The hypocrisy of the far left is most apparent when it comes to hatred of Zionism

It’s a question that I and many of my fellow Jews ask repeatedly. Why this obsessive and exclusive focus on Israel and Zionism? Why is Zionism THE obsession of the Far Left?

Why is Palestinian national self-determination a right while Jewish self-determination is “Racism”? Why is it a zero-sum game where for Palestine to exist the Jewish state must disappear? Why uniquely among all nations must the only Jewish state in the world justify not only how it acts, but whether it should be allowed to exist at all?

Why are Jews in the United Kingdom singled out as responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and the Israeli government – a government over whom they have no influence? Why should Jews uniquely be subjected to the ‘Purity Test’ as to whether they are a ‘good Jew’ – someone who openly disavows your connection to Israel – or a ‘bad Jew’ – someone who is openly and proudly Zionist?

Let us remind ourselves that the definition of Zionism is the belief in the Jewish people to have the right to self-determination in their one and only homeland (there are 50 Muslim-majority countries in the world). Zionism doesn’t mean that Israel can act with impunity. Like in every other democracy, within Israel, citizens routinely publicly disagree with the leadership of their government. However, opposing a government is wholly different from denying Jewish people their right to self-determination.

It seems extraordinary to me that so many self-confessed ‘humanitarians’ have a blind spot when it comes to other worldwide humanitarian issues –

The world brims with bloody cruelty and the slaughter of civilians. Yet, somehow, there are no marches grieving and raging against the ongoing massacre of Ukrainians; of the African Sudanese by the Arab RSF; the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters by their theocratic despots. There is no boycotting of Chinese restaurants to show solidarity with Uyghurs facing cultural annihilation.

Here the protestors are silent, motivated only by the one conflict in the world that involves Jews. Humanitarianism clearly has a selective context.  It is remarkably easy to morally absolve yourself when it is your belief that the cause you obsess over is a righteous one. You stand with the oppressed and on the right side of history. The slogans that you repeat and the company you keep is justified.  But as the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Stephen Watson said – you cannot morally absolve yourself if you go on marches where there are chants to globalise the intifada….and the intifada is then globalised.

It is perhaps instructive to go back to the Soviet era to understand more about where this far left obsession really took off. It follows the Marxist ideal of creating one smooth, borderless world without religions or peoples or ethnic attachment. Soviet Jews had begun, after the war, to find a voice and an allegiance. They were demanding to be allowed to live in Israel.

To accede to this demand would have meant the Soviets accepting that Marxism was a busted flush.  So the Soviets established their “Plan for Basic Organisational and Propaganda Measures Connected with the Situation in the Middle East and the Intensifying Struggle with Zionism” in 1970. They accused Israel of an “Imperialist and Neo Colonialist plot, intertwining the interests of oil monopolies and international Zionist operations….expressing the racist ravings of the Jewish bourgeoisie, supplying imperialism with the cannon fodder in the struggle against the Arab people”.

It was propaganda so powerful and so subversively successful that the same arguments are still giddily expounded to this day. So seductive is this narrative that it has now found its moment and its audience in the Green Party, who have formally adopted a motion equating Zionism with racism. The motion describes Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project and supports replacing Israel with a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine.

This is not simply a debate about the Israeli Government. Zionism represents Jewish national self-determination in our ancestral homeland. Whilst it is absolutely legitimate to disagree with the policies of the Israeli Government, by defining Zionism itself as racist means defining the political and national identity embraced by the overwhelming majority of British Jews as inherently illegitimate.

The Greens have chosen to support a policy that endorses violence that will almost entirely be aimed at Jewish people, that makes going to synagogue a racist act deserving of harassment (they specifically rejected an amendment exempting synagogue attendance).  For British Jews this is not simply an argument about terminology or competing political theories. It is about whether we can participate in public life, attend Synagogues and express a connection to Israel without being labelled racist.

Simon Schama argues that all the rage, marches and chanting we witness are not actually about Palestine itself, but rather the haters themselves directing their own sense of guilt onto an external enemy (Israel), rather than confronting uncomfortable responsibilities or failures in themselves, displacing their obligation to make amends.

It requires less homework to pin ‘genocide’ on a people not white enough for the right and not brown enough for the left. Interestingly Mizrahi Jews (with roots in the Middle East and North Africa) represent 40% of Israel’s population and Arabs 21%. Fascinating figures for a country seen by its critics as ‘apartheid’ white colonisers.

Framing the Jews as history’s imperialist oppressors spares the descendants of actual colonisers from too much critical self-­examination.

Hence the infuriated obsession, especially by self-­designated white progressives (from the comfort of their rights and from the safety of never having lived in a war zone), yearning to be forgiven for a colonial past, with demonising a people who had nothing to do with their ancestors’ bloody freebooting.

And when we look at the riots in France and increasingly across Europe we see this unholy alliance between the far left, Islamists, supporters of the Palestinian cause, anarchists and assorted grievance artists. All of the above are part of a broader revolutionary movement (‘the omnicause’) across the West, protesting against capitalism, climate chaos, the housing crisis, the ‘genocidal’ war against the Palestinians and unemployment.

Marching for the ‘oppressed’ across the world, these insurrectionists are seizing their moment in a society that has become demoralised.  It has lost both knowledge of and respect for its own historic identity and culture. Its governments are unable to deliver economic prosperity whilst funnelling ever more money into welfare and are confronted by a huge and increasing number of young people who have been taught to hate their country and have been indoctrinated by propaganda against  capitalism and the West. When the public loses its belief in democracy, chaos invariably follows.

Here in Manchester, as British Jews marked the first anniversary of the murders of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, prosecutors were alleging that the same Heaton Park Synagogue was again to be targeted in a failed plot. Whilst Jihad Al-Shamie was trying to force his way into the synagogue to murder those inside, he was screaming about the Middle East conflict. Jews in Britain were being blamed for a war taking place thousands of miles away from this country.

You know who aren’t rioting across Europe, looting shops, desecrating monuments, ‘globalising the Intifada’?

Zionists.

Mark Adlestone OBE is Chair of the  Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region