WRITING AS A JEWISH TRAITOR – AN IMAGINED DISPUTATION WITH MY COMRADES ON ANTI-SEMITISM
Workers’ Liberty, UK
Oct 31 2006
Submitted on 31 October, 2006 – 21:21 :: Left anti-semitism Steve
Cohen contributes to the debate on "left-wing anti-semitism"
For forty five years as a Jew and a revolutionary Marxist I have been
waiting for this debate, this disputation. The time lag it itself
revealing – revealing of the ‘eft’s refusal to get beyond platitudes,
often nasty platitudes, in discussing Jews.
Let me say what this is not about. It is not about Zionism. Rather
it is about the anti-Zionism of fools. And it is about the
anti-imperialism of fools. I speak as an anti-imperialist. Over a
century ago August Bebel, the German Marxist, coined the phrase
"the socialism of fools" to describe those early socialists who
equated world capitalism and world Jewry. In my view much modern
anti-Zionism contains caricatures and myths which are equally foolish
and equally dangerous. They are both a slur on Jews, all Jews, and
do nothing whatsoever to advance the absolutely justifiable struggle
of the Palestinians to become free of Israeli hegemony. And yes
I think anti-Zionism and anti-semitism should be conceptually and
politically kept absolutely apart. However it is the result of the
dominant discourse on the modern left that they have crashed into
each other and joined up. This discourse is joined up anti-politics
at its most grotesque.
What makes these anti-politics even more grotesque is that prior to
the triumph of zionism (and the establishment of Israel) there was
another anti-semitic slur (often found in Stalinist mythology) – that
of the rootless, cosmopolitan Jew, that is the Jew without a country
of his/her own and owing loyalty to no other state. So it is damned
if you do and it’s damned if you don’t. The language of damnation,
of fire and hell water, is itself absolutely appropriate coming from a
Christian-imperialist tradition which is responsible for anti-Semitism
(as it is for Islamophobia)
As I understand it , the emergence of idiotic anti-Zionism as
being dominant within anti-Semititic discourse found within the
(non-Stalinist) left began in earnest after the 1982 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon and the consequent Sabra-Chatilla massacre
(actually committed by Christian Phalangists) . In 1985 I wrote a
small book on the subject of Left anti-Semitism – That’s Funny You
Don’t look Anti-Semitic (which is now posted on the web). This looked
historically at how there has always been a significant current within
the left who have adopted conspiracy theories about Jews. Only a few
pages of this were devoted to the issue of anti-Zionism. Now I feel
a whole library would be insufficient to house what is required.
The real turning point were the Twin Towers destruction and the
subsequent aggression against Iraq, both which have resulted in a
global anti-Semitic backlash. Twin Towers is perceived as a response
(legitimate or illegitimate) to Zionism and the invasion of Iraq
as being manipulated by Zionism. Of course neither of these events
were in any way the responsibility of Jews or of Zionism. But even
if they were they would not justify an anti-Semitic response. Even
the real horrors of Zionism (such as the non-stop invasions of Gaza
and the West Bank) are no such justification This is blaming Jews for
anti-semitism. An outrageous concession to this oldest ,or certainly
the most persistent, of all racisms.
Let me here acknowledge my imaginary opponent in this imaginary
debate. He is Alan Hart who has been advertised as speaking at a
Palestinian Solidarity Campaign meeting in Manchester on the subject
of "Zionism, the real enemy of the Jews". At its best I find such
a title foolish. At its worst I consider it politically dangerous
and in its political danger to encapsulate the worst elements of
foolish anti-zionism. It is the title of your talk that has provoked
the present debate. Zionism is not the real enemy of the Jews. It
is the real enemy of the Palestinians. The enemy of the Jews is
anti-semitism. To confuse the two in this way is precisely to confuse
anti-semitism and anti-zionism…which the left is continually accusing
Zionists of doing! Also if the title is implying Zionism created or
increases anti-semitism then it simply reproduces the myth that Jews
themselves are responsible for anti-semitism. But hallo, Alan. I don’t
take it personally. Only politically. Also I do not claim that you
necessarily hold the totality of the views I describe below. What I do
assert is that the title of your talk fits within the terrible anti
logic of these views which are continually expressed in one form or
another by foolish anti-zionists. As such I see you as a representative
of the latter but I am sure there are far worse representatives.
Allow me to state my position on Zionism as a political movement.
Surprisingly it is doubtless at least in its basics the same
as yours. I am opposed to it. I am opposed to it because of its
racism towards the Palestinians. Because of its dispossession of
the Palestinians. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, bad that you
can tell me about Zionism that I would even start to justify. What
is more I am opposed o the state of Israel. And I am opposed to the
suggested two state "solution". If anything I am for a "no state"
solution – that of a federated Socialist Middle East. I am opposed
to Israel because I am opposed to all exclusivist states. Israel
is an exclusivist state. Therefore I am opposed to it. I am a kind
of anarcho Marxist on this question. I am for the absolute right of
a law of return for Palestinians (and jews). As a diaspora Jew I am
absolutely proud to hold no allegiance to any country on the planet –
including Israel. I am proud to be both a Jewish traitor and a traitor
of the Jews.
