Eric Lee

Last night I debated Sean Matgamna of the Alliance for Workers Liberty at a central London pub in front of an audience of about 30 people. My notes for the debate follow.

The main point:

Israel is facing an existential threat and it is the responsibility of socialists to defend the Jewish state.

Where we agree

Usually in these sort of debates you dive right into to what you disagree on. I believe it is equally important to see what, if anything, you do agree on.

Support a 2-state solution
Oppose the occupation
Feel concern about rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
Oppose religious fundamentalism including Islamic fundamentalism
Recognize that the Syrian and Iranian regimes are in no sense progressive but are in fact fascist or quasi-fascist states
Sympathize with Israel's peace camp
Sympathize with the “cedar revolution” in Lebanon
Support the working class and the growth of trade unions in the entire Middle East

Even though we disagree about this war, we do agree on a great deal.

And I have been fighting for these things my whole adult life, particularly during the 18 years that I lived in Israel and fought against the Israeli Right and the settler movement.

Because I agree with you on these points, I take the view I do on the war. And I think that if you do share these views with me, you are taking the wrong line on this war.

Where we disagree

Here's what you have been saying:

Your slogan - “Stop the Israeli assault on Gaza and Lebanon!”

(title of the main article on your website)

And again -- “End the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon! No reoccupation of southern Lebanon! For a free and independent Palestinian state alongside Israel!”

And your analysis -

“Once again the Israeli government responded with a hugely disproportionate assault on Lebanon, with large and predictable civilian casualties among the Lebanese population in general.”

“Syria and Iran bang the drums in support of Hezbollah and expose themselves as the regional imperialists they are. But the decisive power here to destroy, or to keep alive, possibilities of peace, lies with the Israeli government.”

As if Hezbollah and Hamas do not exist – as if socialists should not at the very least be calling on them to cease their attacks against Israeli civilian population centres!

But you do not make this call. You focus on “Israeli attacks” and an “Israeli assault” -- as if Israel was the aggressor, which it is not.

You are not telling the truth.

The question facing socialists

The question is – do we socialists support or oppose Israel in its war of self defense following the Hamas and Hizbollah attacks?

There is no third way and no third camp. We could call for a “socialist federation of the Middle East” or for the workers of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon to overthrow their bosses and embrace each other as brothers and sisters. But if that were to be our position (and not just our dream) we would be living in a fantasy.

If you support Israel's right of self-defense as a socialist you offer that support critically, meaning that you support:

* limited war aims (putting Hizbollah and Hamas rockets out of range of Israeli civilians)
*a diplomatic solution to the conflict

And you oppose:

* unnecessary civilian deaths (noting the difference between deliberately targetting civilians and collateral damage)
* the re-occupation of Lebanon or Gaza by Israeli forces

What this means in practice is that while you might support a limited series of military actions by Israel today, were Israel to re-occupy Lebanon and Gaza, or deliberately target civilians as part of its strategy, or reject any possibility of a diplomatic solution – if Israel were to do any of those things, you could change your mind tomorrow.

And this is exactly what happened to the Israeli Left in 1982: initially the Labour Party supported the invasion, and within weeks – when it became clear what Begin and Sharon were up to – changed their views.

An historic parallel

In situations like these, we always look for historical parallels. On a recent talk show on Radio 4, the Israeli army was compared to Hitler's Wehrmacht by a panel of pundits, to the applause of the audience.

A different historical metaphor might be the Spanish civil war, the 70th anniversary of which we are remembering this summer. It has been suggested as a model for the current fighting in the Middle East by Ephraim Sneh, a leader of the Israeli Labour Party and the son of the legendary Israeli Communist Moshe Sneh.

Clearly the use of proxy forces (in this case, Hizbollah and Hamas, back then, the mutinous officers of the Spanish army) directed by fascist states (Italy and Germany then, Iran and Syria now) is one parallel.

And there is another: today, most of you are appalled at the idea that we would be on the same side of a conflict as George Bush. But in 1936-39, if you backed the Spanish Republicans because you believed in democracy and freedom, you found yourself in the same camp as Stalin – at the peak of the Stalinist terror.

