28.08.2002

A spoonful of tar

Clive Bradley's latest attempt to defend the Alliance for Workers' Liberty's eccentric accusations of anti-semitism against much of the left smacks of desperation (Letters, August 22). For comrade Bradley, the issue at stake is "whether it is acceptable that sections of the left display reactionary attitudes towards jews. Of course such attitudes are not direct parallels with racism of a fascist or bourgeois state kind. And of course they are not 'outright', as I put it in my previous letter. But they are unacceptable on the left." Sorry, but no, this is not what the debate is about at all. A debate about whether "it is acceptable" that sections of the left "display reactionary attitudes towards jews" presupposes that we have agreement that "sections of the left" (primarily the Socialist Workers Party) hold "reactionary attitudes towards jews" in the first place. But we do not have such agreement, and I for one have never made any such accusation against the SWP. This kind of sleight-of-hand polemic by comrade Bradley is a dishonest debater's trick, along the lines of 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?', and is unworthy of a Marxist like himself. The allegation that the SWP hold "reactionary attitudes towards jews" is rubbish, and our polemic against the SWP on the national question in the Middle East is not about that. We do not think the SWP are anti-semites: we consider them to be new left moralists. We take it for granted, based on experience over decades, that they are firm, irreconcilable opponents of racism, including anti-semitism, and can only regard the AWL's accusations to the contrary as flaky nonsense. These accusations of anti-semitism are particularly bizarre, given that the SWP is well known to have a large jewish component in its leadership, including, but not limited to, the extended family of the late Tony Cliff and Chanie Rosenberg, and of course John Rose, the author of the "notorious" (to the AWL) pamphlet Israel: the hijack state, my review of which sparked this exchange in the first place. These jewish comrades are/were the authors of the SWP's policy on the Middle East. Is the AWL saying they are anti-semites? If so, the only way quite frankly they can justify this is by echoing the disgusting paradigm of the so-called 'self-hating jew' - which has always been the ideological banner of the worst reactionaries among the jewish people in their battle against progressive, revolutionary-inclined jewish militants. It should be noted that while to my knowledge the AWL has never explicitly levelled this reactionary accusation against the SWP's jewish cadre, it has come pretty damn close. An indication of the climate of opinion this nonsense has produced in and around the organisation is shown by an incredibly philistine letter from one of its supporters in Solidarity (August 8). After noting that some (who?) would call Tony Cliff a "jewish self-hater", 'Vic' from Norwich goes on to attack Socialist Review (July/August) for publishing a largely unexceptionable, orthodox Marxist historical article on 'The jewish question' by Sabby Sagall. Comrade Sagall's article approvingly cites the characterisation by the jewish Trotskyist leader, Abram Leon, of the jewish people in medieval Europe as a 'people-class' involved in commerce and later usury. 'Vic' sneeringly bates the author: "Presumably Africans filled an economic need in the 19th century by being a 'slave class'." This is embarrassing in its ignorance and/or dishonesty. The theory of jews in medieval Europe as a people-class originated with Marx and was elaborated in a major work of Marxist historical analysis by Leon, who as the price for his heroism in organising clandestine resistance against the Nazis in occupied Belgium fell into the hands of the Gestapo in 1944 and was subsequently murdered in Auschwitz. So if the AWL's correspondent wants to accuse the originators of this particular analysis of jewish history of being 'self-haters', he should have the political courage not to direct his allegation merely at Cliff, but at Abram Leon and Karl Marx. If AWL supporters want to argue in terms of historical analysis and fact that the Marx-Leon theories on the jewish question are wrong, then they are of course free to do so - by means of some real, systematised evidence and reasoning. However, this kind of crude, comic-book 'polemic' only implies that Marxist socialism was an anti-semitic movement from its inception. I somehow doubt that the AWL would go that far. But the fact that an AWL supporter can make such an argument in the first place shows how the centre of gravity of AWL politics on the jewish question has shifted away from Marxism and in the direction of Zionism. It is in this context, albeit with slightly more sophistication than his Marx-bashing comrade 'Vic', that comrade Bradley writes: "I couldn't care less whether my opposition to the SWP's reactionary drivel on Israel/Palestine is left or rightwing criticism, as long as it's right. 