How Russia wangled Israel into phony Gaza “ceasefire,” and acceptance of Iranian/Hizballah in the north

DEBKA

Israel came out of its “wide-scale” operation against Hamas terror on Friday night, July 20, leaving Hamas holding the initiative for the next round of violence. The IDF operation was almost as phony as the Gaza “ceasefire.” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott staged a ritual by now all too familiar: The flames of war were quenched in Gaza and on the northern front by a two-prong military-cum-diplomatic intervention without Israel conducting a large-scale military operation. A day earlier, Lieberman admitted that Israel’s deterrent strength had been seriously eroded by Hamas getting away with more than three months of aggression. He held the government responsible.

On Friday afternoon, Netanyahu talked by phone to President Vladimir Putin. The subject of their conversation was not revealed. However, the prime minister’s office issued a statement affirming that he would continue to act against the establishment of an Iranian presence in Syria.

Lieberman was meanwhile on the phone to his Russian counterpart, Gen. Sergei Shoigu, following which Ambassador Alexander Shein in Tel Aviv announced that he was confirming as authentic the reports of an Russian-Israel accord to ensure the withdrawal of Iranian and Hizballah forces from Israel’s border.

After that verbal round came a spate of Russian backtracks. Ambassador to Baghdad Maksim Maksimov stated that Iranian forces would not quit Syria because, like the Russian army, they were there legitimately at the invitation of the Damascus government. He stressed that so long as Russian troops remained in Syria, so too would Iranian forces. Russian ambassador to Damascus Alexander Kimshchank came forward on Thursday to assert: “There are no pro-Iranian armed units in the south of Syria,” adding, “This issue has already been settled.”

Russia diplomats caught in a web of self-contradiction are less of a problem than the arrival of Hizballah and Shiite militias under the command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers to points just 2-3km from Israel’s Golan border. Their presence catches the Netanyahu government in contradiction of its frequent vows to prevent any Iranian or pro-Iranian forces from getting established in Syria, least of all on Israel’s border.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that because Tehran has escaped scot-free in Syria, Israel found its hands tied on the Gaza front against Hamas. On Friday, Netanyahu and Lieberman decided to accept Putin’s guarantees to keep Iranian forces at a distance from Israel’s borders – despite his repeated default on former guarantees. But no more than five hours elapsed before Hamas turned the Gaza flame high with a deadly cross-border attack on Israel border forces. For the first time in more than three months of explosive balloon and flaming kite attacks and violent border assaults, Hamas surprised Israel by deploying trained marksmen against Israeli troops and killing one soldier. The furious IDF tank and air force reprisal on 8 Hamas outposts killed 4 Palestinians and injured more than 100.

While getting set for the next round of a wide-ranging IDF counter-terror offensive in Gaza, the diplomatic wheels began turning. Egyptian General Intelligence Director Gen. Kemal Abbas and the UN Middle East envoy, Nikolai Maldanov were enlisted to the effort.

The Israeli public were told (a) that Israel fighter jets had conducted three large-scale sorties against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip Friday evening, as the prologue for a major ground operation, and (b) that Israel had asked Egypt to broker a ceasefire.

In fact, the Israeli jets dropped no more than 6 missiles on each Hamas command center attacked. Although they were said to have been flattened, they were damaged but remained standing.

After a quiet night on the Gaza front, Hamas offered Israel a dose of reality. On Saturday morning the terrorist group’s spokesmen commented that the ceasefire was very fragile and liable to break down at any moment. Furthermore, in none of the negotiations were the balloon-cum-kite offensive or the Palestinian border riots addressed and would therefore continue. Hamas had achieved exactly what it sought: the freedom to carry on as before, call the shots on when to goad the IDF into reprisals and to calibrate the level of escalation centering on the Gaza Strip.

After witnessing Israel’s handling of security threats on those two fronts, Hamas, Iran and Hizballah will feel free to continue to erode the IDF’s deterrence and self-confidence, while landing a fresh blow or setback on Israel’s head whenever they choose. Netanyahu-Putin phone calls will not change this skewed symmetry.