I think that socialists were right to support the Spanish Republic in its struggle for survival. And today we should support the Israeli Republic for the same reasons.

The analogy works for other reasons as well. In the Spanish Civil War, as in every war, both sides did terrible things. Many civilians were killed. Innocent blood was shed – and not only by the fascists.

Socialists did not take the view then – a plague on both your houses, victory for the third camp, etc. Socialists supported the Spanish Republic as if there was no Stalin – and opposed Stalin as if there was no civil war in Spain.

The Spanish civil war is now seen by many as a dress rehearsal for the second world war. Clearly the Germans and Italians saw it that way, and tested out their dive bombers and blitzkrieg tactics against Madrid and Guernica. Some analysts see the fight in Lebanon and Gaza today the same way – they see Islamic reactionary regimes like Iran launching a proxy war not only against Israel, but against the US, against Britain, and against the West.

I'm not sure I would push the metaphor that far. I prefer to stay with this central idea: when a democratic republic is battling for survival against the black forces of fascist reaction, socialists are tested.

Has the AWL lost its way?

If you oppose Israel in this war, as the AWL does, you have two choices and only two choices:

You can support its enemy, Hizbollah and Hamas, which is the view of the SWP, the Stop the War coalition, and others

Or – you can propose an alternative strategy for the Jewish state and its working class

If the latter, what is your strategy for Israel to survive as an independent state? What would you tell our comrade Amir Peretz to do?

I believe that you do not have an alternative strategy, and that what you are doing is talking out of both sides of your mouth, trying not to burn bridges with the various organizations like the SWP with which you have tried repeatedly to form coalitions in the past (remember the ill-fated Socialist Alliance?)

You have your principles – you support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own land – but you are afraid to become even more unpopular by defending that principle in the real world.

What is on the table here is an existential threat to the Jewish state, one which is recognized by the overwhelming majority of Israelis (including the peace movement) and by Jews everywhere, including here in Britain.

That existential threat comes from Iran and Syria, two states run by brutal regimes which have killed tens of thousands of their own citizens and which are both committed to the destruction of Israel. You know this. You have talked about this and written about it.

Both states have weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them (long range missiles), both have had nuclear arms programs – though Iran's is far more advanced – and both have been waging war against Israel for decades using proxy armies (terrorist groups). You know this too.

But you choose to ignore what you know, and you refuse to act upon your principles. The Jewish state faces the threat of annihilation by Islamo-fascist organizations that have sworn to do exactly that. But you act as if this is not happening – and you call upon Israel, and only Israel, to halt its attacks.

Conclusion

When Serbia launched its genocidal campaign against the Kosovars, the Left was tested. Here in Britain, the AWL played a magnificent role telling the truth – and nearly alone at that. Going so far as to say that surgical strikes by Nato against Serb forces might be justified.

The Left was tested after the fall of the Saddam regime when reactionary, Baathist and Islamist forces attempted to break the back of the emerging Iraqi trade unions. The AWL stood up in defense of the elementary principle of working class solidarity – and found itself alone among the revolutionary Left organizations in doing so.

But when Hizbollah and Hamas launched unprovoked aggression against Israeli, backed by the fascists in Tehran and Damascus, you chose to participate in pro-Hizbollah demonstrations, and to produce a cowardly leaflet denouncing Israel in the headline, not even calling on Hizbollah and Hamas to stop their aggression.

It was not your finest moment, comrades.

Sometimes we take unpopular stands because we have to.

This is a critical moment for the left. We are being tested by events. We must have the courage to say what we truly believe, no matter how unpopular.

We don't pick up new members this way, we don't sell more newspapers this way, we don't make friends to our “left” and we don't build new versions of the Socialist Alliance, but this is something we must do.

Because telling the truth – even when it is unpopular -- is what makes us socialists.

Posted by Eric Lee at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I'd like to invite you to attend a debate taking place next week on the subject of the current crisis in the Middle East.

I will be debating against Sean Matgamna of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL).

My own views on the conflict are contained in my recent article, "The Left should be supporting Israel in this war", which is online here.

I have also responded to some of the 53 published comments in a further article, here.
(These articles were written in a personal capacity.)

