October 26, 2017

Earlier this month, the British Labour Party expelled Israeli-born scholar and activist Moshé Machover for writing an article documenting Zionism’s long history of collaborating with far-right political forces. In this statement first published at its website , Jews for Palestinian Right of Return condemns the Labour Party's cowardly attempt to show its support for Zionism by clamping down on the freedom of its members to express their opinions and by denying basic historical facts

ON OCTOBER 3, eminent Israeli scholar Moshé Machover was summarily expelled from the British Labour Party for authoring an allegedly anti-Semitic article. In reality, however, Prof. Machover's article discusses well-documented ideological parallels and active collaboration between Zionism and Nazism in the 1930s and '40s, the current relevance of which is only confirmed by neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer, who calls himself a "white Zionist."

Unable to dispute such facts, Zionists resort to smearing anti-Zionism--which is anti-racist, anti-apartheid, anti-colonialist and anti-fascist--as anti-Semitic. Above all, this McCarthyite witch hunt is designed to silence the surging boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, many of whose supporters are Jewish.

BDS, which resembles the divestment movement from apartheid South Africa and many other social-justice movements, demands an end to Israeli occupation and apartheid, full equality for all, and Palestinian refugees' right to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled.

Anti-Zionist author and activist Moshe Machover

In short, the Labour Party doesn't have an "anti-Semitism" problem; it has a Zionism problem, as reflected in this baseless expulsion. Along with Jewish Voice for Labour and many others, we call on the Leader of the Party, and its National Executive, to immediately reinstate Prof. Machover and end all Labour complicity in attacks on the Palestine freedom movement.

First published at the website of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return.