In fact I regard the very idea of a Jewish state as quite ludicrous.
Can a state be circumcised? Can it eat kosher meat? Can it be
barmitzvahed? And I feel the same way about the idea of a Muslim
state – such as Pakistan. And I guess this is where we start to
differ. I refuse to exceptionalise Israel. I am against exclusivist
states. But all states are exclusivist, certainly all bourgeois
states. It is their nature. They cannot be otherwise. The British
state is a prime example. It is defined, and defines itself, by its
immigration laws – who can come and who can stay and who has what
rights (if any) dependent on immigration status. Want to define
Israel as an apartheid state? Fine – as long as you are prepared
to do the same for the UK. Want to organise a boycott of Israeli
universities ? Fine – as long as you are prepared to do the same for
British universities , who are up to their necks in the enforcement
of immigration controls. Open your eyes to the fees discrimination
against "overseas" students – who can be deported after extraction
of fees on completion of studies. Open your eyes to the vetting by
university authorities of every single potential employee to ensure
they have the "correct" immigration status. This in addition to
the paid research or training contracts I have been informed some
educational institutions have with the Immigration and Nationality
Directorate. Want to demand the "dismantling" (whatever that means)
of the Israeli state? Great! I’m for the smashing by the workers of
all bourgeois states and their replacement with workers democracy.
This is elementary Marxism. Which is why I am for unity between
Palestinian and Jewish workers against their own rotten (mis)leaders.
What I am not for, what I am against, are clerics waving Kalashnikovs
in their attempt to recreate another theocratic monstrosity. The
exceptionalisation of Israel has lead to the utterly demeaning
slogan on anti-war demonstrations in this country of "We are all
Hizbollah now". Well count me out of that one. Hizbollah is a
clerical organisation which peddles the notorious Protocols of
Zion – the nineteenth century forgery that reiterates the claim
that Jews control the world (which is itself the central tenet of
anti-semitism). It is a clerical organisation whose chief political
and military backer is Iran – whose leader is a holocaust denier. It
is a clerical organisation which ultimately has no interest in a
Palestinian state as such but seeks to recreate the Caliphate ( which
belongs to Islam’s golden age of philosophy, science art and medicine
– an age long past like the age of all religious contstructs). This
exceptionalisation of Israel is anti-enlightenment. It is spiralling
political debate and practice into the most obscurantist period of
history. It is replacing politics by religion of the most mindless
variety (is there any other?). As a traitor of the Jews I am also
an atheist – and therefore opposed to Jewish religious practice in
any guise. But who are paraded (like puppets) at the head of marches
organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign? It is (male) members
of the Naturei Karta sect. Sure these people are opposed to Israel.
Why? Because the messiah, the real one, the Jewish one, has yet to
arrive – and until he arrives then a Jewish state is sacrilege! When he
(these people sure are not looking for a female messiah) arrives then
doubtless Naturei Karta members will be queuing up for their share
of Kalashnikovs, will be training in the art of suicide bombings and
will be promising each other their allocation of virgins in heaven
or other such comparable inducements (an indefinite supply of bagels
and lox?) and may even be piloting planes into the architecture
of Manhatten ("we can do it for you cheap – we use only low cost
airlines"). I joke because the only alternative is to throw up and
be sick. And all this identification with religious obscurantism is
supposed to pass as modern politics? And all this lauding of religious
fundamentalism is supposed to be beyond criticism?
As an opponent of Israel I will not exceptionalise Israel And as an
opponent of Zionism I do not, will not, demonise Zionism.
Demonisation reverts to the popular inspired myths of medieval
Europe. It is the dark side of theology – and ultimately there is
no other side. It is anti secular. It is anti Semitism. Jew as the
hidden hand of history. Jew as the devil. Jew as the killer of god.
