ZIONISTS OUT OF CABLE STREET 90!

We are outraged by the Board of Deputies claiming the

radical working class history of Cable Street!

In an act of craven political opportunism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has tried to claim the heritage of Cable Street in the run-up to the 90th anniversary of the routing of Oswald Mosely and his fascists and police from Cable Street in the East End of London in 1936. The BOD has organised a “festival of Jewish culture, history and solidarity” to mark the anniversary. In reality, in 1936, the BOD actively opposed Jews taking any part in the defence of Cable Street and its local communities.

The Jewish Chronicle, the ever-reliable mouthpiece of the BOD warned: “Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march and from their meetings. Jews who, however innocently, become involved in any possible disorders will be actively helping anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting. Unless you want to help the Jew baiters, keep away.” They wanted Jews and other working-class people to rely on the police – the same police who provided up to 10,000 officers (4,000 on horseback) to Mosely and his bunch of fascists, and who fought pitched battles with local people who refused to let them pass. 

Working-class Jews ignored the BOD, and formed part of more than a hundred thousand anti-fascists: local Jews, socialists, communists, anarchists, Somali sailors, Irish dockers, and miners from as far away as Wales and the North of England. Together they routed Mosely, his thugs and the charging police. It was a hugely significant victory at a time of rising fascism across Europe, from which Mosely’s British Union of Fascists never recovered.

The BOD is also claiming in its 90th anniversary program, the radical history of Jews who volunteered to fight in the International Brigades against Franco’s fascists in Spain. Franco's fascist forces blamed the war on a "Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik" conspiracy. In reality, deeply reactionary then as now, the BOD remained silent about the Spanish Civil War, and gave no help to the hundreds of working-class Jews from across Britain and the world, who went to Spain, many of whom gave their lives confronting fascism and in support of a truly socialist government. It is a rarely mentioned fact that a number of Palestinians also volunteered and went to fight for the Republicans, including Muhammad Najati Sidqi, and other members of the Palestinian Communist Party.

Aligning with the British state, then and now

In the 1930s, British government policy was one of non-intervention in Spain, and it defended the “right” of Mosely’s fascists to march through and terrorise Jewish communities. The Board of Deputies aligned itself with these state positions by keeping quiet and suppressing its own working-class radicals, ensuring they remained "respectable" in the eyes of the British government. Today the British state, having laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Zionist state via the Balfour Declaration, continues to maintain deep military, diplomatic, and economic ties with the state of Israel. The BOD, a proud backer of the genocidal state, aligns itself yet again with the geopolitical interests and foreign policy of the British ruling class.  

Today Zionists, bully, dox and target anti-genocide protestors including Jews, and weaponise antisemitism, often while claiming to be charities. Their activity is sanctioned by the state, with the police, courts (but not necessarily the juries), politicians and main-stream press solidly behind them. The targets are the same - in the 1930s, the Board policed and condemned its own working-class, anti-fascist radicals to keep the British state happy. Today, the Board targets and tries to criminalize all who oppose the genocide and/or are anti-Zionist including Jews, again with the blessing of the state.

Zionism is fascism today

The genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, the extreme racism of the Zionist entity towards Palestinians, the utter contempt, brutality, depravity, industrialized mass murder and sadism it displays towards children, women and men on a daily basis, are the hallmarks of fascism and the Nazis in particular. The chutzpah required on the part of the BOD and other Zionist groups claiming the anti-fascist courage of Jews you abandoned and tried to suppress over Cable Street and fascist Spain in the 1930s, is truly remarkable. 

Zionism is racism.

Anti-Zionism is Anti-fascism.

Zionist out of Cable Street 90!