Marching, marching, marching

Greetings from the Jewish Socialists’ Group and the Jewish Bloc for Palestine.

We are a growing coalition of Jewish activist groups and individuals who will not stand by while Israel wreaks violence and destruction against the Palestinians. Whatever the Israeli government and our self-proclaimed Jewish community leaders say, this inhumanity is not being carried out in our name.

This catastrophe has not happened in a vacuum; it is the latest genocide the world has seen, but not the only one. And the perpetrators have political and military support from their counterparts and collaborators in countries – not least our own government.

We are marching in the Jewish Bloc because we are antifascists and antiracists; we are socialists and anarchists; we are black and white and brown; we come from different backgrounds and traditions. We are human beings who challenge Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians because we have learnt from our own history that no individual, no group and no people can fight persecution on its own.

We have a vision of a future built on foundations of solidarity, coexistence and equality. An anti-nationalist future which doesn’t carve up the world; which doesn’t impose borders and build walls and then claim the right to murder those who transgress them. We are internationalist, not nationalist.

Our anti-nationalism is a challenge to the fascists marauding across our country threatening Muslims and other minorities. It’s a challenge to governments who want to “stop the boats” and deport migrants. And it’s a challenge to Zionists who as well as destroying the lives of Palestinians, belittle, insult and abuse Jews outside Israel. Just this week, former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy, proudly described Israel as “not your grandparents’ Jews anymore”. He is desecrating the memory of those millions who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis; those who resisted and those who were unable to resist.

We know from our own bitter history where nationalism can lead. In 1933, Henryk Erlich, a leader of our political ancestors, the Jewish Socialist Bund, described the rise of the Nazis as “nationalism … stripped naked”. Before the Holocaust and before the State of Israel existed, he predicted that under the appropriate circumstances, “Jewish nationalism would show its sharp teeth and nails no less than the nationalisms of other nations.”

Tragically, that has come to pass. But we will not stop marching, campaigning and demanding an end to the violence, the war crimes and the destruction. We say to our government and to all the governments fuelling the genocide: stop arming Israel! We will go on marching until Palestine is free!