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Why has the European Left become so antagonistic towards Israel? To answer this question, Colin Shindler looks at the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and Zionism from the October Revolution to today. Is such antagonism in opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments? Or, is it due to a resurgence of anti-Semitism? The answer is far more complex. Shindler argues that the new generation of the European Left was more influenced by the decolonization movement than by wartime experiences, which led it to favor the Palestinian cause in the post 1967 period. Thus the Israeli drive to settle the West Bank after the Six Day war enhanced an already existing attitude, but did not cause it. Written by a respected scholar, this accessible and balanced work provides a novel account and analytical approach to this important subject. Israel and the European Left will interest students in international politics, Middle Eastern studies, as well as anyone who seeks to understand issues related to today's Left and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This book examines how left-wing political and cultural movements in Western Europe have considered Jews in the last two hundred years. The chapters seek to answer the following question: has there been a specific way in which the Left has considered Jewish minorities? The subject has taken various shapes in the different geographical contexts, influenced by national specificities. In tandem, this volume demonstrates the extent to which left-wing movements share common trends drawn from a collective repertoire of representations and meanings. Highlighting the different aspects of the subject matter, the chapters in this book are divided in three parts, each dedicated to a major theme: the contribution of the theorists of Socialism to the Jewish Question; Antisemitism and its representations in left-wing culture; and the perception of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Taken together, these three themes allow for a multidisciplinary analysis of the relationship between the Left and Jews from the second half of the nineteenth century to recent times.
There is a sickness at the heart of left-wing British politics, and though predominantly below the surface, it is silently spreading, becoming ever more malignant. With three separate inquiries into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in the first six months of 2016 alone, it seems hard to believe that, until the 1980s, the British left was broadly pro-Israel. And while the election of Jeremy Corbyn may have thrown a harsher spotlight on the crisis, it is by no means a recent phenomenon. The widening gulf between British Jews and the anti-Israel left - born out of antiapartheid campaigns and now allying itself with Islamist extremists who demand Israel's destruction - did not happen overnight or by chance: political activists made it happen. This book reveals who they were, why they chose Palestine and how they sold their cause to the left. Based on new academic research into the origins of this phenomenon, combined with the author's daily work observing political extremism, contemporary hostility to Israel, and anti-Semitism, this book brings new insight to the left's increasingly controversial 'Jewish problem'.
From Ambivalence to Betrayal is the first study to explore the transformation in attitudes on the Left toward the Jews, Zionism, and Israel since the origins of European socialism in the 1840s until the present. This pathbreaking synthesis reveals a striking continuity in negative stereotypes of Jews, contempt for Judaism, and negation of Jewish national self-determination from the days of Karl Marx to the current left-wing intellectual assault on Israel. World-renowned expert on the history of antisemitism Robert S. Wistrich provides not only a powerful analysis of how and why the Left emerged as a spearhead of anti-Israel sentiment but also new insights into the wider involvement of Jews in radical movements. There are fascinating portraits of Marx, Moses Hess, Bernard Lazare, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, and other Jewish intellectuals, alongside analyses of the darker face of socialist and Communist antisemitism. The closing section eloquently exposes the degeneration of leftist anti-Zionist critiques into a novel form of “anti-racist” racism.
In carefully crafted official statements, the European Union presents itself as an honest broker in the Middle East. In reality, however, the EU’s 27 governments have been engaged in a long process of accommodating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Journalist David Cronin interrogates the relationship and its outcomes. A recent agreement for "more intense, more fruitful, more influential co-operation" between the EU and Israel has meant that Israel has become a member state of the Union in all but name. Cronin shows that rather than using this relationship to encourage Israeli restraint, the EU has legitimized actions such as the ill-treatment of prisoners and the Gaza invasion. Concluding his revealing and shocking account, Cronin calls for a continuation and deepening of international activism and protest to halt the EU's slide into complicity.
The relationships, past and present, between Jews and the political left remain of abiding interest to both the academic community and the public. Jews and Leftist Politics contains new and insightful chapters from world-renowned scholars and considers such matters as the political implications of Judaism; the relationships of leftists and Jews; the histories of Jews on the left in Europe, the United States, and Israel; contemporary anti-Zionism; the associations between specific Jews and Communist parties; and the importance of gendered perspectives. It also contains fresh studies of canonical figures, including Gershom Scholem, Gustav Landauer, and Martin Buber, and examines the affiliations of Jews to prominent institutions, calling into question previous widely held assumptions. The volume is characterized by judicious appraisals made by respected authorities, and sheds considerable light on contentious themes.
Undeclared Wars with Israel examines a spectrum of antagonism by the East German government and West German radical leftist organizations - ranging from hostile propaganda and diplomacy to military support for Israel's Arab armed adversaries - from 1967 to the end of the Cold War in 1989. This period encompasses the Six-Day War (1967), the Yom Kippur War (1973), Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and an ongoing campaign of terrorism waged by the Palestine Liberation Organization against Israeli civilians. This book provides new insights into the West German radicals who collaborated in 'actions' with Palestinian terrorist groups, and confirms that East Germany, along with others in the Soviet Bloc, had a much greater impact on the conflict in the Middle East than has been generally known. A historian who has written extensively on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, Jeffrey Herf now offers a new chapter in this long, sad history.
This volume documents the transformation of age-old antisemitic stereotypes into a new form of discrimination, often called "New Antisemitism" or "Antisemitism 2.0." Manifestations of antisemitism in political, legal, media and other contexts are reflected on theoretically and contemporary developments are analyzed with a special focus on online hatred. The volume points to the need for a globally coordinated approach on the political and legal levels, as well as with regard to the modern media, to effectively combat modern antisemitism.
A comprehensive history of the Matzpen group - who advocated for a community of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in a socialist Middle East.
Many on the Left see the European Union as a fundamentally benign project with the potential to underpin ever greater cooperation and progress. If it has drifted rightward, the answer is to fight for reform from within. In this iconoclastic polemic, economist Costas Lapavitsas demolishes this view. He contends that the EU’s response to the Eurozone crisis represents the ultimate transformation of the union into a neoliberal citadel that institutionally embeds austerity, privatization, and wage cuts. Concurrently, the rise of German hegemony has divided the EU into an unstable core and dependent peripheries. These related developments make the EU impervious to meaningful reform. The solution is therefore a direct challenge to the EU project that stresses popular and national sovereignty as preconditions for true internationalist socialism. Lapavitsas’s powerful manifesto for a left opposition to the EU upends the wishful thinking that often characterizes the debate and will be a challenging read for all on the Left interested in the future of Europe.