In his self indulgent polemic Zionism cannot be appeased Greenstein targets Jon Lansman with one of the strangest interconnections of the Qatari run Al-Jazeera series of documentaries which were hardly the product of balanced journalism with Lansmans "coup" inside Momentum. It's all to do with the "Zionists" it would seem.
Greenstein rants that:
To date Momentum has not fought the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, because Lansman and his coterie have tried to reach an agreement with the Zionists. To Lansman, Zionism is a bona fide political current rather than a racist settler-colonial movement. In Left Futures he defended the Nakba, the Zionist ethnic cleansing of 1948. He also argued that the left should not be talking about Zionism at all. Lansman argued: “There is every justification for talking about the rights of Palestinians ... and for criticising the actions and policies of the Israeli government, but there is no defence for anti-Semitism.” Yes, that is true, but it is comparing chalk and cheese. Talk about anti-Semitism in the context of defending Palestinian rights is completely irrelevant, unless you believe that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are interchangeable.
The existence of anti-Semitism, not so well disguised as anti-Zionism on the left and within layers of Corbyn's supporters is clear to all who come across their hateful posts as soon as Jews and/or Israel are mentioned.
The existence of anti-Semitism is also prevalent amongst those that claim to support the Palestinians. Greenstein conveniently forgets the expulsion of the former chair of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) for promoting Holocaust denial.
In fact Holocaust denial is very much at the centre of both indigenous Palestinian and Arab anti-Israel movements precisely because they seek to deny history to undermine Israel's legitimacy. There are so many within the anti-Israel camp from the British left who wilfully ignore such blatant anti-Semitism
The fact is all anti-Semites are anti-Zionists and whether it suits Greenstein's vainglorious grandstanding the two are very much interchangeable and always have been.
World Zionist conspiracy anyone?
Promoted by Nazi's, fascists, and so many anti-imperialists alike, who complain constantly about Zionist control of the media, the Zionist lobby and so on.
Currently Greenstein has organised a petition to expel the Jewish Labour Movement from the Labour Party, an organisation he is currently (and rightly) suspended from.
What any of this has to do with the internal faction fighting in Momentum is anyone's guess. Just another stick to beat Lansman (of whom I'm no fan either) with. Greenstein talks about the "dimmest" Momentum supporters yet allies himself with chief dim-wit Jackie Walker who manages to put her foot in her very big mouth every time she opens it.
Tony Greenstein is a member of the "green ink brigade" who should be shunned by the sane and rational who actually want a peaceful and lasting solution to the Middle East.
Greenstein's bonkers: he's obsessed by a historic dispute between Bundists and Zionists that was, in reality, settled by the Holocaust. But for Greensein, this dispute is more important than anti-Semitism, which he thinks doesn't exist.
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