By David Rowlands. 02-04-1924.
Top – from Iran; Bottom – from Gaza.
The anti-Jewish filth depicted in the “cartoons” above are ingrained in young people at an early age and represent canards that are as old as the hills, so ancient in fact that it will require the advance of the socialist revolution if we’re ever to have any chance of confronting this contagion with sufficiently strong medicine to cast it aside once and for all.
That’s the long view; but that does not mean we cease to fight everywhere and at all times against the scourge of antisemitism, or racism and chauvinism of any kind.
Above: Tens of thousands march against antisemitism in France in the aftermath of the 10-07 pogrom. No black masks, no getting in anyone’s face, no fistfights with non-suspecting Jews, no defacing of posters and public property, no banging on the windows of Jewish restaurants, just a show of solidarity, sweet and simple and extremely powerful.
The main suspect for this backward mentality (which includes a dismal view of the rights of women), built upon ancient, anti-Jewish hysterics, is the fact that most of the Arab and Muslim lands have never experienced thorough-going bourgeois revolutions and a corresponding reformation of the Islamic faith, and I now confess that my decades-long practice of blaming the Jewish people and the State of Israel for what’s transpired was not justified – morally, politically, nor based on any kind of accurate reading of the historical record.
(I leave aside large swaths of the Iranian and Kurdish population who reject Jew hate and support the fight of Israel to exist as a refuge for the Jewish people, and who are in favor of putting an end to Hamas, and the millions of Arabs and Muslims who also reject this anti-working-class poison).
I’m open to the argument that the Jew hate so evident in these parts of the world are qualitatively no different than what exsits in other locations. However, I’m inclined to reject that suggestion, although similarities abound, and no doubt originates from the same places and for the same reasons. I leave aside previous examples, like Nazi Germany, for which, as Fidel Castro noted, nothing compares.
Combine this with the silence that accompanies horrendous acts of violence by Arabs against other Arabs, and you have evidence for something a tad, bit different. Do you remember a few years back when the Spawn of Stalin, Bashour Assad, barrel-bombed the Palestinian refugee camps in and around Damascus? Some will, most won’t, I do.
No Jews, no news.
In Palestine, for example, the valley of the shadow of death runs so deep that the Palestinian people and the “leadership” seem utterly incapable of sharing the land with the Jewish people. This despite the many offers, all rejected by an entrenched leadership who fears the loss of their wealth and privileges.
Above: The UN mandate of 1948 provided for a contiguous Palestine state that received by far, the better half of the deal. The day after the declaration of the Jewish State, five Arab countries invaded and were promptly defeated, leading to serious consequences for the Arab masses living there. They invaded again in 1967 and 1973, with the same bad results.
From what we know by what’s been uncovered as a result of the war in Gaza, it’s painfully clear that the schools, under the auspices of agencies connected with the United Nations, who are collaborating with Hamas-ISIS, have instructed their pupils in the most vicious Jew hate imaginable. This partially explains why the young men who took part in the pogrom were able to do what they did, including the murder of children, the gang-rape of women and men so violent that it separated pelvic bones and killed the victims, decapitation, mutilation and kidnapping.
Also included in the curriculum is anti-women and homicidal, anti-gay instruction, which is what one would expect from Hamas, a vile and reactionary, anti-labor association of thugs which must be defeated.
With the pogrom of 10-07-2023, a watershed moment for the workers of the world, it’s become necessary, as I’ve previously noted, to look at the entire question of Israel and Palestine with a new set of eyes. One aspect of this is taking up the question as to why there is such a marked streak of Jew hate residing within the Arab and Islamic Street, encompassing not just the ruling-classes but much of the toiling population as well.
And yes, there is a reflection of these attitudes and behaviors on the part of many of the rightist settlers who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who harasses and commit acts of violence which are not infrequently lethal, on innocent Palestinian villagers.
Sometimes it’s necessary to say things out loud and now is one of those times.
But I assure you, dear readers, that Marxism long ago freed me from any and all prejudice against Arabs and those who practice the Islamic faith. In fact, the purpose of this essay is to contribute, in a small way, to the union of workers of the region, be they Jewish, Arab, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, or immigrant workers from other countries, such as the Philippines and Thailand, who live and work in these countries.
