Letter: The Future of Palestine (1935)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

This letter was in response to a two part article that appeared in the July and August 1935 issues of the Socialist Standard.

The Future of Palestine

Amhurst Road, E.8,

August 25th, 1935.

The Secretary,

The Socialist Standard, 

42, Gt. Dover Street,

S.E.1.

Dear Sir,

Kaye and Scrutator have gone to great lengths and to a good deal of trouble to show the fallacies of Zionism and the utter uselessness of a Jewish State. In their eagerness to “prove” their theories they have written quite a number of words, quoted a lot of phrases torn from their context, said quite a lot of irrelevant (and shallow) things, but have not given one single and valid reason why the Jewish people, out of all other peoples who inhabit this unhappy earth, should not possess a country of their own, where they should be able to lead a normal national life, unhampered and unhindered by the tremendous forces which, everywhere, make Jewish life a burden and an encumbrance.

In their quotations referring to conditions in Poland, they show that prominent Jewish employers refuse to employ Jewish labour. In a Jewish State this would, of course, be automatically impossible. On the other hand, they blame the Zionist authorities for disqualifying Jews from membership from the Z.O. who do not employ Jewish labourers! This | is only one glaring example of the shallowness of your writers.

There are many more. “Many Jewish workers in Germany,” they state, “knew the terrors of unemployment long before the coming of Hitler” | (does this mean that Hitler is, after all, not such a bad fellow?). Precisely so. Only that this fact, which also refers to Poland and many other countries, proves conclusively how necessary it is for the Jewish people to have a country of their own, where they will not be subjected to unemployment because they are Jews, and where, since your scribes seem to be so deeply concerned about the religious requirements of the Jewish workers, a Jewish Government will impose Saturday as a day of rest.

One does not know whether it is sheer stupidity or malice when your writers assert that "in the more developed capitalist countries, conditions are not so favourable for the growth of anti-Semitism.” In view of what has been happening in one of these “more developed capitalistic countries”—Germany —where even the “joint control of huge undertakings by Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists” does not tend to “weaken racial prejudice,” one must be utterly blind or foolish to state that there “is little danger from pogroms in advanced capitalist countries,” when for 2½ years there has been one continuous, incessant and intensive-pogrom of the most efficient and gigantic variety, and where Jewish capitalists, middle-class people and Jewish workers alike have been mercilessly and ruthlessly ousted from their homes and positions and are prevented from earning a living and doomed to certain death and extinction. The same process, only not so thorough, goes on in Poland and in Rumania, and elsewhere, where the ruling and capitalistic class are not at all afraid that anti-Jewish “riot and bloodshed would upset the delicate mechanism of capitalist trade and finance.”

“Even in Germany,” your scribes console us, “at the height of the Nazi triumph, there has not been a pogrom of a Czarist character.” Is then a pogrom less beastly and cruel because it takes place, like in Germany, not in the open market-place, but in the concentration camp or in the subterranean passages of the Brown Shirt Headquarters? Or are all the reports contained in the Brown Book and in the hundreds of newspapers mere figments of the imagination, and the result of what Hitler and his gangsters call “Greuel-propaganda” ?

As to the unlikelihood of anti-Jewish riots in a city like London, perhaps I may refer your scribes to what happened in a “city like Berlin” only a week or two ago, on the Kurfuerstendamm, where “valuable property in which many non-Jews are interested” exists, and where the police had no desire to “keep such a mob in hand.”

The extremely complicated Jewish problem is not at all safe even in the hands of the working classes. In Germany and in Poland, Rumania and elsewhere, the working classes are the first to destroy Jewish property and mutilate Jewish lives, and we have even read in the London Daily Worker that the slaughter of Jews in Palestine in 1929 was the rising of the Arab masses against Jewish exploitation. Jewish exploitation by 65 poverty-stricken Talmud students in the ”Yeshibah” of Hebron! We have also seen how a Labour Government, then in full power, instigated a slaughter of 150 Jews in Palestine in August, 1929, how that Government treated the all Jewish demand for protection with the greatest and cruellest callousness, how that chief culprit, Lord Passfield, an avowed Socialist, and then in charge of the Colonial Office, has, as a result of the ghastly slaughter by Arabs of Jews, punished the Jews, curtailed their rights, suppressed their aspirations, and rewarded the Arab murderers, extended their rights and encouraged them in their devilish designs. It was that very Socialist who said that he bad no sympathy with the aspirations of the new generation of working Jews, but that he understood and sympathised with the old, the pious, i.e., the idle, Jews! So much for the safety of the Jew under a Labour Government. That Labour Government, too, was unable, or unwilling, to “keep such a mob in hand,” and allowed the iniquity to go unpunished. The Mufti, that arch-murderer, is still a persona grata with the British authorities.

It will thus be seen that there is no remedy for the Jewish problem except a Jewish State. It has long been recognised that all classes of Jews not only suffer in common with all classes of humanity, but that they are subjected to very special—and inevitable —sufferings and persecutions which are alone the result of their being a pariah among the nations for the last nineteen centuries. All attempts to solve this vicious problem have so far failed. As a Zionist theoretician puts it: “To be robbed as a Jew is equally humiliating, equally hurtful to the self-respect of the Jew, as it is to be protected as a Jew/1 Judeophobia is an hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and anti- Semitism is based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind.

No people, generally speaking, has any predilection for foreigners. This has its ethnological basis and cannot be brought as a reproach against any people. But the Jews, more than any other people, are subject to this dislike. Every foreigner is more or less respected because he can repay in his own country with the same coin. The Jew, alone, because he has no country. remains the stranger “par excellence.” He remains a refugee always, and who is the refugee to whom a refuge cannot be refused ?

The real panacea for the Jewish problem, and the only one, is and remains a Jewish State. And in that State, according to the best Jewish and Zionist traditions and teachings, there shall be “one law for the citizen as well as for the stranger that dwelleth in its gates.”

I am, Sir,

Yours faithfully,

Jacob Sarna.

Reply.

It is a pity that Mr. Sarna offers no evidence to support his accusation that we have torn phrases from their context in our anxiety to misrepresent the Zionist position. Our correspondent, evidently, does not share our eagerness to "prove” things.

The attitude of our critic is that of a nationalist. He writes about Peoples. We analyse society in terms of classes. To him the Jewish "problem” is the problem of the Jewish people. To us all problems are to be examined in the light of working-class interests. A considerable divergence of opinion is expected in these circumstances.

We should be glad to learn more about this “normal national life" from which Jews are debarred. May we remind Mr. Sarna, that in the United States of America, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, according to Senator T. H. Caraway, there were in 1930 1,000 deaths a day from starvation (Daily Telegraph, February 2nd, 1931). There are now about 12,000,000 unemployed, and millions more are in misery and want. Here in England, hundreds of thousands of people are on the borderline of starvation. Surely this is not what Mr. Sarna, and those who think with him, are striving so hard to attain? We are afraid it is. Palestine must be developed on capitalist lines, they say; then it will produce the same conditions. We suggest that it is precisely these conditions which are the “tremendous forces" that hamper and hinder Jewish workers, and all workers, the world over.

It is obvious that in a Jewish State where presumably the bulk of the population would be Jewish, the employing class would have no option but to exploit Jewish workers, unless they had facilities for importing cheaper labour. What of the cheap negro and continental labour which the American capitalists imported into “God’s own country” ? Industrial history is full of examples of how employers have used “foreign” labour to break down strikes or to lower the standard of living. Furthermore, we did not, as Mr. Sarna suggests, BLAME the Zionists Authorities for any of their actions. We merely gave this information in order to prove that it was unnecessary for the Jews to wait for Sir Oswald Mosley or Adolf Hitler to make them unemployed, as Mr. Smilansky and his capitalist colleagues in Palestine, Manchester, London, and Warsaw have no compunction, when their interests dictate, in sacking their “fellow" Jews. A capitalist, be he Jewish or British, in London or in Jerusalem, has as his first consideration, the making of profits.

