When I was an 18 year old student in the mid 1980s I was asked to carry the Liverpool Poly Students Union banner in a demonstration against the banning of the Sunderland Poly Jewish Society. I was happy to accept and I went there expecting to take part in a demonstration against the fascist National Front. By the time I got on the coach heading North East, I had discovered that this was actually a demonstration against people who thought of themselves as being on the left, including the Socialist Workers Party, who were, between them, behind the the ban. This was an attack on Jewish Students in Britain, an attack on their right to organise, and to organise and meet as Jews. I have often wondered how it came about that the SWP found themselves, in so many concrete situations, to be fighting against the rights of Jews. More recently I have wondered why they invited (and not just once) the antisemite Gilad Atzmon to Marxism. Anway, I've just read the following by John Molyneux in the SWP quarterly journal International Socialism and I think I'm beginning to understand.

"To put the matter as starkly as possible: from the standpoint of Marxism and international socialism an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically)."

HatTip to Gene at Harry's Place.

This is what Hamas believes.

This is what David Grossman believes. David Grossman is an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism.

The SWP believes in hocus pocus.