The unamended motion below was carried by an overwhelming majority at the 14 September national meeting of the Communist Platform. A full report by Peter Manson is available in the Weekly Worker.

1. Advocacy of antisemitic ideas is not the exclusive preserve of the far right. As can be seen with the writings of Proudhon and Bakunin, there is a left antisemitism too. Sadly, that is still the case.

2. There are those, who, for example, explain US backing for Israel on the basis of discovering a so-called “pan-imperialist Zionist bloc”. The “traditional” imperialist bourgeoisie nowadays supposedly “defers and follows” the “leadership of the Jewish-Zionist bourgeoisie.”

All variants of this conspiracy theory – antisemitic or otherwise – are reactionary because they implicitly exculpate US imperialism.

The claim that Jews do not constitute a nation within Israel but form a “semi-national identity” globally is false, and it is indeed what Zionist ideology claims.

3. Such regressive politics do nothing to defend besieged Palestinians. Antisemitism, especially its leftwing version, plays directly into the hands of the Israeli government, its Zionist supporters and social imperialist apologists. The claim that Israel represents “The Jews” world-wide and acts on their behalf is common to Zionist ideology and to antisemitism. 

Zionist ideology draws the conclusion that opposition to Israel (except perhaps that of the mildest form) is antisemitic. 

The antisemitic anti-Zionism of fools draws the conclusion that “The Jews” worldwide share culpability for Israel’s crimes.

4. Antisemitism is incompatible with membership of the Communist Platform.