By Tyler Rosen.
Hanukkah 2024: The Maccabean Struggle Against ‘King’ Netanyahu
Set a year and almost three months after the brutal October 7 attacks on Israeli citizens and the subsequent indiscriminate genocidal incursion against Palestinians by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud government, Hanukkah 2024 is surrounded by darkness. Keeping in theme with Hanukkah being the “Festival of Lights,” the United Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order (UJPFO) through its school, the Jewish Peoples Schule, sought to bring light to the darkness.
The UJPFO chose the title “Hanukkah 2024: the Maccabean Struggle Against ‘King’ Netanyahu” to draw parallels between the oppressive policies of Netanyahu and his Likud government with the national oppression against the Judeans by the Greek Seleucid King Antiochus IV.
The class opens with the emotional Oh Hanukkah song that was famously played in the movie Anne Frank’s Diary in order to set a tone of light in times of darkness. Participants then lit the Hannukiah (Hanukkah Menorah) with a liberation prayer as follows:
These lights which we kindle recall the wondrous triumphs and the miraculous victories wrought through for our ancestors from ancient days until our time. These lights are sacred through all the eight days of Hanukkah. We may not make use of their light, but are only to look upon them, and thus be reminded to find solidarity with all oppressed people against tyranny.
The prayer was followed by a recording of Professor Barry Lituchy (who was unfortunately unable to attend live) giving a synopsis of the history of Mattathias Maccabee and his followers, dubbed the Maccabees, rising up against the Seleucid King Antiochus IV. Dr. Lituchy then went on to explain the significance of Hanukkah as a celebration of national liberation and how it relates to the world’s national liberation movements today.
The class then went on to discuss the reactionary politics of Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and the Likud Party of Israel. Participants watched excerpts of documentaries and live footage of Bibi displaying his incitement of the assassination of Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin, corruption, warmongering, and anti-democratic policies. We saw how Netanyahu further shifted the Likud Party further to the extreme right in the 2008 elections by merging with conservative, ultra-religious, and even ultra-nationalist, fascist and anti-Arab Kahanist parties such as the Otzma Yehuda Party, which is led by Netanyahu’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The class made it clear that Netanyahu needed Hamas as a tool for getting into power and then staying in power despite his unpopularity. Netanyahu’s rise to power came from his incitements against Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo Accords, which would have started the peace process and path to statehood for Palestine. Hamas, which also opposed the Oslo Accords, fed into Netanyahu’s rhetoric by committing terrorism against Israeli citizens. Netanyahu then eagerly used these attacks to continue to rile up nationalist sentiments against the Oslo Accords and Prime Minister Rabin. Within a year, Netanyahu would become the prime minister. Netanyahu then used Hamas to divide the Palestinian people by allowing Qatar to fund Hamas’ rise to power in Gaza, while the internationally recognized Palestinian Liberation Organization led in the West Bank. Fast-forward to 2023 when, during the biggest protests Israel has ever seen against Netanyahu’s corruption and anti-democratic push, Netanyahu opportunistically used the October 7th attacks to push his genocidal incursion into Gaza. Protesters in Israel today are brutalized by Netanyahu’s forces for protesting the incursion and pushing a hostage exchange to get back the kidnapped Israelis.
Jewish Peoples Schule then read on the history of the Likud Party, which draws its lineage from the fascist-minded Revisionist Zionist movement created by Vladimir ‘Ze’ev’ Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky and his fascist paramilitary group, the Irgun, served as a reactionary tool to crush the Israeli left wing (such as the socialists, communists, and peace activists) and labor organizations like the Histadrut. The Irgun was also used to commit atrocities against Arab Palestinians, as was seen in the Deir Yassin Massacre. The torch of reaction was then passed to Menachem Begin who was a leader of the Irgun and its youth division, Betar, and the founder of the Revisionist Zionist Herut party. Menachem Begin, in order to prepare his victory in the 1977 Israeli elections, merged his party with other right wing forces to create the Likud Party that Netanyahu now leads.
As a progressive educational institution, the Jewish Peoples Schule realized it would be a mistake to leave the class as simply displaying the reaction and darkness of today without a glimmer of hope. To correct this, the Schule concluded the class with a brief presentation of the forces for progressive change – the modern day Maccabees – in both Israel and Palestine, to whom we owe both our spiritual and material support against reactionary forces in the Middle East. Participants took a moment to honor the work of the Israeli Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) and its heroic leaders, including the Members of Knesset Ayman Odeh, Aida Touma-Sliman, and Ofer Cassif, as well as the leaders of the Palestinian Peoples Party: General Secretary Bassam As-Salhi and International Secretary Dr. Aqel Taqaz. The United Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order supports the effort of these heroes in their fight for the realization of an overdue democratic, independent state of Palestine, with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the internationally recognized sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Stay tuned as the edited recording of our class will be uploaded to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@UJPFO, as well as our website https://ujpfo.org/ and our social media.