Mr. Sarna objects to Jewish workers being unemployed because they are Jews. We go further. We object to Jewish workers, and all workers, being subjected to unemployment because they are surplus to the needs of capitalist industry. Our argument is that the overwhelming majority of unemployed Jewish workers are such because they are privileged to enjoy some of the blessings of our “normal national life.” This is not a defence of Hitler. It merely proves that Hitler and other individuals are not responsible for the existence of unemployment. Why Mr. Sarna believes we are deeply concerned about the religious requirements of Jews, is a mystery yet to be solved.

Our correspondent betrays his ignorance of German political conditions, and we must advise him to make sure of his facts before he again rushes into print. One of the reasons for Hitler’s advent to power is that the German workers had not yet become accustomed to the altered political conditions since the setting up of the capitalist republic after the War. There are also millions of small property owners, peasants, and petty proprietors of workshops in Germany, and these people are very susceptible to anti-Semitic propaganda. Large areas in Germany, are as yet, relatively untouched by industrial development. Mr. Sarna should also keep in mind that most of the Nazi victims in concentration camps are political prisoners, and in view of the support given by numbers of Jews to the Social Democratic Party, it is not surprising to find some of them there together with Communists and Catholics. There is one other point; Mr. Sarna's attitude, and that of other Jews, to this vexed question of brutality and violence, is peculiar and rather limited. They fume with indignation over the atrocities of Hitler, but are strangely silent when the name of Mussolini is mentioned. Marshal Pilsudski, the late dictator of Poland, well known as a pogrom-inciter during and immediately after the War, was lauded to the skies in the Jewish Press on his death. Our sympathies are much larger than Mr. Sarna’s. We also sympathise with the workers who are ill-treated for their political views. Nor would the establishment of a Jewish State on Revisionist lines safeguard the Jewish workers from brutalities at the hands of their “brother” Jews. In order to show how closely the Revisionist organisation is modelled on Fascist lines we shall give a further quotation. In the " Blue-White papers, 1935," published by the Revisionists, there appears a short account of the brown-shirted Revisionist youth organisation, the Berit Trumpeldor. The following are some clauses from their “ Heptalogue ” : —

(1) The Jewish State as the purpose of your own life.

(2) “ Monism ” in the sense of rejecting all subservience to slogans not connected with the Jewish State, especially that of the “ Class War ”

(4) The duty of self-defence, and readiness to join a Jewish Legion should necessity arise . . .

As regards the destruction of valuable property in the streets of Berlin some weeks ago, the “valuable property” destroyed consisted of some broken windows, tables, chairs, crockery, and some smashed windscreens (see Jewish Chronicle, 19/7/35).

We do not understand why Mr. Sarna should have brought The Daily Worker, Lord Passfield, and the Labour Government, into the discussion. Mr. Sarna must know that we are opposed to the Communist Party and the Labour Party. It is absurd of Mr. Sarna to try to foist responsibility for The Daily Worker's nonsense, and the Labour Government’s colonial policy on to the Socialist Party.

Therefore we are on unassailable ground when we urge the Jewish workers not to waste their energies struggling for something out of reason, and which, if achieved, would confer very doubtful and dubious advantages on them, and urge them to assist us in the task of establishing Socialism. The disabilities they suffer as Jews are inextricably bound up with the far greater disabilities they suffer as members of the working class.

Mr. Sarna believes that anti-Semitism is based upon an “inherited aberration of the human mind.” We contend that anti-Semitism in the modern world is mainly a smoke screen used by nervous sections of the ruling class in order to distract the minds of the workers, and to cover the class struggle. It is a means of diverting class-antagonism into racial hatred, and of splitting the workers into warring groups. By trying to fool the workers with fairy stories about the intrigues of secret councils of Jews planning to overthrow all Christian states; of conspiracies of “Jewish” capital, it is hoped to discourage revolutionary ideas. Anti-Semitic propaganda can flourish best where there is an inexperienced and uninformed working class. The only real solution for the Jewish problem is the spread of Socialist knowledge, which teaches the workers that the main struggle is between worker and capitalist. It dispels the illusion, fostered by Zionist and anti-Semite alike, that racial and national distinctions are of concern to the workers.

The spread of Socialist knowledge will bring nearer the day when we can say good-bye to capitalism, and build up a Socialist system of society, which will involve the ”emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.” Instead of this, Mr. Sarna offers to Jewish workers something which will not bear a moment’s examination, as can be seen from the opening paragraph of his letter. He asks why the Jewish people, out of all other peoples who inhabit this unhappy earth, "should not possess a country of their own.” Note these words, “possess a country of their own.” We challenge Mr. Sarna to show us how it will be possible for Palestine to be possessed by the Jewish people, in view of the fact that it is to be run on strictly capitalist lines, which means, of course, that it will be monopolised by the capitalist class, like all those other countries at which Mr. Sarna casts such envious eyes, but which he himself dubs “unhappy.”

Kaye & Scrutator

Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo! column from the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s said that one person’s death is a tragedy, a million deaths merely a statistic. Apparently a million is not enough when the sky fairy promised you some real estate three thousand years ago.

An August BBC report from the occupied West Bank settlement of Havat Gilad featured a Jewish/Zionist lawyer who was quite open about his genocidal tendencies. Speaking of the retribution he would like to see visited upon Palestinians following an Israeli death, he named four Palestinian villages which have been the subject of various attacks by the Israeli settlers and said that ‘we need to kill all the people’ in them. The reporter asked him a question about the equivalence he was putting on Jewish lives and Palestinian lives and he responded that one Jewish life is worth ten million Palestinian lives.

Whilst the compilers of the Hebrew bible went the whole hog; a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand and a foot for a foot (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21), even they didn’t go that far.

Questioned further about Palestinian residents in the West Bank, ‘Shimon laid out three options: live quietly under Israeli rule and ownership of the land; voluntarily emigrate to other Arab or Muslim nations; or “if you don’t want to make peace with us, and you don’t want to get out, I don’t have a choice: I must kill you, and I kill you all,” he said’. So, submit, leave or die.

There was not an opportunity in the report fully to assess the mental state of the interviewee. We think it is fair to state that religion causes strange reactions in people. This person would seem unaware of the caution, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

From one extreme to another

In August at The Big Church Festival, a person was killed and others were injured when a large wooden sign collapsed. This incident prompted a response from the Archbishop of Canterbury who said, ‘she was “sad and shocked” to hear about the fatal incident’. She was also going to do lots of praying for various people involved. “May the God of comfort and healing be with them all” she said.

***

John Donne’s poem, No Man Is An Island, relates a belief that we are all interconnected and the death of one person, let alone a million or ten million, ‘diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.’ The first reaction many would have had would have been to laugh at the irony of a committed Christian being struck down in that circumstance. You were taking the Michael there god weren’t you? We would have felt sorry and diminished afterwards no doubt.

***

Lastly, reported by the BBC in September, was that ‘St Paul’s Cathedral has signed a four-year deal with the London nightclub Fabric to stage music events inside the building’. Finally, some rational use of the building.

DC

Socialist Forum: A Question about Zionism. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

March 7th, 1932.

The Editorial Committee,

Socialist Standard.

Dear Comrades,

As a young Jewish worker, I accept the general principles of the S.P.G.B. But, as I am Jewish I have to bear a double load; both the load of exploitation and the load of anti-semitism. Not only do I have to work and sell my labour-power, but I am forced to have many disadvantages which non-Jewish comrades do not experience. What are the Jews to do? Persecuted as they are, and with the prospect of Socialism being very remote, is it not wise of Jewry all over the world to set up a “National Home” in Palestine.

True it is that I will be exploited in Palestine just as well as in England. But in Palestine I could escape anti-Jewish persecution. The German Jews, now threatened by Hitler, would have nothing to fear from him. The Jew-baiting in Polish Universities would cease. Thus, in my opinion, it is essential for the Jews to have a National Home, under Capitalism.

