Monday, May 02, 2016

From my own standpoint, Naz Shah does not belong to our pro-Palestine cause

I have been looking at her record.  I do believe that we in the pro-Palestine community should hold the highest standards in stemming out and excluding any anti-Semitic views or expressions from our movement.  Palestine cause is based on justice and humanity and thus anti-Semitism is intrinsically incompatible with the movement.  Now Shah got in trouble for posting a map which had been posted by Norman Finkelstein.  But Herzl and other early Zionists considered other locations besides Palestine for statehood for Jewish people. So the consideration of a Jewish state in a location other than Palestine is part of the early Zionist history.  But I asked a British comrade if there is more, and he wrote: "During the 2014  war on Gaza she posted to Facebook a link to an article condemning the war which had a poll asking if readers agree or disagree. The poll was running in favour of "disagree" (the website had been under cyber attack) and she posted it saying "the Jews are rallying" to the poll."  That last comment by her is very problematic and can't be supported or justified and reveal an anti-Jewish mentality.