The demonisation of zionism simply transfers this to the killer of all
god’s people. It is the twenty first century equivalent of the blood
libel accusation – the Jew as the murderer of Christian children
and the drinker of their blood in order to acquire super-natural
powers.. This fantastic accusation has been responsible for a thousand
years of pogroms. As Lenny Bruce used to joke – don’t the statute of
limitations apply here? Just as the Jew of medieval Europe (and then
Nazi Europe – there is a direct line) was depicted as all powerful, as
being in possession of life’s secret mysteries, mysteries inaccessible
to mere mortals but which determine the life and death (usually death)
of all mortals- so Zionism is depicted as a supra national force,
more powerful politically than any other force on earth, and the
cause of all war – from Iraq,to Afghanistan. Next stop Iran! And
it doesn’t need to this in its own name! It operates as the modern
hidden hand – manipulating the lesser powers of Yankee and British
imperialism. Armageddon in the New York sun? The destruction of the
modern pyramids of the Twin Towers? None of this would have happened if
zionism wasn’t occupying the West Bank. This is the hidden hand twice
removed. And the hidden hand operates under a supposed central zionist
ideological imperative – namely that Jews are a superior people,
the real master race (in fact whatever the undoubted material wrongs
done to the Palestinians, Zionism – unlike many other nationalisms –
does not contain any such premise) If only Zionism would disappear
then peace would reign on earth. The Messiah would have returned
(the Christian one – the Jewish one hasn’t yet been)! I’m tempted
to say to my supposedly secular comrades in a paraphrase of the only
language they appear to understand, biblical language (the language
of the "New", not the "Old", Testament), "Forgive them Marx they know
not what they do- or say"
As an opponent of Israeli nationalism I will not be party to another
calumny. One which puts the Zionist, the Jew, in league with what
might accurately be described as the actual satanic force of our
own age – Hitlerism. – in order to validate the establishment of
the future state of Israel. However show me the evidence of ziomist
co-operation/collaboration (there is a difference) with the Nazis!
I’ve seen it. I believe it. Use Lenni Brenner’s "Zionism in the age
of dictators" as your bible. I’m not going to advocate burning it .
For the sake of my argument – the argument that many unpleasant
zionists said or did many unpleasant things – I’m prepared to believe
every dot and comma (though in practice he gets many dots and commas
wrong). And the rot set in well before Nazism. Quiz time. Who told
a Berlin audience in March 1912 that "each country can absorb only
a limited number of Jews, if she doesn’t want disorders in her stomach.
Germany already has too many Jews"? No, not Adolf Hitler but Chaim
Weizmann, later President of the State of Israel. As an opponent of
immigration controls this is hardly a position I’m going to support.
But then Weitzman was a Zionist, it defined his political essence.
You would hardly have expected him to have said otherwise. I’m not
a zionist and it doesn’t define my politics.
Again there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can say or
evidence that you can produce which will force me into denying the
conduct of some Zionists (and non Zionists) during the holocaust
itself. Why should I deny it if it is true? Am I responsible for it?
Of course not. No more than you are. Did the revisionist (right wing)
Zionist Jacobs Gen collaborate (there is no other word) with the
Nazis in becoming the overseer of the Vilna ghetto in Lithuania? For
sure. Did he have fellow-collaborators who were constituted as the
Judenrat – the local Jewish leadership installed by the Nazis?
Absolutely correct. Did Gens turn in to the Nazis the leader of the
Vilna underground resistance, Yitzhak Wittenberg? Yes. Were there
the equivalent of Gens in other ghettos. No doubt. I can give as
yet another example Adam Czerniakow, President of the Association of
Jewish Artisans, who headed the Warsaw Judenrat. Chaim Rumkowski of
Lodz was perhaps unique in being referred to as "King Chaim" by his
‘subjects’ (the Nazis would have described him somewhat differently)
and putting his portrait on the ghetto post Were Judenrats established
in other ghettos? Definitely. With similar betrayals?
Doubtless . Let us forget for the moment the ghettos (though the
memory of their resistance needs to be preserved). Did Rudolf Kastner,
a leading Hungarian Zionist, do a deal with Adolf Eichmann in June
1944 where the Jewish elite were allowed to escape to Switzerland
for a substantial sum of money – leaving another half million trapped
under the Nazi jackboot, most to perish at Auschwitz-Birkenau? This
is central to Jim Allen’s play Perdition. It happened. Was part of
the deal the concealment by Kastner of Eichmann’s plans to transport
the Hungarian Jewish masses to their murder? This is a matter of
legitimate and genuine historic controversy. But of Kastner I’m
prepared to believe about anything.
Want to mire yourself further in the role of Kastner and similar
figures? Read "Perfidy" by his American contemporary, the Hollywood
screen writer Ben Hecht. OK forget this stuff. Why don’t we talk
about the Kapos? The concentration camp inmates used to control
the other inmates. You needn’t lecture us Jews on the perfidy of
collaboration. We have become experts in it (and resisting it).
What does all this show? What does it prove? One thing it absolutely
does not prove is the one thing that it is continually cited as
proving – that the Nazis and the Zionist formed some unholy bond. I
use the word "unholy" because only the mindset of medieval European
theological obscurantism can do justice to the assertion. The
supposed bond was not just that in some ways both were nationalist
movements. The supposed bond was not just that in some way they both
shared a common aspiration – the Nazis didn’t want Jews in Europe
and the Zionists wanted them in Palestine. Even these assertions
are grotesque caricatures. There was absolutely no symmetry between
Nazism and Zionism. Crucially (again I use the language of the cross
deliberately) the former didn’t want Jews simply out of Europe – they
wanted them out of the world. Indeed given the Nazis mad apocalyptic
view of Jewish domination they wanted them out of the universe. It
does not require anti-Zionists to (correctly) point out that in the
event of a Nazi victory then Palestine would have been no safe haven.
