world, threatening the democratic rights of workers' movements, women, gay people, secular and ex-Muslims, national and religious minorities and others. We believe that to support them, or fail to criticise them, is a betrayal of the Palestinian workers whose strikes they have suppressed; the Palestinian women they have attacked for refusing to put on the hijab, and so on. That is why we included our opposition to Hamas on the placard that was ripped up at the demonstration outside the Sheffield Town Hall on Saturday 17th January 2009. There was no intention to imply any sense of proportionality in the Israeli government's brutal bombardment of Gaza. It was simply to make clear that we continue to criticise Hamas.

There must be no political censorship of the Left by the Left on demonstrations.

We realise that many people will not share our political perspective. There are also many who do have sympathy both with our 'two states' position and our opposition to Hamas. We brought placards and a banner which demonstrate our solidarity with the Palestinians and our opposition to Hamas. We did not in any way disrupt, or attempt to disrupt, the demonstration which we were there to participate in. We do however feel obliged as socialists to be true to our political perspective and raise criticisms even if they are unpopular. We accept that not everyone will agree with everything we say just as we do not agree with the politics of all the other placards present. We are not opportunists that simply and crudely desire to stand apart from the crowd - we are committed to our politics, and will (if necessary) bravely enter a politically hostile milieu uncompromised in our politics.

Members of the AWL have been involved in demonstrations and actions for years and never have we experienced what took place on Saturday 17th January 2009 in Sheffield. A placard which read "No to the IDF. No to Hamas" was forcibly removed from a young woman's hands and torn up and stamped on in front of the crowd, a majority of whom cheered and clapped (including members of the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the SWP and Permanent Revolution, who are all very hostile to any 'two states' position). This is a disturbing level of intolerance and censorship. Some argued disingenuously that we were equating the two, but it was very clear to anyone who chose to speak to us or read our literature that, we oppose the two for critically important political reasons but in no way consider the two equal. We hope that activists in Sheffield will take a serious look at this incident. This is no way to deal with political disagreements amongst us. This kind of censorship and the intolerance it breeds is unacceptable. We are not asking you to agree with our political perspective but we are asking you to support our right to raise criticism of Hamas on demonstrations. This is a basic democratic principle and we would uphold it for others. Already one anonymous posting on Indymedia has said we were "lucky not to be beaten up" and another, they would join in "chasing us off". Someone claiming to be a member of Sheffield's Palestine Solidarity Campaign called "Steve" has written: "maybe simply ripping down and stamping on their banner is not going far enough. Maybe they need a stronger disincentive, preferably undertaken away from the glare of those on the demo where so they can't go bleating on about their 'rights'. This wouldn't have to necessarily be violent." This needs to stop now.

We are for solidarity with the Palestinians and will continue to participate in actions and demonstrations in Sheffield and elsewhere.

Fri 23, January 2009 @ 09:23

bill j said…

Actions speak louder than words.

The AWL parade the Zionist Israeli flag on demonstrations and their web site. And claim to support the Palestinians.

Work it out.

 

Fri 23, January 2009 @ 16:33

Mike Calvert said…

Well, I think this is horrendous.

The palestinians are being systematically extinguised and the so called "Third Camp" followers of Matgamna in effect applaud it.

They defend the Zionist, racist, muderous state of Israel and attack those who defend the Palestinians as Celrical fascists.

Personally I still think that a democratic secular state of palestine is the solution

I would recommend highly listening to the following:

http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html

Ralph Schoenman in his book The Hidden History of Zionism, states the following:

"In 1968, twenty years after the colonial-settler state of Israel was established, the Palestinian resistance movement formulated its demand for self-determination in the call for the replacement of the Israeli state with an independent, unitary Palestine.

The majority wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, set forth the program for the establishment of a "democratic, secular Palestine". This slogan called for the dismantling of the Zionist Israeli state and the establishment of a new state in Palestine in which Jews, Christians, and Arabs would live as equals without discrimination.

What was notable about this brave proposal was that

(1) it categorically rejected any accommodation with or recognition of the Zionist state;

and (2) it rejected the proposal for a Palestinian "mini-state" on the West Bank and Gaza.

P.L.O. Chairman Yasir Arafat described his proposal as follows in a remarkable biography written by journalist Alan Hart:

We were saying “no” to the Zionist state, but we were saying “yes” to the Jewish people of Palestine. To them we were saying, “You are welcome to live in our land, but on one condition - You must be prepared to live among us as equals, not as dominators.”

I myself have always said that there is only one guarantee for the safety and security of the Jewish people in Palestine and that is the friendship of the Arabs among whom they live. [187]

A document submitted by Arafat’s Fatah organization to the Second World Congress on Palestine in September 1970 spells out the profile of a democratic and secular Palestine even more clearly. The 1970 Fatah document states:

Pre-1948 Palestine - as defined during the British mandate - is the territory to be liberated ... It should be quite obvious at this stage that the new Palestine discussed here is not the occupied West Bank or the Gaza Strip or both. These are areas occupied by the Israelis since June 1967. The homeland of the Palestinians usurped and colonized in 1948 is no less dear or important than the part occupied in 1967.

