How the Left Turned Against the Jews

April 2012

Political and personal betrayals filled her life. But as Colin Shindler shows in his Israel and the European Left (Continuum, £17.99), her embrace of anti-Semitism would have struck her fellow Communists as no betrayal at all.

Before I go further, I should say that Shindler's book is superb: a well-written and meticulously researched history of the horrors and ironies of the last 100 years. He shows how screaming stereotypes and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories developed by Marxists — not by fascists or Islamists or Catholic and Orthodox nationalists, but by the Left — have survived while all around has changed.

Given the cramped nature of British debate, I doubt if it will be widely reviewed. The right-wing press won't like it because it is not a conventional denunciation of the Left. Shindler is a properly impartial historian, but when his beliefs show through he reveals himself to be a social democrat rather than an Israel-firster or man of the Right. The left-wing press won't like it for the same reason Caliban did not like the sight of his face in the mirror. Beyond the ideological divide lies the almost taboo nature of Shindler's subject. Conventional wisdom does not regard Communism with the same abhorrence as fascism, even though if you want to be an accountant about it and add up the skulls of the dead, you will find that the Communists murdered many more people than the fascists did, began murdering before fascists came to power and carried on murdering after the fascists had gone. Yet few can bring themselves to see fascism and Communism as moral equivalents. Even Robert Conquest, who mapped the crimes of Stalin, and had been mocked by the know-nothing Left of his day as a Cold War fantasist, said he thought the Nazis were worse than the Communists. He couldn't explain why, they just felt worse.

A part of the explanation for the double standard is that the allies overthrew the Nazis in 1945 and opened their archives. The democratic world could read what they had done. China's archives on Mao, the greatest criminal of the 20th century, remain closed. Perhaps historians will never read them in full. More important than the scarcity of source material is the woozy feeling that Communism's aims — equality, universal fraternity — were noble, whereas not even Germans and Italians can now find reasons to applaud racist theories of German or Italian domination.

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Hzle

April 15th, 2012
11:04 AM

"..if you want to be an accountant about it and add up the skulls of the dead, you will find that the Communists murdered many more people than the fascists did .. few can bring themselves to see fascism and Communism as moral equivalents..." I remember Bernard Levin pointing this out long ago in the Times. Two interesting points about this. The extermination camps in Nazi Germany seem worse because people were assiduously selected for them - by race. This is different from Stalin, who murdered everyone. Thousands of Jews died, but I don't think we can say they were singled out as in Nazi Germany. They were well represented in the Party and intelligensia, which may help explain the large numbers of Jewish deaths under Stalin. I'd argue that our consciousness of what we call 'racism' in the UK comes largely a) from the Holocaust, and b) from the experience of immigration and c) knowledge of the slave-trade. We've seen what ideas of race have brought us...Surely this is why Nazis and Communists are seen differently? Our understanding of Communism and Marxism is different. Some on the left disingenuously ignore the details of Stalin/Mao, or claim these were "not real Marxism". These deniers are avoiding an important issue, and it is worse than irresponsible to do so. We still haven't made up our minds about Marx. Universities in the UK teach Marxism without any boring details of it's actual consequenses - sometimes in English courses for some reason...So the denial still goes on

miro

April 10th, 2012
2:04 AM

"Israel is unique among nations. It is the only sovereign country whose right to exist is questioned as a matter of routine. " Not true: Republika Srpska would like to hold a referendum to separate from the rest of Bosnia, a referendum whose positive result is certain. The British government, and I suspect Nick Cohen, would strongly oppose this. Same thing for Abkhazia (where a referendum was conducted, affirmative result was 97%). Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus. Same story. Lets see... is there a thread in common? Yes, the territory on which these supposed countries is built was ethnically cleansed. In wars which of course the cleansers justify, sometime with reason (in Bosnia, for all the abuses the Bosnian serbs did, one has to remember that Al Husseini's muslim SS direct heir was Alijah Izetbegovic, the "democratic Bosnian president. )

Mark2

April 5th, 2012
3:04 PM

"Finally, who can deny that anti-Semitism was popular in Eastern Europe and Russia then, and is popular in the Middle East and parts of Europe now? Particularly if the more obviously "medieval" features of the prejudice are dropped and anti-Semitism is recast as anti-Zionism." Not sure if you need drop the "medievel" in the case of the Middle east world. And it infects other pars of the world too. I still recall the shock of picking up a book in what looked like an ordinary bookshop there to discover it filled with utter anti semitic bile.