No! The real supposed bond that (mis)informs this discourse was that
both the Nazis and the Zionists wanted the holocaust and in some way
(the way of the hidden hand) they actually joined together in creating
it – the Nazis because they hated/despised/feared Jews and the Zionists
because they were prepared to go to any lengths/sink to any depths to
see created a Jewish state. Once more I can only scream out against
such an assertion "Forgive them they do not know what they say".
Like all accusations of Blood Libel the idea that the Zionists were a
party to engineering the holocaust is a lie. Simply that. A lie. But
then Jews are used to being assailed with lies – not least in respect
to the holocaust. What about the lie that Jews went like sheep to
their slaughter? Kind of misses out on the fact that until 1944 the
only civilian uprisings against the Nazis took place in the ghettos –
of which the Warsaw ghetto uprising was only the biggest. The real
truth is the truth of the non-Jewish sheep who observed passively
the bloody construction and then the even more bloody deconstruction
of each ghetto. However the assertion that Zionists were actively
instrumental in the genocide is the biggest lie since the lies spread
by Nazis about the Jews and these were the biggest lies popularised
since medieval Europe. Actually if there were added together all
anti-semitic lies of the last thousand years they probably could not
equate to the accusation that the Zionists wanted/wishes/willed the
destruction of six million of their compatriots in order to realise
their own political project. It is insane. And it is promulgated openly
by people on the left who in my opinion are politically insane. Let me
give you just one example – if only so you can reflect on the origin of
such anti-ideas, such anti-history. In 1988 a certain Ralph Shoenman
wrote his "Hidden History of Zionism" – a title itself deliberately
reminiscent of the supposed Jewish "hidden hand" of history. The book
has a chapter on Zionism and the Jews which itself contains subheadings
which jump from "Zionism and Fascism" to "Collaborating with the Nazis"
to "Embracing the SS" .
This Ralph Shoenman had previously been a founder of the Vietnam
Solidarity Campaign – in which myself and hundreds of thousands of
others asserted ourselves as revolutionaries. Since then Shoenman has
developed more and more bizarre conspiracy views – from who killed
Kennedy to responsibility for twin towers (according to the internet he
believes it was Mosad – the Israeli secret service). Jean Paul Sartre
(who played a central role in the international defence of Vietnam)
is reported to have said that he was so sickened by Shoenman that
he had to gargle after speaking to him. Vomiting would have perhaps
been a healthier alternative. When it comes to the Zionist/fascism
equation I think it reasonable to say you can always judge an idea
by the company it keeps. And I wouldn’t be seen dead with Shoenman. I
don’t think you should either.
So what does it show – the quote from Weitzman , the co-operation or
collaboration or betrayals of the Kastners, the Gens the Rumkowskis?
As a revolutionary Marxist opposed to all these people I’d respond as
follows. First as I’ve already hinted they were Israeli nationalists –
even before Israel existed. And they represented the full continuum
of that nationalism from Left to Right. As such they cut deals,
acted without principle, you name it they did it – just like all
nationalists. It is the nature of the beast. And nationalism – in my
view all nationalism – is a beast – and as such ultimately racist.
The difference is that no other nationalism has been demonised in this
way. And unlike other nationalisms it has its own unique language of
abuse hurled at it. The language is not even racism! It is not even
Israeli nationalism! No! It is Zionism! This is not the Zionism of
diaspora Jewry in its overwhelming support for the Israeli enterprise
(a support which only became the majority position post 1945). No! It
is the language of Zionism as itself the pre-eminent global force –
as the force that literally controls the globe.
Second the idea that Zionism, or all Zionists, or the majority of
Zionists, or all the Zionist leadership, or the majority of the
Zionist leadership, collaborated with the Nazis is pathologically,
clinically, crazy. It is crazy because many of the leading ghetto
fighters were, like it or lump it, Zionists. And they were operating
under their various leaderships (most of whom hated each other –
but again that is the nature of the beast) of left and Right. I’ve no
idea of respective numbers, Zionists, non-Zionists,anti-Zionists. Who
cares? The issue lies not numbers. So Abba Kovner who died in 1987
was a famous Israeli poet. He was a Kibbutznik, a member of the
Israeli left (MAPAM) and the Youth movement Hashomer Hatzir (Young
Guard). He was also a leading partisan in the Vilna ghetto and then
when that struggle was lost in the woods outside Vilna. And after the
war he and his comrades returned to the killing fields in order to
exact vengeance on those Nazis they could find who were responsible
for the holocaust. Hardly a great advert for the thesis that Zionists
co-operated with Nazis in the holocaust. In the Warsaw ghetto uprising
the main resistance force, the ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa or
Jewish Fighting Organization or Yidische Kampf Organizatzion) was a
united front of mainly left wing Zionists such as Hashomer Hatzair
and Poelai Zion and anti-zionist Bundists.
