The Procurator Fiscal Offices (PFO) for Edinburgh and the Lothians take their instructions from Israel.
That’s the amazing discovery awaiting anyone who reads an article – “The Trial of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign Five” – currently posted on the website of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).
The main focus of the article is the decision by the Edinburgh and the Lothians PFO to escalate charges against five members of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) from breach of the peace to racially aggravated breach of the peace.
These charges were pressed against the five SPSC members after they had disrupted a performance by the Jerusalem String Quartet in Edinburgh in August 2008, as a protest against Israel’s oppression of Palestinians (coupled with the fact that the SPSC are fervent boycotters of anything emanating from Israel).
Much of the article on the SSP website is typical of lazy thinking which equates Israel with South Africa in order to justify calling for a boycott of Israel, mixed in with illusions about the impact of the campaign to boycott South Africa.
Israel is “one of the last states in the world with a racist constitution.” The SPSC backs the campaign to boycott Israel, “modelled on the earlier successful international campaign targeted at another apartheid state – South Africa.” The charges against the SPSC members “demonstrate the lengths to which the British government will go to protect their murderous ally from facing effective sanctions.”
But in putting forward an explanation of how the SPSC members came to be charged with racially aggravated breach of the peace the article breaks new ground.
At a general level, the charges against the SPSC 5 are the result of “stepped-up Israeli pressure upon the British government to make it illegal in the UK and the European Union to promote the growing international campaign (for a boycott of Israel).”
So Israel, a small Middle Eastern country about the size of Wales, is powerful enough to apply pressure on the British government to make it illegal not just in the UK but in the whole of the European Union (total population: around 500 million) to campaign for a boycott of Israel?
More specifically, the article continues, the racially aggravated charges have been made by the PFO “at the behest of Israel”. The dictionary definition of “at the behest of” is: “at somebody’s instructions.”
That is to say: someone in Israel decided what charges should be pressed against the SPSC members. Directly or indirectly – the article is silent on the actual mechanism – instructions about the charges were issued to the Edinburgh and the Lothians PFO. The latter then acted upon those instructions.
The article – signed off by Allan Armstrong in his capacity as a member of the SSP’s International Committee – is a textbook example of left anti-semitism.
Specifically, because it makes a ridiculous assumption about the influence which Israel can exert, i.e. the claim that someone, or some people, in Israel can instruct the PFO about what charges to press in a given case.
More generally, because the author’s ‘anti-Zionism’ is not a critique of a specific political movement called Zionism. It is an explanation of the way the world works. Racially aggravated breach of the peace charges have been pressed against SPSC members? Hah! That can only be because of instructions from Israel! (And never mind the fact that there’s no evidence to back up the claim.)
Finally, because the article takes a traditional anti-semitic theme and rehashes it as ‘anti-Zionism’, i.e. that of Jewish control over public life, and Jewish disloyalty to the state in which they live. In this instance we have Zionist control of the PFO – why else would Israel’s instructions be carried out? – with decisions being taken by the PFO to the benefit of Israel.
Central to the article is the assumption that Israel’s influence/power is such that one of the principal domestic functions exercised by sovereign states (i.e. defining what is legal or illegal) is really carried out either under “pressure” from Israel or under direct instructions from Israel (“at the behest of”).
The fact that the article has been judged fit to appear on the SSP’s website, and the fact that it has been signed off by an SSP member in his capacity as a member of the party’s International Committee, do not mean that the article amounts to a statement of SSP policy.
The article does, however, epitomise the ongoing drift of the SSP mainstream into the morass of left anti-semitism.
In recent years SSP conferences have adopted policy in support of a boycott of Israel, support for the SPSC, and a one-state ‘solution’ to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Is it really surprising that the SSP now sees fit to publicise absurdities such as the claim that the PFO takes its orders from Israel?
(As a footnote: The Edinburgh and the Lothians PFO which acts “at the behest of Israel” is the same PFO which decided to press perjury and conspiracy to commit perjury charges against Tommy Sheridan. Could this mean that Sheridan is … … the victim of a Zionist conspiracy???)
Stan Crooke
Comments
The benefits of using a dictionary
The phrase "made at the behest of Israel" in the SSP article has now been changed to "made in favour of Israel".
The author of the original article, it turns out, had misunderstood the meaning of "at the behest of", until he looked it up in a dictionary.
Whether "made in favour of Israel" is much of an improvement is a separate question.
Anti semitism?
This is an absolutely outrageous slander against Allan Armstrong.
