​

So what has changed over those years? Has it been due to a shift in my values and perspectives, or those of the left-wing? 

To more accurately gauge that requires going through a quick check list: do I believe in equal rights for all? Yes, absolutely. Am I against discrimination of any groups or races? Yes. Do I believe in equality of the sexes? Yes. Am I homophobic? No. Do I generally believe in fair play and stand up for the down-trodden? Very much so. Do I speak out when I see any of the aforementioned rights abused? Yes, indeed often probably too much so.

So how does the left-wing fare on that same check-list? I’m sure they would proclaim they hold true and firm on all of the preceding. However, in a couple of areas – discrimination and standing up for the downtrodden – the lines have become blurred over the years, and on occasion have gone directly against their other core values.

But to fully explain how and why this has come about requires going back some years – in fact to 1969 and the state of Israel, when Golda Meir became Prime Minister. At that time – hard to believe when you consider the state of affairs now - Israel was beloved and championed by the liberal left. It ticked all the right boxes: a brave new nation of only 4 million people surrounded by numerous hostile Arab nations, with a combined total of two hundred million, vying for its destruction; one of the first ever female Prime Ministers in a male-dominated political landscape, at a time when women’s lib was on the rise; and the kibbutz, a particularly idealistic socio-economic endeavour and the model for many farming co-operatives to follow. In fact, such was the level of the love affair between Israel and the liberal left that a favourite past-time of British students throughout the late 60s and 70s was to spend summer breaks on a kibbutz – whereas now they’d more likely be found demonstrating in front of the Israeli embassy.

Finally, that this was a people who had survived the holocaust. Indeed, with the advent of the 1967 war two years previous, it had been unthinkable that the surrounding Arab armies might be victorious and the Jewish people would face the same again – massacred and cast to the wind to return to being simply an ethnic group in other nations. Another diaspora, if you will. Such was the level of fear and outrage, particularly amongst the liberal left, that many protest groups begged the USA to intervene to protect Israel. The USA didn’t – partly because at that time Russia was backing the Arab camp and that could have led to direct conflict with Russia – though the USA did provide arms, as indeed the Russians were supplying the Arab armies.

Then the war came, and went. In six days! While Israel could be applauded for fighting such a speedy, strategic war with resultant low losses on both sides, the downside was that it caused a serious dent to their status as ‘underdogs’ with the liberal left. Still, though, the surrounding Arab nations massed against them were much larger, and six years later made a more concerted and organized assault with the Yom Kippur war – which at one point came dangerously close to success – before finally throwing in the towel.

This six-year period also saw the first seeds of Palestinian nationalism – before that it had been purely a Pan-Arab battle, and if successful Israel would no doubt have been divided up equally between its surrounding conquerors of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, with little thought of developing an independent Palestinian homeland. Indeed, that hard truth was demonstrated by the fact that Jordan, who held the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1948-1967, made no moves whatsoever towards the formation of a separate Palestinian state, they simply annexed the entire area as part of an expanded Jordan.  

In the decades following, there was an uncomfortable courtship between the left-wing and the Palestinian cause, mostly due to how it was pursued during that period. After all, however righteous that cause might be, what self-respecting left-winger could, with a clear conscience, support plane hijackings, killing half an Olympic team and blowing apart men, women and children in cafés, hotels, clubs and shopping malls. Paradoxically, it wasn’t until the security divide to protect against this was built between 2002-2006 that the Palestinians were seen as a fully-entrenched and disadvantaged group, and so in turn were perceived by the left-wing as fully deserving of the ‘underdog’ crown previously held by Israel.

In Gaza – where with the withdrawal of settlers, Gazan women gave flowers to Israeli soldiers in thanks – that initial hope faded as Hamas gained control and with continual rocket fire into Israel, the situation became even more entrenched.

In retrospect, one can’t help wonder whether Palestinian leaders – having viewed the reaction in the West to that thirty-year largely civilian-targeted terrorist bombing campaign – helped shaped how they would fight their cause in the future. Certainly with the divide built and future bombing plans seriously hampered, propaganda was probably the only remaining strong option – so it’s easy to see why the Palestinians would make as much of their future civilian losses as they could. As a result, those losses were strongly exaggerated or bent out of shape, and pictures of injured or dead infants displayed at every opportunity. ‘They’re killing our children,’ became a favoured headline. And who can blame them? Having seen their own bombing campaigns against Israelis have a reverse effect and raise nothing but horror in the West, why not dip their bread in some of that same gravy – or in this case, blood – and plumb Western liberal sensitivities as best they could. Perhaps they even thought at one stage: the holocaust helped the Jews gain Israel, playing the victim card might work in a similar way for us too.

So it’s easy to understand why the Palestinians and part of the Arab media pursued this course; after all, with the odds against them in a conventional conflict, what other choice was there? But the position of the liberal left and much of the Western media is not so easy to comprehend. Where were the voices questioning these statistics or this strategy, or indeed stating the obvious: ‘You can hardly complain about civilian losses on your side when for the past thirty years you’ve pursued a terrorist bombing campaign against Israel which has targeted almost exclusively civilians.’ But this sort of reality-check was rarely if ever aired.  

And as this one-way Palestinian-plight-propaganda-machine gained momentum, any remaining semblance of reality or balance was also lost. The security wall was suddenly dubbed an ‘apartheid wall’ (neglecting the fact that if that had been the main aim it would have been built in 1949, not 55 years later in the wake of one of the worst terrorist bombing campaigns any nation has suffered); the Palestinian plight was sometimes compared to the holocaust (neglecting the fact that they were several million lives lost short, with the only remotely comparable recent conflict, Syria, where 5 times as many Muslims have died in 5 years than with Israel in 65 years). The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ bandied about, when indeed the population in Gaza and the West Bank now stands at almost 5 million, four times that of the Palestinian population in 1948. And within Israel itself – something often conveniently forgotten by the left-wing – you have a further 1.7 million Muslim Arabs residing, almost three times that of Palestinians originally displaced.