July 21, 2018 | 32 Comments »

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  1. Some more commentary on the Trotskyist position, from the Marists. org Trotskyist site:

    Now if we look at the problem of World War II from that more dialectical, more correct Leninist point of view, we have to say that it was a very complicated business indeed. I would say, at the risk of putting it a bit too strongly, that the Second World War was in reality a combination of five different wars. That may seem an outrageous proposition at first sight, but I think closer examination will bear it out.

    First, there was an inter-imperialist war, a war between the Nazi, Italian, and Japanese imperialists on the one hand, and the Anglo-American-French imperialists on the other hand. That was a reactionary war, a war between different groups of imperialist powers. We had nothing to do with that war, we were totally against it.

    Second, there was a just war of self-defence by the people of China, an oppressed semi-colonial country, against Japanese imperialism. At no moment was Chiang Kai-shek’s alliance with American imperialism a justification for any revolutionary to change their judgement on the nature of the Chinese war. It was a war of national liberation against a robber gang, the Japanese imperialists, who wanted to enslave the Chinese people. Trotsky was absolutely clear and unambiguous on this. That war of independence started before the Second World War, in 1937; in a certain sense, it started in 1931 with the Japanese Manchurian adventure. It became intertwined with the Second World War, but it remained a separate and autonomous ingredient of it.

    Third, there was a just war of national defence of the Soviet Union, a workers state, against an imperialist power. The fact that the Soviet leadership allied itself not only in a military way – which was absolutely justified – but also politically with the Western imperialists in no way changed the just nature of that war. The war of the Soviet workers and peasants, of the Soviet peoples and the Soviet state, to defend the Soviet Union against German imperialism was a just war from any Marxist-Leninist point of view. In that war we were 100 per cent for the victory of one camp, without any reservations or question marks. We were for absolute victory of the Soviet people against the murderous robbers of German imperialism.

    Fourth, there was a just war of national liberation of the oppressed colonial peoples of Africa and Asia (in Latin America there was no such war), launched by the masses against British and French imperialism, sometimes against Japanese imperialism, and sometimes against both in succession, one after the other. Again, these were absolutely justified wars of national liberation, regardless of the particular character of the imperialist power. We were just as much for the victory of the Indian people’s uprising against British imperialism, and the small beginnings of the uprising in Ceylon, as we were in favour of the victory of the Burmese, Indochinese, and Indonesian guerrillas against Japanese, French, and Dutch imperialism successively. In the Philippines the situation was even more complex. I do not want to go into all the details, but the basic point is that all these wars of national liberation were just wars, regardless of the nature of their political leadership. You do not have to place any political confidence in or give any political support to the leaders of a particular struggle in order to recognise the justness of that struggle. When a strike is led by treacherous trade union bureaucrats you do not put any trust in them – but nor do you stop supporting the strike.

    Now I come to the fifth war, which is the most complex. I would not say that it was going on in the whole of Europe occupied by Nazi imperialism, but more especially in two countries, Yugoslavia and Greece, to a great extent in Poland, and incipiently in France and Italy. That was a war of liberation by the oppressed workers, peasants, and urban petty bourgeoisie against the German Nazi imperialists and their stooges. To deny the autonomous nature of that war means saying in reality that the workers and peasants of Western Europe had no right to fight against those who were enslaving them at that moment unless their minds were set clearly against bringing in other enslavers in place of the existing ones. That is an unacceptable position.

    It is true that if the leadership of that mass resistance remained in the hands of bourgeois nationalists, of Stalinists or social democrats, it could eventually be sold out to the Western imperialists. It was the duty of the revolutionaries to prevent this from happening by trying to oust these fakers from the leadership of the movement. But it was impossible to prevent such a betrayal by abstaining from participating in that movement.

    What lay behind that fifth war? It was the inhuman conditions which existed in the occupied countries. How can anyone doubt that? How can anyone tell us that the real reason for the uprising was some ideological framework – such as the chauvinism of the French people or of the CP leadership? Such an explanation is nonsense. People did not fight because they were chauvinists. People were fighting because they were hungry, because they were over-exploited, because there were mass deportations of slave labour to Germany, because there was mass slaughter, because there were concentration camps, because there was no right to strike, because unions were banned, because communists, socialists and trade unionists were being put in prison.