Besides, the very existence of the racist oppressor state of Israel, based on the expulsion and forced exile of part of its citizens, even from one tiny village, is unacceptable to the revolution. Any arrangement accommodating the aggressor settler state is unacceptable and temporary ...

All the Jews, Moslems, and Christians living in Palestine or forcibly exiled from it will have the right to Palestinian citizenship ... This means that all Jewish Palestinians - at the present Israelis - have the same rights provided, of course, that they reject Zionist racist chauvinism and fully agree to live as Palestinians in the new Palestine ... It is the belief of the revolution that the majority of the present Israeli Jews will change their attitudes and will subscribe to the new Palestine, especially after the oligarchic state machinery, economy, and military establishment are destroyed."

Sat 24, January 2009 @ 07:08

Mike Calvert said…

The source quoted above should be

187. Cited in Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker (Sidgwick and Jackson, revised edition), p.275.

I feel it is extraordinary that the demonstartions are so tolerant of the AWL. They are provocative, and it is so sad. They have activists in my branch who are good comrades. Who disagree with Matgamna in his musings on the Baby P tragedy in haringey. It seems he just has an idea and rambles on about it and his sect comply.

The truth is they are a sect who attack everyone else and describe us all as kitsch leftists, whilst circling their own wagons in the most silly and over the top dramatic fashion.

Once again, I finish with a quote from Ralph Schoenman. This will get the AWL foaming at the jaws...

"The Palestinian masses are in motion. The extraordinary will to struggle on the part of the entire population has shown that there is no going back. The Intifadeh needs to focus on specific features of oppression and to challenge them by reclaiming the land, planting forbidden crops, sinking wells and withholding labor in the course of demanding unconditional Israeli withdrawal.

A revolutionary Palestinian leadership will need to devise a program for inside the Green Line which addresses the Jews within Israel as well as the Moslems and Christians. In short, what is necessary is a blueprint for a post-Zionist society which inspires people and associates the inequities of their lives with the Zionist state.

As the Zionist state is at once a species of capitalist class rule and an extension of U.S. imperial power in the region, the struggle against Zionism becomes, programmatically, a struggle for a socialist Palestine and, as the dawn follows the long night, a struggle for a socialist Arab East - from the Mediterranean to the Gulf.

A P.L.O. faithful to its promise of a democratic-secular Palestine would include in its leadership those anti-Zionist Jews who have fought the colonial-settler state. In this way, the Jewish masses themselves would be able to see who really speaks for them, and who offers them a way out of perpetual war, insecurity, and deprivation.

A clear call for a democratic and secular Palestine is essential to uniting mass social forces capable of dismantling the Zionist state and replacing it with a humane society dedicated to the ending of class and national oppression.

The Palestinian revolutionary movement can only advance by hammering out a new strategy based on combining the Palestinian national struggle with the struggle of the workers and peasants of the whole Middle East for liberation from both capitalist and imperialist domination - for a socialist Middle East.

There is no short cut to liberation, as the century-old ordeal of the Palestinian people has shown. The road to victory will only be shortened when a leadership arises which knows its direction and proposes the path in a language which enlists the people, mobilizes them in their own behalf, and exposes fearlessly the false leaders dangerously in the way.

The Palestinian answer to the Zionist and imperialist schemes can be found in the stone-throwing children of Jabaliya, the Beach Camp, Balata and Dheisheh. For this, as Jabotinsky was obliged by them to acknowledge, is a people, a living people - not a rabble, but a conscious people fighting with stones and sling shots against the fourth largest military power in the world.

We owe them, at the very least, fidelity to their revolutionary struggle, which can never be complete until it extends from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates - and, as their Zionist oppressors forever proclaim, "and beyond" "

Sat 24, January 2009 @ 07:16

stuart king said…

Just on the AWLs "open letter".

Campaigns that organise demonstrations do have a right to decide what the demonstration is about and the slogans that reflect that. These decisions should be made democratically at open organising committees.

If the AWL repudiates its paper's characterisation of the Gaza demonstrations as "reactionary" and "clerical fascist", agrees not to bring placards with "No to the IDF, No to Hamas" (which to everyone BUT the AWL clearly means equating Hamas with the IDF in this war) and agrees not to turn up with Israeli flags, then I am sure no one will object to their contingents on marches that support the Palestinians in their struggles, in Sheffield or elsewhere.

If they stick with these positions then they should go off and organise their own "third camp" demonstrations somewhere else.

Sun 25, January 2009 @ 13:54