By the time you get to the stage of liberal left-wingers and students marching alongside Palestinians chanting ‘Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea,’ in essence calling for the removal or eradication of all the Jews in between, hardly different to the stance of an ardent racist or latter-day Nazi – the polar opposite of all the left-wing has historically stood for – you realize just how out of control things have become. I’m sure that if any of the students involved in demonstrations in support of Israel in the 60s and 70s were looking on, they’d shake their heads in disgust. ‘Don’t you realize you’re demonstrating for the very thing that we strived to avoid all those years ago – the removal of all Jews from the area. Don’t you appreciate how abhorrently racist that is? Indeed, directly against all left-wing principals we’ve ever held dear.’

Of course, when these ardent left-wingers are called out on this apparent racism, they often reply, ‘Oh, I’m not anti-Jewish at all, it’s just Zionists I’m against.’ But even this doesn’t stand up to even a basic litmus-morals test. It’s a bit like saying, ‘Those pesky Jews are bearable I suppose when they’re living in other nations – but for God’s sake don’t let them have a nation of their own.’ Or how would it be if the remark came (I often feel you get more clarity on an issue when viewed from the other side), ‘Oh, I’m not anti-Muslim at all, it’s just the Palestinians I’m against.’ And while no doubt the many Israeli infractions and wrongdoings would be raised in support of an anti-Zionist stance (and yes indeed, there have been many), as many infractions and wrongdoings could also be pointed at the Palestinians with the waves of suicide bombings, rockets, kidnapping tunnels and knife attacks.

Thankfully, many of the Muslim and Palestinian contacts and friends I have, don’t think this way at all, and indeed you’d be hard pushed to slide a playing card between my view and theirs – perhaps not surprising for a Labour-Herzog and peace-camp supporter (in the same way that regrettably today you might have trouble discerning between an arch-left and Islamist/jihadist view on the Middle East). So while I’m critical of Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns and rocket attacks, I’m equally condemning of many Likud-led actions by Israel: the heavy-handed military actions in Gaza, and the fact that they often stay mute – or in some cases support – expanded settlements in the West Bank, which I feel are an impediment to peace.

As for the seemingly endless ‘occupation’, most Israelis don’t wish to see it continue in any shape or form, but are stuck for a viable alternative. They’ve handed over as much of security in the West Bank to Fatah’s PA as is sensible, and Hamas are in complete control in Gaza. Further, if the Palestinians were offered independent statehood tomorrow, the majority wouldn’t wish it under the current leadership. They find Fatah largely corrupt and Hamas little better, an arch-Islamist group in the pocket of foreign proxy paymasters intent on continued conflict with Israel, with little care or regard for the Palestinian people caught in the middle.  

By the same token, I’m sure many of my Palestinian friends and contacts would also like to shake some sense into today’s left-wingers: ‘Don’t you realize that with your ‘Palestine-river-to-sea free’ chanting you’re simply igniting a harder-line protective policy within Israel, ensuring that Likud get voted in yet again and further bolstering them? Effectively pushing peace and a solution away another five to ten years. Ensuring that more protective walls, fences and check-points are built. And that with each rocket fired, suicide bombing or knife attack, very much the same is achieved?’ 

Of course, the situation is far more complex than that, but while the left-wing point to America’s support of Israel, they tend to overlook the tremendous support Palestinians also have, particularly in the Arab world. Abbas’s Fatah party receives support from many Arab nations, the EU and USA, whereas historically Hamas’s support has come from Syria, Iran, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab nations. And with the advent of Hamas losing Syrian and Iranian funding due to their support of rebels allied against Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatari funding has increased, and there is now talk also of Hamas links with ISIS.

The underlying issue with this funding is that a hundred percent of the Hamas funding (and a degree of the Fatah funding from Arab quarters) is provided on the understanding that it be used primarily to undermine and ultimately destroy the Jewish state rather than make peace with it. So in that regard the Pan-Arab battle against Israel of forty years ago has hardly changed – except that now it’s fought primarily on a proxy rather than open basis. So that on the surface the Palestinians appear isolated and vulnerable (so that they garner Western sympathies and support), yet in the background they are still fully supported.

The problem with this type of support is that it shows little regard for the actual plight of the Palestinian people. The undermining of Israel is put first and their own welfare second; in that regard, they are seen as mere pawns in a much grander Pan-Arab battle against Israel. So rockets, mortars and cement for incursion and kidnapping tunnels take precedence over schools, hospitals and trade parks – things which might actually improve the welfare of the Palestinians. Of course, there’s also an underlying motive in all of this – because you can hardly recruit the next band of ‘freedom fighters’ when things are stable and the economy quite good. Which is no doubt why a number of surrounding Arab nations have kept the Palestinians in refugee camps throughout, without integrating them into their societies. Do we in the UK still have Ugandan Asians in refugee camps forty years later? Do we intend to put the current influx of Syrians into refugee camps and keep them there? No. So why do we tolerate numerous Arab nations doing that with the Palestinians?

There is it appears a need to keep them ‘lean and mean’ so that all their ills can be blamed on Israel. And of course with the response to suicide bombings, rocket attacks and random knifings – with increased barriers and security and often heavy-handed and OTT reprisals – those ills and injustices come to the fore even more (especially by the time they’ve been put though the media-and-online propaganda mill), and the cycle continues.   

When it comes to the attitude of today’s left-wing liberals to Muslims at large, their fault-lines are even more acute. Yes, I fully understand their motives in defending a seemingly put-upon minority in Europe and the USA, as indeed Jews and Afro-Caribbean’s were similarly defended by the liberal left in those regions in years gone by. And, yes, Islamophobia is a problem in some quarters, particularly with the far-right and UK groups such as the EDL. But in the rush to defend that minority, left-wing liberals seem to have forgotten that many of these Muslim groups (and this is particularly true of Hamas or any ardent Islamic group) are intolerant of gay rights, equality for women, democratic rights and freedom of speech (particularly when it involves the Prophet Mohammed). All the core tenets that any self-respecting left-wing liberal holds dear. So in that respect they face a tremendous dichotomy, with one part of their aims directly at odds with all the others.

