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ANTI-ZIONIST ISRAELI MP: ’I WILL NEVER SURRENDER  
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Marcus Barnett interviews Ofer Cassif
November 28, 2024
Tribune
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_ Ofer Cassif — currently suspended from the Knesset for opposing
genocide in Gaza — discusses Israel’s descent into fascism,
building the movement that can defeat Netanyahu, and why he will never
give up the fight for Palestinian freedom. _

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Joint List, has been suspended from
Israel's parliament , (Credit: LGS)

 

Earlier this month, the Israeli Knesset identified a ‘systemic
pattern of action’ in Ofer Cassif. The Jewish parliamentarian, who
has represented the communist-led coalition Hadash as an MK since
2019, was investigated by the ‘ethics committee’ over his support
for South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against
the Israeli government, and for referring to Palestinians resisting
Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank as ‘freedom fighters’.

In the end, Cassif’s colleagues on the dubiously titled committee
found him guilty of ‘encouraging bloodshed against [Israeli]
soldiers’, as well as ‘undermining the State of Israel’s
ability’ to counter allegations of genocide. His suspension for six
months was only the latest attempt of Israeli politicians to gag him;
an unprecedented move to impeach him earlier this year fell by a
handful of votes, while he was suspended for 45 days in October 2023.

The arbiters of ‘ethics’ in Israel’s parliament were right about
Cassif and his ‘systemic pattern of action’. Throughout his entire
adult life, the 59-year-old has never flinched from opposing the
occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people, being the first
Israeli soldier to refuse to serve during the First Intifada, for
which he served four jail sentences.

Now, on a European speaking tour which saw him speak to huge crowds in
London’s Marx Memorial Library and the Indian YMCA this past
weekend, _Tribune_ Associate Editor Marcus Barnett met with Cassif
to discuss Israel’s descent into fascism, the current repression of
socialists in Israel, and his own resources of hope.

MB

Firstly, Ofer, I’d like to begin by discussing your background. You
were born in Rishon LeZion in the early 1960s and were brought up in a
Labor Zionist family. You completed your national service in the
Nahal, but in 1987, during the First Intifada, you refused your
call-up orders on political grounds.

OC

As you said, I was born into a classic Labor Zionist family — my
parents, my grandparents, all of them. My father was a Labor activist.
When I began to develop my social consciousness, I noticed my views
were more to the left. They weren’t exactly well-formed or
manifested — I was only 14 years old or something. By the age of 15,
I joined the leftist youth movement. First, I joined Sheli [the Left
Camp]. Then I joined Hashomer Hatzair, the youth movement considered
to be the most leftist.

MB

The ‘Marxist-Zionist’ youth movement.

OC

Yeah, something like that, ‘Marxist-Zionist’. Now, I understand
there’s a contradiction in terms. But when I was 15 or 16, I
didn’t. So I found myself there. In my national service, I was in
the Nahal, a group that combines military service with kibbutz work. I
was also partly in the paratrooper brigade. Throughout military
service, I gradually moved more to the left.

After my service, I went to university for my first degree, when the
First Intifada began. I was called up as a reservist to serve in Gaza,
and I refused. I was the first imprisoned refusenik during the First
Intifada. When I was released, I joined Hadash — the democratic
front for peace and equality, which is part of a coalition based on
the Communist Party — and began this process of breaking out of the
Zionist brainwash.

I considered myself to be a victim of brainwashing throughout my youth
and childhood. I came to the point where I understood that there is an
immense contradiction between socialism, humanism and Zionism. I
decided that my way should be the socialist, humanist one rather than
the Zionist one, that it wasn’t enough not to be a Zionist, but that
I had to be an anti-Zionist and actively oppose the ideology and
practice of Zionism, given my basic socialist beliefs.

I was imprisoned another three times — so altogether, four times for
the same thing, for refusing to serve in the occupied territories.
Before they had the chance to imprison me again, I accepted an offer
to study for a PhD in England.

