Ofer Cassif and campaigning inside Israel

Cassif (centre) on a protest

Ofer Cassif is a brave and principled man. He is a member of the Communist Party of Israel and part of Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

The Morning Star carried an interview with him on 7 October, which must count as one of the few articles on Israel-Palestine published by that paper that is worth reading.

Under the headline "I don’t accept that Israeli society is lost", Cassif says (amongst much else) that Israelis who oppose the “ongoing massacre” in Gaza “must use every tool of democratic and non-violent struggle” to forge “a union of various forces that oppose the genocide and fascism that is rampant within Israel even when there is disagreements among them on other issues.”

He points out that “The working class is being harmed economically [by settlements and the war, and] also being harmed by the persistence of hostility between Palestinians and Israelis. This hostility prevents the exploited people of both nations from uniting against the exploiters.”

Asked about anti-war campaigning within Israel, he responds as follows: “Many believe that there is no chance of change coming from within Israeli society and that only international pressure will help. I disagree with this statement. It is clear that international pressure on Israel is necessary. But I do not accept the claim that Israeli society is lost and there is nothing to fight for within it.

“Those who claim this base their view on the assumption that Israeli society is a monolith. But as a Marxist I see every society as a whole composed of contradictions. In the current Israeli reality, one of the main contradictions is between the followers of theocratic-fascism who are involved in the genocide in Gaza and their opponents on the other side. Our historical role is to sharpen this contradiction while struggling alongside the opponents of the murderous forces.”

What makes Cassif’s words important (at worth quoting at some length) is that they cut across most of the opinions usually carried, approvingly, in the MS. In particular, they cut across the claim from prominent figures with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement to the effect that Isreal is a uniquely illegitimate state (some won’t even use its name, calling it “the Zionist entity”) and that any attempt to campaign for peace and progressive change from within that society is to be condemned as an act of “normalisation.”

This viewpoint reached its grotesque extreme when the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) published an article in January 2024 saying Standing Together, the binational (Palestinian-Jewish) left-wing social movement based in Israel, should be boycotted. The BDS campaign posted that article on its website.

This has given rise to the notion that any and all organisations that have ever expressed support, in any form, for BDS are now morally obliged to boycott and no-platform Standing Together – and that actually happened at the recent Green Party conference.

Given the closeness of the paper and its political masters at the Communist Party of Britain to the PSC and the BDS movement, one wonders what they really think about the claim that Standing Together “normalises” Israel and should therefore be no-platformed. They did, in fact, publish two articles last year by Standing Together’s organiser Uri Weltmann, but has never commented on the “normalisation” claim or the boycott.

Under the guise of “listening to Palestinian voices”, the anti-Standing Together crowd are saying that one Palestinian voice should have a monopoly, to the exclusion of all others. They are also, in effect, saying that anyone inside Israel who campaigns for peace and progress is “normalising” that society – a charge which, given his refusal to accept that “Israeli society is lost”, must surely also apply to Ofer Cassif. If he, or anyone else from the Israeli Communist Party or Hadash ever comes to Britain, presumably the PACBI will demand a boycott?

At that point, presumably, the Morning Star might just feel obliged to make a comment.

Cassif and another Hadash MP, Ayman Odeh, made a protest in the Knesset when Trump spoke. They waved a placard demanding "recognise Palestine!". Cassif declared: "Recognise Palestine! This is the banner I waved in front of Trump at the Knesset... A true just peace that will save both people of this land from agony can only materialise by a complete end of the occupation and universal recognition of a Palestinian State alongside Israel".