    That’s why people were rising, and not because they were chauvinists. They were often chauvinists too, but that was not the main reason. The main reason was their inhuman material living conditions, their social, political, and national oppression, which was so intolerable that it pushed millions onto the road of struggle. And you have to answer the question: was it a just struggle, or was it wrong to rise against this over-exploitation and oppression? Who can seriously argue that the working class of Western or Eastern Europe should have abstained or remained passive towards the horrors of Nazi oppression and Nazi occupation? That position is indefensible.

    So the only correct position was to say that there was a fifth war which was also an autonomous aspect of what was going on between 1939 and 1945. The correct revolutionary Marxist position (I say this with a certain apologetic tendency, because it was the one defended from the beginning by the Belgian Trotskyists against what I would call both the right wing and the ultra-left wing of the European Trotskyist movement at that time) should have been as follows: to support fully all mass struggles and uprisings, whether armed or unarmed, against Nazi imperialism in occupied Europe, in order to fight to transform them into a victorious socialist revolution – that is, to fight to oust from the leadership of the struggles those who were linking them up with the Western imperialists, and who wanted in reality to maintain capitalism at the end of the war, as in fact happened.

    Notice the rhetorical maneuver of trying to divide World War T into “five different wars.” As if you could fight the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists without giving any assistance to the British and American war efforts against the Axis while still supporting Russia and China’s wars of self-defense! Of course in the real world, as distinct from the Trotskyist rhetorical world, Russia and China depended on U.S. British military aid to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese militarists. The rhetorical maneuvre of claiming that one “bid deal” is really only several “smaller deals” is a way of minimizing the importance of the “big deal”–in this case, World War II. Notice also that this Trotskyist analysis doesn’t mention the Nazis war against the Jews, the Holocaust, at all. Clearly, the Trotskyists thought that was unimportant, and still do.

  2. Above quotation fromhttp://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/894/qotw.html, a Trotskyist site. Cannon doesn’t explain how American and British Trotskyists could oppose Hitler and the Japanese militarists but refuse to support the war against them by tthe American and British military, etc. He also fails to explain how they could help the Soviets to repel the German invasion of Hitler without helping Russia’s allies in the war. Not that Cannon supports the German-Nazi position with regard to the treaty of Versailles. As I said before, the Trotskyist movement was AWOL in World War II.

  3. Trotskyist Opposition to World War II
    Workers Vanguard No. 894

    8 June 2007

    TROTSKY

    LENIN

    (Quote of the Week)

    Writing shortly after U.S. imperialism’s entry into World War II following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, James P. Cannon, leader of the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, issued a 22 December 1941 statement, which we excerpt below.

    The considerations which determined our attitude toward the war up to the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and the Axis powers retain their validity in the new situation.

    We considered the war upon the part of all the capitalist powers involved—Germany and France, Italy and Great Britain—as an imperialist war.

    This characterization of the war was determined for us by the character of the state powers involved in it. They were all capitalist states in the epoch of imperialism; themselves imperialist—oppressing other nations or peoples—or satellites of imperialist powers. The extension of the war to the Pacific and the formal entry of the United States and Japan change nothing in this basic analysis….

    This characterization of the war does not apply to the war of the Soviet Union against German imperialism. We make a fundamental distinction between the Soviet Union and its “democratic” allies. We defend the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is a workers’ state, although degenerated under the totalitarian-political rule of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Only traitors can deny support to the Soviet workers’ state in its war against fascist Germany. To defend the Soviet Union, in spite of Stalin and against Stalin, is to defend the nationalized property established by the October revolution. That is a progressive war….

    We are the most irreconcilable enemies of the fascist dictatorships of Germany and Italy and the military dictatorship of Japan. Our co-thinkers of the Fourth International in the Axis nations and the conquered countries are fighting and dying in the struggle to organize the coming revolutions against Hitler and Mussolini.