These are all, I might add, values that Israel embraces probably more than any other nation in the Middle East. Indeed, I recently posted a link to a New York Times article about the Palestinian Arab community in Haifa, where a more liberal lifestyle is enjoyed, embracing secularism, feminism and gay rights, as propounded by Palestinian café owner, Ayed Fadel: ‘We want a gay couple to go to the dance floor and kiss each other, and nobody to even look at them. This is the new Palestinian society we are aiming for.’ A lifestyle that no doubt would tick all the right boxes with left-wing liberals, yet that 1.7 million Palestinian-Arab community within Israel is so often ignored.

The issue of ‘minorities’ also becomes a moveable feast, as that tag changes with geography. In the UK, America and Europe, Muslims are still very much a minority – though entirely the opposite case in the Middle East. In that region, Christians, Jews, Druze, Yazidis and Baha’i’s are in the minority. So that ‘minority-status-vulnerability’ felt by a number of Muslims in the West is not too different to that experienced by these other minority groups in the Middle East. Indeed, with Jews numbering just sixteen million worldwide – versus two billion Muslims – they carry that ‘minority status’ in both the West and the Middle East. Something for left-wing liberals to consider while waving the banner for ‘minority groups’.

Of course, perceived prejudice against Muslim minorities in the West now has a label: Islamophobia. In some instances, I think this is openly practiced and is a real problem, especially amongst far right groups. But recently on a leading UK Muslim message board which carried a banner headline proclaiming their battle against ‘Islamophobia’, I couldn’t help noticing how many of their posters openly displayed Judenphobia, Zionophobia and Big-Bad-Westophobia. The irony appeared somewhat lost on them of complaining about prejudice against Muslims while openly practicing the same against so many other groups.  In fact, Mehdi Hussein, a prominent UK Muslim journalist – and not normally known for his pro-Jewish stance – chaired a debate last year which discussed antisemitism within Islam.

However, it’s not just with the left-wing that the lines have become muddied over the years. On a message board not long ago, an EDL member suggested that my defence of Israel on various fronts must surely mean that I was anti-Muslim? I quickly put him right that I was strongly anti-prejudice on all fronts, and indeed was deeply suspicious of the EDL’s motives and overall stance, since their forerunners of the National Front and Mosley-ites have by turn had Jews, Afro-Caribbean’s and Asians/Indians in their cross-hairs. All they’ve done is shift their ‘ethnic group to target’ over the years.

That left him as baffled as the Palestinian supporter involved in the same debate, so I felt I owed them both an explanation. I elaborated that while I was pro-Zionist (a hang-up of the 70s left-wing ‘brave-new-nation’ supporting, if you will), I was also very much pro-Palestine (cue more raised eyebrows of surprise on both sides). I went on to explain that if you believed in the rights of a people to have their own nation, then it was the only rightful and correct stance to take. Further, that favouring one people’s rights over another could be seen as somewhat prejudiced. I accepted that that’s how the conflict had come to be seen by many over the years – that being pro-Zionist automatically meant you were anti-Palestinian and vice-versa. But did that indeed need to be the case? That one had to be at the expense of the other? Surely if you took an independent-nation-rights stance, you could support both equally.

It might be that events have gone too far over the years for that sort of open-minded and even-handed stance to be adopted readily by some, but I do feel that’s at the heart of where left-wing liberals have gone wrong and strayed from their core values. That through time they’ve taken a stance purely from one side and one viewpoint, then cherry-picked information to back up that stance (some of it pre-packaged for them by propaganda groups), so in the end they appear more like a one-way-view football-supporting rabble, rather than the more balanced, open-minded intelligentsia they used to pride themselves on being.   

And, following that same ethos, perhaps a more open and even-handed view on other fronts: that if concerned about human rights abuses, these should be focused upon equally (not just when Israel are responsible). That if atrocities and civilian losses are the issue, these again should be given equal consideration (yet time and again we see losses where Israel or the Big-Bad-West are involved focused disproportionally upon, even though these are a fraction of the Muslim vs Muslim losses of the region). Same again for free speech and abrogation of rights of any group or nation. In other words, put the issues first, not the people or ethnic group involved.

Thankfully, there are many who do adopt a more open and even-handed stance. Polls show that 79% of Israelis and 68% of Palestinians support peace and a ‘green-line’ border solution. And indeed, before the current wave of knife attacks and reprisals which started last October (largely religious inspired), things in the West Bank were reasonably stable and good. Palestinian losses from security conflicts averaged only four a month for the past 5 years (about a quarter of the inter-person Palestinian murder rate), unemployment is less than in Spain, trade and welfare quite good, shops well-stocked and restaurants busy. Gaza is a different matter, and unity between West-Bank Fatah and Gaza-run Hamas is in fact part of the hold up with the $5 billion foreign aid for Gaza, which leading Palestinian human rights advocate, Bassem Eid, writes about here.

Indeed, Bassem Eid has for a long while been one of the main Palestinian voices of hope and unity coming out of the region. A leading human rights campaigner for thirty years, he has developed a strong reputation of pulling no punches and being openly critical of abuses on both sides – whether by Israelis or Palestinians. As a result, he has become respected by each side, and in some instances feared: his views are simply too honest and forthright for some. But one thing becomes clear, he’s one of the few strong voices to clearly have the welfare of the Palestinian people at heart, rather than simply be washed along with the flow of some nearby proxy-interest Arab nation (in these two articles he talks about the lack of clear Palestinian leadership as they put those proxy interests before the interests and welfare of the Palestinian people). In that regard, today’s left-wing liberals would serve themselves well by taking a leaf out of his book. And perhaps ask themselves the same hard and fast question: do they also wish to serve those same remote Arab-proxy interests, or those of the Palestinian people?

