Authorities’ conflation of Jewishness with support for genocidal Israel is dangerous, say Jewish anti-genocide campaigners
The chairs of Jewish Voice for Labour, one of many Jewish groups who steadfastly oppose Israel’s genocide and its decades-long occupation and oppression of Palestinians, has issued an open letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, London mayor Sadiq Khan and the Metropolitan Police condemning the Starmer regime’s assault on the freedom to assemble and protest against Israel’s genocide and war crimes – and telling them that by conflating Jewishness with support for Israel they are endangering Jewish people. The full letter reads:
Open Letter
We are writing as members of the Jewish community who regularly join the national pro-Palestinian protests in central London. A few of us are observant and members of other synagogues, most of us are secular. What we share is our Jewish heritage and Jewish identity.
There are many differences between our group and Jewish organisations and individuals who are strong supporters of Israel. We do not expect that the divisions between us will narrow on account of this letter. However, we demand that recognition and empathy be extended towards members of our community who hold pro-Palestinian views. We assert our rights to hold those views. These rights were enshrined in the laws made in Europe following the Holocaust and the defeat of fascism and include an inalienable right to protest. States do not have the powers to withdraw from this right, only to impose conditions where necessary.
We recognise that there is a real fear among some Jewish people who have been told again and again that Palestinian protests are antisemitic and that they are “hate marches”. We sympathise with this anxiety because, as Jews, we share a long history of reasons to be fearful.
But anxieties should not obscure reality. Over the last fifteen months, there have been twenty-three national marches for Palestine. Not once has a synagogue been attacked, nor worshippers experience any harassment and disruption. Sure, it is discomfiting to see people with opposing views be vocal. But that is the point of living in an open, democratic society. To co-exist, to be in the realm of the public political space, we need to be able to live alongside, to tolerate, even to listen and to learn, without the need to suppress the ‘other’.
The assertions of the marches being antisemitic, despite the frequency with which they are made, are wholly evidence free. There are always Jewish people on the march, most organised as a Jewish Bloc. That these include Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors is a point that has been made consistently and has been continually ignored, as has the fact that we are always warmly welcomed and our platform speakers loudly cheered.
The conflation of Jews with Israel and Zionism and antizionism – and even criticism of the actions of the State of Israel – with antisemitism is false and dangerous on many levels. We worry that Jews may well, unfairly, be on the receiving end of abuse as people are told time and time again that Jews support Israel, that those, like us, who do not are “JINOs (Jews in Name Only)” or even more painfully “kapos” (ie collaborators with the Nazis). The assertion that Jews are upset and frightened by displays of criticism of Israel and/or support for Palestinians, means that, in many people’s eyes, to be a real Jew means defending and supporting a State carrying out war crimes and plausible genocide.
It is dangerous to reawaken, without just cause, the understandable real fears many Jewish people feel at the possible consequences of a resurgence in antisemitism. Furthermore, those raising fears about antisemitism from those who support Palestine often support Far Right leaders who do support the State of Israel but who are racist, oppose asylum for those fleeing persecution, just as we Jews needed so badly and were tragically denied.
Most importantly, in the current context, this conflation of Jews with Israel and antizionism with antisemitism is part of the narrative which has enabled the decades of discrimination and oppression of Palestinian people, leading up to the horrors inflicted on the people and places of Gaza and the West Bank, horrors that we know exist.
We cannot stand by in the face of such inhumanity. It is beyond time that the Home Secretary, the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London understands that the small Jewish population in the UK is not unified on all issues any more than any other community. To allow the voices of one part of that population to dominate is not supporting the cause of anti-racism. It is partisan and undermines the pillars of the free society that many of our grandparents fought for.
Leah Levane & Jenny Manson
Co-Chairs, Jewish Voice for Labour
Keir Starmer’s government, firmly on the side of genocidal Israel, is also conducting a ‘lawfare’ war of arrests, raids, harassment and attempted intimidation against peace campaigners and journalists, many of them Jewish, who dare to expose Israel’s crimes and lies. The UK has become a police state and an active participant in Israel’s genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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JVL’s open letter is spot-on. The Log-term servant of the security state is launching a Labour Government Assault on every person’s right to an opinion – and the freedom to demonstrate it. Today it might be Palestine, tomorrow it could be about anything – the right to join a union, to hold religious beliefs, to smoke, to eat meat, to not take untested, dangerous chemicals labelled ‘vaccines’ ANYTHING!
And for what? To defend the rights of a supposedly ‘decent’ State to occupy and oppress indigenous people. Labour in name only
If Starmer’s ‘Labour’, the Conservatives and even the Farage-ist fascists will be looking more responsible to millions of voters every day. LINO
I am 100 per cent in support of JVL’s letter.
I have been at Palestine demonstrations where Zionists have confronted Jewish people with appalling abuse and insults.
To call Jewish people “Kapos” is an extreme and anti-Semitic insult.
The Zionists are doing Jewish people no favours.
There are two things that are endangering Jews in the UK:
. 1. The genocidal actions of the fascist State of Israel
. 2. The offensive and insulting behaviour of Zionists in this country who support the genocide.
As ever, excellent work from Jewish Voice for Labour. It is a fine organisation, but I do think they should change their name! I think it’s time they disassociated themselves totally from Starmer’s Labour Party which has treated some of their members so disgracefully.