MB

Around this time, you were also invited to work as a parliamentary
assistant to Meir Vilner, a unique figure
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the global communist movement and Israeli history.

OC

That was during the First Intifada. It was towards the end of his
political career as a member of the Knesset, though he continued his
political activities afterwards. I worked for him for just one year,
just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when everything was in
turmoil. So many things changed for the communist and socialist
movements in the world, including in the Communist Party of Israel,
and it was very tough on our comrades. There were divisions and
intrigues, which was natural after such an earthquake.

But working with Meir was definitely fascinating, especially for a
young person — I was 22 or 23. It was very emotional. It was
thrilling to work with someone with such a history because he
experienced so many historical events. I mean, he was there before the
establishment of the State of Israel. He was a member of the Knesset
from 1948 onwards.

Meir knew so many important figures — the good and the bad. He knew
communist leaders from all over the world. He knew Israeli leaders,
Zionist ones, which we obviously have a grudge against, but still, you
cannot ignore their influence. To talk to him, to hear stories about
the history he experienced personally, it was fascinating. It was one
of my favourite experiences — I think the only better experience is
living with my wife.

MB

That is some endorsement! I wanted to mention Meir Vilner because he
was this embodiment of an anti-racist, anti-Zionist presence in
Israeli politics that, despite never gaining massive influence, seemed
to have received a greater tolerance than what similar voices are met
with in today’s Israel. In recent years, there has been such a
seismic shift in Israeli society, which seems to be in the grip of a
genocidal mania.

OC

You not only may believe that, but you should say so if you like to
tell the truth. Unfortunately, I’ve been suspended from the Knesset
for telling the truth. But it’s very unfortunate that that’s the
truth.

It’s not that it was easy before; Meir Vilner himself was seriously
wounded in an attempt to kill him for opposing the 1967 occupation and
calling for the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state. I
mean, he was stabbed. And the judge, I remember, said in the trial of
the person who attempted to murder Meir that [Vilner] was lucky the
knife didn’t tear his lung.

So Meir and other comrades have always been under serious threat. I
wouldn’t say they necessarily had a much easier era than we have.
But on the macro level, yes, it’s something else. It is important to
emphasise that Hadash are the only parliamentary movement which has
pursued a real, profound Jewish-Palestinian partnership, which is
nowadays even less popular, not least because of the aftermath of the
October 7th massacre by Hamas.

MB

How intense is the repression of the Left as we speak?

OC

We are under daily persecution. The police recently shut down
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club in Haifa for 10 hours to prevent us from screening a film and
holding a meeting against the genocide. In the first months of the
genocide, it was totally illegal to hold demonstrations in Palestinian
cities and villages within Israel — I’m not talking about the
occupied territories, but within Israel, it was totally prohibited.
Many comrades have been arrested and interrogated solely for social
media posts and tweets. People have lost jobs and students have been
expelled simply because they expressed their opposition to the
genocide.

This is the tip of the iceberg. There’s an upcoming bill
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parties from participating in elections, which means that 20 percent
of the citizens of Israel won’t be able to have a list they can vote
for. It is important to emphasise the abolition of the basic rights to
be elected, but also the abolition of the voting rights of a fifth of
Israel’s population.

So within Israel, too, there is an increasingly successful process of
turning Israel into a fascist dictatorship. We are already there. I
just mentioned one law, but there are many other bills; there’s a
list of more than 100 bills and laws that are going to eliminate even
any shred of the potential of democracy.

We are the main target because if there’s something Netanyahu, his
ministers and the fascists fear — if a cause terrifies them more
than the Palestinian resistance — it is the partnership of Jews and
Palestinians. They want to destroy that cause as part of destroying
the Palestinians as a people, to eliminate all civil rights, and turn
Israel into a definite dictatorship.

That’s the reason that I am suspended before my comrades is because
I’m the only Jewish member of the Knesset with Hadash, which is a
coalition. But since I’m the only Jew among five, they’ve been
targeting me especially because of that.