However there was also another group of heroic fighters not associated
with the ZOB for ideological reasons.These were organised within the
ZZW (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy or Jewish Military Union).
The ZZW was in essence the armed (anti fascist) defence squad of the
most extreme Right-wing of the zionist movement -the self styled
Revisionists which post-war found expression in the Irgun (which
was responsible in part for the notorious April 1948 massacre in the
Palestinian village of Dir Yassin) and later spawned Menachem Begin
as Israeli prime Minister in 1977. The fact that the Revisionists
would not have hesitated to have attacked/imprisoned/ murdered those
of us taking place in this disputation is irrelevant to the present
argument. What is relevant is that they fought the Nazis within
Nazi controlled Europe. And of course no-one knows, no-one will ever
know (because it is hard enough to get into the heads of the living
let alone the dead), the number of zionists not affiliated to any
organisation who participated in the numerous ghetto uprisings in the
numerous ghettos. And Zionist participation in all these uprisings
exposes yet another lie – the lie that Zionism views anti-semitism
as some form of historical inevitability, rather like disease but a
disease to which only Jews are prone, which cannot be resisted but
must be accommodated to via the creation of a Jewish homeland which
can then operate literally as a cordon sanitaire.. In fact given
the historic longevity of anti Semitism, given that Jews are often
isolated in opposing it, it often incorrectly has the appearance
of inevitability. However the resistance by Zionists to the Nazis
exposes as a nonsense the notion that inherent within zionism as a
political philosophy is the irresistibility of jew-hatred. I guess
what Nazism shows is that Jews can’t do it ( defeat anti-semitism)
on their own. But at least don’t eradicate from history their brave
attempt to try.
Third there is the question of the actual betrayers – the Kasteners,
the Gens the members of the Judenraat. And the Kapos. Well for myself
I hope I would have joined the resistance and murdered these bastards
where possible. And I hope you would have as well. The closest I got
(and it wasn’t close at all) was pissing on the wall of the former
headquarters of Jacob Gen’s judenrat in Vilna. But this was in 1997
and it was born out of disgust and the need for a piss. As it happens
Kastner was assassinated but only after a long delay – in 1957 in
Israel where he had become a national figure in the Labour Party. The
motives of the assasnation are themselves unclear – whether it was
the anger of the survivor who pulled he trigger (Zeev Eckstein) or
the desire of the secret service to keep secret Kastner’s wartime
role. However an essential point here is that the role played by all
these betrayers was not determined by their Zionist affiliations.
Their Zionism was incidental. So Ben Hecht who condemned Kastner was
himself a Revisionist Zionist. Lenni Brenner, in looking at the roles
of Czerniakow in Warsaw and Rumkowski in Lodz says "They were not,
in any way, authorised representatives of the Zionist movement". In
fact he omits to say that Rumkowski had been formally expelled from
the Zionist movement just prior to the war but for intra party reasons
and there appears to be some historic dispute as to whether Czerniakow
actually was a Zionist. By January 1941, the Zionist parties – General
Zionists, Revisionists, Right Poalei Zion and Hitachdut – had formed a
coalition against Rumkowski. However Brenner then goes on acknowledge
that "Not all the councils (judenrat) were headed by Zionists; some
were headed by assimilationalist intellectuals or rabbis and even,
in one city (Piotrkow), by a Bundist". So what we are seeing here is
not a question of Zionism. It is a question of leadership – or rather
the crisis of misleadership.
What we are seeing here is the co-option of a (relatively) privileged
elite being used to police the mass of the community on behalf of the
Nazi overlords. Don’t you recognise this? Is not this the traditional
modus operandi of the state in controlling its marginalised members?
It didn’t require Nazis to invent it – they just took it to its most
extreme form. Social democratic (ie anti-social, anti-democratic)
Britain is a master of the technique. Ever since the Jewish masses
came here following the 1880s Tsarist pogroms, the British state
has backed and encouraged an intermediate layer (in particular the
self-proclaimed Board of Deputies of British Jews) to control and
depoliticise the community. I have appropriated a Yiddish vocabulary
to describe this process – the process of macherism. A macher is a
self-appointed leader and collectively these Quislings are the tribe
of the macherites. And now is not the British state grooming a Muslim
leadership to take on exactly an analogous role – in particular the
role of controlling and vetting and policing and depoliticising the
angry youth of the community in the name of anti-terrorism? Is not
the Muslim Association of Britain the vehicle for the Muslim machers?
They and the Board of Deputies of British Jews deserve each other. As
individuals some may or may not be prepared to become members of a
future judenrat or muslimrat under a fascist regime. I do not know.
However what I do know is neither are a front for Zionism The
psychology of our modern machers is one where they exist in order to
exercise petty power and accumulate pathetic "honours". They don’t
even recognise themselves for the puppets that they are. Called Cohen
or Khalid? We despise you! But want to become a Sir or a Lord? Well
declare yourself a self-elected leader! Control your own community!
