Israel continues to sow the wind and may one day reap the whirlwind. Regardless of being surrounded by hostile – mainly Arab and entirely Islamic –  states, instead of seeking better relations with its neighbours, Israel carries on regardless of UN resolutions and international law. Being one of the strongest military powers in the world and the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, enjoying US political support and billions of dollars of military aid, it considers itself to be able to do just as it wishes with impunity.

The current news from Israel is being used as another peg on which to hang more attacks on Corbyn and the Labour Party in general. How nicely timed: on the eve of the local elections. Those within and without the Labour Party who abhor the idea of socialism must have been hunting around for a new tactic. Some mistakes of teacup proportions have been blown up, with the inevitable support of the predominantly right-wing media, into a mounting tsunami.

Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, we have the damning as anti-Semitic, any hint of criticism of Israel or Zionism. Another anniversary is that of the Balfour Declaration of 100 years ago, which has been taken as carte blanche by Zionists to occupy the whole of Israel. Let’s give Zionism its appropriate label. It is colonisation. Jews have been moving into Israel for a long time, but the first big leap in numbers came with the end of the second world war and for understandable reasons.  1948 saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forced or intimidated out of their homes and farms in the catastrophe labelled by them the AKBAH.. Then came the 1967 6-day war, when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank of the River Jordan. These territorial take-overs have resulted in 500 million Palestinians being refugees. Add to that nearly 2 million Palestinians under siege in Gaza.

The Palestinians currently demonstrating are labelled by the Israeli government as terrorists or the tools of terrorists. Nelson Mandela was labelled a terrorist, so were the Mau Mau in Kenya. Opposing the colonisation of one’s country by sometimes violent means is not terrorism; the militarily stronger power uses or threatens violence in defending its colonisers and leaves its opponents little choice.

Netanyahu, the Israeli PM has made it entirely clear: his government will have no truck with a 2-state solution, no truck with sharing the land of Israel. The Zionists’ intention is to take it all. Any Arabs choosing to remain, rather than be displaced, will have to accept second-class status.  There is no name for this policy other than ethnic cleansing.