Zionism's "Ten Greek myths about the anti-genocide protest on the Greek island of Syros”

Dismantling the "rights" of Israeli tourists vs. the "wrongs" of anti-genocide resistance

July 28 2025

The Israeli government has complained bitterly and aggressively about the events of Tuesday 22 July, when protestors on the Greek island of Syros, among them Niki Orfanou and I, prevented 1,600 Jewish-Israeli tourists disembarking from the Israeli-owned cruise liner the Crown Iris. The Interior minister of the Greek government has responded by stating that future protestors who obstruct Israeli tourists will be treated as terrorists and be prosecuted under Greece’s antiterrorism laws. Led by Israel and the incomparably powerful Zionist lobby, the western world’s embrace of fascism and clampdown on basic democratic rights is accelerating. At least we know what’s in front of us.

The Greek move to use anti-terrorism legislation to prevent non-violent protests follows the UK Labour government’s recent move to make Palestine Action a proscribed terrorist organisation. To express support for Palestine Action, never mind to participate in any of its activities, which revolve around the use of red paint to oppose and disrupt genocide, is now punishable by 14 years in prison. Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, provided with legal advice by Attorney General Richard Hermer, whom I’m happen to know has gone to great lengths to deny that what’s been going on in Gaza amounts to a genocide, believe that civil disobedience requires a far more punitive response than the perpetration of a genocide. I cannot hide my disgust. Now Greece is going the same way.

Meanwhile Zionists have leapt to control the narrative that surrounds the Syros demonstration by circulating a tangle of pernicious, duplicitous, manipulative, self-serving falsehoods and outright lies to discredit the resistance as well as generate sympathy for Jewish-Zionists, who are repeatedly portrayed as victims. To state the obvious in case there’s any confusion here, there are many more non-Jewish Zionists than there are Jewish Zionists, many of them Christian Evangelists. To make another obvious point, those who support genocide don’t deserve our sympathy.

This kind of work is necessary to prop up collapsing public support for Zionism. It also enables corporations to continue to use Israel as a testing ground for military and technological experiments that lie at the cutting edge of capitalism. As the fearless United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese details in her most recent report, “From Economy of Occupation Economy of Genocide”, genocide has been a hugely profitable business, supported by all of the major corporations of the West, with Israel’s stock market doubling in value since 7/10. That rise will have in all probability funded the holidays of more than a few of the passengers on the Crown Iris.

Zionism likes to think of itself as a superior mythology, one that overrides all other mythologies, including Greek mythology, because Judaism's monotheism overrides Ancient Greece's polytheism, and since the Syros protest its proponents have been working overtime to develop their own “Greek myths”—myths that positions Greece as being necessarily subservient to Zionism. So after publishing a report on the Syros demonstration I’d like to reply to the “top ten Zionist myths about the anti-genocide protest on Syros” that have come to my attention since that glorious day.

I’m publishing this to coincide with a demonstration that’s due to take place on the Greek island of Rhodes at 3:00pm on Monday 28 July. Reportedly inspired by the resistance of Syros, Rhodes protestors are planning to prevent the Jewish-Israel passengers of the Crown Iris from disembarking. Immediately after they waved goodbye to the Jewish-Israeli tourists Syros activists began to hope that other islands would follow their example. There’s great happiness that protestors in Rhodes are stepping up because Rhodes has a reputation for being a somewhat touristic, commercial island—not necessarily the a place where one would expect further resistance.

Here are the top ten:

Argument 1:

The demonstrators shouldn’t have prevented the Jewish-Israeli tourists on board the Crown Iris from disembarking because in 1939 the allies turned away boats carrying Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany.

This is a distortion I’m keen to contest given that my dad was a German Jew who left Nazi Germany via the largely UK-led Kindertransport rescue programme in August 1939. Also during my active participation in a Reform Zionist Jewish youth movement between the age of thirteen and twenty-one I and my peers were repeatedly told how the allies generally refused to admit Jews and how this demonstrated that non-Jews can never be fully trusted to oppose antisemitism.

To cite the single main historical example, the St. Louis carried just over 900 German-Jewish passengers to Cuba followed by the United States and then Canada, only for each country to refuse them entry. On the ship's return to Europe all of the passengers found refuge in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with none forced to return to Germany. Although the allies treacherously obstructed other German Jewish refugees from gaining asylum, I’m not aware of any other ships that were rejected. Vis-a-vis the Crown Iris, it’s the turning away of ships that’s being evoked in the pushback against the Syros action.

All refugees seeking asylum should obviously be offered protection. At the same time, it’s impossible to draw a parallel between the rejection of the German Jews who were on board the St. Louis with the experience of the Jewish-Israeli passengers on board the Crown Iris.