    We are doing all in our power to speed those revolutions. But those ex-socialists, intellectuals and labor leaders, who in the name of “democracy” support the war of United States imperialism against its imperialist foes and rivals, far from aiding the German and Italian anti-fascists, only hamper their work and betray their struggle. The Allied imperialists, as every German worker knows, aim to impose a second and worse Versailles; the fear of that is Hitler’s greatest asset in keeping the masses of Germany in subjection. The fear of the foreign yoke holds back the development of the German revolution against Hitler….

    Our aim is to convince the majority that our program is the only one which can put an end to war, fascism and economic convulsions. In this process of education the terrible facts speak loudly for our contention. Twice in twenty-five years world wars have wrought destruction. The instigators and leaders of those wars do not offer, and cannot offer, a plausible promise that a third, fourth and fifth world war will not follow if they and their social system remain dominant. Capitalism can offer no prospect but the slaughter of millions and the destruction of civilization. Only socialism can save humanity from this abyss.

    —James P. Cannon, “A Statement on the War,” Fourth International, January 1942

    Here is some of the documentation that Felix has requested re Trotskyist opposition to the Allies and neutrality toward the Nazis in World War II

  6. The Snivelling of Bear Klein…Ben Gurion sent his Jewish brothers into war as supplicants to the British. The very opposite was what was needed. He could and should have said…”Yes Monty old chap, we the Jewish nation will fight with you the British nation in order to defeat the Fascists in the Desert War, because we understand that if the Fascists are not defeated then they will invade Palestine in order to aid the Arabs to kill us Jews to the last man woman and child. But Monty old chap you will understand that our nation is much older than your nation. We will unite but there must be no mixing of flags. The Star of David will lead us into battle. So there is to be no forgetting for a moment of the White Paper of Chamberlain, not do we forget either for a moment how Churchill robbed us of 78 per cent of our promised Homeland.

    Ben Gurion had completely the wrong approach. Moreover it was not necessary and we have evidence that without the Jews role in the fight against the Nazis in North Africa Britain also would have been defeated. In short it is a difference between rightful nation, or rightful nationalism in practice, and Imperialist arrogance.

    This spirit of Trotskyism, of Bolshevism, is a million miles away from the snivellings of Bear Klein who seeks to relegate us to chit chat…Some chance!!!

  7. Adam Dalgliesh

    And they supported the Arabs against the Jews in Palestine.

    I provided a link to Robert Wistrich. How then do you write the above about Trotsky. More fake news Adam?

  8. Like your friend Bear Klein Dalgliesh are you going for a doctorate in fake news

    “As for the Trotskyists led by James P. Cannon and others, they refused to fight the Nazis, instead advocating “revolutionary defeatism” instead. And they supported the Arabs against the Jews in Palestine. They were AWOL in World War II. Even after Pearl Harbor, they maintained their neutrality in the war.They even supported Hitler’s complaint that the Versaille treaty was unjust and should be altered in Germany’s favor. They saw no difference between “imperialist” United States, Britain and France and Nazi Germany. While it is true that the three Western powers had their own imperialist agendas, and that France switched sides (twice) in the war, obviously the United States and Britain were not evil societies comparable to Nazi Germany. Just as today, the U.S. is not evil when compared to Iran.”

    I do not even think you are right about Cannon. Could you give some substance to that claim that he would not fight the Nazis. Or what exactly are you saying there?

    Cannon was not Trotsky but even in the months after August Cannon would have been influenced by his previous discussions with Trotsky. Your evidence please? I think you are lying here or you are reading somebody who is lying. So sources will clear it up.

  9. Bear Klein writes at 1.11

    Pre-State Israel Govt. actively found ways to get Jews into then Palestine in spite of the White Paper and fought the Nazis and their allies when they had the chance.

    I had a good friend who was very active in getting Jews past the British Obstacles and out of Europe and this was organized by the Haganah.

    But you do not say what WAS the White Paper and what does it tell you about the British Government? It is very telling that you leave this out.

