I write in response to Sean Matgamna’s article, “Don’t leave fighting Labour Party antisemitism to the right”. In his justified zeal to tackle left-antisemitism and the substantial elements of anti-Zionist politics which it infects, Sean appears to bend the stick too far.
Israel
It is of course right to oppose the over-simplified, indiscriminate attitude of the absolutist anti-Zionists who condemn Israel as intrinsically ‘evil’ and homogenise both Jewish Israeli society and the spectrum of Zionisms, treating them in their entirety as no different from the murderously racist ethno-nationalism of the Netanyahu types and those to his right. But Sean’s argument goes too far the other way.
He takes issue with the accurate description in Corbyn’s article of the Palestinians as ‘victims of racism and discrimination’, writing: ‘And then [Corbyn] defines the situation as one in which the Palestinians have been victims of racism. Losers in a prolonged national conflict, yes. Victims of wrong, yes. And the distinction between racism and Nationalism is habitually blurred. But the false definition of Israel as racist is one of the main roots of “left” anti-semitism.’
I don’t doubt that Sean agrees that the Israeli state is guilty of racist treatment of Palestinian Arabs. Workers’ Liberty is clear on this and has long been so. Just in that same issue, we reported on the “frequent discrimination” visited upon the Arab minority within Israel, and on the new Nation State Law, described by the late Uri Avnery as “semi-fascist” and the subject of an immense Tel Aviv protest. We also accurately characterised government ministers as “virulent racists”. Sean would be right to say that, for us as Marxists, the more fundamental dynamic in the situation is one of national oppression, in opposition to the all-too-common worldview that instead divides humanity into “good peoples” and “bad peoples”. But our perspective doesn’t exclude pointing out racist treatment, especially when the chauvinism we see in action in the conflict is clearly an ethno-nationalism. Sean’s complaint that nationalism is being blurred with racism is a bit misplaced for the same reason.
Crucially, Sean here conflates the question of whether Israel’s mere existence is racist, with that of whether its state’s policies and actions are racist – even though he goes on to affirm the distinction in a separate section. This is particularly dangerous when the same conflation is being peddled by both absolutist anti-Zionists disputing the IHRA guidelines on antisemitism, and those apologists who really do wish to strangle criticism of the Israeli government’s racist actions. The guidelines state that “claiming that the State of Israel is a racist endeavour” may (context depending) constitute antisemitic discriminatory denial of the right to self-determination, but both these camps misrepresent that as forbidding any accusation that the Israeli state has committed racist acts.
Going further, Sean asks ‘isn’t it time someone started a “Labour’s Critical Labour Friends of Israel” campaign’? No! As socialist internationalists, we are not ‘critical friends’ of Israel or any capitalist state. We defend all nations’ right to self-determination as a democratic necessity, and we are friends and comrades to the Israeli working class, the Palestinian working class, and the exploited and oppressed everywhere. We oppose all nationalistic sentiments – with understanding and sensitivity toward the reasons for these sentiments, especially among oppressed peoples, but also with undiluted clarity – and all bourgeois states.
Perhaps connected to this, Sean’s mentions of Israel’s right to self-defence are ambiguous, shorn of context. A nation’s right to democratic self-determination does naturally imply that socialists do not oppose military self-defence against invasion, annexation or occupation. Israel would be entitled to resist an external attempt to forcibly abolish it. But in the current context, that is abstract. Israel’s present-day military actions vis-à-vis the Palestinians – from bombing Gaza, to bloodily repressing the border protests, to the daily violence of the occupation’s enforcement – are not about necessary self-defence. Workers’ Liberty has rightly protested them and we refute the government’s usual “self-defence” justifications. This is the context in which we champion the young anti-occupation Israelis resisting military conscription, and the context that cannot sensibly be omitted from discussion of Israel’s right to self-defence.
Corbyn
Turning now to Sean’s discussion of the situation within Labour, he says of Corbyn’s response to antisemitism that “everything is low energy”. Has Corbyn’s response to the internal crisis fallen short? Yes. Has he previously acted and spoken very wrongly himself? Certainly. But while we rightly criticise, we should also be clear that he has made substantial strides against elements of the all-too-widespread common sense of left-antisemitism.
A leading figure in the left, closely associated with the “Stop The War” milieu, has broken with their politics to clearly defend the right to national self-determination on both sides of the conflict; to call for a two-state settlement; to reject the tactic of total boycott against Israel; and to bluntly refute blanket condemnation of Zionism as simplistically equal to racism.
This is a big deal! One which, if followed up, could initiate a positive sea change in the common sense of the left. It is a mistake to play this down.
Similarly, Sean overstates the domination of “destroy Israel” zealots in the milieu that the Corbyn surge has thrust to power. They are a substantial component and must be fought, but it concedes the battle too early to accept that they are the whole of the new leading layer.
And the present controversy doesn’t correspond to Sean’s simple dichotomy: ‘Either [Corbyn’s] critics are lying or exaggerating, and should then be stood up to and faced down. Or they are telling the truth.’ Both are happening. Corbyn is justified in rejecting the allegation that a government led by him would constitute an "existential threat" to Jewish people – this is wild fearmongering, detached from sensible reality. If it wasn’t, there could be no question of us supporting Corbyn’s leadership.
Finally, Sean asks, but does not clearly answer, “can Corbyn deal with anti-semitism in the Labour Party?”. If his answer is “no”, as the rhetorical style might suggest, then we presumably should drop our support for his continuing leadership. If so, that should be clearly stated. But I think our current approach is broadly right – campaigning with education and persuasion to tackle the political roots of left-antisemitism; action as appropriate against outright bigotry; and pressure on the party leadership to step up and sharpen its work in the same vein.
