Israel/Palestine

In advance of new elections due to take place on 17 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced new plans for the annexation of Palestinian territory, pledging to annex a big chunk of the West Bank to Israel.

Prior to elections in April, he announced plans to formally annex 60% of the land area of “Area C” of the West Bank. The new proposal would cut off the Palestinian Territories’ border with Jordan, and leave cities like Jericho as enclaves entirely surrounded by Israeli territory.

Israel will hold new elections on 17 September, after right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a workable governing coalition after he won elections in April.

Just before those elections Netanyahu announced plans to formally annex to Israel some or all of “Area C” of the West Bank (60% of its land area, surrounding the 160 cities, villages, and other areas of Palestinian-populated land which are Areas A and B). He has made overtures to far-right, Jewish-supremacist parties.

Susie Linfield, author of The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left, talked with Martin Thomas from Solidarity.

Many of the eight writers you analyse had their thinking on Israel shaped by Stalinism. But you don’t mention Stalinism.

That was most true of Maxime Rodinson. He was a Stalinist, and even after he left the Communist Party, he remained a Stalinist. Then in some ways he substituted what he called the Arab Revolution for the Soviet Union.

Israel is in a very dark place. We have a very right-wing coalition government, there are more elections in October, the formal opposition is not left wing.

Netanyahu has aligned himself with Donald Trump, Modi in India and Orban in Hungary and right wing leaders internationally. Israel is doing huge damage to its reputation and standing internationally, and is the only country whose right to exist is continually questioned.

Difference and impairment

I can still remember my PE teacher at school yelling at me: “What’s the matter with you? Are you disabled?”

He was angry because I was clumsy and awkward. The tiny experience perhaps helps me understand why autistic and other neurodivergent people resent being called “disabled” or even “impaired”.

Morad Shirin (Solidarity 511) has casually speculated that Israel (or, perhaps, another regional power allied to the USA, but no other state is thought worthy of mention) is probably responsible for the attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers.

No evidence is offered, but rather a Galloway-style deduction based on which state would benefit from the most obvious suspect being punished. It isn’t often, thankfully, that this type of argument is promoted in the pages of Solidarity.

Robert Fine, who died on 9 June 2018, was a socialist writer unafraid to stand up to much of the left’s received wisdom on the questions of Israel, Palestine, and antisemitism.

He opposed the “absolute anti-Zionist” standpoint that one should unreservedly object to (a) Israel’s very existence, rather than the oppressive practices of the Israeli state, and (b) any feelings of Jewish communal or national identification with Israel, even when such feelings are accompanied with harsh condemnation of the Israeli government or genuine horror at the Palestinians’ suffering.

Barry Finger reviews Paul Kelemen’s book The British Left and Zionism: History of a Divorce (Manchester University Press, 2012)

This volume, which joins the herd of independent minds in churning the same old depleted groupthink, purports to challenge the claim that changes over the decades in the left’s appraisal of Zionism and the Palestinian cause stem from antisemitism.

I liked Barry Finger's review of Susie Linfield's excellent book The Lion's Den, but I want to open debate on two issues.

Barry calls for "binationalism" in Israel. I understand that is different from those who call for Israel to be extinguished and all 1948 Palestine to become a single "binational" state - so neither Israeli Jews nor Palestinian Arabs have self-determination - but still it leaves questions unanswered.