Debate: These are not “pro-Hamas” marches

Martin Thomas makes an unfounded generalisation in his letter in Solidarity 691: “Despite the official ceasefire slogan, those marches are not peace or anti-war marches, but anti-Israel, pro-Hamas war marches by sections of the left and by political Islamists and others for whom destroying Israel is the aim.”

This is counter-productive exaggeration – certainly with respect to the main London demonstrations. (Reactionary peripheral actions by Hizb ut-Tahrir are another story, and perhaps some protests in other UK cities too – I don’t presume to know enough about those.)

It is certainly true that some key organisers, notably the Socialist Workers’ Party, support victory for Hamas as “the resistance”. But it is also significant that they feel unable to put their views in the slogans of the demonstrations, and indeed went for “Ceasefire Now” even though some of them equivocate on that demand.

The important thing to hold in mind is that the demonstrations are heterogeneous. They have drawn hundreds of thousands rightly appalled at Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians, but with diverse views beyond that. In the sea of demonstrators, there are both explicit antisemites, and supporters of coexistence and equal rights. Calls for ceasefire appear beside (and even, in some confused cases, on the same placard as) slogans rejecting any peace with so-called “colonisers”.

Martin has helpfully recounted the background of chants like “free Palestine”. It was introduced to the Socialist Alliance precisely because of its ambiguity (free Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, or over Israel’s legitimate territory too?). This enabled the SWP and its allies to dodge anti-occupation demands that imply accepting Israel’s existence, even though they could not have won such wide support for outright “smash Israel” slogans.

Martin has also correctly reported that many of the people following even the “from the river to the sea” chants imagine a more benign, democratic interpretation, or have not clearly thought through the implications.

It is illogical to extrapolate the entire character of a varied, hundreds-of-thousands-strong protest from beliefs that organisers withhold from the protest’s headlines, from the maximal conclusion of ambiguous chants, and from sections of the demonstrators, large as they may be. This is not a serious assessment that can inform our approach, it is overblown rhetoric. Destructively, it may deter those who support a better way forward from attending to promote those ideas.

We rightly reject ambiguous slogans that some use to repackage or smuggle their reactionary ambitions. Instead, we insist on slogans that clearly demand an end to the occupation and siege, and peace based on working-class solidarity and equal rights for both peoples. This is part of our task of patient persuasion, and building an alternative to the reactionary politics others offer.

Indeed, Workers’ Liberty’s interventions, promoting peace and coexistence based on equal rights and workers’ solidarity, have been positively received by many demonstrators, and we are not alone. Solidarity with the Palestinians, support for the anti-occupation left in Israel, tackling the reactionaries, and patient persuasion: none are helped by feverish, generalising condemnations.