Fri 3 Aug 2018, 06:48 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Keith Dunn
“A lot of the current charges of “anti-Semitism” are based on comparisons made between Israeli state policies and the Nazis. It has to be said that this comparison is facile, at best. The regime of military occupation and the constant violence meted out to the population of the West Bank and Gaza is brutal and unjustifiable. But is does not remotely compare to the industrial-scale and deliberate killing of millions of Jews with gas chambers, firing squads, death pits and the like.”
First there is the perfectly legitimate comparison between the Israeli policy of ‘settlements’ and the Nazi policy of Lebensraum.
Both entail armed units forcing people from their homes and land and replacing them with people of their own ethnicity. The reasons they do it are also the same, they believe they are of a superior ethnicity than their victims.
The paragraph argues that it is facile to compare the policies of the Nazis and those of the Zionists in Israel but can it be both accurate and facile ?
It is an outright historical lie to suggest that the Nazi policy of Lebensraum had anything to do with Einsatzgruppen death squads or gas chambers . Lebensraum was not even directed at Jews it was aimed at Poles and Slavs and carried out before the Wannsee Conference where the Holocaust’s organization began, even happened. In fact Lebensraum was formulated over a decade before when Hitler was dictating Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess while in prison for the Beer Hall putch
Just like the ignorance surrounding the Havaara Agreement was exploited to convict Ken Livingstone of a crime he never committed , namely lying about the role of Zionists in their agreement with Hitler and Hitler’s support for that agreement, which was factually accurate, we as Marxists must not join in by conceding to the ignorance on a subject and thereby throwing an honest and correct Socialist under a bus, as both this article and Lansman have done to Peter Willsman Peter simply asked for proof of widespread Anti Semitism why does the article declare its solidarity with Peter ?
My other problem with it is its pious nature when it comes to suggesting action members of the party are supposed to take . Its vague and directionless, what people want to know is Should they leave Momentum? Should they Join the LRC? Should they join Left Horizons? Can you join Left Horizons?
They can turn the article upside down and shake it but nothing of any clarity will fall out.
Gerald Kauffman was no friend of the left but was his comparison with the Nazi policies facile?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8Manage
Reply from editor:
Thank you, Keith, for taking the time to read the editorial and penning a reply. But we think that argument over the fine detail of the history of the Nazi Party (dates, etc) entirely misses the point. In politics, you have to have a sense of proportion.
There is no justification for the occupation by the IDF of the West Bank, for the daily brutality committed against Palestinians and for the violence meted out to Gaza. But having said that, the cold, calculated industrial-scale (railway timetables, gas production, camps, etc) killing of millions of Jews is in no way comparable to the behaviour of the IDF. Even the comparison with the land confiscation with the Nazi policy of Lebensraum is completely out of proportion.
It doesn’t matter if Gerald Kaufmann made a remark – in passing – that likened the behaviour of Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Perhaps he got away with the comparison, being Jewish himself and with relatives having been killed in the Holocaust.
But for the overwhelming majority of ordinary workers, including socialists, including Jewish socialists (who support Corbyn), comparing Israel today to Nazi Germany is ludicrously out of proportion and the very disproportionality (note: not the criticism of Israel) is offensive to Jewish people.
Not that we think that comrades such as yourself, or Ken Livingstone should be suspended or expelled from Party membership. It is a matter of debating ideas, not discipline, something the right-wing, of course, don’t understand.
On the matter of Momentum and the organisation of the Labour left: No, we do not advocate mass resignation from Momentum, although it is understandable that some socialists will resign in anger. Neither do we prescribe a particular method of organisation. Some of our readers are LRC members, some are not. Some are Momentum members, some are not. Others will find the best way to organise. All we say is that some form of organisation of the Labour left needs to happen: we cannot dictate how it will happen.
Editor
