Please read the article in full on openDemocracy, 7 May
Excerpt: ‘… Before returning to the specific question of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, we need to place the three issues – ‘delegitimisation’, talking to ‘terrorists’, and exceptionalism – in a historical perspective.
‘Delegitimisation’, talking to ‘terrorists’ and exceptionalism
For many years the hot question was whether the best solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict was two states or one binational state. This debate intensified after the 1993 Oslo Accord which pointed to, but failed to deliver, two states. Since Oslo, Israel has expanded its colonies and their infrastructure on the West Bank to a point where a viable Palestinian state is no longer feasible. By signing the Oslo Accord the PLO gave up its claim to 78% of mandate Palestine in the expectation of eventually getting an independent state on the remaining 22% comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. But it was not to be. Israel under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, reneged on its side of the deal.
By pursuing the aggressive and illegal Zionist colonial project on the West Bank, Israel has all but eliminated the two-state solution. Once this falls by the wayside, the one-state solution comes to the fore. This re-opens the question that has been present since the inception of the state: how is an ethnocracy with one ethnic group dominating the polity compatible with equal rights for all its citizens?
It is stating the blindly obvious that in a one state scenario with no Jewish majority, Israel would face an even starker choice between being an ethnocentric state or a democratic one. Israel’s leaders know this all too well. This is why they have so far avoided formal annexation of the West Bank, preferring to secure their control through creeping annexation. If a one state is the only serious alternative to the status quo, it is surely not antisemitic to interrogate its nature and substance or to argue for a secular state with equal rights for all its citizens….
‘[…]
Let us be clear about what is at stake here. As anyone who has recently visited Palestine will know, conditions are going from bad to worse. Settler violence, soldier brutality and casual killings, child arrests and imprisonment, land appropriation, and house demolitions are all increasing at an alarming rate. Racism is rife. The worse Israel behaves, the more strenuous are its efforts to disqualify and discredit anyone who holds her to account. The Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, was predictably quick to seize the opportunity to pronounce that criticism of Israel is nothing to do with its actions but results from a visceral hatred of the Jewish state itself.The debate about antisemitism in the Labour Party is a microcosm of what is happening in this wider sphere.
The debate about antisemitism in the Labour Party is a microcosm of what is happening in this wider sphere. Use of language which accurately describes what is going on – settler-colonialism, racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing − is turned back on those who use it, seizing upon the odd remark by otherwise thoroughly decent people like Naz Shah in order to silence anyone who dares raise their voice to protest against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Rather than being about a few inveterate antisemites on the “hard left” or a sudden extremist Momentum horde invading the Labour Party, it is the expression of public outrage that the UK government supports and indeed lauds a country that commits such abuses….’
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