I suppose it´s official now. The US Socialist Workers Party supports Israel´s war against Hamas (or Gaza, if you wish). What I frankly can´t fathom is why people who must have opposed Israel most of their politically active lives can change their line of march so drastically.
While the line change seems to have happened already in 2009, most current SWP-ers were presumably recruited circa 1968.
I know from my own experience that the Israel-Palestine issue isn´t just *any* issue but *the* central one for many leftists, indeed, I sometimes get the impression that it´s more controversial to support the IDF in any context, than to support the US military! One reason is (surprise) that many leftist radicals in the US are Jewish, and supporting the PLO or Hamas as a Jew must be rather taxing, but Gentiles have the same Pavlovian reflexes towards this particular conflict, presumably because of the Holocaust.
Ask any radical leftist why he can´t stand the British AWL and something tells me it won´t be their support for Peter Kilfoyle in the Walton by-elections or even their opposition to an immidiate British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Nah, it´s their support for Israel, it´s always Israel.
So the idea of an entire political party (albeit a small one these days) on the left changing their line from anti-Zionism to Zionism is weird...and fascinating, after a fashion.
They are Commies, but they are now "our" Commies!
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