'Hyperbole' means (roughly) 'exaggeration'. So [the] complaint is not that we falsely accuse the SWP of a form of anti-semitism, but that we overstate the point and use unwise words to describe it. Allow that. Allow that tactically we approach the issue too aggressively, run the risk of alienating SWP members, play into their leaders' hands. Is the substantial point right or wrong?" Wrong, of course. This criticism of the SWP as being 'anti-semitic' is not merely wrong in quantitative terms: ie, exaggerated. It is wrong in qualitative terms: ie, it is a false, slanderous criticism, rather akin to the lies of the Stalinists that Trotskyists were supporters of Hitler. The "hyperbole" I wrote of was of a cavalcade of false characterisations that merely show that the AWL is incapable of criticising the SWP's bad politics on the Middle East without slandering them, laying false criticisms on top of correct ones in order to paint a picture of the SWP as not merely 'revolutionary' anti-democrats and moralists, but in effect quasi- pogromists to boot. This mingling of lies with the truth, in order to paint a warped and demonised picture of the SWP, is really a product of the AWL's own inability to fully embrace consistent democracy. Sharing large elements of the SWP's method of capitulation to nationalism, the AWL has, in reacting against the standard 'far-left' capitulation to the 'nationalism of the oppressed' that that SWP epitomises, flipped over to embrace elements of Zionism - ie, the nationalism of the oppressor in the current context - justified with all sort of liberal bleating about the undeniable terrible past sufferings of the jews. This kind of hyperbole, exaggerating the perfidy of the SWP into something fantastic, only benefits the SWP leadership politically and discredits the rational elements of the AWL's politics, those elements that we share. It is of course symptomatic that comrade Bradley is indifferent as to whether his criticisms of the SWP come from a leftwing or a rightwing standpoint. That is, he is indifferent as to whether they come from a standpoint of consistent democracy and revolutionary socialism, or whether they come from a position of reconciliation with the status quo of racist oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli state. What comrade Bradley is concerned about it being "right". But 'rightness' regarding complex political and social questions does not exist in isolation from the interests of contending social forces. What is "right" from the point of view of someone who identifies themselves with one social force in a conflict is not "right" for someone who identifies themselves with their opponents. The fact that leading AWL cadres have on occasion publicly characterised themselves as being Zionist says something about their alleged objectivity on such matters. Of course, as consistent democrats who defend the national rights of the Israeli jews (despite the reactionary politics of Zionism that are dominant among this people today), we have no more reason to shun the AWL because of this flaw that we have to shun their mirror-images among the left-liberal tailists of Arab nationalism, such as the SWP. But neither will we refrain from criticism of the reactionary content of the AWL's softness on Zionism, any more than we will refrain from criticising those on the left who act as apologists for Hamas. Comrade Bradley complains bitterly about my comparison of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with the way the jews themselves were treated in Nazi Germany prior to World War II and the beginning of the actual genocide. He writes: "Israel is racist and becoming more so. But it is still a million miles from Germany in the 1930s. By 1939, the date comrade Donovan picks, not only had Hitler crushed the workers' movement, rounded up thousands upon thousands of militants and enacted laws against jews (they were well underway in 1934) and others - but the physical war against the jews was raging" (emphasis in original). Well, it is certainly true that the Israeli regime has not crushed its own, jewish workers' movement - it certainly is not and never has been a fascist regime internally. Indeed, for decades the main Zionist state-sponsored trade union body, the Histradut, was one of the main employers in Israel - a product of the extremely unusual origins of this bourgeois state and the sometime 'socialist' veneer of Zionism. However, from the point of view of Palestinian Arabs, this difference is not so great as one might think. For those not regarded as full and worthy (ie, jewish) citizens of the Israeli state, anything can be done, including actions similar to those of the Nazis prior to the holocaust. Israel over the years has certainly rounded up thousands upon thousands of (Arab) militants and enacted laws against Arabs - they have been there for several decades - and the physical war against the Palestinians has also been underway for the same decades. That is the simple material reason why comparisons between Zionist Israel and Nazi Germany are widespread among Palestinians, and partisans of their struggle. The fact that the AWL cannot comprehend this is simply a reflection of their own inability to embrace consistent democracy for all peoples and their absorption of elements of Israeli nationalism instead. Comrade Bradley blunders on: "I accused the SWP of 'double standards' regarding jews. To respond, as comrade Donovan does, that they're also reactionary towards Irish protestants so the standards aren't really 'double' is a bit peculiar." Whether he misses the point from simple political blindness or dishonesty is not clear. This being that the SWP's position on Israel is exactly the same as the traditional left position on the British-Irish in Ulster. It is indeed "a bit peculiar" that a representative of the AWL cannot get the point being made here. After all, this is an organisation whose predecessor, Workers Fight, in the early 1970s