LONDON — Communist League campaigners joined tens of thousands at a national march called by the Campaign Against Antisemitism here Sept. 7 to protest the sharp rise in Jew-hating attacks since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom.
“I agree with that,” cab driver Malcolm Silverman told this CL member, pointing to the signs on the party’s table, “Defend Israel’s battle against another Holocaust! US/UK military forces out of the Middle East!”
“Israel will win the war against Hamas,” he said, “for Jews everywhere.”
“London and Washington are pressuring Israel to end the war before Hamas is defeated,” I replied. “They want a stable Middle East to serve the interests of the ruling rich: keep oil, investments, trade — and profits — flowing.”
I said the rise in Jew-hatred comes from the middle class, in contrast to the positive response the CL gets from working people for its call to back Israel’s defensive war, including on a recent visit to bring solidarity to striking refuse workers in Birmingham.
Silverman knew about the strike. “They’re union members fighting against wage cuts,” he said.
He bought The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class, subscribed to the Militant and expressed interest in continuing the discussion.
“Jew-hatred is a class question,” Communist League campaigner Joyce Fairchild told Mateusz Rysera. “It’s a weapon to blind workers from seeing the source of our problems — capitalism. Only the working class can put an end to pogroms by taking power and putting an end to the system that breeds them.”
“My home city of Lodz was 30% Jewish before the Holocaust,” Polish-born Rysera said. He described the antisemitism of the Stalinist regime that ruled Poland until 1989. “They expelled thousands of Jews following the 1967 Six-Day War in Israel, forcing them to renounce their Polish citizenship.” Rysera bought a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch and a copy of the Militant.
Setting UK government’s record straight
“Stand up for our values,” was the patriotic message on the organizers’ placards. Gideon Falter, Campaign Against Antisemitism executive director, told the rally Britain “is still Churchill’s island nation.”
Several marchers didn’t agree, expressing support for signs carried by CL members that read, “British governments — no ally in the fight against Jew-hatred.” Several got copies of the Militant article “UK policy in Mideast: Defend British interests, not the Jews.” It explains the Jew-hating record of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other U.K. governments.
Falter and Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, called for banning pro-Hamas marches and organizations, and for the arrest of so-called hate speakers.
In contrast, university lecturer Michale Gabby told the Militant he thought “democratic freedoms are key to winning the battle against the Jew-haters.” He was one of 16 people at the action who picked up copies of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch. Six Militant subscriptions were sold.