MB

In terms of wider Israeli society, many people in the West seemed to
be watching the recent attempt at a general strike, with many willing
to make the generous assertion that this was some sort of
anti-Netanyahu mass uprising. But it didn’t seem to go anywhere at
all, which raises uncomfortable questions about the potential of
Israeli civil society.

OC

I have to say here two things. Firstly, most Israeli workers are not
organised. There’s a huge history that would take hours to explain,
but the history of the working class in Israel is quite depressing
because the Histadrut, the largest so-called union, was always not
only Zionist but dedicated much more to nation-building than class
struggle.

Until the 1960s, Arabs could not be Histadrut members. After the
establishment of the State of Israel, Palestinians who were not
deported or forced to flee massacres were citizens in Israel, although
under military rule until 1966, but they were not allowed to join the
Histadrut.

I mention all this as a background to understand why the Histadrut, as
a reactionary organisation, hasn’t done anything against the fascist
coup the government has been pursuing even before October 7th. Under
the sugar-coated term ‘judicial reform’, Netanyahu wished to
transform Israel into a fascist dictatorship. That was not an end in
itself; it was a means in order to realise a plan by [far-right
minister Bezalel] Smotrich to annex, expel, dominate and kill
Palestinian people in the occupied territories.

So they didn’t actually do anything against the coup. It took them
months and months to call the strike. After a few hours, they had to
stop because the courts ordered them: according to Israeli law,
workers’ organisations may only strike for reasons directly
connected to working conditions. Once Histadrut announced that they
were going to strike because of the coup, government negligence and
the sacrifice of the hostages, it was illegal. And so, the court
ordered them to stop it. It was a premeditated fiasco.

MB

If there can be no effective pressure from organised workers, and what
appears to be an unlimited tap of American aid pouring into Israel can
alleviate major issues like the Port of Eilat’s financial collapse,
what can the vision for any potential change be? Where are the
resources of any future rupture going to come from?

OC

There must be a combination of three elements. First, there are
demonstrations across the country all the time. Before October 7th, it
was against the coup. Afterwards, it began to be not against the
genocide, but against the government’s policy vis-a-vis the
hostages, because those hostages have been knowingly sacrificed by
Netanyahu and his government.

From the beginning, in these huge demonstrations — particularly over
the sacrifice of the hostages — we in the Communist Party, in Hadash
and the anti-genocide movement have raised slogans that call for the
hostages to be released, but at the same time call the ongoing
situation in Gaza what it should be called — a genocide.

We call to stop it, not only because that’s the only way to release
the hostages, although we do support that. We have close relations
with some of the hostages’ families, with some murdered ones. Not
all of them, of course, but many are quite close to us politically.
Even before October 7th, some of the victims were associated with
Hadash and the anti-occupation movement. Some personal friends of mine
associated with us were killed by Hamas.

So we need to see many more people in the streets. Every Saturday
evening, sometimes in the week, there are thousands of demonstrators
across the country. We need millions, but some people are afraid —
people have been fired, lost their place as students, or faced police
violence because of their involvement in such struggles.

The second element is that we need international pressure. The ICC
arrest warrants are a huge step forward, it’s immensely important.
Most of the opposition stood with Netanyahu, including the so-called
alternatives to Netanyahu — they aligned with him against the ICC
and the international community.

Hadash are the only ones who have explicitly issued a public statement
in support of the ICC. I personally posted on social media that I
support the ICC, and that it might be a game changer if those states
who are supposed to respect the ICC decision will do so. We need the
international community to pressure the Israeli government to end the
genocide, release the hostages, reconstruct Gaza, and ending the
occupation and establishing a Palestinian independent state. That is a
must.

