Zionism and Herut: Racialist ideology and

year.

Beigin was the leader of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, Zionist terrorists who, in April 1948, carried out the infamous, massacre at Deir Yassin, in which 254 men, women and children of this Arab village were murdered.

On January 10, the Israeli ne Royal card at a dinner at leader will be the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, arranged by London supporters of the Herut rightwing movement which he leads in Israel.

It is part of a concerted drive which Herut is making to gain influence and support in Jewish communities abroad.

The Committee for the Release of Soviet Tewish Prisoners, a London group which is understood to be under Herut influence, has begun a campaign of harassment against Soviet diplomats in Britain.

It is this Committee, headed Mrs Barbara Oberman, which was the host. last month to Kathe rectionary Rabbiewish Defence League in America.

Kahane, who was convicted by a New York court earlier year on charges concerning firearms, is former organizer for Herut party's section and there appears overlap between support for Kahane Herut.

During his visit to London in November, Kahane spoke to meeting of some 500 people in Central Westminster, arranged by the Committee for Release of Soviet Jewish Prisoners.

He called for a more active and militant campaign issue of Soviet Jews.

previous to LonSoviet embassy in London shotha Kahane has said that such activities seriously damaged Soviet Jews, by alienating Russian intellectuals who were sympathetic like Kahane and Beigin, the real interests of the Jewish people may be of little weight against the particular political interests they represent. At a time when Zionists in general are using the issue of Soviet Jewry, the extreme right-wing hope that by making Vorster: friendly tles with the Zionists.

the loudest anti-Soviet noises and organizing militant activity they can win a position of leadership in the Zionist movement, and launch a general move towards reaction among Jewish people.

The first major success for the Herut movement has been notched up in S Africa, where their supporters have won THE THEORY PRACTICE VISION RE A Workers. This seven part series by MICHAEL BANDA which appeared in the Workers Press is now avallable as a pamphlet. Order from New Park Publications, 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4. Price 18p includa two-part series on right-wing leaders and organizations. per cent of the votes in the Zionist Federation, thus becoming the leading Zionist party there.

This backing undoubtedly reflects two factors.

SUPPORTERS of the apartheid regime are easily attracted to the same sort of racialist ideology and actions, which Herut represents, in Israel. • JEWISH capitalists who are doing well in S Africa recognize that Herut stands for closer links between Zionism and the Vorster regime.

In the Knesset (Israeli parliament), Menachem Beigin has opposed the Israeli government when, for foreign policy reasons, it supported the African states in the UN.

S African Nationalist Party leaders have frequently. drawn parallels between white supremacy there and Zionist experience in Palestine, and this has been echoed by some S African Zionist leaders.

On a recent visit to S Africa, Beigin was photographed shaking hands with Vorster-who is a former 'general' in the pro-Nazi 'Ossewa Brandwag' organization.

Not that friendly ties with extreme reactionaries and even fascists are anything new for Zionists, and certainly not for Herut. In its early years, as the Zionist Revisionist movement, the party was much influenced by Mussolini, and the youth section Betar, was styled on the Italian fascist youth movement.

The movement was founded to fight for a Jewish state at all AND ing postage. of loud-mouthed expansionism. , However, hatred of the Jewish working class is as much part of its policy as hatred of the Arabs. In the 1930s, it engaged in organized strike-breaking against Jewish trade unionists; and members of the movement were also implicated in the murder on a Tel Aviv beach of Haim Arlosoroff, a 'Labour Zionist' leader who was suspected of being too conciliatory to the Arabs.

The Irgun Zvai Leumi was founded as the military wing of this right-wing Zionist movement, in order to carry out active terrorism against the Arab Although it was an underground movement, Irgun decided at the outbreak of World War II to throw in its lot with British imperialism, and the first Irgun commander, David Raziel, was killed while serving as a captain in the British army. in action against Arab rebels in Iraq.

Under his successor Menachem Beigin, the Irgun turned to active terrorism against the British mandate, while enjoying financial backing from wealthy Zionists in the United States.

In the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Irgun Zvai Leumi under Beigin's leadership perpetrated massacres of Palestinian Arab villagers at Deir Yassin and Ein el Zeitouh, and murder and looting of Arab citizens of Jaffa.

Beigin later boasted of the Irgun's part in driving the Palestinians from their homeland:

"The Jewish forces were advancing on Haifa like a knife through butter. The Arabs were fleeing shouting ; "Deir Yassin!"?

CONTINUED TOMORROW BBC 1 PROGRAMMES