Workers of the world unite...to defend Israel

Capitalists, according to Marxist theory, foment hatred to divide workers — using racism, sexism, and deportation of immigrants — to reduce their power. Antisemitism and hatred of Israel work similarly.”

Recent issues of The Militant, which bills itself as “a socialist newsweekly,” contain articles condemning U.S. Cuba policy, arguments for socialism, solidarity with striking workers and oppressed peoples. You’ll also find unabashed support for Israel and its war effort, which generally bear the brunt of other socialists’ ire.

A recent issue has the article “Israel fights to defend its existence as a refuge for Jews.” Pro-Israel articles are common. The current issue has a review denouncing “NAZA,” the documentary that accuses Israel of using AI to kill civilians in Gaza.

“You know, I think antisemitism isn't something that will just go away,” said Willie Cotton, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party’s New York section, which publishes The Militant. “It's going to take a conscious leadership of a different type than what you've seen around the world.”

The SWP, while differing from other socialist groups on Israel, boasts strong Marxist bona fides. One of the oldest socialist organizations in the country, the SWP was founded in 1938 by members expelled from the U.S. Communist Party for supporting Leon Trotsky after the latter organization sided with Stalin. Trotsky himself participated from afar in the foundation of the party and wrote extensively for The Militant.

The SWP supports “oppressed” states in their fight against foreign aggression, including countries perceived as targeted by the U.S., like Vietnam and Algeria. The party supports Israel as a refuge Jews in a world that couldn’t prevent the Holocaust and a victim of aggression by Hamas and the “bourgeois clerical” regime in Iran.

The party describes Oct. 7, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, as a pogrom in its statements and books, including in “The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.” That book’s cover includes two photos: one of Nazis rounding up Jews; one of Hamas kidnapping 19-year-old Naama Levy. The contents cover antisemitism by current and historic leaders of the SWP, as well as by Lenin and Trotsky. 

For many, socialism has become synonymous with antisemitism and animosity towards Israel. The notorious rallies that roiled Ivy League campuses throughout 2024 were led in large part by socialist groups, especially the Democratic Socialists of America and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Paul Mailhot, a member of the SWP’s National Committee, suggested in an interview several reasons for this. “They see this as the issue that young people can be mobilized around, and they've adapted to and support this reactionary outfit, Hamas,” he said.

Well-versed in socialist politics, Mailhot joined the SWP in the 1970s, participating in numerous left-wing causes. In California he helped build the United Farmworkers union and then, in Boston, participated in the 1970s anti-segregation movement. Currently, he is running for governor of New York on the SWP line.

Mailhot is a Marxist. The SWP sees modern society as divided between capitalists and workers, with the state — and both main parties — operating in the interest of the capitalists, who exploit workers for profit. Capitalism cannot be reformed into socialism. Instead, socialism requires revolutionary change, in which the working class dominates.

Capitalists, according to Marxist theory, foment hatred to divide workers — using racism, sexism, and deportation of immigrants — to reduce their power. Antisemitism and hatred of Israel work similarly.

“I think all of them share the idea that you can reform capitalism,” Mailhot said of other socialist groups, especially DSA. Without seeing a revolutionary break with capitalism, he explained, these groups adopt capitalist ideas — like antisemitism. Mailhot said that hatred of Jews is different from the other hatreds, since it is something capitalism holds “in reserve.”

Cotton argued that socialists need to explain why antisemitism, racism, sexism and similar hatreds — including hatred of Israel — are dividing workers and furthering the interests of corporate profiteers worldwide. Fully defeating such ideas requires a revolutionary break with capitalism, he said.

Both Mailhot and Cotton pointed to Russia’s October Revolution in 1917 as an example of success in the fight against antisemitism. Tsarist Russia was notoriously antisemitic, but in revolutionary Russia, workers overcame their antisemitism to elect Leon Trotsky, a Jew, to lead the revolutionary government in Saint Petersburg — and Lenin tasked Trotsky with founding the Red Army.

Mailhot highlighted Lenin’s words in 1919: “We often see the capitalists fomenting hatred against the Jews in order to blind the workers, to turn away their attention from the enemy of working people…. Shame on accursed tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred toward the Jews.”

Russia’s revolution was a glimpse of a possible new world, temporarily snuffed out by Stalin’s murderous bureaucracy, Cotton argued. That was “when they began to turn toward antisemitism as a way in which to continue their rule.” Cotton pointed to the many Jews victimized by antisemitism in the former USSR.

Cotton, who was born in Davenport, Iowa, is also well versed in socialism. He grew up in a Teamster household and joined the SWP because he liked the idea that workers — in Russia or America — can change the world. One of his first ventures was to help predominately Mexican tomato workers in Arizona to unionize. When the workers won, they celebrated The Militant for covering them fairly. 

Cotton and Mailhot argued that Stalinism, through Communist Parties around the world, contributed to the antisemitic demonization of Israel. It was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that introduced the 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism. Mailhot noted that the statements of DSA and PSL are not very different.

This leads the “struggle of all oppressed peoples toward dead ends,” Cotton said. Both emphasized that “support for Hamas ideas” was the opposite of progressive. They pointed to “The Fight Against Jew Hatred,” which describes Hamas as based in fascism, not liberation.

Cotton and Mailhot hope that more local residents will support the SWP, whose local supporters periodically host public events in Rhode Island. Most recently, the party held an event in Pawtucket discussing “liberation movements” in Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, with virtual greetings from a leader of the Cuban Communist Party.

Mailhot said the party was planning further events in Rhode Island with local members and supporters.

DANIEL MARGOLIS is the editor of Jewish Rhode Island.