The Crown Iris passengers weren’t fleeing antisemitism, seeking a safe and permanent place of refuge. They’re citizens of a country that’s perpetrating a genocide who decided to take a summer holiday to relax and recuperate in a beautiful, peaceful part of the world, island-hopping during the day before spending each night on the cruise liner, all while the annihilation of the Palestinians of Gaza (and beyond) accelerates. At the end of their holiday they will return to Israel and no doubt continue to watch the hasbara’s sugar-coated version of the genocide from the comfort of their living rooms, or perhaps from the various vantage points that Jewish-Israelis like to visit to enjoy watching the genocide unfold in real time.

To compare the experience of those who were fleeing Nazi Germany, an antisemitic country that would soon become genocidal, with those who are citizens of a regime that’s perpetrating a genocide is grotesque. The juxtaposition is also highly manipulative and amounts to the latest instance of Zionism's relentless weaponisation of the German Holocaust, or the German genocide of the Jews (as opposed to the Israeli Holocaust, or Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians). In addition to deflecting attention away from Israel’s heinous treatment of the Palestinians it insults Jews who have experienced actual antisemitism and in particular those Jews who survived the German Holocaust believing that "never again" didn't only refer to Jews--as was the case with my dad.

Argument 2:

Some of the people on board the Crown Iris cruise liner are the traumatised descendants of Jewish victims of the German genocide of the Jews or, simply by being Jewish, are traumatised by the collective memory of the German Holocaust. Anything that reminds them of the Holocaust, which included the turning away of the Crown Iris, is traumatic and therefore motivated by antisemitism.

Zionists care more about Israel than they do about the Jews to the extent that they have repeatedly weaponised the German genocide in order to pursue their own ends. The weaponisation of this history in reaction to the blockade of the Crown Iris is merely the latest example of a long-established tactic that goes back to the 1930s, when Zionist leaders actively intervened to encourage German and other European Jews to emigrate to Palestine rather than other parts of the world, including the United States.

In particular, David Ben-Gurion, one of the founding figures of Zionism and a future prime minster of Israel, negotiated a Haavara (Transfer) agreement with Hitler and the Nazi party to facilitate the transfer of German Jews to Palestine. As charted by Francis Nicosia in his celebrated study, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, the taxes charged helped the Nazis offset Germany’s crippling debts while enabling them to begin to enact their racist ambition to “cleanse” Germany of its Jewish population. Zionists, including leaders such as the US Rabbi Stephen Wise, supported the movement of German Jews to Palestine while actively opposing the entry of German Jews aboard the St. Louis into the United States.

So while Jewish-Zionists today claim that the turning away the Crown Iris reminds them of the trauma of the rejection of the St. Louis they omit to mention that Zionists played an active role in that rejection.

Reading about the St. Louis prompted me to wonder for the first time: did the Zionists also oppose the kindertransport programme that brought my dad out of Germany to the United Kingdom?

It turns out that in 1938 Ben Gurion said: “If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.” In other words, the preeminent leader of the Zionist movement positively supported the idea that German Jews—including my dad—should remain in antisemitic, soon to be genocidal Germany if half their number could emigrate to Palestine, already promised to the Jews by imperial Britain in 1917.

(Although I’ve long refuted the Zionist indoctrination I received during a gap year spent in Israel, 1986—86, it will take me some time to come to terms with the new realisation that educators who worked on this programme and celebrated the figure of Ben-Gurion covered up this history while telling me and my peers that the future of the Jewish people could only be guaranteed in Israel. If the Zionists had had their way during the 1930s there’s a fifty percent chance I’d have never been born in the first place.)

Zionists, non-Jewish and Jewish alike, weaponised the Nazi genocide in order to establish the State of Israel, justify Israel’s unrelenting ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and excuse the current genocidal wipeout of Gaza. Soon after 7/10 Netanyahu claimed that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem persuaded Hitler to embark on the genocide of the Jews, thereby shifting blame for the German Holocaust from Hitler to the Palestinians. Netanyahu took the weaponisation so far he was happy to argue that Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

Since 7/10 in particular it’s been impossible to keep track of the number of times Netanyahu, his governmental and parliamentary colleagues, and other Jewish-Israelis have referred to the Palestinians as Nazis, even if the Palestinians in question are new-born babies. If a Jew happens to oppose Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians they’re accused of doing Hitler’s work for him; I’ve been told this on several occasions. Zionists see Nazism everywhere except when they look in the mirror, even though it’s the mirror that offers them the best sighting of all (save for the apparently tiny number who are actively opposing the genocide).

Zionism’s repeated invocation of the German Holocaust and their argument that it amounts to a singular historic episode that supersedes all other engineered catastrophes, a historical event that must be burned into the unfolding present forever, has provided Israel with carte blanche permission to do whatever it likes, including perpetrate a genocide that its citizens and allies refuse to identify as a genocide, never mind a holocaust.

Meanwhile the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism has been coopted by 266 entities worldwide, including the US, Canada, Germany, the UK, France and the EU, even though seven of the eleven examples of antisemitism cited refer to criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism, which are falsely conflated with antisemitism.