Macherism in Nazi occupied Europe raises far more acute moral and
philosophical issues which foolish anti-zionists simply ignore. The
issues are more acute because the situation was far more grave.
Ignoring them means ignoring the real plight of the Jews abandoned to
their own fate in the Nazi Gotterdammerung. I am not unaware of the
sharp moral dilemmas posed by and for even members of the judenrats –
some of whom did not choose to be members but were forced to do so
by the Nazis. Retrospective moral judgement can become all too easy.
Maybe the Czerniakows and Rumkowskis and all the other machers were
into power and prestige whilst "their" ghettos burned around them.
Maybe they were just into saving their own skins (as though the
Nazis had any regard for their lives! They all died. They were
just commodities). What made them the enemy of the Jews. What made
them worthy of being assasinated was, as far as I’m concerned, for
essentially three reasons. First they were to a greater or lesser
extent continually prepared to surrender Jewish lives. Second they
were only "elevated" to their status in order to disrupt the activities
of the ghetto partisans and to betray the ghetto fighters.
Third they did have a choice, however difficult for those forced
into becoming judenrat members – and this was to join the ghetto
resisters. Again I am quite prepared to accept that there was
often a big difference in the behaviour of the ghetto machers –
and the extent of their moral responsibility differed. For instance
Czerniakow seems to have been the most genuine and tormented of all
these characters. When the mass deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka
death camp began in July 1942 he committed suicide rather than be a
party to them – his suicide note read "I can no longer bear all this.
My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."(in
spite of this Czerniakow was condemned by Emmanual Ringelblum,
the brave historian of the Warsaw ghetto who was executed by the
Nazis ) Moreover I am quite prepared to accept as truthful their own
justifications for their actions. This was that they were actually
trying to save lives . The same justification appears time and time
again – it is better that a thousand should die (or in the case of
Kastner -half a million should die) so that a hundred should survive
(such apologias clearly are inapplicable to the camp Kapos – most of
whom were anyhow not even Jewish let alone Zionists). Personally I find
such an exercise repulsive. Who chooses the thousand? Who chooses the
hundred? But…. where do you stand on this one? Imagine you yourself
or someone close to you were chosen as one of the hundred? What would
you have done? I can’t say what I would have done. Hopefully still
assassinated the macher making the choices.
Because in the end I am one hundred per cent for the ghetto fighters
against the machers. But I don’t know what I would have done if,
for instance, my children had been one of the hundred.. However the
point here is that these people, these machers, were not revolutionary
proletarians. Their world view was not one of resistance, of struggle
,from below. Rather it was one of doing deals from above. So they did
deals. This was their class role, which to paraphrase Shakespeare’s
Malvalio, they were born into, assumed or had thrust on them. So why
expect otherwise? But what is for sure – these deals were not cut in
furtherance of zionism. To assert otherwise is anti-Semitic slander.
On the other hand many of the ghetto fighters were Zionists. So
to assert that Zionism rejects struggle against anti-semitism is
another slander.
So can I ask you another "what if" question? What if you had been a
Jew in Germany/Checkoslovakia/Poland – in fact anywhere in Europe –
after the Nazis first came to power in Germany and then proceeded
to annex/conquer everything around them? Completely isolated by the
historic defeat of the workers movement (thanks to Stalinist betrayals)
what would you have done? And even if you weren’t a Jew then what
would you suggest Jews should have done? For myself I think (depending
where I was living) I would have had to acknowledge that the battle
was lost. Resistance by Jews alone was not going to overturn the Nazi
monster. Like today’s refugees I would have probably sought escape –
and indeed advocated mass escape. Certainly I would not have criticised
those who took this position (tragically they were shown to have been
historically correct). However there was just one problem. Even at
a time when the Nazis may have been prepared to allow such exit yet
every other state in the world was imposing immigration controls
against Jews. There was no escape route available! Leon Trotsky
in his autobiography (My Life) has a chapter entitled "On a planet
without a visa" – describing politically and graphically his attempt
to secure a refugee visa after he had escaped the Soviet Union. Under
the Nazi yoke, or the soon to be impending Nazi yoke, millions were
to find themselves on this earth without a visa. A Jew in Germany
in May 1939? Fancy a trip to Cuba that might even turn into a world
cruise! Then welcome aboard the SS St Louis.
Appropriate initials – SS. A private vessel, the St Louis flew
the Nazi flag. But at least lives will be saved! Except Cuba , in
reneging on a previous promise, refused entry to the passengers. So
did the Dominican Republic. So did the USA. As did every country on
the planet with a port. So the ship turned round – to disembark the
Jews back in Germany. A two-way journey back to hell. Just imagine
it. Some passengers imagined it – and jumped overboard to their
suicide. Others, lead by Aaron Pozner, staged a failed mutiny.