The third element is to have a real parliamentary opposition, which
currently doesn’t exist. Apart from us, there is no opposition.
It’s not only the fanatic fascists in the opposition, like [Avigdor]
Lieberman, it’s not only individuals with guns who are sometimes
very close to fascist ideas. It’s also cowards who are afraid to
challenge the genocidal government because they are afraid to be
unpopular, who are led by the arch-cowards [Yair] Lapid and [Benny]
Gantz, who are also, I must say, basically rightists. I wouldn’t
like to say they are fascists, but they are rightists and cowards.

We need those three elements. Under the circumstances, the easiest
element is international pressure. If there is real international
pressure by, for example, boycotting Israel, stopping arming Israel,
respecting the ICC decision — if that is respected, that will
definitely influence the ongoing situation, and may reduce the
desperation of those Israelis who support the anti-genocide camp.

In Hadash, we have already succeeded in forming a coalition that
includes more than 60 anti-occupation, anti-war, pro-peace and human
rights organisations. But we need the international community. If we
do not have real international support, then sooner or later, we are
going to lose. It’s not only that the genocide and the death toll
among the Palestinians is going to be even greater. But there’s a
risk of regional war, and a serious risk of civil war within Israel
and rivers of blood in the streets of Israel. That’s only a matter
of time.

MB

This seems to be an emerging concern — that Israel’s current path
is so volatile that a collapse into internal conflict is a distinct
possibility. It wasn’t hard to consider when seeing the recent
scenes of mobs of armed Israelis physically confronting the military
over what was, essentially, the right to rape
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prisoners.

OC

Let me begin by saying that in Israel, there are no police anymore. Of
course, the police like any other institution, serves the ruling
class. But nevertheless, there was once the pretension of serving the
people. The high ranks, and especially the high commissioner of the
police, are totally committed to the government in general and to
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultra-fascist, racist minister of so-called
‘national security’. They are devoted and committed to him in
person. That is not to say that every individual police officer is a
fascist. But as an organisation, it does not serve the public anymore.
It serves the government and Ben-Gvir.

I will give you two examples: you have mentioned one of them. The
turmoil wasn’t over Israeli soldiers torturing Palestinian
detainees, because that happens all the time. There was a specific
incident of a Palestinian person who was raped by Israeli soldiers and
seriously wounded. The military police began to investigate, which it
doesn’t normally do, and they entered a military base to arrest the
suspects. When they got there, the fellow soldiers of the suspects
tried to prevent the military police from taking them. If that’s not
enough, a fascist mob entered the base, including at least one
minister and Knesset members, to join those soldiers and to attack the
military policemen.

Those military policemen in this base called the police to assist
them. The police didn’t attend; later, a newspaper discovered they
didn’t go because Ben-Gvir’s secretary told them not to. They
sacrificed Israeli soldiers to protect suspected rapists. On the same
day, another mob — again accompanied by Knesset members — tried to
invade the military court to attack those investigating the suspects,
even perhaps to release the suspect. Again, the police didn’t attend
until too late. That’s to show the fascist attitude of that militia
called the Israeli police.

Why fascism? One of the most important academic experts on fascism was
my former teacher Ze’ev Sternhell, who once wrote that ‘fascism
doesn’t begin when people begin to shoot one another — it begins
when the establishment of the state begins to discriminate against the
Left in comparison to the Right.’ Those associated with the fascists
can do whatever they like. There’s no law.

It is an almost natural invasion of the occupation mentality from the
occupied Palestinian territories into the State of Israel; what I just
mentioned occurred time and time again in the West Bank. When
Palestinians are attacked or even killed by settlers, the police
don’t investigate, don’t arrest — only in very rare incidents.
Now those who invaded those military bases in Israel a few months ago,
there is still no investigation or arrest of a single person.

On the other hand, the very same police brutally attack demonstrators
against the government who oppose the genocide. Probably the most
famous leader of the hostage families is Einav Zangauker, a very
impressive woman — who was originally a supporter of Netanyahu, by
the way. Not anymore. She is a very sympathetic, clever, and brave
woman, and I admire her.