The claim that the blockade of the Crown Iris echoes Nazism’s persecution of German Jews is merely the latest example of this preposterous rhetorical strategy. When the Jewish-Israeli Zionists on board the Crown Iris claim to have been reminded of the trauma of the German Holocaust they are faking it. They were’t traumatised by the blockade. Instead they gathered on the deck of the ship and started to sing nationalistic anthems. Later on they took to social media to proclaim how delighted they were to have avoided landing on such an antisemitic island. The Syros opposition didn’t give them a reason to question their actions, it deepened their nationalist fervour and delusional belief they’re only responding to antisemitism. Indeed throughout the genocide Israeli Jews have regularly taken to social media to celebrate the wipeout.

The invocation of the memory of the St. Louis, the suggestion that the experience in Syros was traumatic, the knee-jerk reversion to victimhood, all of these responses are merely a meta-manipulation, a lie, the latest move in their soulless ethno-supremacist game of chess (in which Israel controls all of the pieces, black as well as white, if the pieces symbolise military equipment). Blame for the genocide lies with the Palestinians, blame lies with anyone who opposes the genocide, or even: what genocide?

Let’s also not forget—because one of Zionism’s favourite slogans is Never Forget—that the German genocide of the Jews happened 80 years ago. Never mind that many survivors of the German Holocaust, my dad included, chose to overcome that traumatic experience by living forward-moving, outward-looking life instead of choosing to remain in a traumatic loop that surfaces any time someone points to Israel’s fascism.

Jewish Zionists have spent so long living as perpetually traumatised victims they only know how to drag the rest of the world into their psychosis—and non-Jewish Zionists can’t get enough of it because it serves their own colonial racism as well as their own financial and political interests.

Argument 3:

The people on board the cruise liner are civilians and shouldn’t be identified with the actions of Netanyahu, his government and the IDF. They might not support Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians. To prevent them from disembarking was an act of discrimination.

It’s highly unlikely that all of the passengers on board the Crown Iris were civilians. A source close to the heart of the Palestine solidarity campaign has relayed that an unknown number IDF soldiers are believed to have been on board as part of a “therapeutic retreat” from their genocidal duties in Gaza. We know that there’s been a spike in IDF soldiers dying by suicide and that the IDF has opened a mental health provision to treat PTSD and other disorders. We also know that IDF’s soldiers are exhausted from the effort of perpetrating the Gaza Holocaust as well as the bombing campaigns and incursions Israel has conducted and is continuing in the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. Greece offers IDF soldiers who are struggling to sustain the carnage with a chance to recuperate.

To provide one example, an Israeli-Jewish organisation called the A-Team Association formed instantaneously on 7/10 to fund and run a hub at Gilat Junction, near the Gaza border. Supported by the Rehabilitation Department at the Ministry of Defence, it currently provides daily assistance to 20,000 IDF soldiers under the name “Project Breathe: Support Our Heroes”. The offering includes:

A 4-day therapeutic retreat in Greece, designed for fighters to disconnect, leave behind the stress, and reflect on their experiences in a tranquil environment. Participants will explore breathtaking landscapes, finding freedom and renewal in nature. This journey is an opportunity to process the physical and emotional scars of battle, offering a moment of peace and a chance to breathe freely again. The 'Breathe' campaign is our commitment to supporting our soldiers by providing them a chance to heal and rejuvenate.

While Project Breathe are not going to confirm if they arranged for IDF soldiers to travel on the Crown Iris there can be no doubt that Israel is sending fighters to Greece to recuperate in order to “heal”, “rejuvenate” and “breathe freely again” before they return to Gaza, where their primary task is to assassinate civilians. This requires them to shoot Palestinians directly in the forehead and heart, irrespective of their age, gender and whether or not they are queueing for food, bomb them indiscriminately, and so on. One assumes that the routine celebration of these assassination on social media is not, however, a requirement.

Even if Netanyahu values the goal of ethnic cleansing and genocide above the lives of IDF soldiers, as evidenced by his complete lack of interest in rescuing Jewish-Israeli soldiers who remain in the hands of Hamas, I have no sympathy for those who serve in the IDF. All of them are responsible, directly or indirectly, for the cold-blooded mass murder of civilians. Any Jewish-Israeli citizen with a conscience should refuse to serve (as increasing numbers are). However psychologically damaged by the experience of participating in a genocide, any IDF soldier on board the Crown Iris should also resign as a matter of conscience and ideally dedicate the rest of their lives to supporting Palestinian justice.

Let’s now consider an improbable scenario. If the passengers on board the Crown Iris were all civilians, and had at no point served in the IDF, which is frankly inconceivable given that military service is compulsory for all men and women in Israel, then the captain should have offered evidence of this to the Syros port authorities. In turn, those authorities could have passed on the information to the demonstrators who, in turn, could have discussed their response.

But of course the captain did no such thing, ergo the captain was willing for passengers who were members of the IDF who’ve been involved in the perpetration of a genocide to disembark on Greek territory. No citizen who respects international law and lives respectfully under its aegis should be expected to stand by passively as a war criminal enters their home.