    The reason you leave it out is that you are sympathetic to British Imperialism and you are in particular sympathetic to its Antisemitism. Hate to say it but no other conclusion can be drawn.

  10. Bear Klein

    It comes up because it is there.

    I will turn it back to you…Are you happy that the left today is totally antisemitic and is against Israel the nation state of the Jewish people? Right wing ideologues are very happy with this state of affairs.

    If you are happy with this state of affairs in the world then there is no more to be said.

    But why should Jews be happy that “left” has become identified with Antisemitism?

    Do you care about this? Obviously you do not care. Why do you not care?

  11. Ted, since the Trotsky thing comes up constantly could it not be relegated to chit chat or or a thread of its own in lieu of in so many commentaries on so many articles?

  12. In the end it is most likely that the Iranians, Shia militias (including Hezis) test Israel by not leaving Syria in fact setting up shop in Southwest Syria near Israel. Israel as they have demonstrated and said will not be passive to this threat.

    After Israel downed the Syrian fighter jet, the Syrians said they and their allies (who would not be leaving) would in time retaliate. They know they do this at great peril.

  13. I do not think Ted is right. In fact I think the opposite. The Israeli government people in charge I know are highly intelligent, but from an overall strategic standpoint they are all at sea, have no independent perspective, are always dependent on others (like now Trump), and are never an independent force. That is a recipe for coming big betrayals.

    Edgar still has a lot of Irishness in him. This is a couple of letters one of them from Nora, the daughter of James Connolly, to Trotsky and reply. I think it is important and the really big thing is the emphasis that Trotsky places on nationalism, and really and truly the general tone of his reply. It is also the clue to what I have long concluded, that Trotsky had also become a non religious Zionist. Somebody better than I needs to write on this but it concerns the issue of nationalism as it really is, and you can understand just how topical that has become today. It has become the number one issue that has the “left” split totally today.

    https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/ireland-fi/norac.htm

  14. I cannot stand Jews today who attack Leon Trotsky in whatever form. It was the reality of the world in the 1930s that had to be faced up to. We know that there was a big change in German capitalism as a result of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It was in those conditions that German capitalism took off in a Fascist direction. Then the class struggle intensified. As spelled out by John Toland the bankers got behind German Fascism as their “solution”. All this historical detail is spelled out in that good and useful study by Toland.

    When I see these priggish Jews today attacking Leon Trotsky, almost as if it is a religious rite to attack that man, and then actually read around his struggle in those years, it fills me with a sense of the unfairness of it all.

    Then there are the so called lefts of today who have taken it upon themselves to hide this information, because they are afflicted by the poison of “Palestinianism”. These are antisemites and it would not do to have Trotsky portrayed as a defender of the Jews.

    And you begin to see the massive task that faces us in trying to get some historical truth out in the open.

    And of course there are these so called “Jews” who also jump into action to denounce Trotsky.

    And moreover I have met situations where they will leap to attack any Jew who takes an interest in these issues. Richard Landes is a good guy and I saw him attacked like this.

    At least Robert Wistrich used a method where he placed down on paper facts. None of his books are on kindle. But there are a few snatches of information in this google search…And in his last year with us he gave really brilliant lectures from his Jerusalem base which were on youtube.

    https://books.google.es/books?id=yBvt4Fwc5XoC&pg=PA406&lpg=PA406&dq=trotsky+predicts+holocaust&source=bl&ots=w-pyin3YKU&sig=x7wDhXiXTlm5A680KzJ8IKUZlTk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimmv28m7jcAhUSasAKHdNYBWkQ6AEIYTAJ#v=onepage&q=trotsky%20predicts%20holocaust&f=false

    It is a real shame I have to resort to such fragments on google. (from a search “Trotsky predicts Holocaust”)

  15. @ Bear Klein: Very true. The Yishuv, followingBen Gurion’s lead, did indeed fight both the British White Paper and the Nazis. The arms and training that both the Haganah and the IZL received from the British as part of their alliance was crucial to the subsequent resistance to the British after the world war.

