In this important article ‘Good Jews, Bad Jews and imperialist lies’, published by Counterfire online, David Cohen demonstrates that from the very beginning of the Zionist project, the artificial creation of a ‘Jewish Homeland’, its imperialist backers sharply attacked any Jewish opponent of the scheme. British imperialism saw clearly that the long history of Jewish working-class internationalism was an obstacle to its plans. Cohen shows that British imperialism was preparing the ground for Israel’s foundation many years before the Nazi mass slaughter of European Jewry, which is now the stock excuse of Zionists to sustain the Israel project. This policy promoted the mass emigration of Jews from Europe and elsewhere, to Palestine to support British imperialism’s own economic and political interests in the Middle East.
Forcing into existence a state based solidly upon ethno-religious lines, as a ‘plantation’ imposed on Palestine, Britain and the United States have created a state which is based on a campaign of permanent oppression of the Palestinian people and attacks on anyone who dares ally themselves with the Palestinians’ rightful demand for a return to their homes. The Israeli state, throughout its continuous violent expansionary existence, has engaged in an intense and global propaganda war to convince all and any Jew that opposes it in any way, that they are not only wrong but morally degenerate.
Cohen traces the development of British support for the Zionists, who as the founder of political Zionism Theodor Herzl said, would create a ‘wall of defence for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism,’ from the Balfour declaration of 1917, through to Winston Churchill’s strong advocacy in the 1920s of a ‘home’ for the Jews in Palestine. Churchill distinguished Zionists from their Jewish opponents, whom he labelled as ‘international,’ ‘terrorist,’ or ‘Bolshevik’. Cohen illustrates the pervasiveness of this approach throughout the British imperialist administration with reference to comments in 1937 of a former Military Governor of Jerusalem, who approvingly quoted the idea of ‘a little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in what he called ‘a sea of potentially hostile Arabism’.
The critical question dealt with in the article is why so many Jewish people in Europe abandoned their progressive internationalism for reactionary Zionism. He explains this not only by the cumulative effect of years of anti-Semitic campaigns across Europe, or the energetic pro-Zionism of British and US imperialism, but by the rising standard of living and security offered by the western powers in exchange for conforming to manufactured pro-Israel attitudes. Cohen’s insight here, that if the European Jew would agree to support Israel’s foundation and expansion, then Jews in Europe would no longer be persecuted, is the pivot around which his article is written. Should antisemitism now be permitted outside of Israel, the alliance between the imperialist powers and Israeli Jews alone would be exposed as a duplicitous means of blocking progressive Arab national movements. Jews in Israel live in an armed camp, forced to militarise their society, compelled to bow their heads to Judaism, to protect US, British and European imperialism. Meanwhile, in this expansionist apartheid state, Palestinians are forced into living under one or another of four sets of legal ‘rights’, all inferior to those of Jewish citizenship. This tragic and absurd arrangement is neither in the interest of the Jewish people, nor of the Palestinians, and can only be resolved by the creation of a free Palestinian state in which a firm democratic mandate is established for all, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.
Cohen’s article is a clear and sharp description of the division in the world between those Jews who stand against imperialism and those who have capitulated to its strategies; in Churchill’s words between the ‘Bad Jews’ and the ‘Good Jews’. Cohen calls for the longstanding internationalism and energetic socialism of the Jewish tradition to be reasserted as a critical step in ending the current tragedy. Our readers should certainly read the full article to deepen their understanding of the basis and purpose of the split promoted by imperialism among Jews.
Long live Jewish internationalism and anti-Zionism!
and on
Paul Bullock
- Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946, p15.
- Ronald Storrs, Orientations, London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1937, pp404-5
- Further entrenched in Israel’s Basic Law of 2018, which states that ‘the right to exercise national self-determination’ in Israel is ‘unique to the Jewish people’ and views ‘the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation’.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 306 June/July 2025