I’m not even sure we even can meaningfully distinguish between Israeli civilians and non-civilians. So many “civilians” are one-time IDF soldiers, IDF reservists, the parents of IDF soldiers or Israeli-Jewish citizens who support the IDF in multiple different ways. A poll published in Haaretz on 24 May found that 82 percent of Israeli Jews support the forced expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza, 53 percent believe that Israel shouldn’t allow humanitarian aid into the enclave, and 56 percent support the expulsion of Palestinian citizens from Israel’s 1948 borders. The quest to establish a Greater Israel has never been more advanced.

If Israeli “civilians” aren’t happy with Netanyahu it’s because: one, he hasn’t arranged for the release of the remaining Jewish-Israeli “hostages” and soldiers (because, as has been well established by daily Zionist rhetoric, the life of a single Israeli Jew is of more value than all of the Palestinians put together); and two, he hasn’t carried out the ethnic cleansing of Gaza quickly and effectively enough. Those who support ethnic cleansing support genocide given that the Palestinians of Gaza have nowhere else to go and no intention of leaving their indigenous historic land. If they stay they will be either bombed, shot or starved.

We shouldn’t assume that all Israeli Jews citizens support genocide. Although their numbers remain tiny, a growing number of them are joining the protest movement. I admire these people hugely. At the same time I’ve been appalled at the almost complete reluctance of the 18 percent who don’t support ethnic cleansing/genocide to speak out. I’ve been tracking the non-activity of numerous ex-friends I got to meet through the Jewish youth movement and their collective silence is stunning.

Leaving this group of invertebrates to one side, there’s no way a genuine opponent of ethnic cleansing/genocide would countenance vacationing on an Israeli vessel populated by 1,600 Israeli Jews given that approximately 82 percent of them would in all likelihood support ethnic cleansing/genocide. Any opponent would understand that it’s beholden upon them to establish their distance from the horror and its supporters. Surely they would also believe that spending time with people who are so thoroughly racist doesn’t amount to a wholesome or pleasurable way to spend a holiday. Anyone with a heart and a conscience could travel independently or not go on holiday at all.

The idea that we must be careful not to offend the feelings of Jewish-Israeli citizens is pathetic. No other citizenry in the world is afforded this privilege or protection. When the world rolled out trade sanctions and the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, as requested by Nelson Mandela and the ANC, nobody of any credibility argued that we shouldn’t take action because we might upset “innocent” South Africans. Indeed white South African anti-apartheid campaigners were at the forefront of calls for the sanctions.

It’s not our responsibility to tiptoe around genocidal maniacs worrying if we’re upsetting their sense of equilibrium. It’s our responsibility to do what we believe in and to accept the consequences of our beliefs. If non-Jewish as well as Jewish Zionists believe in ethnic cleansing and genocide then they, too, should be prepared to accept the consequences—our complete rejection of what they stand for and what they do.

Argument 4:

Tourism brings people together and is good for intercultural interaction

Tourism doesn’t bring people together because it’s rooted in a colonial psychology as well as financial power. Although there are exceptions, tourists are largely moneyed and white, and often go on holiday to countries that are comparatively poor and either Black, brown or Mediterranean in complexion.

When tourists travel they generally spend time in cordoned-off hotels that separate them from the country they’re visiting, hanging out with their “own people”, which usually means other privileged white people. When they venture out into “the wild” they aspire to digest the highlights of any given place, the points of historic importance, or maybe special cultural events that are organised for tourist consumption rather than find out what locals do, if there are even any locals left, and engage with them in a way that’s mutually meaningful.

Tourists also behave like consumers, using their financial power to buy an experience in any tick-box place they visit , their pollution-wracked journeying an extension of individual consumer rights. They go around camera in hand, the gaze always theirs, taking photos and videos (ideally of exotic-looking locals or selfies of themselves grinning alongside exotic-looking locals) that they can show friends and family once they return home.

It goes without saying that western tourists generally go around speaking English on the assumption that everyone should understand what they’re saying, especially if they’re from the US or the UK. They might try to offset the power relations at play by learning a few token phrases to give the impression of being friendly and into native culture. They often like to think that the experience of tourism makes them more open-minded and enlightened than people who don’t get to travel, as if the activity can somehow be cleanly distinguished from the long history of colonialism.

It’s useful to distinguish between tourists and travellers. The latter group tends to avoid anything that resembles tourism, might spend more time in a given place in order to learn a language or work so as to be able to interact in a potentially meaningful way with locals, might even offer to contribute part of their lived experience to locals during their stay. A traveller is more likely to have a critique of the capitalist underpinnings of the tourist industry as well as the history and ongoing ramifications of colonialism.