I trust that you will answer my statements in the next issue of the SOCIALIST STANDARD, as this is a serious problem. Perhaps you could explain the causes of anti-semitism.

Yours fraternally,

“JEWISH WORKER.”

Reply

Our correspondent says that he accepts the general principles of the S.P.G.B., but his letter shows that this is not correct. The argument, “Socialism being very remote, therefore let us work for something else,” is the excuse used by every reformist opponent of Socialism and is a repudiation of S.P.G.B. principles. Socialism will only cease to be remote to the extent that the workers strive for Socialism instead of supporting Zionism and other movements which leave capitalism intact.

A basic principle of the S.P.G.B. is that the abolition of capitalism is the only means of solving the social problem that is common to all workers. Acceptance of our principles carries with it a willingness to concentrate on the basic cause and to push into the background the minor and sectional problems.

The hostility shown by some non-Jews towards some Jews is one of many such minor and sectional problems. It is a continuation of traditional hostility based mainly upon economic causes. Non-Jewish traders found themselves in competition with Jews often more successful than themselves. Christians were for long prevented by the Church from practising usury. Consequently their antagonism towards Jewish traders and moneylenders tended to take the form of antagonism towards Jewish people in general. In some countries, especially where non-Jewish peasants still find themselves forced to incur debts to moneylenders, some of whom are Jewish, this antagonism still continues. It is sometimes deliberately fostered by interested parties in order to cloud the main issue.

But, speaking generally, it is not true that Jews, as such, are subject to any material disability. Can it be said in any real sense that the Readings, Monds, Rothschilds and others of their social position need a “National Home” in Palestine? So little is that the case, that they take good care not to go there.

Our correspondent does not say what are the “many disadvantages” from which Jews suffer and from which non-Jewish workers are free. The illusions of Zionists on the one side are balanced on the other by the fixed belief held by many non-Jewish workers that the world is in pawn to the Jews. The complaints of some Jews that they are at a disadvantage compared with non-Jews are echoed by the Arabs in Palestine, but in their eyes it is the Jew who is the privileged and favoured interloper, and the Arab is the bearer of the “double burden.” Similar complaints are heard about the favour shown to Freemasons, to members of various Christian sects, and to adherents of certain political parties. Then there are the complaints of the national minorities—the Austrians in Italy, the Germans in Poland and Belgium, the Flemish in Belgium, the negroes in U.S.A., and the Scots and Welsh in Great Britain..

There is a certain amount of substance in all such grievances voiced by individuals and groups of workers, but they pale into insignificance by comparison with the subject position of the working class in their relationship with the capitalist class.

While all of these groups fight each other and work for their separate minor aims, the capitalist system will remain secure.

There are many weaknesses in the Zionist case. It is an impossibility for all the Jews of the world to settle in Palestine even if they wish to do so. The existence of the Jewish State raises another grievance which takes a racial and religious form—that of the Arabs and Palestine Christians.

The reference to the persecution of Jews by the German Hitlerites shows up another flaw in the argument, for the Hitler movement has developed since the setting up of the Jewish State in Palestine.

Ed. Comm.

Socialist Sonnet No. 234: Patriotic States of Mind (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

 

D. A.

Editorial: From Comintern to Cominform (1947)

Editorial from the November 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist International, formed in 1919 at a time when Lenin and his associates expected the workers of all the leading countries to place Communists in power, continued in existence as an instrument of Russian foreign policy until it was wound up in 1943, presumably because, with problems of the peace settlement ahead, the Russian Government thought it tactful to remove an organisation that was at that time not very useful but was a source of irritation and alarm to the Allied governments.

On October 5th, 1947, the birth of an Information Bureau was announced (named by opponents the “Cominform”), representing the Communist parties of nine countries, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Russia and Yugoslavia. According to the statement issued by the new group (Daily Worker, 6/10/47) it represents “the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, the principal aim of which is to undermine imperialism, strengthen democracy and liquidate the remnants of Fascism.”

It will “elaborate an agreed platform of action” directed against “the main forces of the imperialist camp – against American imperialism, its British and French Allies, the right-wing Socialists, in the first place in Britain and France.”

Again according to the Daily Worker, the communiqué issued by the Cominform “names Attlee, Bevin and Leon Blum among the ‘treacherous leadership’ of the Socialist movement,” It is explained by the Russian Communists that the new organisation “by no means signifies the restoration of a global Communist organisation with a centralized leadership, such as the Communist International represented at the time” (Daily Worker, 11/10/47), but it is evident from the declared objects that the aim is just the same, that of smashing Labour parties as a step towards the conquest of power by the Communist parties in the various countries.

What should be the attitude of workers to the new organisation? Are its aims and methods deserving of working-class support? Is it genuinely a body aiming to defend democracy, to oppose capitalism and imperialism, and to work for triumph of Socialism?

Let us first consider who engineered its formation by what methods. It was formed at a secret meeting in Warsaw in September, held on the initiative of Soviet Russia. The meeting was kept secret, not only secret from the openly capitalist press and capitalist parties of the world but secret also from the working class of the world, including the rank and file members of the Communist parties of the nine countries. The formation of the new body, like the dissolution of the old one in 1943 was decided over their heads and with their knowledge. The rank and file and even the leaders of the British Communist Party only learned of it after its secret decisions had been decided upon. The meeting, moreover, was called by Russian Communist Party officials, acting, of course, on the instructions of the Russian Government. In that country the Government is in the hands of the Communist Party, the membership of which numbers only a very small minority of the population. No political party is allowed to exist except the Communist Party, so that there is no political party to put up candidates in opposition to Communist Party candidates at elections. When, therefore, the Communist Party in this or any other country declares its support for “democracy” that is what they mean by democracy.

From the Socialist and working-class standpoint these dictatorial organisations, arriving at decisions at secret meetings, are wholly evil. Their activities are the antithesis of democracy and their work can only hinder the growth of a genuinely democratic, working-class Socialist movement.

There are, it is true, certain differences between the new organisation and the old. Instead of claiming world-wide scope it is at present limited to nine countries, most of them so placed that the Russian Government is in a position to extract direct and powerful influence on these governments with or without the camouflage provided by the Cominform. Its headquarters are to be in Belgrade, not Moscow, which suggests that the Russian Government will be able whenever it wishes to do so disclaim direct responsibility. As far as influence over the Communist Parties themselves is concerned the actual form taken by the new organisation is not of much account because the Communist Parties invariably toe the line laid down by Russia. They did so under the Comintern and continued to do so when the Comintern was officially abolished.

How little the Communist Parties and the Communist leaders in various countries are able to pursue a line of their own choosing was shown in 1939. The British Communist leaders came out in support of the war against Germany but immediately had to recant, make abject apology, and fall into line with Russian policy. It has been shown again by the Russian Government’s decision to support Jewish immigration and partition of Palestine. In the past the British Communists opposed it, now they must reverse their policy. Speaking in the House of Commons on June 19th, 1936, Mr. Gallacher, Communist M.P., declared: “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He said that the Jews “have been fooled by their politicians who, under the leadership of the Zionist movement and who are the agents for British Imperialism against Arab masses.” He described the revolt of the Arabs against the attempt to set up a Jewish state as “a thoroughly justifiable revolt. It demands the end of immigration of a character which threatens the existence of Palestine.” Likewise a pamphlet published by the Communist Labour Monthly opposed partition as a scheme of British Imperialists. (“Who is Prosperous in Palestine?” 1936, p. 41.)

The Communist Parties are merely the propaganda agents for Russian governmental policy. What they is not a consistent policy based on principle but a policy based on the day-to-day tactics of the Government in its fight against the other imperialist powers.

