Bernard Spiegal

The problem for proponents of Israel as a ‘normal’ state, is Israel itself. Over the past eleven months, Israel’s murderous, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and now escalating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have been displayed on our screens for all to see.

It is not a good look to destroy hospitals, kill and maim children, displace millions of people from one unsafe, targeted ‘safe’ haven to another. But what’s a few thousand Palestinian civilian deaths – murders, actually – here or there? 

Israel’s really is sorry. Really. But, as it says, it’s a justifiable cost to murder a family of, say, ten people, to kill one alleged member of Hamas.

Not a good look

 Although mainstream media appear to have downgraded broadcasting footage of the continuing carnage, Israel’s copybook is now truly marked – in blood, guts and severed limbs. From a public relations perspective, it presents badly.  Attempts to justify its actions to the general public have fallen flat. A gaggle of robotic official Israeli spokespersons seeking to justify the unjustifiable have no purchase.

For these reasons, and more, generating support for Israel is not best served by focussing on Israel as such. Yet Israel needs international support, from the UK and the West generally, so something must be done.  Done here, on the home front.

What cannot be accomplished positively – presenting a positive image of Israel – must be done negatively.   

And here, organisations such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) and UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) leap into the breach. Their approach is wholly negative. I take their aims and methods to be to:

• box any British government into uncritical support for Israel, no matter which political party has ascendancy. Where criticism is made, it should amount to no more than window dressing. A performative act with little or no substance;
• marginalise, to the point of silencing, Palestinian voices along with pro-Palestine advocates generally;
• to solidify the characterisation of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. In general, to characterise any criticism of Israel as antisemitic;
• create a self-censoring environment such that mainstream media in particular, and institutions and organisations generally, internalise an inhibition against allowing Israel-critical perspectives to gain a foothold in public and political discourse;
• deploy the threat of, and undertake, legal action as the means to silence critics of Israel and Zionism.  

Increased activity?

It may be my imagination – I have conducted no objective survey – but one senses that both the CAA and UKLFI have been particularly active of late. Between them, the two organisations are unrelentingly promiscuous in their pursuit of individuals, organisations and institutions that allow, or support, Israel-critical, pro-Palestine expression. They pursue arts festivals, universities, professional associations, charities, local authorities and even a toy shop for any hint of Israel-critical, pro-Palestine expression. Their mode of action is lawfare: the deployment of law – the threat and actual undertaking of legal action – for alleged breaches of, for example, the Equalities Act, and/or charity law in order to silence pro-Palestinian perspectives.

This is effective on too many occasions. For whilst the CAA and UKLFI have deep pockets and, in a sense, have nothing to lose in pursuing their targets, this is not the case for their potential victims who will not in practice have the resources to fight a court case.  They fear also potential reputational damage, the mere accusation of antisemitism having a chilling effect. In this sense, UK organisations and institutions represent an array of sitting ducks, targets for the CAA and UKLFI.

CAA and UKLFI may be winning some battles, essentially technical victories within specialist silos, but they are losing the wider public relations war. Arguably, the very fact that their attention is so narrowly focused, suggests the pro-Israel lobby has given up on the wider task of winning over public opinion to its view.  This, however, should offer us no comfort. Indeed, it can be seen as indicative of a wider malaise, highlighting a profound structural imbalance that locks pro-Palestine advocacy into cycles of ineffectiveness, unable to breach the walls of establishment decision making; or affect the coverage and content of mainstream media.  

The fault here is not with pro-Palestine advocates, but with the political structures within which we operate. Palestine and Palestinians are the victims of the radical disconnect between popular sentiment – as witnessed by the sustained global outpouring of that sentiment – and the political elites that control the levers of power. Democratic practice has no purchase here. Certainly, so far as foreign policy is concerned, it has proved itself not susceptible to popular demands – ‘ceasefire now’, is one example.

Foreign policy is an aspect of governance where the executive holds sway, feeling scant need to submit foreign policy decisions to the general legislature; or, if they do, it is for affirmatory resolution only. The rallies, the lobbying of governments, are of no avail.  Our failed political system is incised into Palestinian flesh.  

The contraction of democratic space and possibility, enables the creation of a different form of space, one inhabited by specialist, technically orientated, well-funded, self-serving anti-Palestinian interests. Here, impervious to, and immune from, democratic pressure they patrol with censorious passion the merest hint of pro-Palestinian sentiment.  The lawfare strategy of the CAA and UKLFI are examples of this. They have the resources – funds, access to expertise – to stymie democratic expression by, in effect, using the bureaucratic and legal levers of the state to achieve their objectives.  

This is a bleak assessment. Made more acute, if such were possible, as we watch Israel extending and escalating its murderous, ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, UK and USA governments utter bad-faith, incantatory bromides urging Israeli restraint, whilst at the same time providing the fuel that feeds the genocidal fire.