And if in turn I was asked the hard and fast question of whether I still considered myself left-wing, I’d answer that if it involved targeting one race, nation or ethnic group, then cherry-picking any and all facts to back up that stance – so that in essence I became no better than a mirror-image of a right-wing supporter targeting a similar ethnic group or religion on the reverse side of that coin – then count me out. But if it involved a return to grass-roots ethics of defending human rights, atrocities, discrimination and prejudice on an even-handed basis wherever they may occur – then count me back in.

   ​​4 Comments
Betty Schwartz( No email )
11/1/2016 15:05:47Well thought out but have you seen how beautiful Gaza is? What is shown in the media is not a true reflection of how they really live. You are right. I feel Israel is fed up with the constant missile firing and attacks. 
The Druze Arabs are friends of Israel and the majority of Arabs who live in Israel are happy and get on well with the Jewish people.
It's very sad that the so-called Palestinians cannot live in peace with their neighbours.

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
11/1/2016 15:37:09Hi Betty, Must admit I haven't been to Gaza. But the West Bank I see is doing very well. Shops well-stocked, restaurants full and as many Mercedes on the streets of Hebron as Tel Aviv. What began to annoy me was the voraciousness of so called anti-Zionist Palestinian supporters. Don't they realize that every attack just makes matters worse? Even more annoying is that many of these are simply keyboard warriors from Luton or Warrington, who have never been to the region and have little knowledge of it.

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Grizz( [email protected] )
11/1/2016 15:30:49As a Jew who of course is sympathetic to Israels cause and empathetic to the plight of the women and children of Palestine: it is good to see you have gained a more balanced appreciation of both.
Now John this right winger wants to know when you will come more fully to an understanding of why we so stoutly defend our second amendment :)

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
13/1/2016 14:34:21Hi Grizz, hope you're keeping well. I daresay I might come across as a bit of a hypocrite if I let it slip that my Uncle was a 'sharpshooter' with the Irish Guards and my first cousin Pat Matthews at one time owned the largest antique gun collection in England... kept in his converted 'gun room' attic in Hampstead. No wonder he never got robbed!

But my stance is more a Canadian one of allowing guns in the home rather than getting rid of them. I just think they don't mix well on urban streets... though I'm sure that in the Midwest or wilds of Colorado they make a lot more sense. Just I recall living in Canada and something approaching paranoia when they crossed the border. Vancouver (where I lived at the time) to Seattle wasn't so bad - only a 3 times higher murder rate. But Toronto to Detroit was an 8 times higher rate, which gave many Canadians pause for thought.

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Niteshlink( [email protected] )
13/1/2016 05:52:38Didn't read all of them but as it is said first impression is last impression.
I read the first paragraph and it was really great!!!!
Good luck for your next post

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Nadiya( [email protected] )
13/1/2016 13:20:37Assalamualaikum. I am a Muslim and until the past few years, I thought I was a liberal. But the left has lost sight of its original values and now can be as hateful and delusion as the right. To the left, there is the Oppressor and the Oppressed, with no room for nuance or complexity. Much like you, I still believe in equality and the like. But to call myself a liberal now seems too radical, too... wrong.

Being Muslim, everybody expects me to be anti-Israel, or even anti-Jewish in general. I'll admit I used to be blinded by the left wing propaganda against Israel. But I have come to learn that the suffering of one group does not negate or lessen the suffering of another. I have learned that compassion doesn't have to stop at ethnic or religious boarders. Each life matters. I stand with Israel, and I stand with Palestinians suffering under Hamas and extremism. I support peace, not incitement from either side. I wish that the left could understand that.

Thank you for this article. Jzk.

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
13/1/2016 14:27:16Many thanks, Nadiya. I have seen of recent more Palestinians adopting a mid-stance, but still the extremists tend to grab the main headlines. I have a good friend and contact in London, Fiyaz Mughal, who heads up an organization called Faith Matters... and he does a good job of trying to forge cohesion between Muslims and other religions and groups. Part of this stemmed from him being a lib-dem MP for Haringey, a very mixed district for both Jews and Muslims. 

I commented to him that indeed the first Jews of the region occupied the very same fashion sweat shops and market stalls as Muslims there now - many still do. And they both shared much the same immigrant experience in London with prejudice against them. So if they looked at that factor, they would see they have much in common. 

The same is true in Palestine and Israel, and indeed most Palestinians on the West Bank find far more kinship with Israeli Arabs/Palestinians than they do with Palestinians in Gaza. Although speak to some people in Gaza and they're afraid to speak openly against Hamas. So there are different levels of divide at play in the region. 

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Neville Roach( No email )
14/1/2016 07:56:49Hi Jonn, I must say I do like your way of thinking.
But it's a shame the situation has got this far.
I can tell you the reason why the average person on the street, leans to an anti Israel stance!
The world media have taken it upon themselves to show an anti Israel agenda.
The people at the top that let this carry on are anti- Semitic bigots that have no thoughts of peace but lies. As soon as that starts to change then we can start having a more even debate.
You have the intelligence to look at facts for yourself, a lot of people aren't educated enough or just don't care.
Keep up the good work.

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
14/1/2016 09:56:28Many thanks, Neville. It does seem that over the years the far-left in their anti-Israel stance have made some strange bedfellows of late, and find themselves allied with a motley collection of: 1 Islamists (who are against equality for women, gay rights and freedom of speech -- all the values that left-wing liberals hold dear. 2. Neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers (who have never really stopped hating Jews, but find it more PC and acceptable now under the cover of bashing Zionism and Israel). 3. Various other far-righters and racists, who are still stuck on hating Jews and haven't yet shifted their 'latest ethnic group to target' to Muslims. 

I'm not sure how the liberal left manage to juggle all this with a straight face or appreciating the total hypocrisy of their stance. But I suppose desperate times (combined with a lack of foresight and knowledge) often makes for strange bedfellows -- which the USA learned to their cost when they sided with Bin Laden against the Russians in Afghanistan.

