By Palestinian Ambassador Manuel Hassassian
‘JEREMY Corbyn’s principled stance has been watched with bated breath by all Palestinians in occupied Palestine and the diaspora. After last week’s dramatic intervention by Benjamin Netanyahu into British politics, the dynamics of the debate on Israel, the IHRA, anti-semitism and a Labour Party staying true to its core values are stripping away the confusion obscuring the real issues which are at stake.
‘JEREMY Corbyn’s principled stance has been watched with bated breath by all Palestinians in occupied Palestine and the diaspora. After last week’s dramatic intervention by Benjamin Netanyahu into British politics, the dynamics of the debate on Israel, the IHRA, anti-semitism and a Labour Party staying true to its core values are stripping away the confusion obscuring the real issues which are at stake. We are at a key juncture where the Labour Party and all it stands for may be forced to bow to the immense pressures of the elite, the right wing and pro-Israeli pressure groups.
Those of us who have a healthy sense of distrust for the dominant narratives circulated by the right-wing media, the Daily Mail included, largely because, as Palestinians, we are always marginalised and disenfranchised, realise that some pro-Israeli interest groups in Britain are using the anti-semitism row to silence criticism of Israel and to coerce the Labour Party into adopting all the examples in the IHRA definition.
What is in the balance here is more than our human rights as Palestinians but human rights everywhere which have been traditionally championed by progressive forces in Britain. The key example that the Labour Party’s NEC has been reticent in adopting in the IHRA definition relates to the fact that accusations of racism against Israel could be deemed anti-semitic.
Labour rightly judged that this example could be used as a tool to challenge criticism of nationalist tendencies and violations of human rights in Israel and legitimise its prolonged occupation of the Palestinians rather than protecting Jews worldwide.
This view was supported by two prominent Israeli academics in Haaretz last week. Furthermore, anybody who is serious about understanding the historical context in which Israel was created will know that 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by Zionist terror militias and 500 Palestinian villages destroyed. It is difficult not to define this as a racist endeavour.
More crucially, today, Israel is veering to the extreme right and is no longer trying to hide its discriminatory policies and brutal occupation. Only a few weeks ago, the Knesset adopted the Nation State Law which, in effect, makes Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up one fifth of the population, into second class citizens.
The continued theft of Palestinian land to build illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has made it clear to all that Israel will never accept an independent Palestinian state and probably never meant to, only engaging in the charade of the peace process to create facts on the ground which would make the creation of a state for the Palestinians an impossibility.
Israel has no qualms about imprisoning Palestinian children and holding tens of hundreds of Palestinians in detention without charge or trial. It was emboldened to shoot dead and maim 100s of protestors at the Gaza border in May because it knew it would escape accountability, yet again, for such crimes against humanity.
Gagging free speech on Israel will allow it to continue to act with impunity and we, as Palestinians, the victims of the victims of anti-semitism will have our grievances silenced time and again. This does not serve the cause of peace and justice for the Palestinians nor the security of Israel. Furthermore, Israel’s extreme right-wing policies are deepening the crisis in the whole Middle East as it cosies up with various dictators in the region and, in alliance with them, is fighting to sabotage any democratic and progressive forces in the Arab world, exacerbating regional problems and fostering greater radicalisation.
It is aligning itself with populist and far right politicians in Europe and, of course, with Trump in the US whose recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, including occupied east Jerusalem, killed the peace process and the two-state solution taking the conflict to a dangerous impasse. These reactionary forces in Europe and the US pose a substantial threat to all that has been achieved since the end of Second World War with the Geneva Convention, human rights movements and the protection and accountability created by key institutions such as the United Nations.
These same values which were enshrined in the Labour movement, since its outset, are being threatened. Caving in to those pro-Israeli forces which are helping to foment the anti-semitism row will represent a departure from the key values of the traditional Labour movement, resuscitated by Jeremy Corbyn, and will betray the principles which led to the surge of support for Labour under his leadership.
It will be victory not only for the pro-Israeli lobby but for the extreme right in Israel and elsewhere and, of course, for the Conservative Party. The Conservatives are in total alliance with those pressure groups which are working to bring down Jeremy Corbyn. Even if Labour adopts all the examples of the IHRA, the smear campaign against him will continue.
Those who unconditionally support Israel do not want a new British government to implement what Parliament and the Lords have already voted in favour of, the recognition of the State of Palestine. Such a move would be a strategic turnaround of Britain’s decision to establish a Jewish State in place of Palestine 100 years ago and, at last, bring some justice to the Palestinian people.
Last week’s fake news about Corbyn’s visit to Tunis, conjured up by the Daily Mail and propagated by other right-wing media, was embedded firmly in the campaign against the Labour leader and the anti-semitism row by the paper itself.
The ceremony which Jeremy Corbyn took part in 2014 was a joint Palestinian and Tunisian commemoration which takes place every year to mourn those callously killed in 1985 by the Israeli bombing of the PLO offices where dozens of civilians were blown to bits. The Israelis believed they had succeeded in assassinating Yasser Arafat in the bombing, given away by their premature announcement of his death straight after the massacre, but he had managed to escape. The bombing was condemned by a vote of 14-0 in the UN Security Council.
The controversy around Salah Khalaf, also buried in the cemetery in Tunis, is a case of how a paper like the Mail can frame the discourse using hyperbole and rhetoric and dubious facts to create panic. Salah Khalaf, when he was killed in 1991, was Arafat’s deputy. He was killed because he had adopted the path of diplomacy after greater international recognition of the Palestinian cause.
The PLO had been recognised by the UN as the sole representative of the Palestinian people as far back as 1974 after being labelled as a terrorist organisation by the US and Israel for decades. Yasser Arafat himself received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. If it comes down to the terrorist past of leaders, Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel from 1977 -1983, is a case in point. He was the leader of the Zionist terror militia, the Irgun Gang, which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22nd July 1946 killing 91 people including 28 Britons.
The Irgun was also responsible for the massacre of 150 Palestinian men women and children in the village of Deir Yassin on 9th April 1948 in a terror campaign to force Palestinians from their homes. Menachem Begin was later received in Downing Street. Violence against Palestinians still continues and not one day passes without the Israeli occupying forces arresting, injuring or killing a Palestinian.
Today Palestinian leaders are courageously committed to popular and peaceful resistance to Israeli occupation using international mechanisms to try to bring Israel to account. This approach is supported by progressive forces around the world including many brave Jewish voices for a just solution for the Palestinians, most notably here in Britain.
Jeremy Corbyn’s strength and his appeal is that he is not a politician who will use spin and all the tricks in the book to woo the public and the media. This is why there is new vigorous support for the Labour Party. As Palestinians, we urge him not to give in to the forces which would like to silence legitimate criticism of Israel’s racist policies and actions against our people and bury the crimes of Israel’s past.
These forces are diametrically opposed to what the true Labour movement is about and if Corbyn’s moral strength is undermined, so will be the new found support for the Labour Party under his leadership. We as Palestinians will be losers but also, so will be all the British people who crave and hope that a new Labour government will bring much needed change.’