Stan makes us think he wants us to take anti-semitism seriously, yet the charge is levelled extremely lightly and with no substantiation. Self-righteous and arrogant 'defiance' against the rest of the left, yet itself oh-so un-thought-through and apolitical.
The reasons are obvious. The article is based on the assumption that criticism of Israel or Zionism 'must be' anti-semitic. You oppose Israel's wars and specific things the Israeli state does - but much louder come the attacks on its critics. The evident motivation behind the piece, and the underlying thesis of every paragraph, is kneejerk defence of Zionism.
Recognising the political/strategic importance of Israel is not anti-semitic, and if indeed Israel is the size of Wales, that is of no consequence. The earth is not flat, not all states are just the same.
Wales is not given billions of pounds a year military aid, Wales does not routinely invade its neighbours, Wales is not constituted on land expropriation, Wales' Welsh majority is not only thanks to immigration controls. There are islands in the Pacific and Caucasian republics of Russia the size of Israel, this tells us nothing about their importance in the world system of states or how they operate.
It is also true, for example, that the USA via its many allies and security agencies has played a significant behind-the-scenes role in numerous coups d'état. Is it anti-American racism to allege this? No. Even if such allegations were unsubstantiated, it would not be racism. So if you accept that Israel like other nations is characterised by class and poltiical divisions, how can you jump so quickly to the charge of racism?
At the behest of Israel...
Seems to me like the basic facts are pretty clear; there are people on the left who think that pretty much anything bad that happens that has any relation to the Middle East happens more or less because Israel makes it happen. Even the Scottish courts make their decisions "at the behest of Israel" (until the little lexical slip-up was corrected, of course).
There are plenty of other countries in the world who get billions of pounds of military aid, routinely invade their neighbours, are constituted on land expropriation (America? Australia? Argentina? That's just the As...) and have ethno-cultural majorities maintained through immigration controls. In fact, pretty much every country in the world fits into one or several of those categories. The genocidal sub-imperialist predations of the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils, Milosevic's Serbia against the Kosovars or Russia against the Chechens were/are equally as brutal, if not more brutal, as Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. But despite all of this only one country ever gets accused of being the hidden hand behind American foreign policy, British foreign policy and now, apparently, Scottish judicial policy; Israel. Only one nationalism is ever referred to as some kind of ubiquitous, nefarious agent of 20th century history (to blame for the Holocaust, even, if you want to believe the Jim Allen play that the SPSC is so fond of), synonymous and interchangeable with imperialism, racism and even Nazism; Zionism. That is, Jewish nationalism.
Do you acknowledge this fact, David? If so, don't you think it's at least worthy of some inspection?
You acknowledged it when you were a member of Workers' Liberty. You never expressed any dissent whatsoever from the group's position that left anti-Semitism was a real, extant phenomenon that needed to be opposed. But then, you did seem to discover a whole series of objections to the AWL's politics overnight when you stormed out of the group that you never made any mention of whatsoever during your years of membership (one day you were in the AWL - a member of our National Committee, no less, a branch organiser and a part-time worker in our office - and the next we were all authoritarian, statist, bureaucratic, Labourite; quite a change of heart to undertake in such a short space of time, and without any justification or taking stock; one minute the grass was green, and then it was blue...) So maybe collapsing into left common-sense on the question of Israel and Zionism is just another example of the same effect. I suppose adding "Zionist" to the list of political crimes of the monster-AWL you've built up in your head to retrospectively justify the petulant, prima-donna manner of your rash and precipitous departure makes a certain sense.
But anyway; maybe I'm being presumptuous and unfair. It's not for me to impute particular motives to other people. Maybe David really was sitting on all those objections the whole time but just felt too insecure or under-confident or stifled to voice them. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and get back to the substantive issues...
David's recent political contortions might compel him to jump to Allan Armstrong's defence - although quite why David is lashed up with this man (whose politics, as far as I can tell, have very little in common with David's and whose international politics positively clash with them - unless, of course, David has now abandoned entirely the notion of independent working-class internationalism, which is entirely possible) I am not sure - but what does David's contribution here actually amount to beyond saying "this is outrageous! Israel is really bad!"?
Yes, David, Israel is bad. Everyone on the left agrees about this. National oppression is wrong. Agreed.
But given that this is entirely agreed upon by everyone, why shouldn't we make some noise about the issues that aren't agreed upon, such as our contention that the exceptionalisation and singling-out of Israel has an inevitably anti-Semitic logic? Can't we raise those issues without being shouted-down (in a typical and rather tiresomely pompous fashion) as "knee-jerk Zionists"?
