Here’s a bit of news I’d missed. Those luvverly people at the English Defence League, a far right group with more than a few links to the BNP, held a demo on Sunday outside the Israeli embassy in London. Apparently in support of Israel.
Siobhan Schwartzberg, writing at Liberal Conspiracy, explains why she organised a counter-demonstration.
The EDL said of the event “we sympathise with what Israel are going through, it’s the only country in the west that is tackling the issues we highlight” They go on to say…“our fore-fathers fought a Nazi regime and won to protect our god given human rights, we cannot allow such fascist ideologies try to rule our streets once again using the same racist tactics”
The EDL dare to use the language of anti-Fascism to legitimise their political agenda. Speaking as a Jewish person, the idea that they would attack minorities and say they are doing it in part to protect and honor Jewish history is obscene.
There are a couple of things worth discussing when thinking about this particular EDL demonstration.
Firstly it’s that the racist language that has been (sometimes still is) used when speaking about Jews has now become a normalised way to talk about Muslims. It’s not uncommon to hear Islam being called evil.
Rabbi Nuchum Shifren in his speech yesterday said that “Arabs are dogs”. That sounds familiar…
Secondly it’s the relationship between the far-right racism towards Muslims and the propaganda used by Israel to justify the oppression of Palestinians. This is a relationship the EDL have been quick to capitalise on.
And here’s Jennifer Lipman
To anyone who says the EDL are moderates, not racist, defenders of a way of life not obstructers of another, I’d challenge you to listen to a massive throng of angry men and women shouting “Death to Allah” and other obscenities.
Make no mistake. These people are not moderates, they are extremists. One I spoke to denied being from a violent organisation, but admitted to me that he would be willing to fight “if that’s what it takes”. Looking at the EDL yesterday, I have no doubt.
Outside the Israeli Embassy, they came to hijack a cause - support of Israel and the Jewish community - for their own ends. Yesterday their hatred was for Islam, but tomorrow, who knows.
One member of the counter-demonstration, an Israeli called Yossi Bartel, told me he was there to show that “the EDL are not speaking for Israel and the Jews”.
He’s right, and more of the Jewish community must acknowledge and advertise that point.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Joseph W 10.27.10 at 9:15 am
That’s exactly what happened - most Jews and Israelis do protest against the EDL. Unfortunately, that did not stop Terry Gallogly, the York-based church activist who oversees the York Palestine Solidarity Campaign alongside Stephen Leah (the Methodist preacher trying to boycott Israel), from deliberately trying to rig a Jewish Chronicle poll to make it look like Jewish Chronicle readers supported the EDL.
You can read more about this at the Jewish Chronicle itself:
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/anti-zionists-urge-rabbis-work-edl
Joseph W 10.27.10 at 9:26 am
Also; David Duke of the Klu Klux Klan is pro-Palestinian - that doesn’t mean Palestinian nationalism is inherently fascistic because it is supported by fascists, neither does the EDL’s pro-Israel stance render Zionism a fascist movement.
Anti Extremist 10.27.10 at 9:50 am
Siobhan Schwartzberg writes for the extreme Left Socialist Worker
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=22842
Pretty much all Jews angrily reject the ’support’ of bigoted and hate filled groups like the EDL, and a very wide range of Jewish organisations and prominent individuals, including the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies, have spoken against them and in support of British Muslims who are their targets.
However, the Socialist Workers Party and the far Left has been at the forefront of attacking anybody, including Muslims, who oppose the minority of Islamist racists, homophobes and supporters of terrorism, associated with the front organisations of Jamaat e Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Just as Jews can do without the “help” of the EDL, anti-racists can do without the “help” of the SWP.
Jonathan Hoffman 10.27.10 at 11:09 am
http://notinourna.me/
Let’s knock on the head this defamatory lie about any relationship between the far Right and Israel….
Daphne Anson 10.27.10 at 11:56 am
I would be interested in knowing what serial Israel defamer and carol lyricist Stephen Leah, being a man of the cloth (is that the correct term for a Methodist minister?) makes of his sidekick Gallogly’s dishonourable and immoral attempt to smear Jonathan Hoffman and the Zionist Federation by rigging a poll. I would expect a man of Leah’s calling to dissociate himself from the dirty deed, despite his own hatred for Israel.
methodist preacher 10.27.10 at 1:24 pm
Thanks Daphne, especially for your encouragement to those of us in Methodism who believe the current stance is wrong.
I’ve posted about Stephen Leah today:
http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2010/10/any-stick-to-beat-jews-with.html
But don’t hold your breath for a response!
Keep up the good work
Shalom
David
Alec 10.27.10 at 1:40 pm
Richard, you clearly are trying to establish a semantic link between pro-Israel support and support for the EDL (who, largely look like football hooligans who’ve been expelled from their local ground).