As you may know, the AWL is one of the few organisations on the British far Left which supports Israel's right to exist and a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. Their view on the current fighting in northern Israel and Lebanon can be found on their website, located here.

Whatever your thoughts on the war, I strongly urge you to attend and to participate in this discussion.

The debate is taking place on Thursday, 27 July at 19:30 (7:30 PM) at The Calthorpe Arms, 252, Grays Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8JR. The nearest tube stations are Russell Square and King's Cross. Here is a map.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Posted by Eric Lee at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It would take a book to answer all the questions and criticisms that followed the publication of this article. I've decided to attempt short answers to a dozen of these.

1. "Why does one of the most powerful military countries in the world, supported by the single superpower NEED the left?"

Israel does not need the support of the Left. But the Left needs to support Israel. If it does not do so, it has lost its moral compass.

2. "But how do you measure/judge whether Israel has gone overboard in its use of overwhelming military power in Lebanon?"

That's a hard question to answer. By definition, the waging of warfare by modern armies is terrifying, and will always appear to be overwhelming. But while there are many grey areas, sometimes the picture is quite clear. For example, the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in 1982 by Israel's Lebanese Christian allies with the IDF standing idly by was clearly a war crime. But putting some craters into an airport runway or imposing a naval blockade is perfectly legitimate. Let us judge each Israeli action separately, and let us be prepared to criticize the IDF when it does use excessive force.

3. "How does using phrases like Islamo-fascist help?"

It helps because it makes the issue clearer. Israel is fighting a battle against forces with which we democratic socialists have nothing in common. Nothing.

Oddly enough, at least one of my critics actually seems to support Hamas, and writes: "The reason why the Hamas result was a bad one for Israel is that Hamas will not settle for an unfair deal, like Arafat would have (and almost did). A peace settlement with Hamas will involve much less Palestinian compromise then a settlement made with Fatah."

Most of you do seem to understand that we on the Left have nothing in common with Hamas and Hizbollah.

4. "Destroying civilian infrastructure (and it is civilian infrastructure even if terrorists use it) will not by itself stop Hizballah attacks."

That is correct. Destroying Hizbollah means blowing up its mobile rocket launchers, killing its leaders, flattening its South Beirut headquarters, knocking its television station off the air, cutting off its access to Syrian and Iranian arms -- all of which the IDF is currently doing. The critical thing is to understand that Hizbollah has a limited number of missiles, and cannot be re-supplied so long as Lebanon is cut off. This is why the naval blockade and the closing down of Beirut airport are so significant.

5. "Hezbollah might be a purely south Lebanese phenomenon."

If Hizbollah had merely been a local "resistance" to real or imagined Israeli oppression, it would not have posed a military threat to the Jewish state. But it is clearly a proxy army fighting on behalf of much larger and more powerful forces.

6. "Do you really think that the current action will result in the overwhelming defeat of either of these movements?"

I hope so, yes. The military defeat of Hizbollah and Hamas would be a good thing.

7. "How does supporting either side help?"

Because the victory of the wrong side would be such a disaster that it must be prevented. Hizbollah's victory -- indeed, its very survival as a military force -- would be a disaster first and foremost for the people of Lebanon. That must be prevented. Hizbollah's aggression started this war, and by supporting Israel, we are helping to bring the fighting to an end.

8. "Disgusting. Not a word about the suffering of the Lebanese."

I wrote: "We should be giving our full support to Israel, while of course insisting that the Israeli military behave according to international law and keep civilian casualties to a minimum."

I also wrote: "It [Israel] is hitting back with all the firepower at its disposal, but doing so in a way to minimize civilian casualties. That is why it decided to flatten Hamas' foreign ministry building at 2:00 in the morning, when it was unoccupied. Or used targetted aerial bombardment to create craters in the runways of Beirut airport, rather than bombing terminals crammed with people. (Either way, they would have shut down the airport -- but they chose a way that saved innocent lives.)"

Of course the suffering of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel concerns me -- which is why I support a swift and decisive victory for Israel.

9. "Images of children killed by the Israeli Air force ... Is this what you want the left to support Mr Lee?"