    As for the Trotskyists led by James P. Cannon and others, they refused to fight the Nazis, instead advocating “revolutionary defeatism” instead. And they supported the Arabs against the Jews in Palestine. They were AWOL in World War II. Even after Pearl Harbor, they maintained their neutrality in the war.They even supported Hitler’s complaint that the Versaille treaty was unjust and should be altered in Germany’s favor. They saw no difference between “imperialist” United States, Britain and France and Nazi Germany. While it is true that the three Western powers had their own imperialist agendas, and that France switched sides (twice) in the war, obviously the United States and Britain were not evil societies comparable to Nazi Germany. Just as today, the U.S. is not evil when compared to Iran.

  16. @ Bear Klein:

    Well they didn’t get out nearly enough, I think that Haavara directed by Werner Otto Von Hentig (a really interesting anti-Nazi character) got out over 60,000. And there were a couple of other groups who got Jews out with the agreement of the Nazis who became more and more restrictive until they shut it off in 1939.

    The whole account is remarkably rivetting and hard to image, considering what happened after war started.

    Can you imagine..Hillel Silver and Stephen Wise were against it –intellectual half-wits. I think it was purely political on their parts, to be against something at that particular period, especially when The Zionist Org. as a whole was for it.

    Jabotinsky was against it……. Another example of a clever fool –or a time when he became a clever fool.

  17. Pre-State Israel Govt. actively found ways to get Jews into then Palestine in spite of the White Paper and fought the Nazis and their allies when they had the chance.

    I had a good friend who was very active in getting Jews past the British Obstacles and out of Europe and this was organized by the Haganah.

  18. @ Felix Quigley:

    You know, I too always felt that this sentence made no FACTUAL sense, except that it was a nice neat, meaningless political phrase, that he hoped would be repeated, and ensconced……The White Paper was a completely abhorrent, outrageous betrayal of the Jewish People in a HUGE way, condemning to horrible, outright plain murder a third of their world wide population. The British Government under Chamberlain was the culprit, and Chamberlain, snowed under by events he was incapable of ever understanding, soon left. He had done this last, greatest damage.

    As for Ben Gurion, instead of wasting 5 years in the British Army, and fighting in the ranks, the same Jewish soldiers would have been far better employed in mounting independent rescue missions, as much as they were capable of. As we saw, even AFTER the war, the British had no mercy on the Jews, discarding the Mandate completely, and hunting and exiling the poor shattered remnants of a great People.

    Ernest Bevin, who was in charge of all this, just happened to be a crude, almost uneducated, bullying Union type Anti-Semite, totally unfitted for his position, but…..Well, it was only the Jews, after all.

  19. Idiotic position of Ben Gurion contained in his formula…””We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war.”

    “as if there was no White Paper” what rot!

  20. On the issue of the war to defeat Hitler and Mussolini…If this was really a war to defeat the Fascists on the part of America and Britain then they would have come to the defence of the Jews in the Holocaust Death Camps. Which they could have done and did not. This is the one main issue which shows that the Imperialist leaders of this war were not genuine human liberationists. It is wise to be careful and sceptical of such leaders, then and today as well. I do not think that the position of Ben Gurion was a correct position. Jews were right to fight in the war everywhere but especially in the Desert against Rommel but I would have taken a position, fight yes against the Nazis, but fight always under your own flag, which was the flag of the Israel to be. You simply cannot discuss these issues with people who use history to “score points” against Trotsky rather than explore ideas.

  21. If uniting against a common enemy is a true Trotskyist position, why did Trotsky and his supporters remain neutral in World War II, rather than supporting the Allies against Hitler?

    These issues are very problematic because none of these commenters have the historical knowledge to deal with them. Trotsky was very critical of Stalin in the pact with Hitler, and this was also an extension of the Moscow Trials in which Trotsky and Trotskyism was the main target of Stalin.

    Trotsky warned that the pact with Hitler placed Russia in great danger.

    But then things changed again with Operation Barbarossa and even though Trotsky was proven right he nevertheless operated immediately a position of defence of Russia against Hitler.

