This is quite a disturbing post, put up by a guy who is evidently proud of it. It records a 2 minute discussion in the street during the local elections between three Green Party canvassers and an irate local resident; which starts off with him being quite calm and reasonable but ends up with him shouting abuse at them. They remain calm and polite throughout. He was filming the encounter from the start – presumably with a view to putting it about on social media afterwards, as he did.
His tone first starts to rise when he starts to argue that the motion put to the Green Party conference in March that Zionism is racism indicated “you don’t like Jews actually” because “95% …98%” of the Jewish community identify with Zionism. This is wrong on two counts.
1 Those figures are inaccurate. According to this article from the Jewish Chronicle from February 2024, in UK 63% identify as Zionist. And in the US thats 58%. And support for Israel is declining among Jewish people, just as it is more widely; because of what Israel is doing. That 63% in the UK is down from 72% in 2010. This is particularly the case among younger people. 8% in the UK considered themselves to be “anti Zionist” and 15% “non Zionist”. This active opposition is divided between religious currents that see a return to Israel before the coming of the Messiah as heresy, and internationalist Jews who see the adoption of communalist nationalism as a betrayal of the best humanist Jewish traditions. We should note that this survey was carried out by JPR, as the Chronicle puts it “before the current Hamas war,” and “found that support for the ideology of Zionism is slipping in UK Jewry as a whole” even then. So, what we have is not a community united around the Zionist project, but one that is deeply and traumatically fractured by its consequences. Some of that trauma is expressed by the increased vehemence of its supporters as more and more people are shocked by what they see.
2 The core of the argument is, however, whether Zionism can be described in any other way than racist. Liberal Zionists like Jonathan Freedland are without doubt appalled by the behaviour of people like Ben Gvir, partly because its bad PR, but also because it cuts against what they genuinely think Israel can represent. In his arguments around the IHRA definition, Freedland put the point that it is not antisemitic to criticise the state of Israel, but it would be to criticise a state of Israel. The distinction being that to criticise what a state does is legitimate, but not what it is. His problem is that it is impossible to envisage any state of Israel based on the core Zionist principle that the state is, and has to be, fundamentally a Jewish state, that did not treat the Palestinian population that also lives there as a threat; even if just demographically, and did not discriminate against them as second class citizens at best, subject, occupy, ethnically cleanse and expel and, in extremis, bomb them at worst. Its a bit like arguing that you can criticise Apartheid South Africa as it was, but not the principle of Apartheid South Africa. The problem for people like Freedland is that were Israel to treat the Palestinian population that lives under its rule with equality, it would cease to be Israel as a Zionist project and to maintain Israel as it is requires increasing levels of repression. Faced with challenges, “facts on the ground” have to be stamped down harder and harder. And as the power of the United States wanes, the viability of survival as a pro US military frontier state declines with it. The demonstrative violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon prioritise tactical victories over strategic viability and are a demonstration of weakness because they have to do this and keep playing double or quits until they can’t do it anymore. Rowing back from that course before that point is reached would be preferable for all concerned.
The final part of this film is quite surreal. Three very polite, slightly hurt and unhappy looking Green canvassers walking politely away from a man who is yelling at them to “F*** off!” and calling them “Nazis” in full confidence that they are nothing of the sort. Actual Nazis would have attacked him brutally and, I have no doubt, the Green Party people would have defended him from them. Embrace communalist nationalism and alliances get turned on their heads. The paradox of this is expressed by two young Jewish guys I was sitting beside on the tube when J and I were on our way to the Nakba demonstration last weekend. They were quiet outer suburban professionals, having a conversation about how people here had “had enough” and were looking to buy houses in Israel and how prices were now low (which indicates that more people want to sell/leave than move in; because Tel Aviv is actually a lot less safe than London and always will be). As we went along they were sharing info from their mobiles from family who were on the Tommy Robinson march, which they were joining themselves. And that’s where you end up. Finding common cause with people who want to “Unite the Kingdom” by deporting our neighbours.
On the Nakba Day demonstration, there were, among others, powerful and passionate Jewish speakers – you could have heard a pin drop for Stephen Kapos – and all the speakers called for unity against all forms of racism, stressing that “antisemitism has no place in our movement”. On the, much smaller, “Robinson” march Islamaphobia was common ground, with a big Christian Nationalist contingent who want to ban all other religions. When they come for the Mosques in the morning…People like our irate resident and the two young guys on the tube should think that through.
Urban ramblings 