Henry Tobias

April 3rd, 2012
4:04 PM

'They oppose Israeli policy because contrary to the Balfour Declaration it impinges on the civil rights of non-Jewish communities.' This sentence is complete nonsense. Israel does not impinge on the civil rights of its non-Jewish communities. They have representation in the Knesset and access to the courts, just as any other Israeli citizen. When and if a Palestinian state comes into being it will according to its present leaders be 'Judenrein'. That inpinges on the civil rights of Jews who wish to live in towns like Hebron, capital of King David, slated to be in Palestine. The blather about Jerusalem being holy to Islam continues, despite Jerusalem never being mentioned in the Koran, nor was Jerusalem anything but a backwater town of the Ottaman Empire. If the Crusaders had not come to the Holy Land the Muslims would never have paid attention to Jerusalem.

Allen Z. Hertz

April 3rd, 2012
12:04 PM

So much that is said an written about Jews, Judaism, the Jewish People and Israel is both tendentious and unreasonable. With so many claims and counter-claims, where to turn for some sanity? Well for starters how about the proposition that Jews, Judaism, the Jewish People and Israel are "owed" fairness and sound social science? All countries and Peoples deserve fairness and sound social science. However, historically-victimized populations like USA Blacks, North American Aboriginal Peoples and Jews have super-added claims to fairness and sound social science. Apart from anything else this means that targeting Jews, Judaism, the Jewish People and Israel is forbidden by modern human-rights methodologies. A thoroughly comparative approach is absolutely required. In this light, it can readily be understood that the modern meaning of anti-Semitism certainly includes persistently targeting Israel and persistently applying to Israel a more exigent standard than regularly applied to other countries in the same or similar circumstances. To be sure, this invites extended and open discussion of many complicated matters from a variety of viewpoints, but it does remind us that there is absolutely no logical principle that establishes that criticism of Israel can never be anti-Semitic. Certainly, persistent "discriminatory" criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because likely to harm the 6 million Jews in Israel. What part of basic human rights doctrine is beyond understanding? Anti-Semitism means "hatred for Jews" and "discrimination against Jews." Discriminatory speech and acts likely to harm Jews violate human rights in the same way as human rights are violated by discriminatory speech and acts likely to harm Black Americans. Human-rights methodologies are too astute to be fooled by word games. Introducing the word "Israel" into a conversation provides no cover for otherwise discriminatory speech. And, to be sure, talking about Jews ought to be a difficult and delicate matter, just as it requires some thought and sensitivity to address issues relating to other historically-victimized populations, like Black Americans.

David Zwartz

April 2nd, 2012
2:04 PM

"The Bolsheviks recognised other minorities as minorities with homelands. They never said that there should be a Jewish homeland in their empire." Not quite correct, as it overlooks the (Yiddish-speaking) Jewish Autonomous Birobidzhan region of the late 1920s-early 1930s.

5ftflirt

April 1st, 2012
8:04 PM

"it is the only country in the world that was founded on the principle of ethnic cleansing. " You could say that Israel is one of the few countres in the world where ethnic cleansing did not accomplish its purpose. The Jews were ethnically cleansed from their land 4-5 times, by various empires, and always returned. Not too many other peoples can say that. Jews should also have the right of return to their towns and villages, like Shechem (Nablus) and Hebron. And their former homes in Baghdad, Cairo, Aleppo, and Medina.

Ed Walker

March 30th, 2012
10:03 AM

Ruth Fischer was unmasked as an American agent when secret information was declassified in 2010.

Ed Walker

March 29th, 2012
9:03 PM

The usual evasions and red herrings. The examples given such as Australia and Northern Cyprus are entirely different situations. Should the Palestinians, who continue to be denied return, be allowed to live on the land of their choosing? Or will they continue to be marginalized by a state that discriminates against them? That is the question. One that Mr Decent does not address.

Cris

March 29th, 2012
2:03 PM

"Israel is the only nation to be founded on principle of ethnic cleansing" What are you smoking, Ed? Do you have any idea how many Hindus and Sikhs were driven away from their homes when first Pakistan and then Bangladesh were established? How many Germans were evacuated to establish Poland post-WW2? How many Tamils have been driven away by the Lankan army to establish Buddhist enclaves in Sri Lanka? How many Muslims were cleansed by LTTE to try and establish a Tamil state? How many Hindus have been forcibly resettled from Kashmir valley to establish an Islamic state? How many Armenians were slaughtered to establish modern Turkey? How many Jews were driven away from Arab countries? I agree with you that the Palestinian people should be rightly compensated on the principle of human rights and I support the Left in Israel but your blinkered obsession and singling out of Israel indicates that you do have a problem with the Jews, as Nick has so eloquently pointed out.

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