Though Cowards Flinch

The subject of Palestine has come up several times on this blog and perhaps I can be forgiven for re-visiting it yet again in the aftermath of a rather amusing article from pro-war Harry’s Place.

This article just about sums up everything I feel about Palestine solidarity groups, which is why I avoid them like the plague.

Back home in Belfast the partisan denizens, never slow to pick up on a publicity stunt, fly Palestinian and Israeli flags from the same places that flew the Irish tri-colour and the Union Jack respectively. One has to admit, socialism isn’t the only thing with an internationalist element; idiocy seems to have its place.

At Oxford, there was also a Palestinian Solidarity campaign which I avoided, even though there were pretty girls trying to convince me to come along one night when I was very drunk. This was just before I threw up all over the floor of the Oxford Union President’s house. Why, one might wonder, have I gone to such strenuous lengths to avoid them?

Well, one of the quotes from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) that Harry’s Place provides might give an answer:

The mainstream of the anti-war organisations in the US and Britain, however, are today very much in the nature of a ‘campaign for peace’ and opposed to open solidarity with those resisting occupation and the imposition of client regimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon.

Even when a unified popular resistance movement, Hezbollah, successfully defied the overwhelming military might of Israel in Lebanon in 2006, the SWP-led UK Stop the War Coalition fought off attempts to include “Support the Arab Resistance” in the slogans of the demonstration. 

I have some first hand experience of the anti-Lebanon war protests. The statement above, that the StWC fought off attempts to include “Support the Arab Resistance” in the slogans blatantly ignores the fact that anti-war lefties were accompanied by thousands of Muslims baying “From the river to the sea… .” Not exactly inspiring and open minded.

It is frankly amazing how some of these people manage to survive in left wing politics with analysis like this. “Damn those anti-war lot,” they say, “because they aren’t militant enough.” Actually, the anti-war groups did call for solidarity with the people and trade unionists of Iraq and Lebanon and other countries.

What most of us didn’t do was lend our support to murdering Islamic fanatics who have no more interest in secular democracy than George Bush.

This, I feel, is a pretty good reason never to support Palestinian solidarity campaigns, even though one must feel moved by the plight of an oppressed, disfranchised people.