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Sheri Ozlink( [email protected] )
15/1/2016 11:25:26Respect! This is a wonderful post. I especially like how you tease out the difference between the left that supports values and issues from the left-that-has-lost-its-way by ignoring their own values and issues regarding the Israel-Arab-turned-Palestinian conflict.

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
16/1/2016 10:50:07I think part of the problem, Sheri, is that in defending the values in the West we hold dear - freedom of speech, equal women's right, gay rights, general equality and democracy - all the issues the liberal left values in particular, all too often we find ourselves having to defend those values with defensive or offensive actions. Things are then automatically associated with the right-wing. So in a strange way, normally associated right-wing actions are doing more to protect the values of the left than any other factor,

Conversely, factions with issues normally associated with the right-wing or dictatorships - lack of women's rights, persecution of gays, lack of equality, no democracy - are often pursued in a manner normally associated with the left-wing, by playing either the minority or victim card, or both. So that the left-wing therefore get tricked into supporting factions or groups with largely right-wing values. It's such an obvious and simple trick, you'd have thought some of them might have been intelligent enough to spot it... but that's another issue :)

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Ted( [email protected] )
23/1/2016 23:58:20I appreciate your article. I too used to be a left-wing like you and like you I began to shift because of the left's positions on Israel. I remember Israel's Peace Now demonstrations and their supporters. But I wondered, where is the Arab/Palestinian equivalent? Where were the Arabs and Palestinians who claimed the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Black September, PFLP, Islamic Jihad did not speak for them when they were not only attacking Israelis but Jews around the world? Ad then there BDS, the darling policy of the left which is simply the continuation of Nazi policies and the Arab states after the founding of the State of Israel. And while it is nice that most Israelis and Palestinians may agree on a Palestinian state with Green Line borders, borders are not the main issue. As you said, the Palestinians have had plenty of opportunities to have their own state, in 1948 if they would have agreed to the partition and between 1948-67 when Jordan controlled the territory. Ask how many Arabs and Palestinians are willing to forgo Right of Return which would in essence destroy the State of Israel as a Jewish State and I believe you will get an entirely different response. But the left will not recognize this or if they do, that is their ultimate goal anyway.

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John Matthews( [email protected] )
24/1/2016 17:45:27There was a test on the subject of right of return a while back (although an inadvertent one, because it didn't start out as a test). I was involved in a draft peace plan with various parties (I used to be editor of European Brief, the main magazine for the EU Parliament). This plan was based on a type of 'exchange of settlers/residents', if you will - whereby out of the 300,000 settlers in the West Bank, whatever proportion elected to stay (the final figure was thought to be about 180,000), then double that number of Palestinian refugees would be allowed right of return within Israel.

However, for both parties, they would be designated as 'residents' - so they had the perfect right to reside and could vote in local elections, but not national elections. So returned Palestinians within Israel would vote in Palestinian elections (of the new state, when formed... which made sense, because this is where their main political interests should reside), and Israelis would vote in Israeli elections. This then would prevent either party interfering politically in the other's affairs. This concept was largely based on the enormous British resident population of Spain before it joined the EU, whereby they were permanent residents without being citizens. 

The other advantages of this were that the border could be drawn quickly and without fuss, as there would be no need to remove X-number of settlers. It was thought in fact that the more hardline protest settlers would choose to return back to Israel, not wishing to remain in a future Palestinian state, and those remaining would be more liberal and of the peace-camp mode; or indeed simply those who'd made the move for cheaper housing. Security would be provided by a collaborative PA/Israel/UN guard effort... so that the blame for any continued security wouldn't be tagged as some form of Israeli 'occupation'. 

Indeed, Bibi made just such a suggestion a while back, saying that if 1.7 million Arab-Palestinians lived quite happily within Israel, then why not a number of settlers within the new Palestine? Those who wished to stay, and with reasonable security provided.

This proposal was immediately rejected by Fatah and Abbas, stating that they would not accept 'one single Jew' residing the Palestinian side once the border was agreed. This cry of in effect a 'Judenrein' situation, not dissimilar to Nazi Germany, gained strong recrimination, not least from Ha'aretz, generally known for their liberal Palestinian supporting and anti-Bibi stance. They felt that on this one occasion Bibi had a good idea, and were alarmed at the Palestinian response.

Unfortunately, I found the same with this peace proposal. It was either rejected offhand by the main Palestinian parties, or ignored completely - whereas a number of Israelis either warmed to it or at least were more open-minded.

If indeed, the main Palestinian interest was right of return, combined with getting the border drawn quickly and peace agreed -- they'd have jumped at the chance. But the fact that this extra contingent of Palestinians could not effect Israeli voting unfortunately underlined that their main intention was to undermine Israel -- with little or no interest in that return itself. It also underlined that it was far more important to them to have the area rid of every Jew than indeed see right of return -- which in turn put an uncomfortable (and perhaps unintended) focus on just which party was more guilty of apartheid.



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Adam( No email )
4/7/2017 20:22:48Interesting. I am a bit surprised to no offense, but see a liberal who realizes that many liberals are indeed very hypocritical

In any situation, particularly that of war, the prevailing ethos is to protect children. But could it be that events have conspired so that the liberal left find themselves unwittingly aiding and supporting the death of children in war situations?
 
Surely not? While views might differ between the left and right as to right and wrong, aggressor or victim, in any war situation – on the subject of children both sides roundly agree: children must be protected at all costs in conflict situations. And the left, as usually the stronger defender of the weaker, more vulnerable parties in any conflict situation – though some might argue that claim – would as a result be the stronger defender of children; though a close call, and the one area where left and right views often correlate. So how could this terrible anomaly have arisen?
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The first part of that puzzle came to mind when I recently viewed a programme on Nicholas Winton, who saved several hundred Jewish children from the holocaust in Czechoslovakia – often referred to as ‘the English Schindler’. There were many poignant moments in the programme, but one that stuck strongly in my mind was how these Jewish parents had sacrificed everything to save their children: queuing for countless hours, filling in forms, getting papers stamped, raising the necessary money, then finally the tearful goodbyes – knowing that they’d probably never see their children again and their own lives would soon be lost. The ultimate sacrifice.