    The people who put Hitler in power were also those who assisted Franco in Spain crush the revolution there. This was all of the governemnts including the American.

    The other people who placed Franco in power and gave him victory was the Comintern.

    Do people connected with Israpundit know no history at all outside of their own narrow circle of interest. If so how to discuss with such ignorant people.

    There is a whole history to Hitler in Germany. I never learn anything about this history and never have from a single person on Israpundit. Remember that!

    Listen to Trotsky in 1933…”Two and a half years ago, in September 1931, I wrote as follows:

    “Fascism has become a real danger in Germany; it expresses the extreme hopelessness of the bourgeois regime, the conservative part played by the social democrats in relation to that regime, and the incompetence of the Communist party to shake that regime. Whoever denies that is either blind or boastful.”

    I expressed this idea in a series of pamphlets which have appeared during the last two years in Germany. Thus in October 1931, I wrote:

    “The advance of the National Socialists to power means, above all, the extermination of the power of the German proletariat, the break-up of its organizations, the destruction of faith in itself and in its future. In view of the much greater ferocity and bitterness of social antagonisms in Germany, the hellish work of Italian Fascism will probably appear mild and almost humane when compared with that of German National Socialism.”

    The Stalinist faction said that this was panic-mongering. Out of the vast political literature devoted to this question I shall only refer to a speech made by the official leader of the German Communist Party, Thaelmann, before the Executive Committee of the Communist International in April 1931, when he exposed so-called pessimists – i.e., people who were capable of foresight – in the following words:

    “We have not allowed panic-mongering to divert us from our path … We are convinced that the 14th of September, 1930 (when the Nazis won 107 seats in the Reichstag), was Hitler’s best day, and that now he cannot expect to do better, only worse. Our estimate of the development of that party has been confirmed by events … Today the Fascists have no reason to be pleased.”

    That quotation is enough!

    Thus, while bourgeois democracy was collapsing Fascism was assisted to power by the united efforts of the leaders of both the workers’ parties.”
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/03/guardian.htm

    I would remind Mr Zorn that Abram Leon wrote his book on The Jewish Question in 1942
    https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/leon/index.htm

    It was published for whatever reason and by whom in 1946. I believe when I explore this that Abram Leon had little and almost certainly nothing to do with Trotsky in HIS life.

    I have no doubt that if Trotsky had lived he would have been in total opposition to Leon and to his treatment of the Jews historically.

    Mr Zorn, if you wish to explore this further, then there are some clues in the writings of Robert Wistrich. Wistrich was no friend or supporter of Trotsky but there are some clues to the truth in his books and especially in the last lectures he gave in Jerusalem.

    He was a real historian, and at any rate such a contrast with the evil (I use the word “evil” because they can cause great damage to the Jews today) subjective idealists you find in the comment section of Israpundit today.

    The political positions of Leon in this referred to work are totally hostile to the Jewish people. He says that Zionism is the ideology of the Jewish bourgeoisie. What rot! You could also say that Irish republicanism is the ideology of the Irish bourgeoisie. Again what rot!

    Zionism was the ideology of Jewish nationalism and of Jewish liberation. It had to take religious forms. Judaism held the Jews together throughout centuries. Even Jewish atheists today respect these traditions.

    But there was and is still a struggle for leadership inside of Jews and Judaism today. Is there not?

    If this form of Zionism we have today is the last word why does Martin Sherman exist? MS represents at the very least the fact that all is not well with Zionism.

    In his last years Trotsky looked at Zionism anew and his thoughts are very well worth exploring in an honest manner.

    But sadly will not be done by hack “historians” on Israpundit.

  22. @ adamdalgliesh:

    Adam, all you say is true, but Assad is far more circumspect than his father, who had two very severe lessons from Israel. And he doesn’t have the unfettered backing of Egypt as hi father had. I believe that Assad’s relationship with Hezbollah is because of his close ties with Iran, who control Hezbollah. As for the Hez. in Syrian Army clothing, you wouldn’t have known about this if Israel hadn’t announced it, so this is a very small example of how closely they are on the watch.