She and her daughter are intentionally targeted by the police at every
demonstration. Her daughter was chased by a horse, arrested, beaten
— and so have many other demonstrators and many other families of
the hostages. Compare this treatment with how the police treat
right-wing mobs who invade military bases.

My Knesset suspension is another layer. I’ve been suspended for six
months for speaking up. I was supposed to enjoy immunity. I’m
supposed to represent a huge public. They didn’t succeed in
impeaching me — they ran short by four votes. They needed 90, they
had 86 — for an unlawful motion, according to the legal counsellor
of both the Knesset and the government.

Still, they voted against me. Once they failed in impeaching me, they
suspended me for calling the genocide as it should be called and for
signing a petition in support of the South African appeal to the ICJ.

This is the situation in Israel — alongside genocide, ethnic
cleansing, war crimes, atrocities, occupation, and persecution of
Palestinians in their territories, there’s also fascism growing
stronger in Israel by legislation and by the persecution of citizens,
arresting people, beating people, etc. Israel is on the verge of a
full-fledged fascist regime.

MB

What gives you hope?

OC

One quotation from Antonio Gramsci I try to adopt as a motto is that a
socialist must cling to the pessimism of the intellect with the
optimism of the will. It’s not an abstract slogan but a real guide.
It’s very easy to be very hopeless, but it’s a privilege we cannot
afford.

When I open my eyes in the morning, I have a deep feeling of
desperation and pessimism. But it takes me a few seconds to wake up,
literally and metaphorically, and go on to our struggle. We cannot do
otherwise.

More personally, I do not compare the ongoing situation in Gaza to the
Holocaust. I do compare it to what happened in Germany during the
1930s, but absolutely not what was going on during the 1940s. I hope I
won’t have a reason to compare the two in the future.

But the family of my grandparents on my mother’s side were all
butchered by the Nazis. All of them were killed. Nobody survived apart
from my grandparents, who left Poland before the war. I often ask
myself what could have happened if there had been many more people who
spoke out against those crimes. Perhaps they could have saved millions
of people, including my family.

It’s almost a personal legacy, as if my grandparent’s family was
speaking to me. It does not give me hope, but it does give me the
motivation to struggle, with all the prices I pay. I simply cannot do
otherwise. It’s a socialist, humane decree, but it’s also a family
decree, if you like.

But I do have hope, because I do believe that we’re going to make a
change. I don’t know if I will be here to see it. But I know we are
going to win. It’s not an abstract or childish hope, it is something
I learned from history. Would anyone have believed Nelson Mandela
would become the President of South Africa just months before he was?
Would someone have believed at the time that the Ku Klux Klan in the
Deep South of America could be reduced to almost nothing?

So many changes occurred that no one could believe. So that’s part
of my hope. But if we don’t struggle, we have no hope, because
change won’t automatically come from nowhere. It will come if we
continue and enlarge our just struggle, based on these three
principles I mentioned before. That’s my hope.

Israeli society is also mine, and I want my society to be a just one.
This is part of the struggle. They want to silence us, and me in
particular, because they don’t want that. They are smearing us as
anti-Israeli, as antisemites, and me personally as a self-hating Jew.
All those lies are because they want to silence us. And they want to
persecute us because they don’t want us to tell the truth in order
to amend reality. I shall never surrender.

_Ofer Cassif is an Israeli politician who represents Hadash in the
Knesset._

_Marcus Barnett is associate editor at Tribune._

_Tribune was established in 1937 as a socialist magazine that would
give voice to the popular front campaigns against the rising tide of
fascism in Europe. For eighty years it has been at the heart of
left-wing politics in Britain, counting giants of the labour movement
like Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot among its former editors. Tribune
was relaunched as a print magazine and website with the support
of Jacobin in 2018, and its new team is committed to reviving this
great tradition on the British left. Our mission remains, as Michael
Foot wrote on the magazine’s 21st birthday, “to sustain the old
cause with the old weapons.”_

* Hadash
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* Israeli Communist Party
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* Palestinian rights
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* zionism
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* Knesset
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