Ajex man walks out of memorial after Israel-Franco comparison
Ajex man’s fury over Israel-Franco comparison
A JEWISH representative who walked out of a Spanish Civil War commemoration after a speaker compared the struggle against Franco’s Fascists to the Palestinian fight against Israel has described the organisers’ response as “a betrayal”.
Martin Sugarman, archivist for the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and Women (Ajex), was at last weekend’s event on London’s South Bank. It was organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT).
Mr Sugarman has demanded a public apology following the incident and accused the IBMT of defending antisemitism.
During the ceremony, Tosh McDonald, president of train drivers’ union Aslef, gave a speech in which he compared the Palestinian struggle against Israeli “oppression” with the republican cause in Spain.
In response, Mr Sugarman stood up in front of the 300 guests and announced he would leave in protest. He refused to lay a Magen David-shaped wreath for Jewish veterans because Mr McDonald had “inappropriately politicised the event”.
Mr Sugarman, author of Fighting Back: British Jewry’s Military Contribution in the Second World War, has laid a poppy wreath in memory of the Jewish volunteers for more than 20 years.
More than 6,000 members of the International Brigade were Jewish, including nearly 400 from Britain and 500 from what was then British Mandate Palestine. Some went on to fight in the Palmach, the predecessor to the Israeli Defence Force.
In a statement later released by the IBMT, the organisation said: “Tosh expressed the view that, just as the Spanish Civil War had been the great cause of young people in the 1930s, or that the anti-apartheid campaign had been the great cause of his generation, the plight of the Palestinian people was the equivalent great cause for many young people today. During the speech, Tosh also clearly
Martin Sugarman of Ajex and unequivocally denounced antisemitism and said it had absolutely no place in the Labour movement.”
The IBMT said it did not vet guest speakers and, as a charity, remained “strictly neutral on all such contemporary political issues”.
Mr Sugarman, who describes himself as “a proud Socialist but also a Zionist” said the IBMT’s response to Mr McDonald’s comments was “at best a disappointment, at worst a betrayal”. “Antisemitism is in the eye of the victims not the perpetrators. On many occasions non-Jews have no idea when and if they are being racist or antisemitic,” he said.
“He was saying that in the same way that decent people supported the Republic against the Fascists in the 1930s, so today we should support the Palestinians against Israel.” Mr Sugarman said he believed the IBMT was in breach of its charitable requirements on neutrality and demanded a public apology.