was so fervent in its vicarious support for Irish republicanism that it refused to lend its name to any united front-type initiative around the question of Ireland that did not include the demand, 'Victory to the IRA'. This ultra-republican demand, which was clearly for the forcible reunification of Ireland, irrespective of the wishes of the 'privileged' British-Irish, was pretty stupid - just as stupid as some of the verbiage the SWP comes out with today about the Middle East. But it would have been utterly scandalous - a Stalinist slander in fact - if anyone had suggested that the motivation for this position was anti-protestant bigotry, or a desire for pogroms and bloodshed against the protestant population on grounds of religion and ethnicity. In reality, what was behind this was a hatred of oppression mobilised behind a programme characterised by a militant, 'anti-imperialist' form of radicalism that was non-Marxist and non-Bolshevik, not consistently democratic. The kind of criticism that was appropriate for Workers Fight in 1972 is singularly appropriate to the SWP today. Or were Workers Fight 'left' pogromists in 1972? Comrade Bradley seems to be incapable of comprehending basic class arguments regarding how to combat bigotry. He professes to believe that "hostility to jews is not worse than towards other groups, uniquely vile or whatever", but then complains that, "The difference is that the implicit attitudes towards jews which exist on the left are not common towards other groups." Yet, somewhat circularly, he gives no evidence of this - only the AWL's own idiosyncratic reasoning that equates a left-moralistic reaction to Zionist oppression with anti-semitic bigotry. The comrade overstates things considerably when he writes that "anti-semitism has very deep roots in our culture, and on the left sometimes you see variants of anti-semitic themes (conspiracies, and so on)". In fact, since the holocaust, anti-semitism has become the least 'respectable' form of bigotry in the west, certainly in Britain and the US - slightly less so on the continent, where the roots of fascism were deeper. The SWP's liberal credentials on this score are just as bona-fide as the AWL's, quite frankly - from their demanding a ban on the sale of Hitler's Mein Kampf in bookshops to their outraged and quite misplaced protests against Norman Finkelstein's The holocaust industry, which is a leftist critique of US imperialism's manipulation of the memory of the holocaust for its own propaganda purposes, not least in the Middle East. Foolish liberals? Perhaps. Anti-semites? What nonsense! What comrade Bradley fails to note, however, is the deep roots of anti-muslim and anti-Arab bigotry that exist in "our culture", not least as a product of the Israel-Palestine question. This brings us again to the question of whether in order to fight anti-jewish sentiment, tending towards racism, among muslims, it is necessary to prove one's opposition to the oppression of Arab muslims by the Zionists. Comrade Bradley, emphasising his "main point", says emphatically 'no' to this question: "If combating anti-semitism requires of us that we demonstrate our anti-Zionism first ... is a Zionist entitled to oppose anti-semitism? Or, as is strongly implied, does he or she deserve it?" The rhetorical question comrade Bradley uses to try to dodge this point is in many ways the most stupid thing in his whole letter. Let us take an example from the United States. Louis Farrakhan is a black man. Louis Farrakhan is also an anti-semite, and has expressed bigoted hostility to jews. But many jews, particularly in the last two and half decades or so of reaction, have absorbed the racist values of white America, and in some cases have even added their own refinements to this. Therefore one can ask the question "¦ since Louis Farrakhan is an anti-semite, does he therefore deserve the racist hostility of many American jews? Certainly not. However, one can also ask: does Louis Farrakhan by his anti-semitism provoke racist sentiment among American jews? Certainly he does: he provokes and exacerbates it. It is also true that the racism of some jewish establishment figures in the United States helps to reinforce anti-semitic sentiment among sections of American blacks. What we have here is a couple of parallel, vicious circles, reinforcing each other and dividing the working class along ethnic/racial lines. What is clear from this is that bigotry begets bigotry, and that bigots of one type are simply incapable of combating complementary forms of bigotry. In this context, the stupidity of comrade Bradley's rhetorical question is exposed. The point about whether or not a Zionist 'deserves' to be the victim of anti-semitism is a pathetic and scandalous red herring - unworthy of a socialist. It is obvious that the point being made here is quite simple - that Zionism involves a form of bigotry against Arabs and muslims, and therefore a Zionist cannot "oppose anti-semitism" in any meaningful way - on the contrary his or her bigotry can only provoke it, just as the anti-semitism of Farrakhan cannot combat racism among American jews: it can only provoke it. It really is pitiful to have to respond to this kind of abject nonsense from a tendency that is in fact capable of some really interesting and thought-provoking analysis at times. But a spoonful of tar can spoil a barrelful of honey, and this kind of cranky rubbish certainly undermines anything rational the AWL has to say in many eyes. Ian Donovan