If there were a link, d’you think Tony Greenstein (staunch “anti-Zionist Jew” and member of self-help group, ASHamed Jews) and Terry Golloghy would have tried to rig a JC poll to present British Jews as supportive of the EDL? Note, they did not try to bolster their case (namely, that British Jews were not sympathetic towards Israel; or even that the JC and BoD (scuriously groups controlling British Jewish opinion) were supportive of the EDL.
They would have presented British Jews, as a bloc, as racists.
There’s a word for people who do that.
Hardly. He merely sees the opportunities in them.
Did a weighty member of the objectively anti-Israel University and Colleges Union (Uck-U) e-list not once link to an article from his webpage?
Daphne Anson 10.27.10 at 1:44 pm
Good blog, David!
Richard 10.27.10 at 9:07 pm
>> “David Duke of the Klu Klux Klan is pro-Palestinian - that doesn’t mean Palestinian nationalism is inherently fascistic”
That was precisely my point. Maybe I should have been less subtle about it. (I notice that Dave W got it though, bless ‘im!) Too many times in this “debate”, the ‘guilt by association’ card is played. (And yes, I’ve done it myself on occasion) Which is why I tried to get us back to what is for me the central issue in my ‘Methodists and Israel‘ post.
No, Alec. I’m not trying to ‘establish a semantic link between pro-Israel support and support for the EDL’. I don’t believe any such thing! But look at the thread above: even as ‘Anti-Extremist’ is pointing out the falsehood of making a link between “Jews” (his/her word, not mine!) and the EDL, s/he can’t help pointing out that Siobhan Schwartzberg, who I quoted, writes for the Socialist Worker.
Perhaps it was too roundabout an approach, but I’m simply trying to get away from who has shared a platform with who, who has had support from who and so on — so that we can examine ideas and arguments on their own merits.
David: just so we’re clear. You’ll be waiting a long time for a response from me. I’ve had enough of your bile.
methodist preacher 10.27.10 at 10:15 pm
Richard, I am not waiting for your response. I waiting for Stephen Leah.
Joseph W 10.27.10 at 11:20 pm
Too many times in this “debate”, the ‘guilt by association’ card is played
If the Israeli government actively invites the EDL to speak in the Knesset and welcomes them as heroes, then you have a case to call for Israel to repudiate them.
If the EDL supports the Israeli government despite Israel denouncing the EDL in strong terms, I can’t see how you have any gripes with Israel on this matter.
Richard 10.28.10 at 12:33 am
I *don’t* have gripes with Israel on this. It would be stupid to say “The EDL are fascists. The EDL support Israel. Therefore…”
Equally, there’s no point in “x has been on a platorm with y, therefore…”
We need to engaging with ideas and arguments, not casting nasturtiums.
methodist preacher 10.28.10 at 8:03 am
Hi Joseph, I actually spent four entire days in the Knesset as an invited guest. I spent a lot of my time talking to Arab MKs. I was impressed that they felt themselves able to be part of a democracy, one of the few functioning democracies in that part of the world.
Joseph W 10.28.10 at 8:08 am
David, yeah, that’s as I thought. It’s far from perfect, the Knesset, but there is democracy, it’s cool you got to go.
Richard, then what’s your point about Israel and the EDL? What conclusion do you wish your readers to draw?
Rachel 10.28.10 at 8:49 am
Joseph - hasn’t Richard explained the point he was wishing to make? - first a mite too subtly in this first post (though those who weren’t looking for “a stick to beat him with” will probably have got it the first time) and then in his explanation above?
Richard 10.28.10 at 8:53 am
I don’t know how much more clearly I can put it, Joseph. My point was, expressed too subtly obviously, is that there is no link between the EDL and Israel, and that support support for Israel does not imply support for EDL. I was just hoping you’d get the reverse point: that opposition to Israeli policy on the settlements does not imply support for every group expressing that opposition. It’s understandable that new visitors wouldn’t ‘twig’, but I might have expected David to get it. I was neglecting how wilfully misunderstanding he can be.
Ian Howarth 10.28.10 at 9:34 am
Coming fresh to this, not being party to previous blog conversations, the point of the article came across to me as about the EDL, and their hypocrisy as a Fascist organisation using the language of anti-Fascism to promote an anti-Islam agenda. It actually had little to do with Israel at all.
Reading the comments as one with no axe to grind, and whose attitude to Israel and Palestine sees good and evil on both sides, I am deeply saddened at people’s failure to be prepared to see both sides of the issues. How the world finds a way through the violence and the oppression that exists in different ways on both sides of wall needs sensitivity, honesty, compassion and courage. I don’t see much of it from anyone here I am afraid.
