Professor Haim Bresheeth was arrested Friday for his speech at a demo. This article sums everything up. His speech he did before the arrest is the last link, which is also in the same article. He was released Saturday, but remains under investigation:
I would like to tell you about my background, in order to support my request. I am an academic, author and filmmaker, an ex-Israeli Jew who has been active for over five decades as a socialist, anti-Zionist and anti-racist activist. My parents were Polish Jews, survivors of Auschwitz and other camps. They ended forced onto death marches to the Third Reich after the Auschwitz camp was vacated by the SS in Mid-January 1945. My mother was freed by the British forces in Bergen-Belsen, and my father was freed by the US forces in Mauthausen. I was born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Italy, and arrived in Israel as a baby, during June 1948, as no European country would then accept Holocaust survivors.
I served in the Israeli Army (IDF) as a junior infantry officer, and took part in two wars, in 1967 and 1973, after which I turned into a committed pacifist. I came to study in Britain in 1972, and a short while afterwards I have learnt much about Zionism which I did not while in Israel, thus becoming an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights, and an anti-Zionist activist. I was an active supporter of the Anti-Apartheid Movement as a Labour member in the 1970s and acted against racist organisations throughout my life. My films, books and articles reflect the same political views outlined here; these include a popular book on the Holocaust (Introduction to the Holocaust, with Stuart Hood, 1994, 2001 2014), among others, a BBC documentary film (State of Danger, with Jenny Morgan, BBC2, March 1988) about the first Intifada, and a forthcoming volume on the Israeli Army (An Army Like No Other, May 2020) . I have re-joined the Labour Party after decades, when Jeremy Corbyn was elected to the leadership, as I regained hope in promoting a progressive agenda for the party, after years of Blairism.
Oh yea, there’s a lot of garbage nonsense out there weaponizing laws against pro-Palestinian protestors, but this guy was super irresponsible. He claims that Israel is colonizing the minds of the western and European governments, that (all) Jews who sort Israel support Israel’s genocide, etc., etc. very stupid and irresponsible. Being Jewish and Israeli doesn’t make his speech any less incendiary. Very hard to tell if this is the speech of a leftist or a nazi. Brought it on himself, and I say this as someone fully in the free Palestine camp.
Completely disagree. I think the things he said were pretty factually defensible and the fact he was in the IDF and his parents in the Holocaust gives him a unique perspective. Absolutely nothing worthy of being arrested. Here is a video of the speech for people to decide for themselves.
The video is already linked in the comments I’m replying to :p
He claims that the majority of Jews in the world are “not real Jews”, and “supporting genocide”. I can’t imagine a more dangerous thing to say, and it’s indistinguishable from antisemitism.
I understand the context in which he places these statements, but IMO it’s not great. Israel needs to be made a pariah, and held to account for its crimes, but that’s not what this rhetoric advances.
but most Jews support Israel. he's just stating well known facts. I'm going to take the word of someone who grew up in Israel, had 2 parents that lived in concentration camps. served in the IDF. and has studied Zionism his entire adult life over some simpleton on Reddit that can't tell the difference between stating facts and terrorism apparently.
He doesn't claim it is the majority jews, but he isn't very specific. He talks at length about colonisation by Israel. Here he is referring to things like the Israeli lobby, and he then refers to Judaism being colonised and that it has been colonised by zionism. This isn't a controversial point, Israel has sought to conflate zionism with jewishness. And then he says that it is these jews which he says are supporting genocide in great numbers. So depending on how you interpret this sentence then he is either referring here to Israeli zionist jews, the Israeli's who have colonised the western mind, judaism etc, or if you prefer then he is referring to zionist jews in general who are supportive of Israel's current action in Gaza. Neither of these groups are a majority - the majority of jews in the world are not zionist.
I do not believe it to be a stretch to interpret his remarks as referring to all Zionist Jews, which unfortunately do make up a majority of world Jewry, and certainly the vast majority of Jewish institutions.
I think they were stupid things to say, and it completely flips the structural relationship between western powers and Israel. It’s classic “tail wagging the dog”. It’s by the interests of western (particularly US) imperialism that Israel is allowed to get away with their crimes against humanity.
As someone who’s nominally anti-Zionist, even i know there are many, many zionist Jews who are horrified by the genocide perpetuated by the Israeli regime, but find themselves paralyzed by this rhetoric ¯_(ツ)_/¯ completely irresponsible speech; there are plenty of ways to make the same points without resorting to antisemitic canards :\
"Zionist Jews horrified by the genocide perpetuated by the Israeli regime" are you sure? Because the very word Zionism means people who are interested in colonizing and removing natives from their Dreamland. Why would they be horrified when what they wanted is being done?
I’m going to assume you’re asking in good faith, and just say that words mean different things to different people. You are conflating a political class of people with a mass of individuals who have differing and very personal relationship to certain words.
I know people who call themselves zionists and people who call themselves anti-zionist who have almost 100% agreement on the character of the Israeli regime, but completely different associations with the term “zionism”.
Personally, I think self-identifying zionists have the burden of confronting the past 100 years of Zionist discourse and must move to differentiate themselves from Jewish supremacist policy. A good full of thumb for those who want to contribute to useful change is to attack structures and ideologies, not people.
When I listened to his speech, when he said "those jews" I understood that he meant the colonising Israeli Jews. He is an academic, they are usually quite precise, they don't usually switch about who they are referring to. If you listen to the way he says it, that part of speech is written in a long paragraph, of more or less one sentence.
But I guess you could argue other people listening to it, might interpret it differently, as you have, and you interpret it as a guilt by association kind of comment, being a zionist means (implicitly) supporting genocide. Does he mean that though? Or is this a more direct statement, that zionist jews (in general, your understanding), are supporting a genocide in greater numbers, in which case he is referring to those zionist jews who support genocide, and he says there are large numbers of them.
Is this correct though? Are there large numbers of zionist jews who support genocide?
We know that there seems to be general support in Israel amongst the Jewish population for ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It is raised on Israeli TV talk shows, by senior politicians, and also in street interviews with Israeli's.
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u/One-Washer Nov 04 '24 edited Nov 04 '24
Professor Haim Bresheeth was arrested Friday for his speech at a demo. This article sums everything up. His speech he did before the arrest is the last link, which is also in the same article. He was released Saturday, but remains under investigation:
He describes himself:
Source: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/haim-bresheeth-asks-to-be-refered-to-the-compliance-unit-for-antisemitism/