No. And I could show image of innocent civilians, including children, killed by Israel's enemies. The point of this war is to stop the Hizbollah and Hamas terrorists from causing any more deaths of innocents, whether they be Israelis or Arabs.

10. "The mind boggles at any attempt to characterise a government that is turning whole swathes of the Middle East into a walled concentration camp as 'left'!"

I never wrote that the Israeli government was a Left government; I did say that the Left was part of the coalition, and it is. The Israel Labour Party is a member of the Socialist International, and a sister party of the British and Australian Labour Parties, the Canadian New Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, the African National Congress, etc.

11. "To act as if Israel is facing a threat to its existence is ludicrous."

That's very easy to say from the comfort of living in Europe or North America. But that's not how it feels to people today in Sderot, Haifa, Afula, Tiberias, Nahariya, and Kiryat Shemona. And it's not just their subjective take on things. Iran does pose an existential threat to Israel, and not only to Israel, once it becomes a nuclear power. The Iranian threat is very real, and has been recognized as such by the international community.

12. "There is an implicit assumption in your post, and in much writing on this topic: that there must be some legitimate response to terrorism. This assumption is false. Not all problems have solutions."

In other words, learn to live with terrorism? I think Israel is right to at least make the attempt to deal with the problem.

Though I would hesitate to add -- as I wrote in my original article -- "We should insist that at the end of the fighting, Israeli forces be pulled back to the international border with Lebanon, and withdrawn from Gaza. And we should support a renewal of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians leading to a withdrawal from the West Bank."

Only the creation of an independent, viable, democratic Palestinian state living side by side with Israel offers the hope of a long-term solution to the problem of terrorism.

Posted by Eric Lee at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

No socialist group in Britain is saying what needs to be said today about the crisis in the Middle East. All the groups on the organised Left are busy denouncing Israel for its "aggression" against Gaza and Lebanon. Many are expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. None are saying that Israel needs and deserves the support of the Left.

But that is exactly what they should be saying.

One doesn't have to go back decades, as is the tradition in articles of this sort, to explain. Let's just go back to the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Israel, the far Right has been defeated in elections. A coalition government including the Left is in power, and is committed to ending the conflict with the Arab world. In 2000, as a first step, it completely withdraws all Israeli forces from every last inch of Lebanese soil. Even the United Nations admits that the Israeli withdrawal is complete, and conforms with all UN resolutions. The Lebanese government is obligated to move its army up to the international border. It does not do so.

Now fast-forward five years. It's 2005 and the Israeli government decides to withdraw from Gaza after 38 years of occupation. Every single Israeli settlement is closed, despite a massive campaign of civil disobedience by settlers and their supporters. The country is torn apart by angry debate, the Right implodes, but in the end, every last Israeli soldier is withdrawn from every inch of the Gaza strip.

Israel still occupies the Golan Heights and West Bank, and those of us on the Left legitimately call for the Israeli government to negotiate the return of those territories. And let's not forget that those territories were seized in a war of self-defence in June 1967.

If there had been a violent uprising among Palestinians in the West Bank, or among the Druze living in the Golan, one might have understood. After all, their Arab brethren in Lebanon and Gaza were now free of Israeli soldiers and their hated roadblocks and searches and arrests.

But while the West Bank remained relatively calm, and the Golan completely quiet, Israel suddenly found itself under attack from precisely those territories which it had evacuated. Let's be absolutely clear about the nature of the attack. It was not the case that some Palestinian "militants" (as the BBC calls them) seized one Israeli soldier near Gaza. Those same terrorists (let us call things by their right names), having interpreted the 2005 withdrawal as a sign of Israeli weakness, have been bombarding the western Negev desert for months with their Qassam missiles. And at the first opportunity, the Palestinians voted out the regime which had recognised the right of the Jewish state to exist and replaced it with the Islamo-fascist Hamas, which aims to create an Islamist state from the Jordan river to the sea.

The Islamo-fascists of Hizbollah joined in the fun shortly thereafter with a massive rocket barrage attacking Israeli towns, cities and kibbutzim from the shores of the Mediterranean to the foothills of the Golan, destroying homes and killing and wounding innocent civilians. Under cover of that barrage, they launched a raid to kill and capture Israeli soldiers on Israeli soil.