In home policy there is the same want of principle. They alternatively oppose the Labour Party, saying it is a capitalist party, and support it, saying is a socialist party. In 1929 they described nationalisation as “State Capitalism” and the Labour Party as the “third Capitalist Party” (“Class Against Class,” p. 8), yet now pretend that nationalisation is socialism and ask the Labour Government “how is it that only one industry has been nationalised?” (Daily Worker, 13/10/47.) In 1939 they took the initiative in asking Mr. Churchill to form a National Government along with the Labour and the Liberal parties. When this was done they attacked the Labour Party for associating with Churchill! Then in 1941 when Russia was invaded they supported Churchill and now again discover that he has all along been and enemy of the workers.

The future Socialism depends on the growth of democratic, socialist organisations. The new Cominform, as well as the Communist parties that are at present not affiliated to it, are the enemies of both Socialism and Democracy.

Palestine: the failure of Jewish nationalism (2025)

From the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s happening in Gaza and Palestine today shows the failure of the Zionist project, conceived of towards the end of the 19th century, to set up a separate state for Jews.

The Zionists preached that what Jews, including Jewish workers, should do is not simply integrate into the states in which they found themselves but agitate for a separate Jewish state — somewhere, anywhere. Uganda and Madagascar were considered at one point. In the end, on religious and ancient historical grounds, the Zionists decided that this should be Palestine, then a province of the Ottoman Empire.

Arguably, it was a crazy project from the start. To settle people from Europe in another part of the world, where the people and their rulers were unlikely to accept this, was a recipe for trouble. But at the time — the end of the 19th century — this would not have seemed so crazy, as it was common practice for European states in a position to do so — Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and belatedly Italy and Germany — to settle Europeans in various other parts of the world, mainly Africa, on land traditionally occupied by locals.

The idea of a separate state, to be a safe home for Jews, seemed particularly attractive after the experience in WW2. Israel was to be that safe home. But it could never be. Israel was established as a recognised separate state in 1948 but was opposed by the local rulers who immediately went to war to try to prevent it but lost, resulting in hundreds of thousands of the local population being expelled from where they lived.

Ever since, Israel has sought ‘secure frontiers’. After winning the Six-Day War In 1967, again initiated by the rulers of surrounding states, Israel annexed the Golan Heights from Syria and East Jerusalem from Jordan and occupied the rest of Palestine including Gaza and also Sinai. They later withdrew from Sinai but kept ‘security control’ of the rest, creating a sort of Greater Israel. Following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria last December Israel has occupied more of that country.

The Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023 confirmed that Israel was not in fact a safe place for Jews. And Israel’s response — not an eye for an eye, but 40 eyes for one eye and rising — has made things more insecure, through the growth of anti-semitism, for those Jews who choose not to settle in Israel (most Jews in fact).

So, in terms of providing a safe home for Jews, Zionism has been a complete failure. Jews living outside Israel (most of these are in the United States, as many in fact as are in Israel) are in a much safer position.

Israel may well reconquer Gaza but history suggests that in the long term its present government’s policy of trying to hold down a hostile population larger than the number of Jews living there cannot succeed. It is bound to fail, just as apartheid did in South Africa.

What this shows is that socialists were correct in opposing from the start Zionism and its project. Socialism, not a separate Jewish state, was the solution to problems Jewish workers faced. In the meantime, Jewish workers should integrate into the workers’ movement in the state where they lived. Many did — more in fact than went to live in Israel — and took part not just in the workers’ movement but also in politics generally. Some of the key figures involved in current discussions and decisions about the Gaza war chose this sensible path. For instance, Trump’s special envoy Witkoff, the French President Macron, and Ukraine President Zelensky.

Most of the Leninist left enthusiastically support armed action to abolish the state of Israel. That would just be to continue the senseless cycle of massacres and counter-massacres that have gone on since the first Jews arrived from Europe. Today Israel is where 70 to 80 percent of the Jews living there were actually born. More than half have no family connection with Europe but rather with the Middle East and North Africa, so can hardly be called colonists. It is now just another state, which like all states needs to be captured by the working class to establish socialism and then abolished along with all states, not singled out for abolition under capitalism while all other states remain.

Most of those on the marches — and probably of those expressing support for the banned Palestine Action group — will basically just want an end to the daily killing and destruction in Gaza and are understandably frustrated that nothing is being done about it. For them, ‘free Palestine’ will mean simply that the population there and in the West Bank should be free from the political oppression by the Israeli state that it undoubtedly is suffering. Naturally those oppressed want it to end and socialists obviously sympathise with this. But how to bring it to an end?

Most governments say they favour the setting up of a separate Palestine state alongside Israel. That would certainly end political oppression by the Israeli state for the new state’s subjects but, a relief as that would be, it would not end capitalist exploitation; from that point of view, it would just be another capitalist state and a different ruling class.

In any event, a two-state solution doesn’t seem practicable in present circumstances as, to work, it would require a change of attitude by the rulers — and indeed of most of the Jewish population — of Israel. That is not impossible, but the effort required to bring this about would be better employed in convincing all sections of the working class living in the historic territory of Palestine that they have a common interest in ending their exploitation by uniting to bring capitalism to an end. Even within capitalism they have an interest in there being political democracy, which includes the equal treatment of all the subjects of a state (and indeed of non-citizens living there too).

In the end, the only effective and lasting way out is going to be the ‘no state’ solution, the abolition of capitalism on a world scale and the establishment of a classless, stateless world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources.

Adam Buick

The Future of Palestine - Part 2 (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Union of Zionist Revisionists make clear their capitalist aims for Palestine. They have planned an economic policy which, they say, is the best way of building a Jewish State in Palestine. In their pamphlet, entitled "Basic Principles of Revisionism," we read the following

The constructive period in the life of a State knows only one social commandment—the interests of the constructive work itself to which all other interests—whether of persons, groups or classes—must be subordinated—every class in society must be regarded as a cog in the constructional machine: their class interests must be satisfied when they benefit the State, but repudiated when they hinder the work of upbuilding the State . . .

Shades of Hitler and Mussolini! Are the revisionists ignorant of the State, its history and its functions ? Is the State a mystical entity, above classes, and to which all classes are subordinated? Later on the Revisionists let the cat out of the bag when they tell us what the State is to do in the upbuilding of the new Jewish Society.

Similarly Jewish private capital, and State upbuilding are synonymous; but the payment of interest on private capital is the sine qua non of a supply of capital, hence any resistance to the payment of a legitimate interest on private capital is clearly in opposition to the State . . . 

So here we see that the State is not absolutely divorced from classes and class interest. Obviously, if Jewish capital is synonymous with State upbuilding then it naturally follows that working-class interests are not going to be served by the State. The organised industrial activities of the working class must conflict with capitalist interests, and it will therefore be the function of the State machine, under the control of the Revisionists, to suppress the workers.

Other Revisionist writers make plain their intention to enforce subjection on the Palestine workers in the interest of Jewish capitalists.

Mr. A. Abrahams, in his pamphlet, “What Revisionism Stands For," remarks thus: —

It should be realised that only by assuring investors of the possibilities of profit can capital be attracted. Profitable industry can in no circumstances be associated with philanthropy, but must be in a position to make its way against ordinary competition in the world’s markets. . . .

Further, in their “Blue-White Papers," 1935, the Revisionists emphasise their attitude towards the class struggle.

Conflicts of interests between employers and labour should be settled by “obligatory national arbitration.” By “national” arbitration we mean a permanent board of arbitrators (their italics) nationally and formally elected, and composed of persons known to have no partisan idiosyncrasies (our italics) . . . its verdicts should be final; and both strikes and lock-outs (as well as the boycott of Jewish labour) should be declared treasonable to the interests of Zionism, and repressed by every legal and moral means at the disposal of the nation. . . .

In regard to the “boycott” of Jewish labour, we can be sure that the Jewish capitalists in Palestine will employ the cheapest labour suitable for their requirements, and will give preference to Arab labour if it is cheapest and as efficient.

The Jewish Daily Post (14/5/35) published the following report from Jerusalem: —

According to the Hebrew daily Haaretz, Mr. Smilansky has issued a circular to the Farmers’ Federation, urging them not to purchase shekolim as a protest against the resolution passed at the recent session of the Actions Committee that employment of Arab labour disqualifies a land owner from membership of the Zionist Organisation.

