Reasons why the hard left is wrong and often
bigoted in its strident opposition to Israel:
the nation state of the Jewish people.
Let's begin with just a little history.
The left always supported Israel.
Israel was seen as a socialist Mecca.
Its original prime minister was a socialist.
Many of those who organized Israel were socialists.
The Soviet Union was the second country after
the United States to recognize Israel.
Israel's arms for its war of independence
were provided by the Czechoslovakia which
was then under the thumb of communism and
until 1967 the left was quite supportive of
Israel.
But after Israel won its 1967 war over Egypt
which was a Soviet surrogate, the Soviet Union
severed its relations with Israel and the
communist parties all over the world, starting
in Moscow, but spreading to Europe and the
United States began to oppose Israel.
This led many on the American left.
People like Daniel Berrigan Noam Chomsky and
others to shift and suddenly begin to oppose
Israel and call it a colonialist apartheid
genocidal you name it regime.
And so the first reason why the left is bigoted
and wrong is that:
The reason the left turned against Israel
was because the Soviet Union turned against
Israel and because Communist Parties around
the world turned against Israel and they turned
the hard left against Israel.
I think Communism today has been largely discredited
and one of its final residues is the strong
irrational hatred of the nation state of the
Jewish people.
By the hard left.
A second reason why the left is wrong in opposing
Israel is that Israel, more than any other
country in the Middle East, promotes the values
that the left is supposed to be promoting:
feminism, equality based on gender, equality
based on race.
One often wonders why the left supports some
of the most repressive regimes in the world
including Hamas which murders gays, which
murders dissenters, Hezbollah.
Why?
Why does the left support Iran?
So many on the left of course, the former
Soviet Union now is Russia.
Russia supports Iran, Russia supports the
murderous regime in Syria.
Russia supports Hezbollah and some within
Russia support Hamas so it's not surprising
that some on the left who don't think for
themselves support these repressive regimes
and not the liberal regime of Israel.
A third reason why the left opposes Israel
is there has always been on the hard hard
hard left elements of anti-Semitism.
Stalin obviously was an anti-Semite.
The Communist Party was rife with anti-Semitism.
Even some of the Jews in the Communist Party
were virulent anti-Semites.
And so the anti-Semitism of the hard left
morphs into anti-Zionism; sometimes the opposite
phenomenon occurs.
The Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism.
But in the case of the hard hard left the
anti-Semitism morphed into anti Zionism and
both together create an irrational hatred
for the nation state of the Jewish people.
The left also today tries to claim that any
country it opposes is a residue of colonialism
and they accused Israel of being a colonialist
country.
How absurd!
Who are they colonialists for?
Most of the Jews who settled Palestine which
became Israel were Polish Jews, Ukrainian
Jews - they hated Poland they hated Ukraine.
They came to what is now Israel.
In order to escape from the pogroms in those
countries.
The last thing they were doing was carrying
the flag, the imperialistic flag of Poland
and Russia.
So they fought against colonialism they even
fought against the colonialism of Great Britain.
Remember that Israel fought against Great
Britain, after Great Britain imposed its white
papers that kept so many Jews from moving
to Israel and escaping from the death camps
of Europe.
So Israel is a bastion of anti-colonialism!
Whereas many of the states of the Middle East
today were the products of colonialism!
Countries like Iraq and Syria and Saudi Arabia
were carved up on maps by colonialist leaders
sitting in Paris and sitting in other parts
of Europe, simply dividing the Middle East.
This is the French colony This is the British
colony.
Israel never had that experience.
Israel always fought against colonialism.
So there are many reasons why the hard left
opposes Israel but none of them are rational.
None of them are historically sound.
None of them are morally convincing.
And yet the hard left stands strongly in opposition
to Israel and stands shoulder to shoulder
with some of the most oppressive regimes in
the world.
It remains important for Israel to be a bipartisan
issue in the United States and in Europe.
It should receive the support not only of
the right but of the left and of the center.
And tragically today there is a movement away
from Israel on the left.
One has to only look at Great Britain where
the leader of the Labor party who may well
become a prime minister of Great Britain at
some point in the near or middle future is
a virulent anti-Zionist who has been accused
of tolerating anti-Semitism.
Is this what has become of the left?
As a person of the left, I'm ashamed of what
the hard left has done in relation to Israel.
So although there are reasons, explanations,
for why the hard left this turned against
Israel there are no good and persuasive reasons.
The left or the right and the center should
all be supportive, critically supportive to
be sure, but supportive of Zionism, of the
national liberation movement of the Jewish
people and of the nation state of the Jewish
people the state of Israel.
I'm Alan Dershowitz and you're watching J-TV.