The passengers on board the Crown Iris were definitionally tourists, not travellers. Their plan for Syros was to disembark for six hours, travel around the island in pre-booked, air-conditioned coaches, see a few spots of natural beauty, spend their money buying souvenirs and in local shops, possibly eat some local food in pre-arranged situations that would involve no interaction with locals, and then hop off back to their cloistered cruise liner, when most of their holiday eating and socialising was taking place. Along the way they would sing nationalistic songs and tear down any signs of solidarity with the Palestinians such as flags or posters displayed in shop, cafe and restaurant windows—which social media posts reveal has been typical behaviour. The Jewish-Israelis aboard the Crown Iris didn’t just arrive as tourists. They arrived as ultra-tourists.

Apart from having no intention to establish a meaningful connection with local residents, or to promote even the faux multicultural vision of the world that’s attractive to liberals, the Jewish-Israeli tourists aboard the Crown Iris also fed the arm of the tourist industry that’s flourished in the aftermath of interconnected Israeli/US/UK/French etc bombing campaigns against successive Arab countries across the course of several decades. Many of these countries used to be attractive to tourists (and travellers) but ceased being so because the bombing campaigns reduced them to a state of semi-rubble, fragmentation and civil war.

I don’t know about any of you, but I loved the first season of the White Lotus (set in Hawaii), ended up enjoying the second (set in Italy) and felt somewhat ambivalent about the third (set in Thailand). By Thailand the formula of wealthy US tourists behaving like wealthy US tourists was becoming a little bit too predictable and tiring. My understanding is that it didn’t receive the same kind of plaudits as seasons one and two and is in need of a refresh. I have an idea!

Maybe director/writer Mike White should devote season four to Israeli-Jews visiting a resort, perhaps located on a Greek island, or even travelling on a White Lotus ocean-liner. To attract an audience the cast would need to be largely made up of US citizens but I can’t see that posing a problem given that so many Jewish Israelis are dual citizens of the US as well as Israel.

One potentially insurmountable challenge would be to find a way to make the series credible without turning it into an X-rated release. Another would be to find a way to air a credible drama without the TV and film industry coming down on it like a tonne of bricks. After all, No Other Land won the award for best documentary at the most recent Oscar ceremony and has yet to receive a US release. Meanwhile since I published this piece on 28 July Israeli settlers have murdered Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who worked on No Other Land. This is their take on the “entertainment industry”.

Everything repeats the same ethno-supremacist story. In the case of Israeli-Jewish tourists, they believe that they have an absolute right to do whatever they like whenever they like, as if they’re the chosen people and god is a fascist, while deflecting attention away from genocide.

Argument 5:

The protestors violated the rights of tourists.

Rights are always conditional on one’s behaviour. Based on the recent behaviour of Israeli-Jewish tourists—most notoriously those who’ve travelled outside of Israel to support Israeli sports teams abroad, where they’ve consistently behaved in a fascistic manner, chanting racist songs, beating up locals and attacking any sign of solidarity with the Palestinians—the protestors of Syros decided that they didn’t want to risk a repeat of this kind of anti-social, disruptive behaviour. In other words, due to their recent behaviour Israeli citizens have forfeited their right to travel wherever they like, whenever they like.

When it comes to Zionism we’re repeatedly confronted with the question of rights as if Jewish Zionists (not Jews, mind, not even non-Jewish Zionists) are special and deserve to be treated as such wherever they go. However nobody would argue that as the Germans carried out their genocide of the Jews they should have been granted the freedom to travel and behave as they wished. Nor would anyone argue that after World War Two, when Germany and the allies were no longer engaged in official hostilities, diehard German Nazis should have had the right to travel if they continued to behave in a Nazi-like way. Yet we’re supposed to believe that Israeli Jews who are neck deep in genocide—whether they are serving in the IDF, cheering on the IDF, or profiting from the actions of the IDF—should have the right to travel as they like.

I’m trying to think of a scenario when a group that supports ethnic cleansing and genocide in a way that transparently runs against international law should be allowed to travel en masse, including how this could even be managed. Perhaps if special security were established to enforce good behaviour it might be feasible, but clearly Greek tax payers shouldn’t be expected to support this and clearly Israel officials couldn’t be trusted to ensure good behaviour because they’ve demonstrated themselves to be genocidal maniacs.

In the days that followed the Syros protest I read the opening comments that appeared under a Times of Israel report on the day’s events. One Zionist claimed that the island’s protestors were not only “killing Greece finally”, they were also “cutting the tourism as well”. They concluded: “This makes me so happy.” That’s the thing about Zionist tourists. They’re charming until you stop telling them how wonderful they are. Then they snarl and want you to die.

We can only hope that other Israeli Jewish tourists follow the “happy” poster and stop travelling to Greece and beyond. The world will be better off without them, financially perhaps not, spiritually without question yes.

Argument 6:

The demonstrators weren’t real Greeks.

When I posted my report of the protest I was already aware that this comment was circulating from passengers who were on board the Crown Iris. In my naivety I hadn’t quite registered the point. Now, thanks to the flood of vomit that Zionists have projected since the vessel was turned away, I understand it very clearly indeed.

