Dear Mr McIntyre,

Thanks for your response. To be honest, I am pretty sure that your heart is in the right place. We do not doubt your devotion to the Palestinian cause either.

Clearly, no one here is trying to abuse you. If you want to disown your words, you are welcome to say so.

We will then move on.

Our task here is to analyze the Pls discourse and your public email that was passed to us was very interesting indeed.

Your words are very clear. You are talking about "forcing" an ideology. you are also talking about "our main strategic aim".

Thus, we asked you 4 simple questions which you failed to answer.

here they are again:

1. Do you really believe that Palestinian Solidarity Activists’ "main strategic aim" should be “to remove the equivalence in people's thinking” between "Israel" and the "Jews"?

2. How would such a removal serve Palestinians in Gaza?

3. Do you really believe that 'we' should "force" a separation of the two identities on a Palestinian Lobby?

4. Do you really believe in "forcing" ideas?

We also asked you whether you are Jewish and/or Marxist?

You were kind enough to answer this question partially.

And yet again you failed to answer the most important question. Given you are not a Jew, why do you think that "forcing" Jewish ideology should serve 'our strategic aim'?

It will be very interesting to read your simple answers to the questions above.

We are not interested in political spin or victim spiel. We only expect you to be honest enough to clarify your stand. Here in this on line journal we believe in honesty.

All the Best
Gilad

2) What is the world does it change if British people are supposed to learn a difference between Jews and Israel? Did you know that ONLY Jews have been involved in the checkpoints (even the one between Jordan and the West Bank) and of course the wars? Are not Jews those who are "settling" in Palestinian land?
Who are people supposed to connect it to? Israelis? Come ON! I happen to know personally about 500 Israelis who are not Jews and more than 90% of them are even "Palestinian Arabs". So, eliminating this distinction serves at what?

3) so because "Israel can't be criticised" you then accept the reason of the guilt of Europeans over the Holocaust as a legitimate reason. What kind of logic is that??? And…. why can't Jews be criticised? Are they above or beyond criticism? I would say that is a pretty amazing thing to claim!

4) I hope NO ONE follows your "strategy", because you have your lovely sacred cows and your priorities are a mess.

5) Jews for this or that also recently protested charity events for Gaza. This is kind of sick, don't you think so? Not that it got anywhere, but all the same, the point is that they think they can say who is good or bad. We operate on what people say and then what they do.

Now, answer the questions. We will make sure that the PSC is able to see this and decide for themselves if you are an asset to their campaign or if you are setting agendas that will ruin the campaign, which is the last thing it needs.

If you had read my suggestion to the Bigplan list, or indeed if you had not rushed to publish without giving me the chance to answer your questions, you would know that the "people" I was referring to are not the citizens of Israel but the people of Britain who we are trying to convince of the case for justice for Palestinians. I reproduce below the whole of my message. I fail to see how anyone could possibly misunderstand it in the way you have done unless you are simply looking for people to abuse. No, I am not Jewish and I do not belong to any conspiratorial group but I do try to think about the way forward for Palestinian Rights and I do spend most hours on most days working for the Palestinian cause.

Original message
Of course you are right about Atzmon and people who think like him. Jewish anti-Zionists are, potentially, crucial to justice for Palestinians. I say "potentially" because the Palestinian lobby has not yet grasped the fact that our main strategic aim should be to remove the equivalence in people's thinking between "Israel" and "Jews" and to force a separation of the two identities.

If any other country in the world had acted over the last 60 years in the way Israel has done, it would long since have been regarded as a pariah or rogue state. But because of Western guilt over the holocaust and Israel's brilliance in exploiting this, most people who would normally condemn massacres, human rights abuses and foreign occupation only get as far as thinking that these things shouldn't be happening but can't take their thinking further because the word 'Jew' would come into consideration. And, because Jews can't really be criticised, then neither can Israel. From this also comes the notion that any criticism of Israeli policies or activities stems from anti-semitism. Of course, this is a perfect situation for Israel and Zionists and one they plan to perpetuate.

JBig, Jews for Justice etc. are already doing a great job in helping to shift this near-universal mental contruct but it's too small scale and, if I may say so, sometimes too much directed at Zionists and organs like the JC, rather than at the general public. But PSC and supporters of the Palestinian cause world-wide need to start thinking much more strategically along the lines I have suggested and then Jewish anti-Zionists would become a hugely important component of the fight back.