Associated Problems
There’s likewise a convergence between Arabs and Muslims who have immigrated to western countries such as the United States, Germany, France, Canada and the United Kingdom, many of whom are deeply antisemitic, with the middle-class left who are turning towards Jew hate as the panic increases in the face of a declining profit system. This has become especially acute and visible since the massacre, which has brought tendencies just below the surface to the lite shine of the tabletop.
This coming together can be seen in the pro-Hamas demonstrations that have swept the imperialist countries in the aftermath of the pogrom, and in the wake of the Israeli response. These demonstrations, despite the good intentions among a small number of the participants that find themselves at the wrong place for the right reasons, are utterly reactionary and must be opposed.
Find below excerpts from a recent piece from the Jerusalem Post.
“During a demonstration against the rising cost of housing in the Portuguese city of Porto last Saturday, demonstrators brandished signs with antisemitic messages blaming Jews and Zionists for the economic crisis, according to Porto’s Jewish community.”
“The signs included antisemitic slogans and calls for the “cleansing the world of Jews.”
“Other protesters drew inspiration from the Israel-Hamas war and anti-Israel narratives, instructing people “not to rent a house from Zionist murderers,” “We want a home to live in and Palestine is liberated,” and “Not Haifa and not Bonavista, no to a Zionist capital!”
“The protest came amid a growing climate of antisemitism. Only 3 days after Hamas launched its October 7 terrorist attack, which took the lives of over 1200 people, the synagogue of Porto’s Jewish community was vandalized with pro-Palestinian messages.“
Below: Please find a typical example of violence against Jews emanating from the “River to the Sea” movement, by which they mean from the river to the sea without the Jews. This particular incident was of such a violent character that it sent the three young people attacked to the hospital.
“Three Jews, all in their 20s, were violently attacked in Leicester Square in central London early on Sunday morning. The victims were reportedly targeted after being overheard speaking Hebrew.”
“They heard us talking and said, ‘Are you Jewish?’” Tehilla told the paper. “I said, ‘Yes, I’m Jewish.’ And then they started chanting ‘Free Palestine’, and [expletive] Jews, all this kind of swearing at us.”
The situation escalated rapidly, with assailants growing from two or three to a mob of 15 to 20 people, who attacked the three physically, according to the Daily Mail.
https://www.jns.org/met-fails-to-respond-after-three-attacked-for-being-jewish/?fbclid=IwAR2bl4XkVcHfewWOWB9IVq6dv2aqpAbqGrlbbNVCm2p4o4OwDtg9nRQiYOA
Above, Sydney Australia, two days after the pogrom: Chants of “Gas the Jews”, “Where’s the Jews” and “Fuck the Jews” were chanted at a rally supposedly in defense of the Palestinian people by a gang of proto fascists comprised mostly of Arab and Muslim immigrants to the island nation.
Two mass expulsions.
A wave of humiliations, pogroms and property confiscations laid the basis for a mass flight (expulsions) of the Jewish people from the Arab countries, just before and after the second imperialist war, and into the 1950’s.
Combine this with the arrival of 125,000 to 150,000 Jews from Europe after the Holocaust, and you get a pretty good idea of why so many Jewish refugees found themselves in Palestine by 1948.
Above: Yemeni Jews arrive in Israel in 1950 after being expelled. Over one million Jews were forced out of the Arab countries during the period under discussion. Today, 4,500 remain, mostly in Morocco. Arabs live in Israel, but no Jews live in Gaza.
A New Book Emerges
Please find below excerpts from Nathan Weinstock’s book, “The Inconvenient Truth About Jews from Arab Lands: They Were Expelled”.
Weinstock, once a leading proponent of the anti-Zionist left (as a part of the now defunct Trotskyist movement) in the 1960’s and 1970’s, has since revised his views, and discusses them in his new book.
Below: from the Forward article.
“Weinstock quotes a Moroccan sultan saying in the mid-19th century: “Our glorious religion grants them only marks of opprobrium and inferiority.”
“Weinstock also examines the situation in the Holy Land through the dhimmi (the caste-like system of financial penalties and odious restrictions on Jews in the Arab countries/dr) prism. The Jewish minority that lived under Ottoman rule experienced humiliation and subordination, he says. Anti-Jewish riots were fomented time and again in the 18th and 19th centuries. He quotes the British consul in Palestine as writing in 1831 that the extortion and acts of suppression against the Jews were so numerous that it was said “that the Jews have to pay even for the air they breathe.”