It is clear enough that for the workers Palestine—as far as the intentions of the Revisionists are concerned—is not to differ from other capitalist countries.

Poverty is not a Racial Question

The problem of Jewish poverty in Poland, Germany, England and elsewhere will not be solved by transferring them to Palestine, nor will it be solved by the charity of the Rothschilds and the Melchetts. Poverty is not a racial problem. It is a disability suffered by members of the working class in all parts of the world where capitalism exists, and it will only be removed by the establishment of Socialism.

It has been argued by the exponents of Zionism that the Jewish worker carries two burdens—the burden of exploitation and the burden of persecution. Zionism, it is claimed, will at least remove the burden of persecution. The whole argument is a fallacy. The greatest persecutions experienced by Jewish workers are the persecutions of capitalism. Many Jewish workers in Germany knew the terrors of unemployment long before the coming of Hitler. There are thousands of unemployed Jewish workers in this democratic country and many more thousands almost destitute in America and Poland. In Germany the Jews suffering from the Nazi regime are mainly doctors, lawyers, barristers, teachers, journalists, and those Jews who held prominent positions in the Civil Service. If there are any Jewish workers who dread losing their jobs under a Fascist Government they may be interested to read the following which appeared in a letter from a Manchester correspondent, and was published in a recent issue of the Jewish Chronicle. It refers to Poland.

During the last few years more and more clothing and weatherproof factories have been opened by Jews. Competition has become keener; prices have been cut to the very bone; and naturally the Jewish working man has suffered most. His wages have been reduced to the lowest level. He cannot exist on the meagre wage (often less than he would receive at the Labour Exchange) that he receives at these shops. Not only this, the Jewish-owned workshops have been flooded by Gentile labour from the closed cotton mills. The latter now receive preference in that the workshops are open on Saturdays and Jewish holy days, instead of, as previously, on Sundays. The key positions, too, the managerships and the majority of clerical posts are entirely in the hands of non-Jews (Jews in the office might learn too much of the business!) and an orthodox Jew who refuses to work on Saturday often finds a notice of dismissal in his pay envelope at the end of the week. Many of the owners of these workshops hold treasurer ships and other high offices in our communal institutions. . . . 

Comment would be superfluous. We can only point out to the Jewish workers that nothing better awaits them in Palestine. Capitalism in England has given the workers of this country poverty, and the development of the system in Palestine will bring the same problems for the Jewish workers to solve. As in every other capitalist country, the production of goods will be limited by market requirements, and unemployment is inevitable. The Revisionists can give no guarantee of working class security and well-being.

The advantages of the Jewish workers in Palestine boil down to this. Instead of lining up outside a Labour Exchange in England, they will ask for a “dole” in a Palestinian Labour Exchange. Instead of being exploited in England, they will be exploited in Palestine. No longer will they run the risk of being beaten up by a Nazi hooligan, but they will have the proud privilege of knowing that they are being beaten by Jews in Brownshirts, members of the Union of Zionist Revisionists. (The Jewish Daily Post, 10/5/35, reports an occurrence in Vienna, when Revisionists smashed the furniture and destroyed the papers in the offices of a Jewish youth organisation with general Zionist sympathies, leaving behind them photographs of Dr. Weitzmann and Mr. Ben Gurion—Jewish Labour Leader—with the inscription “Weitzmann and Ben Gurion must hang.”) 

What, then, is to be the solution of the problems of the Jewish workers? We have already said that, in the main, these problems are the normal features of working-class life, poverty, insecurity, and premature death. While capitalism remains these vicious effects cannot be eliminated. Only the establishment of Socialism will remove them, and it will also remove anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic agitation is used whenever it serves the interest of certain sections of the ruling class, just as anti-negro agitation is used in U.S.A.

Anti-Semitism is particularly severe in countries where there is still an ignorant and superstitious peasantry, but in the more developed capitalist countries conditions are not so favourable for the growth of anti-Semitic propaganda. The joint control of huge undertakings by Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists, the more experienced minds of the working class, all tend to weaken racial prejudice. There is also a larger proportion of Jewish workers in countries like England and America than there are in Germany. Even the final card of the Zionists, that a Jewish State in Palestine would afford the Jews security from pogroms can be answered. There is little danger from pogroms in advanced capitalist countries. Capitalism frowns upon civil violence. Anything in the nature of riot and bloodshed upsets the delicate mechanism of capitalist trade and finance. It also disturbs confidence in the ability of the Government to keep order. For example, in a city like London, with its immense population, an anti- Jew riot might easily lead to the destruction of valuable property in which many non-Jewish capitalists are interested, and it would also be extremely difficult for the police to keep such a mob in hand. Even in Germany, at the height of the Nazi triumph, there were no pogroms of a Czarist Russian character.

In conclusion we must emphasise that the problem of the Jewish workers is not the illusory one of preserving their identity as a race, but to protect their interests as members of the working class, in whatever part of the world they find themselves.

Our message to the Jewish workers is no different to our message to any other national or racial section of the working class. We say to them that they should unite with us in the overthrowing of the capitalist system and the building of a new society, wherein they will be allowed to live freely, and in equality.

Kaye and Scrutator.

[Concluded.]

The Future of Palestine - Part 1 (1935)

From the July 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of the Nazi Party to power in Germany, with the subsequent persecution of Jews, has resulted in renewed interest in the Zionist movement.

Zionism first came into existence as a political theory at the end of last century at the time of the Dreyfus case. Before then it had taken, more or less, the form of a religious longing to return to the “Holy” Land. It happened that an Austrian journalist, Dr. Theodor Herzl, had been sent to Paris to report on the Dreyfus affair, for a Vienna newspaper. Dr. Herzl was a Jew who had assimilated the culture and manners of Austrian society, and was greatly removed from Judaism. But the story goes that the Dreyfus case, with its attendant anti-Semitism, stirred him so deeply that he set himself the momentous task of discovering a solution to the Jewish problem. He “discovered” that the Jews are persecuted because they have no country of “their own,” and that the problem would be solved if they could be confined to a certain geographical area. He expounded these views in his book, “The Jewish State,” and declared that the Jews must establish a state of their own, preferably in Palestine. He obtained the support of well-known men like Max Nordau, Israel Zangwill and the French Baron, Edmond de Rothschild, who contributed a large fortune for the cause.

In 1901 the Jewish National Fund was inaugurated, in order to facilitate the collection of money for the purchase of land in Palestine and to assist the settlement of Jews in that country.

The movement grew slowly, but in 1917 Lord Balfour addressed his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, informing him that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine . . .” This aroused the enthusiasm of Jews all over the world, who now imagined that here at last was something worth striving for. It was not, however, till 1921, when the Palestine mandate was finally granted to England by the Allied Powers, that the Zionist movement began to assume a more practical form. Different parties had arisen in Zionism representing a variety of opinions and interests. There were the General Zionists, the Poale Zionists (“Socialists”) and the Mizrachists (religious party).

At about this time Dr. Chaim Weitzmann, the chemist who helped to supply England with explosives during the Great War, was the leader of the World Zionist movement, and he sought to interest prominent British Jews in the development of Palestine. Amongst those whom he visited was the late Lord Melchett, head of the Imperial Chemical Industries. We are told by his biographer, Hector Bolitho (“Alfred Mond, first Lord Melchett”) that Dr. Weitzmann touched some hidden chord in Lord Melchett’s heart, with the result that Melchett visited the “Holy Land.” He was so impressed that, according to his biographer, ". . . he had made a vow that he would amass a fortune of fifteen millions, that he would work ruthlessly, until he had enough money to bring the Jews back to their country . . .” (page 366). He was elected to important positions in the Zionist movement, but we are told that ”. ..  the business man in him caused him to curb his zeal and work cautiously . .. ” (page 369).