The Zionists didn’t mean that maybe there were some people from other European countries at the demonstration who “weren’t real Greeks”. Nor did they mean that there might have been, say, some Black Greek people there. No, they meant that some of the people on the protest were Muslim and/or sympathetic to the Palestinians, and because of this “weren’t real Greeks"“.

Here’s a selection of comments posted beneath the Times of Israel report on Facebook:

“There are a LOT of Muslim immigrants in Athens and some other spots. The women I was travelling with a few years back were harassed within a block of our hotel if I wasn't with them, and that was a few years ago. I'm surprised Greece let this happen given their history, distrust and animosity regarding the Turks still runs deep. But, there we are.”

“Was shocked by how many Muslim immigrants there were in Athens when we visited over ten years ago. Can’t imagine what it’s like now.”

“Oh. Dear. Lord. I wouldn't want to dock in a place that's allowed terrorists to take over. See how this works for them.”

I can’t really be bothered to reply to such naked racism. For the record, however, the 300 protestors who gathered at the port seemed to people who were born on the island or grew up in Athens before moving to the island. There were some visitors, mainly from Athens although also from the UK and France. I don’t know how many, if any, were Muslim. Everyone who opposes the genocide was entirely welcome to join in.

What’s particularly striking is the way that Zionists need to label people who oppose Israel’s actions, in particular ethnic cleansing and genocide, as being Muslim and a terrorist. It’s the most crass, most racist response imaginable. The equivalent would be for me to use Jew and Judaism as terms of abuse. I wouldn’t do that yet the Zionist use of Muslim as a term of abuse is absolutely standard.

Argument 7:

The demonstrators are antisemitic and typical of Greek antisemitism.

The stupidity, vacuity and basic immaturity of the antisemitic accusation couldn’t be more transparent. It’s rolled out as knee-jerk response rooted in ignorance. I’ve been attending the solidarity demonstrations since the first one was held in London and haven’t encountered antisemitism. In fact I don’t ever recalling witnessing quite so much love for Jewish people as gets expressed on the protests! Non-Jewish participants are very welcoming of everyone who participates, in particular those who might be assumed to be sympathetic to Israel. Steven Kapos, an eighty-seven-year-old survivor of the German Holocaust, has been greeted as a hero.

There was no evidence of any antisemitism on the Syros demonstration. I spoke with scores of people during the course of the day. When I told them I was Jewish and that my dad had come out of Nazi Germany they were appreciative of the solidarity. Whenever I told them that I’ve been repeatedly accused of being an antisemite they were appalled because such accusations detract from fighting actual antisemitism.

None of this stopped a recent US Zionist visitor to Greece who apparently has no historic connection to Greece and apparently doesn’t speak Greek (I checked her Facebook profile to confirm) from commenting on a thread below a Facebook post of the Times of Israel’s report on the Syros demonstration:

“Athens is a complete shit hole with graffiti and antisemitism spewed throughout. These people should clean up their own house before trying to clean up the outside.”

Another semi-illiterate Zionist commented:

“Well the whole world should now know that Greece is not anymore a safe place for tourist either if you're a jew or not.”

I’ve visited Athens several times with Niki Orfanou and have never encountered any antisemitism or seen any antisemitic graffiti. Nor would Athens be Athens without its graffiti, especially Exarcheia. This is not to argue that there’s no antisemitism in Athens, just that whatever form it takes is by no means apparent to foreign tourist.

As per usual, however, the Zionist response combines deflection, escalation, accusation and fabrication. Zionists are completely unable to hear what others are saying about genocide, never mind empathise with those who are experiencing genocide, this despite Zionist Jews repeatedly noting the importance of the experience of the Nazi genocide to their own experience. In terms of making friends and influencing people, they only know how to be friendly to people they can influence (meaning control).

Two days after the Syros protest Niki and I went to a second solidarity demonstration that took place in front of the town hall. Held to coincide with demonstrations that were taking place in Greece, we spoke with an old Athenian friend of Niki’s who happened to be at both protests. I asked her about current levels of antisemitism in Greece and to what extent this could be distinguished from imagined antisemitism. She replied that yes, there is a problem with antisemitism in Greece. It’s quite common in villages for people to talk of dirty Jews or smelly Jews, especially among the elderly. One Jewish cemetery had been desecrated in Thessaloniki, another in Patras had been turned into a parking lot. Therefore the Zionist claim that the demonstrators were antisemites isn’t just false, it also detracts from actual antisemitism and risks alienating those who are engaged with combatting antisemitism.

We’ve known for decades that Zionists have weaponised antisemitism to protect Israel and discredit those who question its behaviour. In the UK democratically elected leaders have been toppled through false accusations of antisemitism, weaponised by the entire political establishment, most notably Jeremy Corbyn. Nevertheless it’s only since 7/10 that the weaponisation has reached epidemic proportions in the US, the UK and Germany in particular. Meanwhile the Palestinians are the ones who are facing a genocide and skyrocketing islamophobia.