At the time, I was also involved in debates regarding the growing number of knife attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, with defences and retaliations leading to a number of teen deaths, with the father of one 16-year-old Palestinian boy who murdered a young Israeli mother boldly proclaiming, “I am proud of him”. The stark contrast stuck in my mind – that one party would go to such lengths to protect their children, while the other would so readily sacrifice their lives. If it was just one isolated incident, it could be put down to the strange aberrations of one parent, but there are numerous videos online of fathers at Hamas rallies proclaiming how they’d happily sacrifice their children for ‘martyr’ actions against Israel.

Thankfully, that isn’t the entire picture, with the Palestinian father of the gunman who killed two in a Tel-Aviv bar expressing his horror at the incident: “I am an Israeli citizen, a law-abiding citizen. I heard what my son has done, and I am sorry. I did not educate him to act in that way.” The father was no doubt aiming to be the voice of the 1.7 million Arab-Muslim citizens of Israel – largely ignored when anti-Israel protestors try to portray a purely them-and-us situation and dishonestly sell the ‘apartheid’ tag – who are peaceful and support unity rather than conflict.

But we hear in his voice a sense of plea. In the same way that many parents in the west, upon learning that their kids have become drug addicts, decry that they’d always warned them strongly against drugs, yet in the end the prevailing influences – the streets, pop and rock culture, fellow teens and peer groups – had won out. The prevailing influences in this instance come from the countless Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders praising the attacks, with even the usually moderate Abbas lending his support: “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.” Only weeks later when an Israeli couple were killed, PLO official Mahmoud Ismail went on official Palestinian television, PBC, proclaiming their murder to be a fulfilment of Palestinian “national duty.” Faced with that level of encouragement and incitement – running all the way to the top of Palestinian leadership – it’s easy to understand the despair of any parent trying to push back against that tide.

It brought to mind that classic quote from past Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Surely the last thing Fatah and Hamas leaders would want is to make the words of Golda Meir bear fruit and appear glaringly true thirty years after the event? Surely too, Palestinian supporters in the West, realizing that much of the current wave of attacks involves incitement of under-age Palestinian teens to attack innocent civilians and in the process often lose their own lives, would shy away from lending their support to such actions? But, sadly, that hasn’t been the case.
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Go on social media and you’ll see any number of sites glorifying the deaths of these teens as ‘martyrs’ – though all too often the full details of them being involved in knife attacks prior to being shot and ‘martyred’ are conveniently avoided. The picture painted is that the IDF or Israeli check-point security have killed these teens in unprovoked assaults. Predictably, this then gives rise to righteous outrage and further chants of ‘evil Israelis’ and calls for their destruction. 

So while on the face of it, Palestinian teen lives lost will have served little purpose, by the time they’ve been put through the - Al-Jazeera-Electronic-intifada-Palestine-free-river-to-sea – one-way-view editorial machine, they will at least serve a purpose in propaganda terms: Israel will have been further demonized and another victim chalked up on the hate-wall of ‘Palestinian children killed by Israel’. No thought given to the fact that it was various Palestinian leaders – safe in their villas or hotel rooms, their own children safely at school - who incited these teens in the first place to take such drastic actions. But neglecting to mention that fact – along with painting a one-way picture of Israeli aggression and Palestinian victimhood – also serves a purpose: the next Palestinian teen to read these accounts might be sufficiently outraged to take the same action, thereby providing useful cannon fodder for yet another Israel-evil-Palestinian-victim incident report, and the cycle continues.    

If it was only western journalists who had picked up on this, I daresay it would hold less credence for Palestinian supporters. But tellingly this is an issue which has also raised concerns in Palestinian circles, with a number leading intellectuals and journalists speaking out, including Hafez Al-Barghouti, former editor of the PA daily and a Fatah Revolutionary Council member. He voiced that these teens were a particularly vulnerable and easily influenced age group, and that their childhood should be protected. He accused a number of Palestinian leaders of "trading in the blood of children" by praising and glorifying these attacks. Palestinian journalist Ihab Al-Jariri of Radio 24 held a similar view: "Those who write theories on Facebook, from behind the safety of a computer monitor, supporting the idea of children carrying out stabbing attacks and encouraging them to do so – should first do it themselves and only then ask the young ones to follow in their footsteps."

The fact that this current wave of renewed violence has been largely fuelled by social media has also been commented on by many newspapers, from Haaretz to The Guardian and New York Times. While four local dailies and eight TV stations give a blow-by-blow account of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the main source of news for Palestinian teens is via Facebook groups that pump out a continuous stream of bloody images and pro-violence slogans. As this cycle of life reflecting-social-media-distorted art/death reached its zenith, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented, "We are seeing a situation in which Osama Bin Laden meets Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder). The incitement on social networks is what is causing the wave of terror."

Israeli citizens too have taken this issue to heart, with more than 20,000 Israelis suing Facebook for "facilitating and encouraging" violence against Jews by allowing Palestinian users to post and share how-to videos on stabbing attacks, as well as violent messages and videos glorifying killers as martyrs. Certainly, the power of the internet and social media should not be underestimated, with it being cited as playing a major part in the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. But its value then was for militia groups to organize and coordinate – some of it using the ‘dark web’ – not to inspire teens to carry out ‘lone wolf’ attacks. So how and why did this use of young people and teens as a useful and valued spearhead take root in Palestinian society?    