“In the twilight of Ottoman rule, a century ago, the first “Hebrew city” was founded (present-day Tel Aviv), a revival of the Hebrew language began to be felt, and Jewish cooperative farming settlements were established. The local Arab population, Weinstock says, felt that the ground was being pulled from under it, as the dhimmi Jews, who were supposed to possess inferior status, were now striving for more – even for independence.”
According to Weinstock, underlying the growing hostility toward the Jewish population in Palestine was the realization that the dhimmi Jews were shaking off their traditional legal status of humiliation and submission. In retrospect, the writer maintains, dhimmi status, on the one hand, and the declared attempt by the Zionist movement to be free of it, on the other, led ultimately to the Arabs’ rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and to the War of Independence the following year.
“Local Palestinians and the Arab world refused to grant the Jews of the country a status different from dhimmi, and they were even less likely to recognize the Jews’ national rights. Zionism, for its part, could not accept Arab sovereignty over all of Palestine, a situation in which the Jewish minority would again find itself under dhimmi status. “Historically, then,” Weinstock says, “dhimmi status is the root of the conflict.”
“It continues to affect Israeli-Arab relations even today, because in Arab eyes the Jew who now lives in Israel is the same Jew whom they customarily saw as humiliated – and who is now taking his revenge. The Arabs experience Israel’s establishment and existence to this day as very painful revenge and as the reversal of dhimmitude. This is a very meaningful and deep aspect of the current political problem, which we cannot allow ourselves to ignore. Without understanding this, it is impossible to understand the conflict.”
I find Weinstock’s argument to be compelling and his fingering of the institutionalized, caste-like system of dhimmitude, which would no longer be tolerated inside the new state of Israel, to be the kind of black-eye that did not go well, considering the rather fragile Arab psyche.
The caste system included being taxed for the privilege of being allowed to stay and outright humiliations such as not being allowed to wear shoes in public, being prevented from wearing a ceremonial blade, being forced to wearing clothing that was odd and unbecoming and being conscripted to remove dead animals from the streets and roads.
Which way from here?
In 1920, the newly formed Communist International, founded soon after the Russian Revolution, under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky, Radek and Zinoviev, organized a conference in Baku to present the ideas of communism, the liberation of women and proletarian internationalism to the people of the East. To gather the combatants to wage “holy war against the exploiters and the imperialists”, and to build bridges to one another.
The perspective contained herein is the only way out of the abyss, even though the names and places have long since changed. It may not be easy, but it’s possible, and success will surely require the building of revolutionary workers parties capable of meeting the challenges before it. In this sense it’s not so different than what working people face inside the United States, where I live, or any other country.
Order a copy of “To See the Dawn” with the link provided above.
Virtually all the gains from that period of the world revolution have been lost and will need to be reconquered. Praise be to Pathfinder Press who holds in trust the lessons of the working-class movement and makes them available for those who fight for a world without borders.
Above: Baku, 1920. The First Congress of the People of the East.
The solution lies in the forging of working-class unity across ethnic, gender and religious lines, the discovery of common cause between Arab and Jewish workers, farmers and producers who are sick and tired of the blood, dirt and mud.
The Union Of Workers 
Bravo, David! Thanks for good read. Great way to wind down the evening here in the southwest. The main question of your essay is certainly one that every class-conscious fighter must grapple with, especially during such a time as now. I agree with all the reasons you offer, including those of Weinstock. Maybe it’s a cascade of several reasons? I would add that another reason for deep-seeded antisemitism in the Middle East might be the Stalinist betrayals of revolutionary parties in the region in the 20th c. If memory serves, didn’t the Iraqi communist party have a German CP moment in the 1920s as well (enormous membership/potential + missed opportunities)? If so, that would track squarely with other betrayals happening at the time in Germany, Spain, Italy, France, etc. Specifically to the Palestinian question, it seems to me that maybe the Palestinian misleaders also had a similar ‘Berlin’ moment, in that massive and proletarian Palestinian resistance was once actually principled and revolutionary resistance. Remember the general strikes of the first intifada? It takes an effort now, doesn’t it? Finally, it seems like not a coincidence to me that the Balfour treaty was signed the same year as the great revolution, when all oppressed nations were rightly looking to Moscow. Communists — following Lenin’s example — champion the self-determination of Armenians, Ukrainians, East Timorese, etc. Why make an exception, or stop with, the Jews?
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Thank-you for your informed comments. I’m happy and honored you found my piece useful.
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