Is an anti-occupation revolt brewing in the British Jewish establishment?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://972mag.com/anti-occupation-revolt-in-british-jewish-establishment/103072/

Leader in top communal organization announces he is leaving post to speak out freely against Israeli policies — and gets standing ovation from membership.

For many years I have felt that the only way to end the occupation is through outside pressure because Israel is just scorched earth politically, and will never do it on its own. On that basis, the announcement last week by a prominent figure in the British Jewish establishment, and the reaction to it by his colleagues, was a more hopeful sign than anything that’s happened in the current Israeli campaign or is about to happen on Election Day on March 17.

What happened was that Laurence Brass, treasurer of the leading British Jewish organization, the Board of Deputies, told a meeting of the board’s plenary that he was quitting the leadership ranks after the board’s May election, The Jewish Chronicle reported. The reason, he told the plenary, was:

I felt constrained not to have been able to speak out on subjects that are close to my heart, such as the treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the discrimination still being suffered by Arab citizens of Israel.

I just hope that the same dreary epithets of anti-zionist or anti-semite aren't thrown at Mr. Laurence Brass as well, but the adults in the room know that the those on the losing side of this argument will resort to silence or debase Mr. Brass by calling him every revolting name in the book.

They're scared and for good reason.


BDS.

[guillaumeb]

1. what is that rumbling sound?

is it an avalanche of hate directed at everyone who dares question the myth of innocent Israel vs. the Palestinian monsters?

[sadoldgirl]

2. May be that my ignorance is showing,

but does Zionism not declare that all of Palestine
belongs to Israel? At least that is what I understood
from Begin's resistance to a two state solution.

If so, then anyone who does not agree with that
goal by Israel is automatically an anti-zionist.

This does not mean at all that Israel has no right to
exist. Am I dense or somehow deluded?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. IMHO some who call themselves Zionists today use it in that way.

The founders of Zionism envisioned a homeland for the diaspora, and this was before the British had taken control of the Area.

What happens when a movement seeking to create a nation for a diaspora and to counter racism creates completely diaspora and its own brand of racism.

Pretty ironic, no?

[aranthus]

5. Not exactly.

First of all, "Palestine" includes what is now Jordan, and Zionists don't claim all of that. Second, while Zionism claims all of Palestine west of the Jordan River, most Zionists recognized long ago that some compromise would be necessary with the Arabs living in the region, as long as the Arabs were also willing to compromise. That's why the Jews accepted the 1947 Partition Plan, and would have accepted the prior international efforts to obtain a compromise. It was the Arabs who refused compromise and demanded everything for themselves.

Third, while there are some, especially on the Israeli Right, who reject a Palestinian state, they don't define Zionism. At its most general Zionism is merely the movement of the Jewish People to have a state for themselves. So, only if you are against the existence of a Jewish state would most Jews call you an anti-Zionist. Tarring the entire ideology with the beliefs of extremists is unfair.

[sadoldgirl]

4. I agree with you, but

this is why I cannot understand why the anti-zionists
(with respect to the Likud party's aims) are also called
anti-semetic. People, who would like to see two kinds
of peoples living separately in one area are nowadays
called nazis,anti-Semites, etc.

I think it is up to the Israelis to clear up that terminology,
unless they are fanatics.

[aranthus]

6. I always find it interesting that those who are against Israel's existence

always seem to claim (falsely) that those who are merely critical of Israel government policy will be labeled anti-Zionist or antisemitic. While there may be some fanatics who attack Mr. Brass that way, I believe they will be few and far between.

[Fozzledick]

7. If an inflammatory headline ends with a question mark, is the answer always "no"?

That's a fairly reliable rule of thumb.