Israel is under attack -- unprovoked, brutal attack. Attack by forces such as Hamas and Hizbollah with which socialists have nothing in common.

And Israel is responding in the way that any state, even a state with a workers' government, even an ideal socialist state, would respond. It is hitting back with all the firepower at its disposal, but doing so in a way to minimize civilian casualties. That is why it decided to flatten Hamas' foreign ministry building at 2:00 in the morning, when it was unoccupied. Or used targetted aerial bombardment to create craters in the runways of Beirut airport, rather than bombing terminals crammed with people. (Either way, they would have shut down the airport -- but they chose a way that saved innocent lives.)

At the present time, Israel has more powerful and more effective weapons than their opponents. Their situation today is a bit like that facing the Allies near the end of the second world war. By that time, Germany and Japan were severely weakened. Did that lead the Soviet Union, which was doing the bulk of the fighting, and its western allies to let up? To give the Nazi regime a break? Not at all. They took advantage of their superiority and hit harder -- to bring the war to and end as quickly as possible.

Israel's military should use all its power to defend the country and decisively defeat its enemies -- while taking every precaution to reduce the number of innocent civilian casualties on both sides to an absolute minimum.

The real question for socialists when a war like this breaks out is to look at what will happen if either side wins. Let us imagine that Israel wins -- meaning that the captured soldiers are returned and the rocket attacks from Gaza and Lebanon end. The result will not only be good for Israel, but good for the Palestinians and Lebanese as well. The Islamo-fascists will be weakened. Democratic and secular forces will be strengthened. Socialists should cheer this on.

Now image what happens if Hamas and Hizbollah win. They over-run the Jewish state, slaughtering and expelling its several million Jewish inhabitants. They create a reactionary theocratic dictatorship along the lines of their benefactor, Iran. No one benefits -- not the Jews, not the Arabs. This a result that only fascists could applaud.

Some socialists are pacifists and oppose all wars. But most of us understand that sometimes a country has to fight. And sometimes two peoples go to war against each other, and we have to take sides. We look at the reasons behind the fighting and more important -- we look at the consequences of victory for one side or the other.

Looking at the war taking place today in the Middle East, it is clear to me that the position taken by the Left in Britain and elsewhere is wrong. We should be giving our full support to Israel, while of course insisting that the Israeli military behave according to international law and keep civilian casualties to a minimum. We should insist that at the end of the fighting, Israeli forces be pulled back to the international border with Lebanon, and withdrawn from Gaza. And we should support a renewal of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians leading to a withdrawal from the West Bank.

Our view as socialists of Hamas and Hizbollah should be absolutely clear: these are the enemy. We have nothing in common with Islamo-fascism and look forward to it suffering a crushing defeat in battle.

As I write these words, I realize that many friends and comrades will disagree with me. I invite them to respond, to engage in debate, and above all to listen and try to understand. In the end, the important thing is not to say what is popular, what wins friends and gets applause. Our job as socialists is above all to tell the truth. And that is what I have done here.

Posted by Eric Lee at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (72)

Most of the websites that I look at, the ones that largely share my political perspective, have been strangely silent over the last couple of days regarding recent developments in the Middle East -- especially the fighting taking place in northern Israel and Lebanon.

But there has been at least one very good, cogent analysis of what is going on -- seeing it as a war by Iran and Syria against the Jewish state, waged by proxy -- and it was written by Melanie Phillips. It's on her blog and while I don't always agree with everything she writes, this is a good one.

As I listen to the news on Kol Israel radio (broadcast through the net), I want to do something to help. I'm sure others do as well. Writing and speaking the truth is one thing -- and we need to do more of that. There are also practical things to do.

For example, one can make a donation to the Magen David Adom, Israel's "red cross". In the UK, you do this from here.

Any other ideas?

Posted by Eric Lee at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

(This was submitted as a Letter to the Editor to The Independent, which did not see fit to publish it.)