Eventually the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee managed
to generate enough publicity so that Britain, France, Holland and
Belgium took about one quarter each of the 800 passangers. Many of
these who disembarked in the last three countries perished after their
subsequent Nazi takeover. On this planet without a visa for Jews
there was one possibility of flight – to Palestine. Palestine was
then of course under the colonial boot of Britain – which exercised
immigration controls there against Jews there as it did in the UK
itself. However there was the possibility of clandestine help from
other Jews. I would have had no hesitation in seeking refuge there –
or helping others get there. I have been to meetings where I have
been told this was politically wrong. Wrong because it is the role of
socialists to fight oppression where they find it – not flee from it,
and not flee from it even where it is irresistable. Well, that would
avoid all solidarity with today’s refugees. Wrong because it was and is
somehow morally indefensible for a European to assume a right of entry
into a "third world" country. Why? Who wrote this text book? I’m for
a world without borders. A world where in the 1930s what was required
was proletarian solidarity – given by Palestinians as well as Jews –
to those seeking refuge in Palestine. Maybe some or many Palestinian
workers did offer such solidarity. I don’t know the history. But I
also know that as a communist I would have entered Palestine not as a
coloniser but with a communist political programme – the same programme
of Jewish/Palestinian proletarian unity that I advocate today. In the
1930s this would have meant unity against the Zionist leadership,
against the absentee Palestinian landlord class, against the Mufti
of Jerusalem and his open support for Hitler and against the British
occupying forces. What would you have done my anti-zionist friends?
The slanders directed against Zionism, either directly or by
default, are endless. It is impossible to deal with them all. But
here are just more. Some nationalists actually did support the Nazis
politically. Others fought alongside them. Even others were party
directly to the holocaust. However these were not Zionists! The
most vicious and most powerful was undoubtedly the Ustasa movement
which ran the puppet State of Croatia (and many of today’s Croatian
leadership continue to act as Ustasa apologists). And of course
there was the Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni and
his followers. Al-Husayni, a leading Palestinian nationalist, met
with Hitler personally during the holocaust. He was instrumental
in forming specifically Muslim Waffen SS units in the Balkans. The
largest was probably the Bosnian 13th "Handschar" division of over
21,000 men. The list of his crimes appears infinite. But the point
I am making here is that none of this perfidy has ever called into
question the inherent justice of Croation, Bosnian or Palestinmian
nationalism. And I’m certainly not arguing that it should. – as far
as I’m concerned nationalism can stand or fall on its own terms and
these obviously need not be fascistic. What I am arguing is that
the double standards at play are fantastic. Zionism is condemned as
illegitimate for somehow supporting the Nazi enterprise – which it
never did. Other nationalisms, or other nationalist leaders, which
did support the holocaust are continued to be seen as legitimate.
And this brings me to another highly dubious point. I am being told
more and more that it is politically incorrect to designate this
Nazi genocide of the Jews as "the" holocaust. Instead it should
simply be called "a" holocaust. Personally for myself I do not mind
whether you use a "the" or a "a". All that I am concerned about is
the murder of six million Jews. I am well aware, and equally concerned
about, other genocides both under Nazi Germany (of countless gypsies,
trade unionists, lesbians, gay men, communists, disabled people….),
historically (death through the slave trade, deliberate genocide of
the American Indian, Turkish massacre of the Armenians, Stalinist
atrocities…) and unto the present (Rwanda, Somalia…). Historically
Jews themselves have suffered a thousand years of European pogroms
many of which may legitimately be referred to as holocausts (where
does one finish and the other start?). So for myself language is
irrelevent. Except the challenge to language can itself be highly
political. And what concerns me about the emphasis on refering to
what happened to Jewry under the Nazis as "a" holocaust is the hidden
accusation that Zionists have somehow magnified, exaggerated, inflated
(as though any of this were possible) what happened to Jews in order
to justify the creation of an illegitimate entity – Israel.
At the same time this attack on language seems to be suggesting that
Jews are claiming for themselves a unique victimhood. Well, for me,
this simply reproduces the dark and medieval image of the "squealing"
Jew. I would personally be prepared to argue that what happened to
Jewry under fascism was pretty unique. But so what? The idea that
Jews have been politically or genetically programmed for victimhood is
just another myth. As a Jew I also know something else. Ask all Jews
in the world whether they would surrender Israel if retrospectively
the events under Nazism could be undone -if the/a holocaust could
miraculously be undone. I bet most, maybe all, would gladly give up
Israel. But the/a holocaust did happen. And therefore so did Israel.
The Chairperson has passed me a note – "wind up, only 5 minutes
left". I’ve seen a thousand in my lifetime. Anyhow this debate is only
imaginery. But I’ll conclude on two points which I hope are provocative
(what’s the point of exchanging truisms?). First I take it as axiomatic
that the state of Israel would not have come into existence without
the holocaust – it was the holocaust that legitimised (vindicated) its
need. And its need was as a refuge from anti Semitism. Of course (and
unfortunately) most Jews who sought refuge were not communists. Workers
unity has not(yet) materialised.
