Moshe Machover to the SWP

I think you are still missing the point. I am not concerned with GA: I have
given up on trying to talk some sense into his arrogant head. Whether he is
given "space to retreat" is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I am concerned
with the possible effect on the anti-Zionist campaign of the left.

The real point is the political blunder the SWP is making by promoting him.
This threatens to compromise the entire left-wing opposition to Zionism.

When established or bourgeois bookshops promote GA, it is regrettable, but
of no great concern to me, precisely because it doesn't compromise the left.
The left doesn't need to dissociate itself from those bookshops.

When Bookmarks promotes him, it is a different matter. It is indeed
regrettable that JAZ find themselves having to picket Bookmarks in company
with AWL. But Bookmarks has brought this about by their obstinate deafness.
JAZ has been virtually forced into this position because it must dissociate
itself from GA and from those misguided bodies on the left who promote him.
This is why I support the picket this evening (which unfortunately I shall
be unable to attend). As I understand it, this is not mainly a protest
against GA (he is hardly worth it) but a way of dissociating oneself from
the SWP/Bookmarks support for him.

If GA is allowed to hold forth in Bookmarks without any left protest, then
all of us may be tarred by the same brush -- thanks to SWP's blunder.

And, by the way, leaving aside GA's unsavoury views about Jews and
Jewishness, I cannot for the life of me understand why the SWP should
promote a person who is not a socialist and is philosophically very hostile
to Marxism.

ATB, Moshe'