Johann Hari says he knows the real reasons behind Israel's incursions into Gaza these past few weeks ("The real reason why Israel is using such violence against the Palestinians in Gaza", The Independent, 10 July 2006).

He does not tell us how he has discovered this secret -- but he assures us that, Israeli government assertions to the contrary, all this has nothing to do with the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit, or the endless shelling of Sderot and now Ashkelon. He knows for sure the real reason: it's all part of the Israeli government's secret plan to prevent
peace from coming about.

In the course of revealing these secrets, Hari makes at least one ill-informed remark, tells one outright lie, and write one utterly obscene passage.

He asserts that Palestinian voters did not vote for Hamas because of their platform, which none of them apparently agreed with. Instead, they voted for Hamas because they don't like its corrupt opponents, and they are going to hold Hamas to the Palestinians' commitment to peace. How he knows what was going on in the minds of Palestinian voters will have to remain a mystery -- as will his knowledge of the secrets of Israeli government decision making.

The lie he tells is that Hamas "made clear signals that they would accept peace with Israel after all." That's not what the BBC reported. According to a report (27 June) on their website, "Hamas negotiators have denied earlier reports that the deal meant the militants would implicitly recognise Israel."

It is the offensive part that I want to draw your attention to here. Hari writes that "in the week we were grieving for the slaughtered of 7/7, the same number of Palestinians have been blown up, many of them women and children in their own homes." This is first of all, factually incorrect. But it is more than incorrect -- it is obscene.

Many -- one hopes, most -- of the Palestinians killed were terrorists, the same people firing hundreds of Qassam rockets at Israeli civilian centres.

But not a single one of the 52 civilians killed in the London bombings was a terrorist. Not one of them.

Shame on Johann Hari for making the comparison.

Hari is full of "real reasons" for things -- so let me try to guess at the real reason he writes such offensive, ill-informed nonsense. Once upon a time, he bravely took on majority public opinion in this country and defended the Iraq war. That probably didn't make him many friends. So he changed his mind, and apologized for his sins. And ever since, he seems to be bending over backwards to prove his "leftist" credentials.

Posted by Eric Lee at 01:52 PM | Permalink

At the recent May Day march and rally in London, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber made a strong call for "a Trade Union Freedom Bill to allow unions to properly protect their members". I wonder how many in the audience had ever heard of the proposed Bill, and went looking online to see what I could find out.

The first place to look would naturally be the TUC website, but when searching for "trade union freedom bill", one gets a list of 38 results -- and it's not a promising beginning. Among the first five are "Final Trade Union statement on the agenda for the World Trade Organisation," "Trade unionists in the classroom" and "Solidarity with Iraqi and Kurdish women trade unionists".

Google offers the opposite problem -- 25,800 results when searching for the full name of the bill. But at least its first results seem more focussed: the Institute for Employment Rights, NATFHE, and the Parliament website.

For many students and others, the first place to look for information like this would actually be the Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia with 1.2 million articles in English alone. But as in so many other matters related to trade unions, there is actually very little there. (This would be easily rectified by union members creating content about the Bill here.)

Having finally located some text on the TUC site, the provisions of the proposed Bill become clear: protecting workers from unfair dismissal (including during strikes), making union recognition easier when a majority have voted in support, and allowing unions to more effectively counter strike-breaking.

The TUC site promises more campaign materials and further briefings, but what is probably needed is a dedicated website with a memorable name like tradeunionfreedom.org.uk (which is available).

Such a website could concentrate in a single place not only information about the Bill and the problems it seeks to solve, but even interactive tools to allow union members to email or fax their MPs.

In the USA, unions are also fighting to get legislation passed to make it easier for workers to join unions. They've made a lot of progress so far (43 out of 100 Senators, and 216 members of the House of Representatives have backed the proposal). Even if their proposed "Employee Free Choice Act" is unlikely to become law until Democrats regain control of Congress, these are impressive results. And unlike British unions, they've tightly integrated this campaign into their websites, with tons of background material and even a frequently-updated campaign blog. And of course, they allow members to instantly tell their representatives in Congress to support the proposal. Their "Voice@Work" website is a model for what we could be doing, and is located here:

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/

Posted by Eric Lee at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)