Palestine: a dangerous obsession

In the aftermath of Hamas atrocities in Israel on 7 October 2023 and the horrifying Israeli response, many demonstrations, rallies, and other actions have taken place across Britain in support of Palestine, the next taking place on Saturday 29 November.

Yet few have marched for British jobs, industries, and public services. Few have protested about energy prices here and the impact of net zero policy. Why should that be?

Alienated

Too many individual trade union leaders and unions collectively are dangerously obsessed with Palestine. That is to the detriment of the interests and concerns of their members, from whom they are increasingly alienated.

Many workers are moved by pity and humanitarian concern. The long-running conflict and its consequences for the people living in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and the wider region, has appalled them for many years.

Legitimate demands

Demands on our own government to cease arming and materially supporting Israel are legitimate. So too are the less common demands that Britain stops arming Ukraine and stays out of foreign wars.

‘Deviation from British secular working class traditions has been wrongly tolerated.’

But a deviation from British secular working class traditions on many marches and rallies for Gaza has been widely – and wrongly – tolerated. Some contingents have segregated men from women, stopped to prostrate themselves in prayer, chanting for jihad and shouting antisemitic abuse, especially at Jewish passers-by. There is no place for such sectarianism in Britain.

And on a demonstration in October in Whitechapel, east London, large numbers of black-shirted and masked Muslim young men marched – an echo of the Mosleyites of the 1930s. In nearby Cable Street in 1936, police protected those fascists from workers trying to stop them marching and attacking Jewish people.

Violence

We have seen too much terrorist violence against British workers: the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the Glasgow airport attacks in 2007 and the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013. More recently were the Manchester Arena bombing and three other attacks in 2017, followed by stabbings at Manchester Victoria station in 2018, at London Bridge in 2019, as well as in Streatham and Reading in 2020.

‘The last thing British workers need is more bloodshed.’

The last thing workers in Britain need is more bloodshed. Workers should oppose those who want to bring overseas conflicts to our streets.

Nor should workers have any truck with anyone telling them what to do by promoting cultural and sporting boycotts. Workers are told they may not see Israeli artists, sports teams, orchestras or dance companies. People trying to attend these events have to run a gauntlet of abusive demonstrators.

Fascistic

Such boycotts and attacks demonstrate the self-righteousness of those who advocate them; they do nothing for the cause they claim to support. By trying to silence and intimidate people with other views they divide the working class – fascistic, if not terrorist.

Apartheid eventually fell because of the struggle of the South African people in their homeland. It did not fall because musicians refused to perform in the country, nor because of demonstrations in Britain.

‘The roots of the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean lie with imperialist meddling.’

The roots of the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean lie with imperialist meddling. In 1917, the British government declared support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. This wasn’t altruistic, just carving up the world anew as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated. Britain held the area under the Palestine Mandate from 1920 to 1948.

British workers are not tainted with guilt for the past actions of our ruling class, nor can we atone for any supposed guilt by weighing in on one side or another.

Hope

We must hope that Palestinian and Israeli workers deal with the terrorists, bigots and imperialist allies who posture as their leaders. Only they can prosecute that fight.

Our priority is Britain. Our enemy is at home. Our task is to stop our own government’s warmongering abroad and their neglect of Britain – the twin faces of capitalism.