There now arose a great deal of dissatisfaction with the administration of the Zionist movement, and the Union of Zionist Revisionists was formed by Vladimir Jabotinsky, assisted by Meyer Grossmann, who claimed that their policy alone was in line with the original Herzlian ideal. Meyer Grossman, however, has since left the Revisionists and formed another party of his own called the "Jewish State Party.”

In 1929 there was a serious Arab uprising, stated to have been caused by a demonstration at the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. Lord Melchett, greatly incensed at the slaughter of his "fellow Jews” in Palestine, poured an avalanche of letters on the Press, and spoke passionately at a huge protest meeting in the Albert Hall. He wrote a letter to Lord Beaverbrook beseeching him to give the support of his Press to the Zionist movement. Hector Bolitho (page 370) quotes this letter to Beaverbrook: ”. . . It ought to be under the India Office, which is used to dealing with Eastern people . . . We might as well say that we must evacuate India because of the Moslem rows there . . . as that we must evacuate Palestine because once in six years there is a week’s trouble . . . We simply cannot evacuate Palestine, for the reason that if we did the Italians would be only too glad to walk in . . . and the French would support them. It would give them command of our flying route to India . . . and one bank of the Suez Canal . . . They would then command a magnificent naval harbour in Haifa, the outlet of what is probably the most important oilfield outside the United States of America—the Mosul oilfield.”

Lord Beaverbrook, however, did not agree with Melchett. He looked on Palestine as a barren, rocky country with little avenue for profit-making But Melchett did not see Palestine as barren and rocky. His biographer tells us (page 371). that Melchett ”. . . had bought hundreds of acres of land; he had seen the Dead Sea concessions and the Rutenberg Electric Power Concession growing from strength to strength . . .”

In view of this we are at a loss to understand whether Melchett wanted 15 million pounds to bring the Jews back to Palestine or whether he hoped to make this sum by bringing them to Palestine!

Revisionist Fury.

The Revisionists and the other sections were furious at this Arab uprising, the blame for which they laid at the door of the General Zionists because of their maladministration. A congress was called and Nahum Sokolow was elected president in succession to Weitzmann. But this did not stem the opposition of the Revisionists, who claimed that Sokolow or Weitzmann represented the same policy. Stormy scenes occurred. The Revisionists hurled unkind epithets like ”Red gangsters” at the ”Socialist” Zionists, who retorted by calling the Revisionists ”Dirty Fascists.” Mr. Jabotinsky tore up his congress card, and together with a large body of Revisionists marched out of the Congress Hall. (Quite recently the Revisionists left the Zionist Organisation completely.) When Lord Melchett died, his son continued to support the Zionist movement. He also holds an honoured place on the Board of Directors of Palestine Potash, Ltd.

Among other prominent Jewish capitalists who support Zionism are Lord Reading, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, Sir Montague Burton and Sir Herbert Samuel. These capitalists feel themselves ”touched” at the plight of their ”fellow” Jews all over the world, and they have contributed large sums of money towards the Zionist movement. Hardly an appeal is made without some of these names, and others equally prominent appearing in the list of donors.

The quest of a country of one’s own would lead some people to believe that the Jews are different from any other race or nation. But Jews, like other races, are divided into two classes, capitalists and workers, and the fact that a Jew is employed.by another Jew does not alter his standing. He is a wage-slave and will be treated as such. No special privileges are conferred on him on account of his religious beliefs, or because of the shape and size of his nose. He is exploited with no less vigour than, for instance, is a Jewish worker employed by a non-Jew, or a non-Jew worker employed by a Jewish capitalist. All capitalists, be they black, white, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, Jew or atheist, exist by exploitation, and it is the workers whom they exploit.

As has already been mentioned, the Zionists represent all types of opinions, and there is even a so-called Socialist Party amongst them. This party is out to build a ”Socialist” country in Palestine for Jews only, but their ”Socialism” is only Labourism—"State ownership,” and the usual stock-in-trade of reform parties. We need not pay much attention to this party and its chimeras. It spends its time in compromising with the General Zionists, and declaring coalitions. It speaks airily about "Marxism” and claims to have set up "Communistic" colonies in Palestine.

Jewish Imperialists.

The party that most concerns us is the Union of Zionist Revisionists, who are the only party which demand a Jewish state in the fullest sense of the word. Palestine to them is not a place where a few thousand Polish and German Jews may find refuge, it is not a spiritual home where Jews may study the Talmud, or attend universities. Palestine must be a Jewish state, inhabited by a Jewish majority, governed by Jews, administered by Jewish civil servants, and “protected" by a Jewish navy, army, air force and police.

In their pamphlet "Blue-White Papers, 1935," they say ". . . we happen to be thoroughly convinced that a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan is not only the best way, but the only way to give the Empire a permanent stronghold on the Mediterranean . . . Many British statesmen fully realise that the whole value of Palestine to the Empire depends on its transformation into a Jewish state . . . Palestine as a Jewish state, surrounded on all sides by Arab countries, will in the interests of its own preservation always tend to lean upon some powerful Empire, non-Arab and non-Mohammedan. This is an almost providential basis for a permanent alliance between Britain and a Jewish Palestine . . ."

But why is it the British Government does not see eye to eye with the Revisionists? The reason is that they have many conflicting aspects to take into account. A movement by the British Government towards the establishment of a purely Jewish state in Palestine would, for example, arouse antagonism from the Arabs. It favours British imperial interests to remain on good terms with the Arabs as well as with the Jews. They are not going to bum their fingers for Mr. Jabotinsky and Co. Again, it is hard to see how a Jewish state in Palestine will make England’s position more secure in the Mediterranean.

Kaye and Scrutator.

[To be continued.]

Letter: Zionism (2006)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Zionism

Dear Editors,

I agree with Howard Moss that the aim should be for articles to give the socialist perspective (Letters, November Socialist Standard). However it is not so unusual for articles to outline some aspect of history or current events and only give reference to the socialist aim in the concluding comments. As socialists we wish to be as well informed as possible. I found Susan Nathan’s book The Other Side of Israel (now available in paperback) both moving and informative.

My concern is that the article (intended as a review) may not fairly represent the book as it only refers to some aspects of its content. For example it does not mention the author’s background. Her father was born in South Africa, the son of Jewish refugees from Lithuania. She is thoroughly aware of Jewish history, including the discrimination suffered by her great-grandfather in Lithuania, and had first hand experience of apartheid in South Africa. The book does not claim that conditions in Israel are identical to those that formerly existed in South Africa – the “petty elements” are absent. As stated in the article the term ‘apartheid’ is applied in a specific sense and its use is only emotive if you do not agree that Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens.

Pat Deutz

Letter: Anti-semitism (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-semitism

Dear Editors.

Your September cover and Coleman's Holocaust 2 article discredit your journal and your party — with whose aims I have been largely in agreement for a long time.

I prefer not to believe that Coleman's article was intentionally anti-semitic. But the fact remains that it is no different in tone or choice of language from those articles in scores of newspapers and journals throughout the world, whose content on the Israel-Lebanon conflict has been characterised by thinly disguised hostility to Jews.

Like Coleman, the writers of those articles are ever quick to remind readers of the involvement of prominent Israelis in proscribed organisations. "Thug" is the standard word used to describe them, usually prefixed by "Zionist". Zionists are largely "trigger-happy", except for the handful of British and Israeli soul-searching Zionists whom they all claim to know.

Like the press everywhere, the Standard. via Coleman, finds the Lebanon war more horrifying and more horrible than other wars. "Not for a long time", writes Coleman, "has the horror of war been so evident as in Lebanon." True. I suppose. Since, until the war in Lebanon, neither Press nor Television were so public-spirited as to show readers and viewers the true consequences, in human terms, of war. I daresay that there were a few horrors in the Falklands that we will never be shown — though that war was practically simultaneous with the one in Lebanon. Come to that. I have heard some pretty hair-raising stories in connection with the Iran-lraq war. That war is still going on: but neither reading nor viewing public are treated to a daily dose from that front. No Jews, no news.