The sick irony is that there is almost certainly more antisemitism within Zionism than outside of Zionism. The substantial presence of Christian Evangelists in the Zionist movement is enough to make this case without bringing in all of the other ways that Zionists behave in a racist way towards Jews who don’t support their position on Israel. Playing an absolutely pivotal role as funders and spokespeople within the Zionist movement, Christian Evangelists believe that it’s only when all Jews have gone to live in Israel that Jesus will return. When he does they don’t expect him to look kindly upon Jews, who refused to recognise him as the son of god. Christian Evangelists also believe that the Jews bear collective responsibility—a principle Zionists are happy to support when it comes to Gaza—for killing Jesus. They therefore fully expect Jesus to send all Jews to hell. Before that comes about, the physical movement of Jews from the United States along with other countries to Israel enables Christian Evangelists to steadily reduce their own “Jewish problem”. For their part Jewish Zionists, whether they’re religious or secular, don’t believe in the devil so aren’t troubled by the prospect.

Obviously the greatest source of new antisemitism isn’t the solidarity protest movement, including the 300 demonstrators who gathered on the island of Syros, it’s Zionism and Israel. This is because Netanyahu’s incessant claim that Israel embodies the interests of all Jews can only lead many who oppose genocide to conclude that Jewish people are racist, delusional psychopaths and deserve to be hated. It may be wrong to conflate being Jewish with being a Zionist for many reasons, yet the distinction is lost to many and it would be amazing if many people aren’t reaching a conclusion that mirrors one of the oldest antisemitic myths: that Jews are bloodthirsty vampires. This is somewhat tragic, including for the millions Jews who don’t identify as Zionists and are actively opposing the genocide. I’ve also come into contact with hundreds of anti-zionist Jews during the last 22 months in particular and haven’t met one who doesn’t believe that the real emergency is the genocide of the Palestinians.

There’s a final, pivotal, shocking twist to the antisemitism accusation. Although Netanyahu and other Zionists repeatedly claim to be fighting antisemitism they actually love antisemitism because antisemitism is key to their existence. The claim that antisemitism is always rampant and spreading has always been fundamental to the argument that Israel should exist. When antisemitism was real, never more so than in Nazi Germany, the case for Israel became stronger. When antisemitism waned, Zionists needed to invent it.

Even arch Zionist Keir Starmer cynically rose to power on the back of false accusations of antisemitism made against Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that he was the right kind of suit to root out rampant (but in reality non-existent) antisemitism in the Labour party. Bizarrely, a 2021 report by the Jewish Voice for Labour found that under Starmer’s leadership Jews were in fact five times more likely to face antisemitism charges than non-Jews. Al Jazeera published a series of documentaries that expose the entirely fabricated nature of these charges, which are ongoing.

Where are these evil antisemites to be found according to Netanyahu and his supporters/apologists? The United Nations (including the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, etc), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontièrs/Doctors Without Borders, the Federation Handicap International, War Child Alliance, Christian Aid, Medico International, Oxfam, Centre for Civilians in Conflict, Save the Children, War on Want, War Childhood Museum Foundation, Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations… the list goes on and on and on and on.

Then there are all the prominent individuals—among them Khalid Abdalla, Javier Bardem, Jacob Berger, Hailey Bieber, Michael Caine, John Cusack, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Paloma Faith, Richard Gere, Pep Guardiola, Bella Hadid, Lewis Hamilton, Jessie J, Kneecap, Annie Lennox, Gary Lineker, Dua Lipa, Ken Loach, Macklemore, Miriam Margolyes, Massive Attack, Danni Perry, Joaquin Phoenix, Ms Rachel, Susan Sarandon, Juliet Stevenson, Tilda Swinton and seemingly thousands of other “human celebrities”—who’ve denounced Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians?

All of these organisations and individuals are judged to be antisemitic until they withdraw their criticism of Israel, at which point they’re no longer antisemitic.

Surely there’s no previous example of such a colossal lie receiving so much media support, at least in the west during the last hundred years. As uncomfortable as the comparison might make some people feel, when it comes to selling genocide Netanyahu has been more successful than Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels given that the most powerful leaders along with the corporate media establishment continue to support the Israeli government with weapons, spying information, trade and public support, even though exponentially more information is circulating about Israel’s Holocaust than Germany’s Holocaust.

Politicians offer only occasional, mild rebukes and always offset these performative wrist-slapping gestures with assurances that Israel nevertheless has a “right to exist” and a “right to defend itself”. For their part editors and journalists deliver lopsided reports that rarely give proper space to the Palestinian experience. When that experience is represented journalists perform somersaults in order to note that Israel refutes every accusation made against it. They won’t even allow the use of the word genocide. Meanwhile no major western leader has even acknowledged that a genocide is unfolding.

In this manner Zionism has divorced itself from rationality, democracy and humanity. But let’s not focus on that. Let’s denounce the 300 protestors of Cyros for being antisemites instead!