It is worth pointing out that Stan's article accuses no-one - neither Allan Armstrong nor anyone else - of straightforward "racism" as David alleges; it makes a clear, evidence-based case that a particular SSP article is characterised by left anti-Semitism, which the not the same as straightforward racism but a complex phenomenon which we are always attempting to assess and analyse - see here.
If David or anyone else wants an easy life on the left then fine - ignore the issues raised and discussed in that article and elsewhere, pretend they don't exist, and just get on with the simple and uncontentious business of denouncing Israel. Personally-speaking I'd prefer to be independent-minded, critical and swim against the stream where necessary.
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Daniel Randall
Easy life on the left
1) It is clearly untrue that I did not raise criticisms of AWL coverage of Israel/Palestine, even if I of course agree that anti-semitism and Zionism are both bad things. It is not a defence of a specific accusation of anti-semitism, to accept the general idea that anti-semitism is bad and a problem.
2)Political contortions? There are none, which is why you can't mention any, although the charge seems a bit rich Dan, where is your explanation of your falling into line on such questions as this, or indeed on the Labour Party? You were opposed when Sean and Martin first argued for the current AWL line. I know your autumn conference, which was meant to discuss the issue, was replaced with a winter school... but you didn't put up any fight.
3) I did not write "this is outrageous! Israel is really bad!" I wrote that it is outrageous that you accused Allan Armstrong of anti-semitism.
4) You complain that you are being shouted down "in a typical and tiresomely pompous fashion". I do not see why it is pompous, my comment is a simple defence of a comrade you accuse of anti-semitism. Moreover:
5) If "knee-jerk Zionists" is such an insult, (and not the wording I used) why can the charge of "left anti-semitism" be made so lightly? Again, where is the substance for the argument? Writing that it is "evidence based" is a poor substitute for... evidence.
6) If it is true that more noise is made about Israel than e.g. the Tamils, is it not also true that there is in general, in public life, far more coverage and discussion of this conflict; and indeed that it is of greater significance to geopolitics? I do not believe that this is in any way, as you seem to imply, related to hoary old myths about Jews running the world.
7)"Yes, David, Israel is bad. Everyone on the left agrees about this. National oppression is wrong. Agreed." Everyone on the left also agrees that anti-semitism is "bad" but the whole question is the tone and focus of arguments made.
Please answer the question
"There are plenty of other countries in the world who get billions of pounds of military aid, routinely invade their neighbours, are constituted on land expropriation (America? Australia? Argentina? That's just the As...) and have ethno-cultural majorities maintained through immigration controls. In fact, pretty much every country in the world fits into one or several of those categories. The genocidal sub-imperialist predations of the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils, Milosevic's Serbia against the Kosovars or Russia against the Chechens were/are equally as brutal, if not more brutal, as Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. But despite all of this only one country ever gets accused of being the hidden hand behind American foreign policy, British foreign policy and now, apparently, Scottish judicial policy; Israel. Only one nationalism is ever referred to as some kind of ubiquitous, nefarious agent of 20th century history (to blame for the Holocaust, even, if you want to believe the Jim Allen play that the SPSC is so fond of), synonymous and interchangeable with imperialism, racism and even Nazism; Zionism. That is, Jewish nationalism.
Do you acknowledge this fact, David? If so, don't you think it's at least worthy of some inspection?"
Please answer the question.
Thanks.
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Daniel Randall
PS: I have not "fallen into line" on anything. I have always agreed with our positions on the Labour Party (which has not changed recently, despite your claim to the contrary), Israel/Palestine and left anti-Semitism.
What do you do?
An article appears on a socialist website saying that the Edinburgh and Lothians Procurator Fiscal Offices (PFO) decided which charges to press against a group of people “at the behest of Israel”, i.e. on the basis of instructions issued from Israel.
What do you do?
Do you just shrug your shoulders and say that freedom of speech includes the right to write cranky pernicious nonsense (as, indeed, it does)?
Or do you explain why it is wrong, why it constitutes an example of left anti-semitism, and why it’s not appropriate for that article to appear on a socialist website?
I chose to do the latter. And David is very annoyed about it.
What makes David’s criticisms particularly odd is that he completely sidesteps the substantive issue raised, i.e. the claim that the PFO made a decision on the basis of instructions from Israel, and why that claim is wrong.
If you were to read David’s first (and second) contribution in isolation, you wouldn’t have a clue about what the issue was that had triggered such responses.