To get the answer to this, you have to go back over forty years – to the attack by the PLO on Israeli athletes at Munich. While this certainly gained the Palestinian cause worldwide media attention, it was not in the way they wished. They learned from this that killing non-involved athletes was considered an abhorrent act and as a result had lost them international sympathy. The second series of actions which alerted them to what would gain or lose sympathy in the international arena was the wave of suicide bombings launched against Israel between 1995 and 2006.  These targeted mainly civilians, blowing apart men, women and children in cafes, hotels, shopping malls, and on buses. Particular horror was attached to the number of children killed, with one bombing at the Delphinarium Disco specifically targeting young teens: of the 22 killed, the youngest were 13 and 14. These bombings caused outrage in Israel and internationally, alienating many to the Palestinian cause, and shortly after the dividing security wall was built.
 
Possibly this action was the main kick-start for the largely media-led Palestinian propaganda war that followed – after all, with the divide built and conventional terrorist and suicide-bomber attacks thwarted, what other option was there? Also, since the main banner headline of that propaganda campaign often read, ‘They’re killing our children!’, they could hardly voice that protest – at least with a straight face or without appearing grossly ironic – when their own bombing campaigns were proportionally killing far more children the Israeli side.

But the international outrage caused by the Israeli children killed in these bombing campaigns – even though, out of respect for the dead, Israel rarely if ever showed photos of these corpses – had obviously gone deep into the Palestinian psyche, because it then often played at the forefront of their own propaganda campaigns. Alongside the prerequisite ‘Killing our children’ headlines, gory photos of the victims were displayed, and if the horror of these wasn’t enough, often a blood coated teddy-bear or doll would be strategically placed by the bodies. And as this one-way Israel-demonizing campaign gained momentum, ‘apartheid’ started to be used as a tag for the security divide – even though the suicide bombing campaign had not long finished and so its main purpose should still have been blatantly clear – and the term ‘Nazis’, genocide and comparisons to the holocaust quickly followed. 

It was almost as if a conversation had taken place in some electronic intifada or Hamas-central backroom whereby it was felt that labelling Israeli-Jews as ‘child killers’ might not on its own be enough. ‘What else would upset the Jews to be labelled? Racists! Yes, that’s good; having been the victims of racism for so many years, they wouldn’t like that. Ah, Nazis, genocide and holocaust. Brilliant! Comparing them to their main past aggressors and their attempted annihilation… they’ll hate that!’ What probably amazed this back-room bunch was that this rather obvious and infantile name-tagging exercise would ever gain wings outside. “I’m sure that most western journalists, academics and students will see through it and won’t be stupid enough to repeat it.” Most journalists, yes, but not all, and go on any social media site on any given day and you’ll see countless students and supposed academics repeating the same trite name-tags with abandon, not far different to kids – and with the same required intellect level - hurling playground insults. And on some choice days, you’ll even find some politicians stupid enough to repeat the same – particularly if they’re campaigning in Bradford!

But the final component which aided this ‘Child-killer’ labelling campaign came from an unlikely source: the UN. In the eyes of the UN, a ‘child’ is someone under 18 years of age, and it was probably not lost on both Hamas and Fatah that in a number of conflict showdowns, many of those on the front line jeering and throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers were in the 12-18 range. It’s one of the by-products of disaffected youth, particularly in an area of high unemployment in an on/off conflict zone. All that was needed was a tilt on that rudder for those teens to become more involved and aggressive, and they’d become a useful component in the war against Israel. Hamas would never admit to recruiting under-age militants, but there are numerous accounts of youths making up a jeering and rock-throwing front line while adult snipers shoot past them at Israeli soldiers. This provides a dual purpose: cover for their main militants and snipers, and if the young teens got caught in the crossfire, they added to the child-kill statistics aiding the propaganda campaign.

 The way in which this was played to advantage can be seen from the statistics of the Gaza war of 2014 and Hamas’s announcements about losses. In this conflict (from UN figures) a total of 2,104 Palestinians died, of which 253 were women and 495 children. Downplaying their own militant losses, Hamas went instantly for the child-killer angle, claiming that the IDF had killed more children than they had militants. At the end of the conflict, Hamas admitted to 500-600 militant losses, whereas Israel claimed it was more than a thousand. So which one of them was right? There were a number of newspaper reports about the high number of male 19-39 year olds amongst casualties which threw doubt on the Hamas claims, but none of these were conclusive.

There’s an old saying in crime investigations, ‘follow the money’. Well, as any seasoned war-journalist will tell you, replace ‘money’ with ‘women’ to properly gauge civilian losses. Mainly because most nations comprise 50% men/50% women, and women generally are not involved in front-line combat – particularly true in Gaza. So by doubling the number of women, 253, you have the likely number of non-involved adult civilian deaths: 506. With the children, from a related Palestinian report, 183 of the 495 killed were female. Double 183 to get the total of non-involved civilian child deaths: 366. Which leaves 129 males unaccounted for, thus ‘involved’ to some degree, no doubt many of them in the aforementioned 12-18 range, since it’s likely those under 12 would have been kept away from the conflict wherever possible.

Deduct the 495 child deaths from the 2,104 overall and you have a total of 1,609 adult deaths. Then take away the 506 non-involved civilian deaths, and you have a total of 1,103 involved in the fighting – indeed, slightly higher than the original figure claimed by Israel. But then on top we have the aforementioned 129 males listed by the UN as ‘children’ (mainly 12-18) involved in the fighting. All this aside from the Israeli claim that Hamas often fired from heavily residential sections, thereby increasing the overall civilian death-toll, and used their tunnels - which could have been used to shelter civilians - solely to protect their munitions and their leaders.

The high number of male casualties can also be seen in the statistics from this current wave of knife attacks. Of the 284 attacks since last September, which has left 31 dead and 348 injured, only 7 of the perpetrators have been female. A number are males in their twenties, but a higher proportion are under 18, with the youngest knife attacker only 11. The one-way-demonizing posts on Facebook are certainly taking their toll, not only in Jewish lives lost, but in the larger number of young Palestinians losing their lives during these attacks – which are then duly published on Facebook to further demonize Israel and incite more attacks. The fact that so many of the attacker-victims are young males has been reported by many journals, with a Haaretz (usually more left-leaning) editorial a month ago commenting, “What kind of a national movement unleashes 13-year-olds to do its dirty work? How does a child sacrifice, or at the very least an after-the-fact justification of child sacrifice, bring honour to the Palestinian cause?  Once again, the leaders of Palestinian nationalism have led their people down the long, cruel path of violence, suffering and death.”

