For more than two years, Israelis living in Sderot and other towns near Gaza have been the target of choice for Hamas terrorists. Launching its arsenal of Qassam rockets from residential neighborhoods and even schoolyards, they have as much as dared Israel to fight back. Now it has.
Predictably, much of the world is expressing its dismay — and those of us who call ourselves progressives are fuming that much of it is coming from our counterparts on the left overseas. However, it’s not enough for us to be indignant. Absent the involvement of the American labor movement, any effort to build worldwide support on the left for the Jewish state will be extraordinary difficult.
To grasp the enormity of the challenge facing Israel’s friends on the left, one need only look at the Socialist International’s condemnation last month of “the excessive use of force by Israel in Gaza.” The umbrella body of social democratic, socialist and labor parties went on to point out that it has “consistently denounced the attacks against Israel coming from Gaza as well as the incursions into Gaza by Israel, for both serve only to worsen the cycles of violence that in the end harm innocent people the most.”
Of course, those who have even a passing familiarity with Hamas understand that their raison d’etre is the creation of a chain of violence and retribution. Suggesting that Israel and Hamas are both to blame for the bloodshed in Gaza is akin to saying that the would-be victim who fights off a mugger bears equal responsibility for the violence as the assailant.
Statements like the Socialist International’s, however, are salutary compared to some of the venom generated by the left abroad.
For example, Australia’s Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia joined forces recently to condemn a parliamentary resolution congratulating Israel on its 60 years of statehood . Their words speak for themselves: “We, as informed and concerned Australians, choose to disassociate ourselves from a celebration of the triumph of racism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the al-Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.”
Why do voices that so often cry out for social justice serve up these kinds of diatribes against Israel? Why do they hold Israel to standards that no other nation in the world would ever be expected to meet? And why do so many of them claim that, in the final analysis, Israel is responsible for everything Hamas does or will do?
It is the triumph of instinct over intellect, and one can only conclude that, at least in part, what we are increasingly witnessing on the left overseas is antisemitism cloaked under the veil of anti-Zionism.
Why, then, has this worldview remained so marginal among American progressives? After all, no serious contender for this year’s Democratic presidential nomination has offered anything less than total support for Israel.
The answer may be found in the labor movement.
Faced with an alarming growth of anti-Israel boycotts and divestment efforts among unions across the United Kingdom, last year the Jewish Labor Committee launched an aggressive campaign to protest the move by British labor leaders. In the space of two weeks, every major American union had endorsed the effort. In fact, the show of American labor opposition to Israel-bashing was so strong that unions in Germany followed our lead and took a similar stance.
The leadership demonstrated by America’s unions last year ought to send a powerful message to Israel’s allies at home and overseas.
First, it should remind American Jewish leaders that they have a vital stake in building and maintaining a strong alliance with organized labor. This is particularly true now that Israel’s conservative Republican supporters are in the minority on Capitol Hill and seem well on their way to losing the White House. By this time next year it will likely be far more important for Jewish leaders to have a working relationship Change to Win’s Anna Burger and the AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney than with Pat Robertson, John Hagee and others on the right.
Second, it ought to embolden Israel’s supporters in foreign unions and encourage them to make their voices heard. As German activists demonstrated, American leadership is fundamental to challenging Israel bashing within the labor movement globally — and there can be no effective campaign to build support for Israel on the left internationally absent labor support.
Historically, American progressives have been bit players in the global left. Some might say that our biggest contribution was creating May Day.
However, the continuing assault against Israel by the left in other countries demands that we make our voices heard. With the support of the American labor movement we can. I know this much: We owe it to the families living in Sderot to try.
Stuart Appelbaum is president of the Jewish Labor Committee and of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
So labor supports the new world order? Why did they give the Jews the state of Israel if they are just going to tear it apart? I don't understand....
Over the past two years alone Israel has killed more than 900 Palestinians, roughly half of whom are civilians. In return, the Palestinians have killed some 31 Israelis, again roughly half civilian. Mr. Appelbaum is right to decry the notion that "Israel and Hamas are both to blame for the bloodshed in Gaza," for the preponderance of force and violence and brutality is now and always has been Zionist. The above numbers do not begin to describe the hell Israel has imposed upon the Palestinians, for there are also the wounded and crippled, the beaten and humiliated, the 18,000 homes bulldozed, the land confiscated, the crops and olive trees destroyed, the check points and blockades and curfews, the hunger, the lack of jobs and of a future, all that which comes from internment in these modern-day concentration camps called Gaza and the West Bank. Yet Appelbaum, unable to melt butter in his mouth, insists Israel to be the helpless victim. What fools does blind ideology make of us all! Israel with the most powerful army in the ME, the fourth most powerful in the world, backed to the hilt by the US; Israel with the largest economy in the region, an economy many times larger than all its neighbors' combined; Israel who controls every aspect of Palestinian life, down to the population registry and what coinage they should use and when they should be allowed access to their groves. Israel who commits all of the above and kills with impunity and then is outraged when someone shoots back. What astonishing chutzpah, what towering narcissism.
The comparison between inter-state violence and repelling a mugger with force is off the point. Violence between states is much more like having someone burn down your house, killing your wife and children, and then retaliating by burning down *his* house, killing *his* wife and children. In both cases the innocent are slaughtered.
As can be seen right in this comment section, to be left is to be anti-Israel (almost) by defintion. By contrast, the anti-Israel right is old, small and ineffective. In the years to come Jews will have to make a choice, be left or be pro-Israel. the puny attempts such as the one mentioned will have a puny effect.