    THIS Assad is far less likely now, to arm and urge terrorists to infiltrate the Golan because he knows that Israel would surely find out, either by their spies or satellites, or from a captured terrorist. And with Israel’s new-found courage (injected by Trump) they would attack him directly, blast his palace and destroy his army. Then he’d have to catch the next plane to Switzerland without even waiting for his family. Not exactly of course, but in so many words. The Assad “dynasty” of two would end with two.

    This is what I believe …at present…subsequent events may change my mind. They might acquiesce to a low level gnat-like terrorist infiltration through thr golan, but I doubt it. If they spot it they will take immediate and severe action. Like they are now doing with Hamas. Took a lot of criticism to get their tuccas’ up from the comfortable seats , but they are now doing something. Doing both the “talk and the walk”.

  23. @ adamdalgliesh:
    They theoretically included Germany. One of the foundational texts of left wing anti-Zionism is “”The Jewish Question”” by Abram Leon, a French Jewish Trotskyite who died in Auschwitz after he was arrested trying to hand fliers out to German soldiers to get them to revolt. Serious. Trots are nuts. Like their founder. And apart from Quigley, have no particular interest in saving Jews.

  24. If uniting against a common enemy is a true Trotskyist position, why did Trotsky and his supporters remain neutral in World War II, rather than supporting the Allies against Hitler? Trotsky and his followers regarded World War II as an “imperialist war” in which they remained neutral, while theoretically advocating a proletarian revolution in the Western democracies, and the overthrow of Stalin in Russia. Hitler didn’t concern them.

  25. @ Felix Quigley: Assadi s an enemy of Israel. He and his late father and predecessor Hafiz Assad armed all of the Palestinian terrorist organizations from 1965 until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2003. And he has probably continued to do so since, more quitly perhaps. Syrian-backed terrorists including Hizbollah, have murdered several thousand Israelis of over the years. Assad is a close ally Israel’s most dangerous avowed enemy, Iran, which openly seeks nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel. Assad has allowed Iran to move thousands of soldiers into Syria and position them near Israel’s border. He has a close alliance with IHesbollah, which has 40,000 missiles aimed at Israel, has invaded Israel in 2006, and has stationed many soldiers in Syrian uniforms on Israel’s Golan border. Assad and Israel may have

    somecommon enemies, but Assad and his allies are still enemies of Israel.

  26. Bottom line is you can NOT TRUST PUTIN he is a liar and has one interest Russian Power expansion.

    Israel needs to blast and destroy the enemies in Syria.

  27. I think the title to this article is misleading. Russia didn’t wrangle Israel into anything.

    Israel knows what she is up against and made her choices.

  28. Once again in politics you make your choice but if wrong you WILL pay the price. This is a tragic situation for the Jews. Now paying the price.

    There was one way here and only one. It was necessary for Netanyahu to say we will have a unity, words and arms, with Assad against the “rebels” backed by Obama. The unity was with anybody but excluding other forms of Jihad, that means excluding Iran and Hizbullah.

    In effect Israel and Russia on the ground with all they had against America, to destroy ISIS.

    In fact in essence a true Trotskyist position. You unite against the common enemy.

    All who did not (could not) take this position are today just making excuses for their past treachery. YOU allowed in Hizbullah and Iran when it was NOT necessary.

  31. If Russia can mislead Israel just think what they can do to America. I fear that Trump is no match for Putin. For Trump to negotiate with Putin with none of his senior aids present, those who have been dealing with the Russians for years and years while Trump was busy building his real estate empire, is folly.

  32. I read a very compelling editorial by Caroline Glick that there will very likely be a much better scenario for Israel via-a-vis Iran in Syria: Namely, that Putin may be encouraged – by Trump – to be in alliance with the US & Israel and lean heavily on Iran to back down in Syria – most particularly in the south, i.e., on Israel’s northern border. Only time will tell if this potential hope for a better outcome – as a result of Putin’s meeting with Trump in Helsinki – will negate what your editorial remarks have claimed.