Bassem Eid, a leading Palestinian human rights activist, in an editorial at the end of last year, lamented about the lack of good Palestinian leadership in inciting this current wave of violence. And an op-ed tagged to Amnesty International went a step further by looking deeper into the history of child-recruitment for the Palestinian cause, even going as far back as a LIFE magazine cover depicting tiger cubs of 8-11 in full assault gear and armed with automatic weapons at a Jordanian training camp, with a supporting explanation from a leading Palestinian newspaper-illustrator: “I saw for myself how afraid the Israeli soldiers were of the children. A child of ten or eleven had sufficient training to carry and use an RBG rifle. The situation was simple enough. The Israeli tanks were in front of them and the weapon was in their hands. The Israelis were afraid to go into the camps, and if they did, they would only do so in daylight.”

I’m sure that Hamas and the harder-line elements within Fatah might argue that if male youths between 11-18 are keen to be out on the streets at the forefront of conflicts, what can they do to stop them? But the lack of leadership voices urging them to desist – in fact, quite the opposite, urging them to partake and become ‘martyrs’ – tells a different story. And the reverse side of that coin is equally disturbing: if this is largely as a result of disaffected youth in an on/off conflict zone, what incentive is there to improve the lot of that youth, particularly when they can be used as such a worthwhile tool in the conflict against Israel; direct cannon fodder on one level, child-kill statistics to further demonize Israel on another. Which I suppose might go some way to explaining why much of the aid and concrete hasn’t yet found its way into re-building Gaza, it has gone into building more supply and terror tunnels.

The other archly dishonest element in this current wave of attacks is that their founding held no substance in the first place. This originally stemmed from the request of Jewish religious groups to increase the currently restrictive hours that Jews were allowed on the Temple Mount, and that some prayers should also be allowed (on the grounds only, where prayers by non-Muslims are currently forbidden); on the face of it not an unreasonable request, since this is holy ground for Jews also, being the original site for the First and Second Temples. Some radical Muslim groups took exception and called for protesters to heckle Jewish visitors during their existing allowed visiting times. This then led to more widespread protests and the current wave of knife-attacks. However the Knesset and Prime Minister Netanyahu had from the outset made it clear in announcements that they would make no alterations to the existing visiting times or prayer restrictions for Jewish worshippers - but this was roundly ignored by Muslim radicals as they spread the word that the 'Al-Aqsa' was under threat.   

But where does the left-wing stand on all of this? That bastion of protection for the innocent and underprivileged, with children – and with good reason – at the pinnacle. If these observations and linked accusations were coming only from Western journalists, you might expect them to do the usual of sticking their fingers in their ears while chanting a repetitive mantra of ‘Hasbara’. But many of these accusations are coming from the core of Palestinian society itself. So now keenly aware of that fact, are they shrinking back from the fray: “I’ll support many things in the name of the Palestinian cause, but I won’t support the use of children in conflict… particularly when it might lead to the death of those children.”

Yet on numerous ‘Palestine-Free’ Facebook sites, amongst the Arabic-named posters talking about the latest young ‘martyrs’ – often linked to a gory image or video - you’ll see any number of Susan’s, Elsa’s, Steve’s or Jose’s, all reading/chanting from the same evil-Israel hymn sheet. Go on their profile pages and you’ll see links to universities in Southampton, Stockholm, Amsterdam or Oakland, while others might be business consultants, computer analysts or health or socialist party workers. A broad spectrum.  

Palestinian journalist Ihab Al-Jariri’s comments about those writing on Facebook from behind the safety of a computer monitor start to hold a more callous resonance, as those writing from cities in the West are not only far removed from the conflict zones geographically, but from reality too by the very one-way-information nature of these sites. Most of these sites are private or group membership, so only those who sign up can comment. Make any comments that fall outside of a pre-set party line, and they’ll quickly be deleted and your membership revoked. Through this, a constant barrage of one-way-anti-Israel hate messages can be maintained. So they remain hermetically sealed from the reality of the situation or any balance.

All of this could be viewed as harmless banter on Facebook under the umbrella of ‘open debate’ if the only readers to get incensed by this one-way hate barrage were Israelis and their supporters. The left might shout that it was equal dues and served them right for being pro-Israel and so ‘Hasbara’. But when the recipient of those one-way hate messages might be Palestinian teens – arguably the most impressionable and easily influenced group both in terms of their age and being at the geographical heart of the conflict – who might be only a key-stroke away from taking up knives themselves, then it takes on an entirely different meaning. How would one of those left-wing supporters feel if a 14-year-old Palestinian teen they’d made a particularly bold anti-Israel comment to one day on Facebook – had the very next day lost their lives while engaged in a knife attack?

I daresay that true Palestinian supporters, concerned about the impact of their messages, would pause for thought or at least temper their posts. But the problem is that amongst this number are a collection of die-hard anti-Semites – as evidenced by the number of Rothschild-banking, Jews-in-control, blood-libel and holocaust denial posts – whose care for the Palestinians is minimal beyond the common bond of their shared hatred of Jews.

As a result, it will be interesting to see how these Facebook sites evolve and change over the coming months, especially in the face of a 20,000 strong law-suit. I think the first thing for Facebook to tackle will be the one-way nature of these sites whereby moderators censor out any opposing viewpoints which might level the playing field. Their main role should be to ‘moderate’ any inflammatory, hate-filled or racist messages – not give carte blanche to those messages and edit out or block anything which might run against that and give some due balance; ergo ‘moderation’.

​But with many Palestinian leaders having made use of this under-age army in their fight against Israel for so long, and with the additional benefit of being able to use their ‘martyr’ deaths in their ‘child-killers’ demonization of Israel – I see any change slow in coming.   
 
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