Argument 8:

The demonstrators were part of a leftist extremist grouping.

This accusation is just further deflection. It plays into an ongoing myth promoted by the neoliberal establishment that anything that resembles opposition is from some kind of lunatic left fringe. The lurch to the right has been so complete that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party manifesto of 2017 was caricatured as a de facto communist manifesto. In reality if Corbyn had introduced the promised measures—re-nationalisation of the railways, water, electricity, gas, slightly increased taxation for the wealthy, some revisions to restrictions placed on unions—he would have taken the UK “back” to 1991. Margaret Thatcher, the most rightwing prime minister of the 20th century in the United Kingdom, fell from power in 1990, so none of her major reforms would have been undone. That’s where we are the lefty lunatic these days—they’re to the right of Thatcher.

As for Syros, the action was organised through informal conversations and had no clear plan. Before the group assembled in front of the town hall it wasn’t clear if we would even attempt to stop passengers from disembarking; a counter-suggestion was to establish a presence in the town centre so that any aggression displayed by the tourists could be defused. In the end the move to walk to view the arrival of the Crown Iris and then to proceed to the entrance of the cordoned-off car park/docking area was spontaneous. The move to use a large flag to stop the coach that was due to transport some of the tourists around the island was also spontaneous. When that action was successful the subsequent move to use the same strategy to block the main road that connected the docking area to the capital was yet again spontaneous.

If proof were needed that there was no central organising figures, never mind a radical left faction, the protest that took place two days later bore almost no resemblance to the Crown Iris action. At the second gathering I kept on asking, isn’t somebody going to organise something? I was told that this is how things go on Syros.

Personally I think it can be useful if not necessary to have a group of people coordinate a protest. I also don’t have any problem if these people are left-wing; better that than have a bunch of fascists take control. But in Syros the action was unplanned. It grew out of humanity and feeling. It’s not surprising that Zionists either wouldn’t be able to recognise that or, if they did, would want to smear it.

Argument 9:

The demonstrators behaved like animals, were out of control and caused damage.

Zionists like to portray their opponents as animals. The Palestinians are animals, the protestors of Syros are animals. In fact the gathering was entirely peaceful and good-spirited. No damage was caused. At the end of the protest I saw participants walk around the areas we had temporarily occupied cleaning up bottles and taking them to recycling bins. These were evidently people who love their city and love their island.

Argument 10:

The police didn’t do their job.

This particular argument assumes that the job of the police is to prevent demonstrations from happening in the first place. If they do take place then the role of the police is to clamp down hard on protestors and make arrests. This is what the Zionists want because, again and again, the defence of Israel, including its genocide of the Palestinians, overrides everything, including basic democratic rights. As a Zionist posted on the Times of Israel report of the Syros protest, “Disgusting behaviour. Where were the police?”

Answer: the police were in attendance at the protest. They knew in advance that some kind of action was going to take place. About 15 of them eventually donned riot gear. At a couple of points I got to speak with them.

The first time I ventured into an area that seemed to be open to the public as I wanted to see what was going on with the cruise liner and if any steps had been put in place to enable passengers to disembark. An officer asked me if I could return to the main area of the demonstration. I was in a jovial mood so replied with some banter. Smiling, he asked me, “Please, you seem to be an intelligent person, don’t make things more complicated than they already are.”

A short while later I spoke with two guys who looked like port employees but turned out to be plain-clothed officers. I remember saying that I was much more impressed by their behaviour than the way officers have been deployed in the UK and in particular Germany, where demonstrators routinely experience violent attack.

That the Syros police chose to maintain order rather than intervene violently was laudable. As the day unfolded representatives of the port authority along with the police spoke with demonstrators to understand our intentions. The demonstrators communicated that we wanted to express our opposition to genocide peacefully, that as part of that protest we didn’t want the passengers on board the Crown Iris to disembark, but if they did we would not respond violently. The port authorities and the police tried to persuade the protestors to take down the flags and banners that blocked the road (but not the pavements) that connected the port to the city centre. This was the conversation and the stand-off.

The authorities along with the captain could have resolved that the 1,600 passengers on board the Crown Iris could have gone ahead and dismounted. They vastly outnumbered the 300 protestors, almost all of them would have gone through military training if they were’t still active, and they would have received all the police protection they needed. At worst they would have been subjected to some anti-genocide chants—chants they could have easily drown out with their own songs.

In the end the basic democratic rights of Greek citizens were respected. The passengers resolved to not embark. Order was maintained, no arrests were made. The police did their job.

Regrettably, predictably, the Greek interior minister responded to the Syros protest by saying that in the future protestors who express their opposition to Israel’s genocide in the presence of a group of Jewish-Israeli tourists will be treated as terrorists. It amounts to a riff of Keir Starmer’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, with the mere expression of support for Palestine Action punishable by 14 years in jail. Zionism trumps democracy, including the right to protest peacefully, every time.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the inspirational protest that took lace at Syros last Tuesday. Free, free Palestine!