1. BobW said:

All along, I knew there was world-class political talent in Israel. Eliyahu is a leader of this reservoir of talent.

Eliyahu's letter alone would make a perfect position paper for a plan of action.

Concerts in Central Park are for entertainment. Rallies outside Israeli consulates are for the dillusional. The definition of sovereignty has changed over the years. Eliyahu properly points this out.

Let's note that Eliyahu's suggested protest targets, eg EU, the US State Dept, are hated by broad patches of US society.

The mechanical plan to save Israel now distills down to who will confront the enemies of a Jewish Israel, the naive or Eliyahu. It was a pleasure to read his letter.

Kol tuv,
BobW

2. felix quigley said:

I indeed agree with Bob – a very important letter. Hence I have given some thought to this and, forgive me, written a longish piece.

At first reading I thought I agreed totally with this letter. I read the comment by Bob W after it and I felt there were aspects to his comment that I did not agree with. As I will show here my thinking on protests in Central Park and Embassies is different. Protests are not sufficient of course, but vital nevertheless. People are entering into this issue in a mass way and that is the way they have to start.

I then had a further look at the letter from Eliyahu and I have begun to think that there are aspects to it which I agree with and there are aspects which I do not agree with. I agree broadly on the need for an international perspective. I disagree in how I see the movement of the Israeli masses. I think that they have moved way beyond Sharon and all they need is a new type of leadership. The latter, no way around it, as always unfortunately is the case, has to be conscously constructed.

Where I strongly agree with Eliyahu - I have always thought that the Jewish state can only be defended on an international basis. That is why I am campaigning with my website inside Ireland, a key country for historical reasons associated with Britain’s historical role of treachery - to defend the Jewish state as envisaged by the Balfour Declaration, and written into international law as Eliyahu refers to at San Remo, Italy, in 1922.

This was one of the things which puzzled me and it also puzzled the Revisionists – why the Zionist leaders seemed to accept rather meekly the Churchill and British quite illegal and unilateral move (conspiracy) to hive off 80% of mandated Palestine and grant it to the Arabs. That was a blow from which it was impossible to recover. I could never find a satisfactory answer to this but I think it may be connected with the fact that the Jewish people had such a long, 2000 year old history of extreme persecution at the hands of every nation on earth – in other words I offer a kind of psychological answer. Accordingly I have often thought that Weizmann may have been too reliant on the British establishment in the form of power-brokers, Balfour and of course Churchill. The latter has never earned many brownie points in Ireland you will not be surprised to hear, nationalist Ireland anyhow, but I do think he dealt the Jews in 1921 a blow from which Israel is still shouldering the effects. I do not think that Zionism has ever recovered from that.

That aspect of things was involved when 1947-8 came along. It was a valiant effort to found Israel and I know, we are looking at it now in hindsight. But hindsight also is important! In a series of articles to launch my website (called www.IrelandSupportsIsrael.com) I tried to pinpoint the nature of the early leadership of that Jewish State and I conjectured that international political trends may have had a key role. One of these was Stalinism, another was social dmocracy. Both these trends as leaderships had had the most bloody record possible, records of utter betrayal. It remains a large landmark in my thinking that the Stalinist Communist Party of Germany and that whole Comintern movement opened the door to Hitler in 1933. As did Social Democracy in the form of the SPD. They willingly allowed Hitler take the power of the state with the slogan “After Hitler our turn”. As we know there was no “our turn”. In my articles I postulated that this type of leadership was heavily represented in early Israeli politics, Mapai and such like, and that Sharon has his roots there as well. Note NOT left-wing but Stalinist and Social Democratic!

Hitler was motivated by racism, and a lot more besides, but I think that we can say that in that warped brain Jew-hatred loomed large. In that he was supported by large sections of European but also American circles of power and influence. Note the role of Ford, note the role of the Grandparents of Bush, note also the reality that without that IBM subsidiary sanctioned by head office the actual Holocaust could not physically have happened. Note also the role of the Arab Palestinian, Hajj Amin el Husseini, aiming to be the Eichmann of the Middle East.

Another thing is often forgotten, however. Along with the murder of those 6 millions of Jews there was also the killing of a vast number (around 60 millions) of people of all religions and nationalities as a result of the Jew-hater Hitler.

I have a reason for saying this which relates to Eliyahu’s letter. My interest in campaigning on this issue in Ireland is 2-fold. Firstly I identify with the Jews as a people. I have said that in my articles. Zionism began with the Roman expulsions and it has never ceased. The Irish have their prized rebel songs etc, but there has never been such a struggle for national liberation, anywhere, (the Kurds struggle has similarities) than that of the Jewish people over those centuries. That is the first half of my thinking.

Secondly, howver, to make any forward movement in any country in Europe or the US, or indeed in Asia and Africa, it is absolutely necessary to defeat the present neo-Left on this issue of support for “Palestinianism”. This has led the Left into support for Islamo-fascism and to be out and out anti-semitic fascists. Note please I am talking about the Left. That is why some of us have taken to referring to the present “Left” by the more accurate “Neo-left”.