As I read it, the Methodist report was true in what it said about oppression of the Palestinians, there are too many stories from sources like the ecumenical accompaniers for that to be denies, but omitted anything about whether Israel had the right to exist within secure borders, or the dangers of the rise of extreme Islam through Hamas, and so I believe left us a hostage to fortune.
That does not justify legal complaint or charges of racism, but perhaps a bit of humility that it does not paint the whole picture.
Alec 10.28.10 at 9:48 am
Richard, if you were not trying to establish a link you are, to be honest, the first member of your cohort I’ve seen who mentioned it.
The EDL presence would have been rejected by pretty much everyone else on that pavement, and there is no support for them amongst British Jews or their representative bodies.
If any of us place a thought in the air without comment, we then take responsibility for how it’s interpreted.
It’s as if the BNP turned-up at a rally outside the Jamaican High Commission, and you said to the organizers “with friends like these”.
Meanwhile, you have genuine Nazis, former NF members making the case for Paschal pogroms against Israelis, supporters of terrorism… all in formal and informal positions of mainstream pro (sic) Palestinian groups. You have delegates of your own Church who make unambiguously anti-Judaic speeches at its indaba to the effect that Judaism is a racist religion, other delegates who take profoundly anti-democratic positions when asked for balance and are erstwhile Chairs of a PSC whose current Chair was caught doing a bit of antisemitic agitation.
This reflects far worse on your cohort than the presence a few uninvited guests on a public street corner.
David 10.28.10 at 12:15 pm
At one point in the past in our little haven of multi-cultural harmony here in Northern Ireland, Irish Republican areas started flying Palestinian flags in solidarity with fellow victims. In the time honoured principle of your enemy’s enemy is your friend, Protestant loyalist areas started sprouting Israel flags… Until some more right wing elements within the local loyalist groups said “We don’t want f*#&ing Jew-boy flags flying in our areas!” And suddenly they disappeared… Then later strange hybrid flags of Northern Ireland superimposed on the Israeli flag started to appear, perhaps bolstered by that bizarre “British Israelite” concept, or the refinement which sees the Ulster-Scots/Scots-Irish as the lost tribe of Israel. What this showed me was that far too often our alliances and shows of solidarity whether its on a flag-pole, a blog post or a protest march, has got more to do with us and our particular issues and conflicts, rather than the original problems. The unlikely roster of bodies and individuals standing side by side on these issues does not mean that they all share the same values or ultimate aims, and often unscrupulous groups will sign up to things just to put others in an awkward position. Many years ago I was steering a good relations policy through a public body and a republican grouping deliberately signed up to it (even though they had no intention of abiding by the principles involved) because they knew that if they did then no unionist political body would and the whole initiative would collapse. And it did…
Through all of this debate what has wearied me most, from a distance, has been the repeated misrepresentation of people’s positions, and the “guilt by association” card… Particularly from supposed Christians… and methodist Christians at that… “friends of all and enemies of none…”
I’ve been known for sweeping judgements and a sharp (and inappropriate) choice of words at times in the past, but what I have witnessed in the comment sections here over the past few weeks is appalling…
Alec 10.28.10 at 3:10 pm
Even more bizarre when you consider that when Zionist groups were disenfranchized, many were identifying with Irish Republicanism. Yizhak Shamir’s code-name in the 1930s was Michael Collins.
This is still seen at Old Firm matches, although Celtic recently signed Israeli Arab midfielder, Beram Kayal; whilst Rangers has a number of Algerian players, including defender Madjid Bougherra who was censured for trying to wear a black armband during Operation Cast Lead.
Yus, a burly tattoo’d Scotsman with a Magen David neckchain is more likely to be Ulster Scot than anything else (the six points represent the Six Counties, dontchaknow).
In the words of Kayal, people see too much television:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/celtic/celtic-s-new-israeli-midfielder-beram-kayal-will-find-similarities-between-glasgow-and-haifa-1.1045146
conchovor 10.31.10 at 11:04 am
Richard has a point: simply because X turns up to the same demonstration as Y does not mean that X supports Y.
However, sharing platforms, given speeches from the same platforms as, liaising, organizing, planning with is another matter, especially without any criticism of what has been said by others, attempts to distance from etc.
Stephen Sizer and Ben White, for instance, have shared platforms with men who call for jihad until no more Israel, such as Azzam Tammimi, or his slightly paler shadow, George Galloway, with no criticism or distancing whatsoever. These were events actually arranged in concert, not merely coincidences. And the Zionist Federation have actually +asked+ the EDL +not+ to demonstrate outside Ahava, for instance.
And Stephen Leah’s assistant at York PSC, Terry Gallogly, engaged in overt anti-Semitic agitation, with no public censure from Leah whatsoever. This the man allegedly pursuing Christian justice.