The photograph which accompanies Holocaust 2 is journalistic weaseling of the worst kind. Take any old photograph, fill your caption with innuendo and let your readers draw the wrong conclusion. Your photograph could have been taken in scores of differing circumstances: and anywhere in the world. How do you and Coleman know that the clenched fist of the man in the foreground is that of (presumably Israeli) nationalism?

As for your cover. It could easily "grace" the magazines of the traditionally anti-semitic “right" or those of the new. far more anti-semitic. "left". Whatever the intention behind the cover, it will be received gleefully by those who maintain that the Jews want to conquer and possess the world — an age-old charge, but one never so "cleverly" made as on your cover.

But these are relatively minor protests. For Coleman has been unable to write of events in Lebanon without recourse to those twin gibes of “anti-Zionists" Holocaust and genocide. The first of those words was coined by Jewish historians to describe the terrible fate which overtook Jews in Nazi Europe. The second word — genocide has no long etymological history. It was coined only in 1945. for the purpose of giving a name to the crime committed against European Jews. Its meaning is: the calculated, total and deliberate destruction of one race by another. But to Jews the word is also a reminder of the terrible methods used to accomplish the deed: the highly organised transportations, the extermination camps, the gas chambers, the vile experiments on Jews and even viler tortures practised on them before they were "mercifully" gassed.

I hold little brief for military operations whatever their objectives: and I know too well that civilian populations (and soldiers) suffer in wars. But there has only been one Holocaust in our time — that which engulfed the Jews of Europe. And in the whole of recorded history, there has only been one authenticated and determined attempt at genocide the attempt against European Jews. Every writer on Lebanon whose Jew-hatred masquerades under pretended concern for Palestinians, has used Holocaust and genocide as a calculated sneer and libel, not against Israelis, not against Zionists, but against all Jews. If Coleman has any proof that the Israelis (and by implication and association, the majority of Jews in the world) have an official policy of genocide, he had best produce it. word for word and chapter for chapter.

I began by saying that I preferred to absolve the Standard and Coleman from the charge of being tainted by anti-semitism. But, I repeat, there is no discernible difference between the tone of Coleman's article and that of "anti-Israeli" writers whose motives are of the basest kind.

I believe that you owe it to yourself to weigh every single word used in the Standard and to ask yourself the precise effect it is likely to have on your readers — not all of whom are members and many of whom come to you for the first time, totally unaware of your history and aims.

Further, I believe that you ought to express regret to your readers for a serious lapse of taste in publishing Holocaust 2 and your September cover.

L de Swart, 

London N19 

Reply:

Mr. de Swart begins by stating that he has been largely in agreement with the aims of the Socialist Party for a long time. It is always pleasing to discover such people outside the Party, but what is the small reason that has kept Mr. de Swart away from the active struggle for socialism in all this "long time"? Could it be that he agrees entirely with the materialist conception of history, but for the "minor qualification" that he thinks there is something worth preserving in the religious mumbo-jumbo of Judaism or Christianity or Islam? After all, if he is not “anti-Jewish” — Judaism being a set of outdated religious beliefs and no more — we must assume that he is pro-Jewish. Or is it that he completely agrees with the socialist aim of establishing a world without frontiers and class possessions, but “in the meantime" thinks that certain forms of national chauvinism — such as Zionism — should not be attacked too severely? After all, if he is not an anti-Zionist — in the sense of opposing the nationalist aspirations of the Israelis — we must assume that he is pro-Zionist. Mr. de Swart does not tell us what his disagreements are with the Socialist Party.

What he does tell us in terms which are as clear as his "long time" disagreements with the Socialist Party are hidden — is that the cover of the September Socialist Standard and an article on the Lebanon in the same issue have offended him; he does not suggest that they did so because they conflict with our established views. Seven specific criticisms are made.

1. The article refers to members of the Israeli government as ex-terrorists. Perhaps Mr. de Swart thinks it's unjustifiable to refer to the perpetrators of calculated violence, including murder, as "thugs". We consider it a quite appropriate description. The Socialist Standard cannot be accused of using the term discriminately: as far as we are concerned, "thuggery" aptly describes killings on behalf of the Stern Gang, the PLO, the Provisional IRA or the Christian militia. Furthermore, we do not distinguish between the thuggery of terrorists and that engaged in by state armies. The terrorist founders of the Israeli state were referred to for a particular reason: it has become common in recent times for certain Zionists, such as the Poale Zion (Labour Zionists), to refer to "Beginism” as a new form of Zionism. This is a myth, based on the belief that Israeli nationalism once was, and still could be, less oppressive and chauvinistic than any other form of nationalism. The point was to show that Begin and his ruthless form of nationalism have not just arrived on the scene — they have been there from the start.

2. The article did not state that the war in the Lebanon was either "more horrific" or “more horrifying" than other wars. Socialists are not interested in making comparisons of human suffering. What the article said was what Mr. de Swart quotes in his letter. In the weeks prior to the publication of our September issue the media provided detailed coverage of the Israel-Lebanon war and the article was written because the event was in readers' minds. It is true that atrocities are committed in other wars, but if our critic is a “long time" reader of the Standard he will know that these have been dealt with in the journal. For example, the writer whose article he criticised also wrote a lengthy analysis on the Falklands war only two months earlier.

3. The statement about the photograph is entirely incorrect: it was not “any old photograph” but one taken in the Israeli town of Hebron showing a specific Israeli Zionist — a member of the Koch movement. It is true that similar pictures may have been taken elsewhere — such as a PLO rally or a National Front get-together — but the fact is that it happened to be a picture of Israeli nationalists.

4. The intention of the cover was not to imply that "the Jews want to conquer and possess the world". The point was to show that "defensible borders" (which are what the Israelis claim to be fighting for) are impossible to achieve within capitalism unless a country dominates the entire globe. We accept the possibility that anti-semites might use the same illustration to make a different point. But then, so may Tories use our anti-CND position and fascists our opposition to African dictatorships in order to make points with which the Socialist Party is in total disagreement. We regret these facts, but will not refrain from stating our case for fear that it is misinterpreted by those who have an interest in doing so.

5. The dictionary describes holocaust as "wholesale slaughter”. Certain historians may reserve the term for one particular "wholesale slaughter", but socialists do not respect such exclusivity of meaning. Thatcher insisted that the war in the South Atlantic was a military conflict, but not a war: the Socialist Standard ignored her distinction. Similarly, we refuse to accept that the murder of millions of Jews was a holocaust, whereas the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the devastation of West Beirut are merely "wholesale slaughters".

6. Unfortunately. Mr. de Swart’s letter is dated 10 September, one week before the Beirut Massacre. There is considerable evidence to prove the complicity of the Israeli government in this terrible act of human slaughter. (Even a Jewish Chronicle editorial made the point — and Mr. de Swart could not accuse that paper of being anti-semitic.) To be associated with a military operation in which hundreds of men, women and children are murdered in cold blood is close to being "an official policy of genocide". Mr. de Swart may disagree with the use of that particular term on the grounds that it does not fully match his dictionary definition (although we would inform him that the Nazi act of genocide was not genocide either: firstly because the Jews were not totally destroyed by the Nazis, and secondly because the former are not a race), but we think he should be more concerned about the act committed rather than the precision of the term used to describe it. Mr. de Swart informs us that he holds "little brief for military operations": we are glad to know that he largely opposes wars, but would be pleased to also know about the "little brief" which he does hold for some of them.

7. Mr. de Swart's final argument amounts to the claim that a friend of an enemy is an enemy: if what you write looks like what someone else writes, the two views must be the same. So, for example, if the Tories state that they do not enter elections in order to abolish the monarchy (because it is "a great institution") and the Socialist Party state that we do not enter elections in order to abolish the monarchy (because it is irrelevant to the main electoral task of winning conscious support for the dispossession of the capitalist class), does that make both the Tories and the SPGB supporters of the monarchy? When the Socialist Standard provides a Marxist criticism of the PLO we are accused of being "Zionist agents"; when we criticise Zionism we are told that we are no different from anti-semites. But if our critic did not confine himself to odd words — and he does only refer to three words, a sentence, two pictures and a "tone" — he would see that the whole article makes a case about nationalism and war which is both unique and correct. The writer specifically makes the point that, unlike others, socialists are not opposing Israeli nationalism more than we oppose other kinds of nationalist ideology. Our battle with Zionists is not because they are Jews, but because they are usually members of the working class who support the capitalist system. The article can only be seen as a "serious lapse of taste” by those whose taste is offended by the honest exposure of social and political ugliness.

