Arabs, Jews, and Socialism

Note

This is an expanded version of a pamphlet, “Arabs, Jews, and Socialism”, produced by Workers’ Liberty in 1989. The main addition is the debate between Jim Higgins (former National Secretary of what is now the SWP) and Sean Matgamna in 1996-7, which was the major sustained public exchange of polemics in that period. Some errors and omissions in the 1989 edition have been corrected.

The pamphlet should be read together with our 2002 pamphlet (expanded edition 2016), “Two nations, two states”, and in particular with two articles in it. One is “Marxism and the Jewish Question” (of which an

This debate between Sean Matgamna and the late Jim Higgins (former National Secretary of the SWP), was sparked by a column by the late Paul Foot in Socialist Worker and Sean Matgamna's comment on it. The debate ran in Workers’ Liberty nos.32-34 and 38, in 1996-7.

By Paul Foot

I got this letter recently from a woman in Surrey.

Dear Mr Foot

I was so disappointed in you when I heard your hysterical outburst against Israel on Any Questions.

I have admired your column in the Guardian and your cogent socialist views for a long time. However, you did yourself no good

Gerry Healy and the World Jewish Conspiracy

Sean Matgamna, SO 127, 14.4.83

Newsline has continued in its ridiculous campaign of bluff and bluster against the BBC Money Programme. But still, litigious though it is, it has not got round to suing the BBC.

Many - solicited - letters from members and supporters have been printed. The campaign continues against Socialist Organiser, linked with the BBC according to the well-tried Stalinist technique of the "amalgam". Example from a piece by long-standing member Alex McLarty: "Trade unionists! Members of the labour movement! Be warned! Depending on

The only answer: two states

John O’Mahony [Sean Matgamna], SO 233, 19.6.85

For about seven years Socialist Organiser editor John O'Mahony has held to a minority point of view among SO supporters in that he rejected the call for a secular democratic state in Palestine as unrealistic, and argued that socialists should advocate a solution to the conflict of Arabs and Jews in Palestine on the basis of two states. Here he outlines his views.

We have to support the Palestinians, as the oppressed, against Israel as the oppressor. However, what is our alternative to the existing situation of

Zionism, twin of antisemitism

Andrew Hornung, SO 109, 18.11.82

Andrew Hornung reviews Tony Greenstein's pamphlet 'Zionism - anti-semitism in Jewish garb'.

Chief Rabbi Emmanuel Jacobowitz was once asked by a BBC interviewer whether there was any difference between being anti-Israel and being antisemitic. 'In theory that is possible', he replied, 'in practice it isn't.'

Earlier this year, a Jewish shopper in Regent Street, no doubt impelled by the same view, insisted that police arrest Labour Committee on Palestine members who were picketing the Israeli state airlines in protest at the

Pink Ken changes

“Graffiti” column (unsigned [Sean Matgamna]), SO 267, 17 April 1985

It must say something about the state of the left that the drift to the right of former leftists sometimes, incidentally, leads them to adopt better politics than they used to have before. Socialist Organiser has commented on this phenomenon, for example, when their move to the right led careerists like Neil Kinnock to drop the "identikit leftist" Little-England opposition to the EEC [EU].

And now Pink Ken Livingstone has changed his position on Zionism.

Remember that Livingstone used to talk about "Zionist"

The Perdition affair

John O'Mahony [Sean Matgamna], Workers' Liberty 6, April 1987

When the Royal Court Theatre decided at the last minute not to go ahead with its scheduled production of Jim Allen's play about the massacre of the Jews of Hungary in 1944, 'Perdition', a flood of discussion, polemic and recrimination was unleashed in the press. It had already been the subject of protests by various prominent Jews and of publicity in the press.

There are at least two issues involved in the 'Perdition' affair: artistic freedom and its limits; and whether or not 'Perdition' is anti-Jewish.

Allen

Of course you know the story. A man is in the market place, and he sees Death, and Death looks at him intently, recognising him.

In a panic, the man runs to his horse and gallops away desperately, taking the road to the city of Samara.

As he gallops off, Death turns to his companion. “Strange,” he said, “that was so-and-so. I was surprised to see him here, because I have an appointment with him, tonight, in Samara.”

Death is all-powerful. There is no escape when he reaches your name on the list.

Consider now, and the association is appropriate enough, the fate of poor Adolf Hitler. This heroic