David says that a charge is raised in the article on the AWL website “with no substantiation.” In fact, the article gives three reasons for describing the use of the phrase “at the behest of Israel” as an example of left anti-semitism. But David does not bother responding to those arguments.
Instead, there are unsubstantiated claims about the supposed assumption behind the article (‘any criticism of Israel or Zionism ‘must be’ anti-semitic’) and the alleged motivation behind the article (‘kneejerk defence of Zionism’).
(Just think about that one for a moment: equating criticism of an article which claims that the PFO acts “at the behest of Israel” with a “kneejerk defence of Zionism” would make sense only if the Zionists really were pulling the strings!)
Similarly, David has a strange preference to talk about Wales and islands in the Pacific rather than about the substantive issue, i.e. the claim that the PFO acts “at the behest of Israel”.
I also find it odd that David finds criticism of the article (original version) on the SSP website outrageous when the author of the article in question has amended the article to take account of the criticism! The fact that he has done so is surely a vindication of the very criticism which David is so indignant about.
A fair number of people must have read the article on the SSP website or the Irish “Socialist Demcracy” website (where it was also published). I’m also aware of a discussion about the article on another discussion forum (which discussion preceded the appearance of the article on the AWL website).
It’s fair to assume that most, if not all, of those people who came across Allan Armstrong’s article know exactly what “at the behest of Israel” means.
And yet there is no sign of any those people objecting. That is to say: they found nothing objectionable about a claim that the PFO acted on the basis of instructions from Israel!
Isn’t that a pretty sad commentary on where sections of the left are right now?
"left anti-semitism"
Anyone got a link to the original article?
Clearly it was completely innacurate to use the word "behest"; and it as absolutely reasonable to point this out. I think we should acknowledge in comradely spirit, the admission of error made by the author. Afterall, articles on the AWL website have been edited substantially after publication before - e.g. on the Lindsey strikes.
However, the semantics of "left anti-semitism", defined as not being an example of racism, are extremely problematic in my view - and all the more problematic to publish an article which uses the phrase as a term of art without explaining it. Anti-semitism is racism. The AWL is not a significant enough formative force on the English language to simply make up compound nouns and use them in whatever way it sees fit. Dan is not - I believe - a Zionist... but if, hey presto, I invent a term "left Zionism" - and start to describe him in these terms sporadically (and let's say I write an article first saying that "left Zionism" is not nationalism, even though Zionism simpliciter is) I believe that would be dishonest. And I think that this "left anti-semitism" idea is analogous. Isn't it?
Also, Allan Armstrong has previously written articles alledging that the Scottish criminal justice system was influenced, more or less at the beheset of, Libya - in the furore ove the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi affair (see e.g. on our website). I think, given this, arguments that Israel is the unique focus of such analysis by Armstrong are innacurate and misleading.
In reply to Tom
Tom –
The slightly amended version of the article is at:
www.scottishsocialistparty.org/new_stories/issues/spsc5-on-trial.html
At the time of writing, the “Socialist Democracy” website is still carrying the original version:
www.socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentCorrespondenceTheTrialOfTheSPSC5.html
A couple of other points:
What I wrote is not concerned with the fact that a bloke called Allan Armstrong wrote a certain article. It’s making a point about the SSP: “The article does, however, epitomise the ongoing drift of the SSP mainstream into the morass of left anti-semitism.”
In response to a suggestion on the SSP discussion forum that the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign be invited to reply to the article, I wrote: “It’s not the Scottish PSC that has to answer for the article’s contents. It’s the SSP.” (Note: not Allan Armstrong, but the SSP.)
(And please don’t tell me that everybody else in the SSP shares Allan Armstrong’s misunderstanding of the phrase “at the behest of”. People read that article who know what the phrase means. But they did not find the article objectionable. It was changed only after Allan Armstrong had discovered the true meaning of “at the behest of”.)
I’m confused by what you say about the expression “left anti-semitism”. Are you saying that the expression itself is a bad term for the phenomenon we are criticising? Or are you saying that the phenomenon we are criticising does not really exist, and that “left anti anti-semitism” is a bad term for that reason?
You go on to write: “... but if, hey presto, I invent a term ‘left Zionism’.”
Invent the term??? It’s been in use for – well, as long as there have been left Zionists. Poale Zion, for example, was founded over a century ago.
You can argue about whether it’s appropriate to describe this person or that person (or organisation) as left Zionist. But you wouldn’t be inventing the term.