The eternal problem facing small far left propaganda groups on big demonstrations is that of letting the world know you are there and have something distinctive to say. Some address this by having loud, colourful contingents with flags and megaphones. Others hold mini rallies of their own at the start and end of events in the hope of insulating their followers from the cruel outside world and maybe attracting the naively curious. Others encourage their members to accost passers by, ask them to sign a petition, charge them a small fee for the privilege (“to help with more campaigning – honest guv’nor”) and then try to flog a paper. All tried and tested methods.
Now Christ only knows what sort of brainstorming, blue sky out of the box thinking ever led anyone to think it was a good idea to bring along the flag flown by the Israeli state’s murder machine to a demonstration protesting against the carnage in Gaza. It’s the emblem of a racist, colonial apartheid state at the best of times and when that same army has been industrially slaughtering a population it had helped expel from its land that is not the best of times. Step forward the Alliance for Workers Liberty. They even have it on their website.
When General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the British Army, said in a recent interview about how “liberal interventionism has had, and possibly still does have, considerable support” he could have beeen setting out the traditional programme of much of the British labour movement. Active consent, silence or mealy mouthed mumbling about how sectarianism is the main obstacle to workers’ unity are the customary responses to muscular imperialism in this part of the world. It’s rare though for members of a soi-disant Marxist current to openly side with imperial adventures and rarer still for anyone on the left to roll up to a demonstration with the flag of a state in the middle of an orgy of war crimes and then whine about how they were misunderstood and censored.
When a war between a dispossessed and blockaded people and an imperialist proxy is happening no one should need more than a nanosecond’s thought to work out what side to take. Sub-Buddhist liberal twaddle about both sides being as bad as the other is just another way of saying that the imperialists might have a point. Slogans like “No to the IDF / No to Hamas” establish a political symmetry between the two of the sort that Mark Regev has been trying to create between Hamas’ pitiful rockets and the IDF’s arsenal. The only valid slogans at moments like that are those which put demands on the aggressor or one’s own government. Slyly trying to distinguish yourself from those being slaughtered is contemptible opportunism
Part of the barmy justification for this is that “Israel’s existence is potentially (not currently, but potentially) under threat, and its people have a consciousness of this.” To which the only possible reply has to be “it’s not but we wish it was in order that a democratic secular Palestinian state can be created.
Is it right to tear away someone’s placards, rip them up and stop them carrying offensive flags? If a group wishes to defend the Israeli state at a pro-Palestinian demonstration they are setting out to make themselves pariahs and scabs and can’t legitimately complain when they are treated as such. Airy fairy tosh about freedom of speech belongs in a university debate during events like this and it’s not possible to condemn the actions of anyone who acted to prevent the display of these Zionist apologia. Those who were misguided and pro-Israeli enough to indulge in that sort of stupidity may come out of it feeling a bit self-righteous and a little bit more blinded to what is obvious to the rest of the world but they deserve all the opprobrium that they get.
We look forward to them making their case flying Palestinian flags at a Zionist rally.
Something from Stuart here.
The Socialist Resistance statement on Gaza is here.
Liam redux 
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