As a Jew I support the Palestinians. As a progressive I must oppose the state of Israel apartheid policies. As Jimmy Carter has written Israel is an apartheid state. Our next president, a true progressive, Barak Obama will support the Palestinians rather than be a mouthpiece for Likud. Stuarts article is nothing bu racism and the Jewish labor committee an the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union should remove him from membership. Unions accross the world have joined in the boycott of Israel. Unions in America should lead teh boycott against Apartheid Israel.
The reason why most labour movements worldwide, especially the democratic ones, are ambivalent about supporting the Israeli state and its government is precisely because it is engaged in a brutal military occupation and has consistently denied and scuttled every serious attempt at a peaceful settlement in the last 40 years. Read Israeli academic Avi Shlaim's "Iron Wall" for proof. Or check out the website of Israel's B'Tselem: http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Index.asp which provides ample, uncontestible evidence of the gross disproptionate nature of Palestinian civilian suffering. The chief problem with the argument here is the concept of "Israel". This piece conflates the state, the government, the military and the people as if they are all the same. What labour movements worldwide should be doing is lending solidarity to all workers in Israel/Palestine and defending their human rights, not sucking up to governments (US, Israel or whatever). As a non-native american citizen of the US, I assume you acknowledge the terrible treatement of North America's indigenous people over the last 500 years (what was ethnic-cleansing at a minimum). Is it truly so hard to acknowlege the same was suffered by the Palestinians?
I never understoof the dangerous Fawing of some American Jews-- who appreciate the importance of separating Church and State to their survival in America-- over right wing Evangeligals like John Hagee. Rev. Hagee's Jewish admirers remind of Hitler's Jewish admirers in Batar, Jabotinsky's "revisionist" mob that sought conquest by means of a bloody "iron wall," long before any Arab war befell the Zionists. Batar wore uniforms weaved, sewn, washed, pressed and distributed free by their Nazi tailors. Said Batar: so what if Hitler didn't like Jews, he's wonderful for the German people-- then came Kristallnacht! For three generations American Jews have wailed over the Holocaust. But it is not the wail for lost beloved brethren, but the wail of heavy guilt passed on through three generations for the deliberate silence of the 1930s, motivated by fear that their "good deal" in America might be endangered if they speak too loudly against German-US relations. After all, Germans were then the biggest immigrant group and the Bun was mighty tough, even in America. East Euro Jews who survived TWO Holocausts (Hitler's and Stalin's) raised me through our westward refuge from Stalin's grasp. And they taught me that people who think it's cool to make a deal with them "dumb goyim" loonies end up at the front of the line of horror... as so many in Russia found out in the 1950 Soviet "Doctors' Plot" of Stalin. In 1946 Zionist leaders pledged Stalin full support against the West if only he armed the Palmach against the Arabs. He armed them generously; and then he butchered Russian Jews in a spasm of anti-Semitism brought to an end only by his death in 1953. So as a Christian raised by Jews I offer you an historical lesson passed on to me by my wise mentors: Don't play with the Devil, thinking that he is dumb; for you will surely be burned!
The comments above show how liberalism has rendered leftists moral idiots who can not perceive the reality as it exists and can not distinguish who is evil. Somebody obviously left the insane asylum unlocked.
Applebaum's column is typical of the racism that characterizes much of the pro-Israeli wings of the labour movement. He calls on unionists to consider the plight of Sderot's 20,000 while ignoring the far worse plight of the 1.5-million Palestinians currently facing starvation and siege in Gaza. It's almost as if the Israeli military didn't recently massacre 120 Palestinians in Gaza, or as if the deputy defense minister didn't threaten Gazans with a 'shoa' (catastrophe/holocaust). If people are interested to know where progressive Jewish, Palestinian and other justice seeking groups are directing their energies I highly recommend looking at the following links: Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: http://www.stopthewall.org/ Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israeli (PACB): http://www.pacbi.org/ Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/ As should be obvious from even a cursory glance of these websites, it's hard to sustain the contention that progressive activism on these questions in the labour movement is somehow anti-semitic. Let's hope that this multiracial, justice seeking movement seeking to isolate apartheid Israel continues to grow. Mr. Applebaum's distortions will only take him so far, especially if he continues to privilege Israeli lives over Palestinian lives as he does in the above article.
Hey Mike, why should it be Israel's responsibility to ensure the safety of Palestinian lives when Palestinians in Gaza have chosen to be led by an "entity" that denies Israel's right to exist (along with denying its own citizens basic liberties, such as free speech, particularly for journalists). For Hamas, the non-existence of Israel is the goal. With Palestinians in Gaza wishing for Israel's demise (just read Hamas' charter or watch their State sponsored children's shows, etc.), it seems quite natural for Israel to try to make nice with them...sure...... Maybe if Isreal acts real real nice, they can choose the type of bomb, bullet or gas to be directed at them.
The Palestinians won the propoganda war by staying focused on a small number of principles that the world sees as the conviction of the underdog. The cries of occupation, ethnic cleansing and one-state, democratic solution has served their cause well. Sadly, Israel plays into their hands with collective punishment and settlements. Israel's reserve in the face of the Gazan rockets over Siderot may tip the scales in the propoganda war in Israel's favor, but Israel has to make more concessions. Hamas are terroroists not necessarily great politicians. There actions will eventually defeat them. In any event, a two-state solution and a shared Jerusalem is inevitable. Israel should prepare for that as if there is no violence. Then, the Palestinians will be left holding the bag.
Curious...what is there exactly that is "progressive" about first starving people to half to death then finally killing them?
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