Thus, on the need to approach this on an international scale I could not agree more with Eliyahu. Protests against the EU and UN embassies, yes, also against every aspect of US life inside Israel, embassies and otherwise, because this Gaza issue is in the end of it all part of the Road Map, and the Road Map is a Bush-Bandar Roadmap, in other words it is a Saudi-Arabian controlled Road Map. Bush, not Blair, is at the very centre!

I look on all the various protests, including the religiously based protests, as being very effective. Not the full answer but that is how development takes place – through contradiction. Some of those early protestors may even have dropped out. All were ignored by the Media.

But they have through their energy, letters such as Ruth Matar wrote, etc brought us to this point. I saw it, and I know that all at Israpundit saw it likewise, a decisive point was reached when the Israeli public moved away from Sharon in the opinion polls. Up to that point Sharon had operated as a Bonapartist dictator. No longer – from that point he was just an ordinary old tin-pot dictator relying on the armed forces and on the reactionary residue of that Stalinism and Social Democracy (Peres) I mentioned before.

I think what is happening is this: Masses of people NEVER move into struggle unless they have no alternative. I maintain very strongly that the Israeli masses (I am talking about everybody here – students, youth, mothers, housewives, doctors etc) are moving now in a deep way.

Many writers have written despairingly about Oslo and they are right. But the Jews of Israel are in such a position that they cannot really have the luxury of despair. I think they will fight for their future.They have assimilated vital lessons from Oslo. Don’t forget Sharon took power because of that disillusionment with Oslo. For a while they thought they did not need to fight it out and they went with Sharon’s anti-Jabonitsky’s wall idea.

Then things began to change and these “wayout” Jews in the settlements began to be seen in a different way. What happened to cause this? As the British PM Harold MacMillan said on another occasion “Events, dear boy, Events”. Events have intruded on Sharon’s mechanical and paternalistic politics. The Wall is no use, the resourceful Terrorists are developing Nasser Rockets. Then there was the well-publicised incident of the 2 Arabs intent on suicide bombing Jerusalem. Then the Fatah woman last week. And the general demeanour of Abbas! Those eyes are chilling – the eyes of a killer! The eyes of a holocaust-denier!

To my mind the Israeli public have moved very far beyond the politics of Sharon. Sharon may wag his tail and do Gaza-like tricks in front of Bush like a little cocker spaniel, he may come striding along corridors into meetings as if he had not a minute to spare. But the Israeli public now distrusts this man deeply and it also moreover, and more importantly, distrusts Bush. On the Bush issue I think that this intelligent and very political Israeli public has made the link between the Road Map and Iraq. I must mention this: Just last week one unfortunate Iraqi woman was blown THREE stories up to meet her doom. These things register! It has moved way beyond Sharon.

The issue in Eliyahu’s letter is really this: There exists an absolute vacumn of leadership in Israel (as in Ireland I might add). There must be developed a new leadership. Not easy, but I can say it will be based as Eliyahu says on International Perspectives and especially on Historical Veracity.

You can see I agree in large areas with Eliyahu’s letter. Where we possibly differ, possibly not, is on how I see the movement of the Israeli masses. All those little protests by all those little Ruth Matars have brought Israel to an historical point. To tell the truth that is where I disagree with Bob as well, for whom I have the greatest respect. I say the more actions, however “trivial” the better. People never move from point A to point B in a straight line.Gaza may fall to the enemy even though I am confident it will not. But in any case the conditions are there for a new and a revolutionary type leadership to be build in Israel that will take up the unfinished business of the Revisionists, but at a different and more qualitative level. Israel does hold the key. Already in the European Press the issue is being FORCED onto the broadsheets and onto the Television screens really for the first time. The lead must come from the Israeli fighters against repression and for the Homeland and I am confident it will because contained in this Israeli state is the essence of 2000 years of the most heroic struggles ever seen by mankind. History never forgets. A new party in Israel is needed based on all those things, especially on the knowledge that from Arab genocide there is no place to run to. The Arabs too are intent on completing unfinished business – the business of El Husseini!

Finally, and I apologise for the longish comment on my part, I would emphasise that in my opinion sovereignty of nations has not changed. The Jewish people of Israel are still an independent people. They must now assert it. On this issue the lead has got to come from them and I am confident it will. In Ireland I and other Irish people have to construct a leadership which will defend Israel’s rights to the very end. Without a new leadership in Israel based on these principles and a complete break from Sharonism and all the rest of that trend it is not pòssible in the long run to win. It is a revolutionary situation in Israel and everything is at stake.

3. Ed D said:

Felix, you hit the nail on the head. I have repeatedly, asked the IDF to remove Sharon on criminal charges. Gary Bauer, of the Religious Conservatives, is on our side and he has a powerful following. You are most certainly right about Bush and Bandar/ Abdullah since they seem to be bed mates. Although another election will not occur for three more years, the Republican party has been taking a real hit. Bush's reputation will be beside
those of Carter and Eisenhour. We thank you and Bob W. for all the help and inspiration that you are giving to us.