The Palestinians have suffered a terrible wrong. However this
terrible wrong should not conceal another truth. This is the uniquely
contradictory nature of Zionism – unique because as far as I can see
it exists no where else. In fact Zionism contains within itself its
own contradiction. And it is this contradiction which renders it such
an emotional as well as political firecracker (I know of no other
political area where the emotions get raised so high on both sides).
On the one hand Zionism is undoubtedly, unquestionably racist towards
the Palestinians. Which is why I’m an anti-Zionist. On the other hand
it is seen, and I think correctly seen, by most Jews as anti-racist.
It is anti-racist in that it was and is a response by Jews to extricate
themselves from the racism of anti-semitism. Maybe not your way of
fighting racism. Maybe not mine. But anti-racist nonetheless.
And the majority of Jews in the world today view Israel as a
"bolt-hole" were Nazism to arise again. It is in response to this
political contradiction that I have started to assume the somewhat
novel self-description of being an "anti-zionist Zionist". I am an
anti-zionist like no other (maybe I exaggerate) in that I refuse to
accept anti-zionist myths and untruths. I am a Zionist unlike no
other (here I don’t exaggerate) in that I am opposed to the state
of Israel. The only way out of this contradiction – a political
contradiction not one of my personal pathology – is the unity of
Palestinian/Jewish workers within Palestine/Israel combined with a
relentless fight against anti Semitism internationally.
My final point is to emphasise my role as a traitor. I no longer see
any point in being Jewish. And I aim to give up on it. Not that I feel
bad about being a Jew. Just the opposite. Rather I want to become
the sort of Jew the anti-Semites warn us against. The cosmopolitan
of no fixed identity. .And I hope you are willing to surrender your
own tribal/ethnic/nationalist/religious identities allegiances. Join
me as a traitor to your own traditions. Become cosmopolitans! What
I mean by this is that the one phenomenon which in my experience
renders this whole debate impossible is communalism.
It is the communalism which says (if you are Jewish) – Jew right
or wrong. Or if you are Muslim it says – Muslim right or wrong (or
if you are Christian it says – fuck you two suckers, we always win
anyway). Let me tell you a terrible but true and recent story. I read
of a Jewish couple in ,I think, London that adopted a child. This
was a right-wing Zionist couple. A couple who raised the child to
be explicitly racist about and towards Palestinians. When the child
grew older he went on a voyage of discovery in search of his birth
parents. He discovered them. They were Muslims. And anti-Semites. He
has now become an anti -Semite. In the face of this nonsense I
want to become unJewish – a person of the world. However to become
unJewish means first working through a Jewish identity in order to
unidentify.. It is all I know. It is my bedrock. The positive image I
have is bouncing on a trampoline called "Jewish". I bounce higher and
higher until one day I bounce beyond the power of gravity and become
a free-floating human. We should all try it – Jews, Muslims whoever.
It sure would make the world a far more energetic place.
Of course this notion of divestment of identity through self-volition
is on one level playing with paradoxes. But they are politically
important paradoxes. I am constantly shocked by meeting Jewish
chauvinists (Jews right or wrong) or Muslim chauvinists (Muslims
right or wrong) when their political positions come solely from
accident of birth. Again the allusion to trampolines is a fantasy,
an image. But (unlike the preposterous notion of yogic flying)
I think that politically it is a significant image. However can
I bring it back to earth with a very political suggestion. We all
agree that anti-semitism and anti-Ziomism should be separate. I have
tried as best I can to show that unfortunately they now have become
so intertwined as to appear inseparable. The real political task –
and one which should unite us all – is to separate them once again. I
think that paradoxically the only way to achieve this is to bring
together the two issues that underlay both – that is the struggle
for Palestinian liberation and the struggle against Jew hatred. I’m
suggesting a solidarity movement be built on this basis. In my view
such a movement would by definition exclude those across the present
huge "communal divide" who adopt either an "Israel right or wrong"
or "we are all Hizbullah now" positions. It would challenge the
Islamaphobes and the anti-semites (many of whom exist outside the
present communal divides) It would allow for the freeing up of the
debate in the streets and not just in meetings like this.
In conclusion can I quote another story which may or may not be true.
It concerns Noel Coward, the very English actor and playwrite. Who
was gay. And apparently an anti-semite. He had a lesbian friend. Who
was also an anti-semite. At the end of the war there was discovered
and released a "black book" the Nazis had prepared. This named those
who would be first exterminated on a successful invasion of the UK.
Of course the majority were Jews. But it also included Coward and
his lesbian friend. And it is she who is reputed to have said to him
"Darling – you wouldn’t believe who we would have been seen dead
with". I’ve thought for a long time what this means. And of course
what it means politically is the need for unity. Political unity.
Unity in struggle against reaction of all sorts. Without unity we are
all eventually doomed to enter into the pages of the next black book.