WITH THE US bombing of Libya the world has again been alerted to the potential of the Middle East as a flashpoint for international conflict. Even a Conservative Politician like . Heath can recognise that. In order to explain what was happening around Libya he said: 'We need to go back to the root of the Middle East problem, which Palestinian problem and the relationship between Israel and the Arab World.' How much of a coincidence is it then, that when some attention is at last focussed on the plight of the Paiestinians, tne Issue or lel antisemitism' is quickly thrust into the limelight by zionists give a convincing defence views, seek instead to shift the ground of the debate? It is no accident at all. It is a tactic guaranteed to confuse the liberal conscience analytical mind.
If anti-semitism exists left', then that is serious and must be dealt with. However, the fight against anti-semitism nol creating in peoples' minds a false connection between anti-semitism and antı-zionism.
Anu-semusmn Is racism, orten or the kind that equates an ethnic group with a particular social function and class and then talks in racial, Laungasoes hen he isives ih the Young does when he writes in Guardian 27 May 1986 that: as one can generalise, the Jewish ideal elevates such qualties as ambition. purposefulness, material success, and self-help towards self-advancement ... as a moral code for upward mobilisuch as Mrs. Thatcher devoutly cannes ane counurvlo asoue loaJewisu teaching supplies a valuable model.' Anti-zionism is something quite different. It is a principled opposition to a political theory, and, hence, the ideology underpinning the realisation of that theory, in the state of Israel. It is not directed against Jewish people, any more than anti-apartheid struggles are directed against white South Africans as such. In both cases it is the political system of the country that is under attack.
Zionism is an ideology which, at the least, accepts the logic of antiSemEsul agreeing utal because of 'human nature', cannot live multi-ethnic (although the vast majority of Jews do) and thus seeks to set up a separațe Jewish 'Homeland'. At worst, certain zionists actually collaborated auti-sCullcs. trying to persuade em o ove moe waredewo teste Zionism is also racist. Not only because it sells out the Jews with a 'false Messiah', but because it could never have been possible to establish a Jewish 'Homeland', the state of Israel to which all Jews in the world have the right to 'return', without destroying Palestine and expelling or subjugating the Palestinians. This known but rarely admitted even to this day. Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist Organisation, 1886 however, explicitly envisaged the future Israeli State as: wall of defence for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilisation against barbarism', i.e. a colonial-settler state.
The real test of zionism, of course, Edward is the who, unable to of their inhibit the on the helped by LaluC.
'Insofar there now completely Bank 750,000 (17 population) citizens in DanUSE-HKCCCILORS Wap. Massacre Jews, try? In 1948, in Der near Jerusalem, communities Begin's "Irgun' with nascent state of Israel. was always NO AXSEHC there either ...
as far back as a lormei (Ha'aretz 4 April 1969).
The West •.. Dall ol a of illegal Israeli settlements.
The result of this today is that over four million Palestinians: two million of them live outside of Occupied 1,500,000 live as stateless persons under occupation in the West Gaza, wille a turther live as cent of Israel's second that itions. None of under them lives in Palestine because it no longer exists. It has been wiped off the How did four million people lose, not only their homes, but their counYassin, a village 253 civilians were massacred in cold blood by Menachin Gang. The word spread and other Palestinians fled in terror, hoping to return. Most are still waiting and could never return: a total of 385 villages were destroyed, and their inhabitants driven away, by the As Moshe Dayan, a leading Israeli politician put it: 'Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you, because those geography books no longer exist; not only do the books Vlilages are nol There is not one single Arab population.
Bank and Gaza, occupied in 1967, are covered, in scores Similarly, the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981, It is estimated that at least 12,000 people were killed and 40,000 wounded in this venture. Another 300,000 were made homeless Beruit devastated. The war in Lebanon has not yet ended.
It is no coincidence then, given such past record, that with the United neighbour Canada, the country not to condemn the British and American attack on Libya. Only six months earlier, in October 1985, eight US made jet fighters of the Israeli Air Force swept over Tunis and bombed PLO headquarters, dead ana Washington called the 'legitimate'. Adventure Was tion. Arabs out!
SOlTO1.
Israel, But the Palestinians States only of Tawfik Nazareth: of orange trees and olive trees Our nerves are of ice leaving But our hearts blaze with fire wounded.
acuull stones Middle Hebrew The is the threats of Mier Kahane, a fascist increasingly popular Knesset member: 'I'm saying what everyone is thinking. There's only one solution. Only one. And it's not a partial soluOut! That's the continue to reaffirm the words, now 20 years old, Zayyad, mayor of • w e ae caadus or loc siæ i leads We sow ideas like yeast in the pastry If we are thirsty we shall wring the We shall eat dirt if we are hungry But we shall never leave And we shall never begrudge our blood Here we have a past A present Here is our future.
The same logic that inspires people to fight against anti-semitism, or against apartheid in South Africa, them also fight against Zionism and the state of Israel . • Quotations from Israeli press, translated from the Hebrew by Israeli Mirror, 21 Collingham Rd, London SW5 ONU.