The socialist attitude to all wars, including the Israel-Lebanon one, is to show, firstly, that the conditions which cause war are rooted in the present, capitalist system and. secondly, that the only way to provide security from war is by establishing socialism. “Holocaust 2" made both of those points. Since it was published there has been even more killing and suffering in the Middle East; those who are mourning the dead of Sabra and Shatila and those who live in fear on the border towns and villages of Israel and the Lebanon have no secure and peaceful option short of the immediate organisation for socialism. Today they are the victims of capitalism's war — tomorrow it may well be us.

Editors.

Soviet Jews and emigration (1977)

From the July 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Russian annexation of Polish territory in 1654 gave Russia its first large-scale Jewish communities in towns like Minsk, Polatsk, Kiev, Brest and Vilkh. Other towns containing large numbers of Jewish inhabitants also came under the rule of the Tsar. Some years earlier in 1648 the Cossack leader Bogdon Chmielmicki led a revolt against the Polish gentry. After the defeat of the Polish army, his followers turned against the Jews; over 100,000 Jews were killed between 1648 and 1651, and others tortured and ill-treated This was the first large-scale massacre by the Cossacks. However, as early as 1545 Jewish goods from Poland were burnt in public, and Jews forbidden to enter Moscow. In 1563 Tsar Ivan IV ordered that all Jews who refused Christian baptism should be drowned. They were debarred in 1823 from owning land in White Russia by Tsar Alexander, and from following certain trades, and subject to immediate deportation and repeated pogroms. The word pogrom is Russian for a violent attack carried out against a section of the community.

Under the laws of 1793, Jews were mainly confined to the Pale of Settlement—an area which stretched from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic provinces in the north, to Kalisz and Warsaw in the west and Chennigoy in the east. Even within the Pale of Settlement certain towns would only admit Jews as a special privilege. By 1897 there were more than 5 million Jews in the Pale, and a further 322,000 living outside. Moscow had 9,000; St. Petersburg 21,000; Krarkov 14,000 (official figures 1897).

In the population census of 1970 (before the emigration campaign) the number of Jews living within the USSR, excluding Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, was 2,150,707—less than 1 per cent of the population and twelfth in size of the 104 USSR nationalities listed (Insight No. 7, “Soviet Jews,” Oct. 1975).

In 1917 the Bolshevik revolution nominally removed many of the disadvantages suffered by the Jews, including the abolition of the Pale of Settlement. However, the pogroms re-commenced and continued until the outbreak of World War II. With the death of Stalin these were halted and the persecution of the Jews changed its violent character. It has instead become a political weapon in the present Russian government’s dealings with American capitalism and the US satellite in the east—the Jewish State of Israel, proclaimed as the Jewish national home.

The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 gave fresh impetus to the Zionist movement everywhere, including Russia, but significantly the wealthier Jews, British, American and Russian, are not in too great a hurry to take advantage of it. All Jews are not Zionists; on the contrary. Zionism has the appeal of a happy land far far away, an appeal which becomes stronger as the economic and social conditions of Zionists in other parts of the world become worse. Undoubtedly the Soviet government consistently refuses to advance Soviet Jewish culture. The teaching of Yiddish is not encouraged. In fact, only 25 per cent. of the Jewish population speak Yiddish; 44 per cent., mostly women, being over the age of 60 and 75 per cent. over the age 40. (Insight, No. 8, Oct. 1975). Religious ceremonies such as circumcision require special permits. There are no longer any exclusively Jewish schools and practically no Jewish newspapers. The Russian government openly discourages Jewish culture (although a large number of Jews are following the footsteps of their British and American counterparts, where religious practices are observed only by a small number of orthodox Jews).

Since 1970 when the agitation for Jews to emigrate to Israel commenced, until 1977, approximately 5 per cent of Jews (118,000) left the Soviet Union, and a further 55,000 were waiting for visas in 1976. (The Jews of Russia, Martin Gilbert.) The rate of permits granted was 14,200 a year (National Council for Soviet Jewry circular, Feb. 1977).

Of those who emigrated since 1970, many went elsewhere. Some actually returned to the Soviet Union. The campaign for emigration which is promoted both by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the National Council for Soviet Jewry, is a demand not for the right of Jews to emigrate to any country of their choice, but that they should emigrate to Israel. The promised land has lost much of its attraction for Soviet Jews. The Yom Kippur war, compulsory military service for men and women, inflation, low wages and rising prices, and all the familiar problems of capitalism, are present in Israel. In addition, constant threat of war with the Arab states has placed the Israeli economy on a regular war footing, and it is anything but a secure and permanent home. According to an article in The Times (12th May 1977), of the Jews who left Russia in 1974, 20 per cent. sought destinations other than Israel. The following year the proportion rose above 50 per cent., and in April 1977 it increased to 70 per cent.

One of the drawbacks which future emigrants will have to face is the prospect of being deprived of financial assistance by the international Jewish organizations if their final destination is not Israel. The view of the Chief Rabbi of Rumania, Dr. Moses Rosen, is that it is Judaism that is threatened, and that emigrants should only go to Israel where they can lead Jewish lives. They should emigrate for “spiritual” not economic reasons, otherwise they should not be helped by Jewish public funds (The Times, 12th May 1977.) This will obviously affect the poorer Jews. Even if a visa is granted the Soviet government charge 900 roubles (£1,000) for every member of the emigrating family. This is a severe financial burden, and goes some way to explaining why only 7½ per cent of Russian Jews attempt to emigrate. A well-qualified professional Soviet citizen receives 160 roubles a month, and this is considered to be a good salary. In fact a number of Russian Jews who have settled in Israel want to move on elsewhere.

A further complicating factor is that despite the freedom of movement of Soviet citizens proclaimed under the Soviet Constitution, Russian workers whether Jewish or not are not permitted to emigrate, and the Soviet government claims to be making a special concession in the case of the Jews. Like all capitalist governments it does not wish to see its skilled labour force seek higher wages and better working conditions abroad. In this they are following the pattern set by the British government in the anti-Combination Laws of 1799-1824, which forbade the emigration of skilled workers in addition to prohibiting the formation of trade unions. For all practical purposes the Russian equivalent of the Combination Laws is still in force. Fear of opening the door to mass emigration lies behind the reticence of the Soviet government to allow unrestricted emigration of Jews. Also it is against the interests of Russian capitalism to help to build up present Israeli capitalism and its USA parent by allowing highly skilled workers to emigrate to these countries. Russian Jewish workers are no exception to the general rule prevailing within wage labour and capital relations. Dominated by the need to get a living in the only way workers can, by selling their labour-power, they will seek the best terms and social conditions for employment. Migration is part of the history of the working class. Workers have come and gone to all corners of the world in their attempts to find work and peace. Some countries refuse them entry, others refuse them exits. The Jewish workers are looking for the philosopher’s stone if they are looking for ideal conditions abroad.

Like any other workers, they cannot continue to live in the past, and must play their part in the removal of religious, nationalist and racial prejudice and the creation of a world in which there are no restrictions on people—freedom in the fullest sense of the word. Freedom from the domination of capital and wage labour; freedom from want, and freedom to extend the latent productive capacity which exists, and of course, freedom of movement. Socialism embraces all of these. Control of the world must be removed from the capitalists and the system abolished. This is the task of a class-conscious working class who are not divided amongst themselves on the basis of nationality, race, religion or sex.

Jim D'Arcy