The Ungovernable Farce
20th October 2009, 21:53
This is to discuss an issue I've been thinking about for a while now - whether people of Jewish origin have some kind of a "special responsibility" to oppose Zionism. Yehuda puts it like this:
As for what can be done about anti-Semitism, since Jews are either a relatively privileged minority or direct oppressors in most of the world, the ball is in their court. The more Jews break from Zionism and join the ranks of the proletarian revolution, especially in Palestine, the more will we be able to combat the pogromist reactionary tendencies in the Palestinian resistance.
and a similar argument can be seen here, coming from the radical Jewish satire group Jewdas (http://www.jewdas.org/2009/08/jewish-comedy-in-retreat/) (who I have a lot of respect for). The logic behind it seems pretty solid - since Zionism is very hard to defend on its own terms, its advocates usually have to defend it by smearing its critics as anti-Semites, which is obviously a lot harder to do when that criticism is coming from Jews (leading to the invention of the bizarre and offensive concept of the "self-hating Jew" as a way of suggesting that Jews who show solidarity with Palestinians must be doing so because of some psychological complex). Therefore, as Jews we have a special responsibility to speak out against what the Israeli state is doing "in our name", because our opposition is somehow more credible.
But this position is flawed. If it's more important or legitimate for Jews to criticise Israel, does that mean that for gentiles to do so is somehow less legitimate? Surely not, but that's where the logic of the argument leads us. By saying "I hate what Israel's doing, and by the way I'm a Jew so I can't be saying this cos of racism", we do nothing to challenge the idea that our gentile comrades may well be acting out of racist motives (crucially, if say "I hate what Israel's doing, and by the way I'm a communist/anarchist/just generally not a dickhead so I can't be saying this cos of racism", then we do challenge this argument). By accepting this position, we're still ultimately buying into the nationalist logic of allowing states to define who we are and what our priorities must be. As an anarchist of Jewish origin, I totally reject the idea that the Israeli state has any claim on my identity, even a negative one. Yes, I oppose Zionism - but no more and no less than I oppose the nationalist myths used to prop up the ruling class of the UK, US, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea or France. And, equally importantly, I oppose it no more and no less than my gentile comrades do, with no more and no less legitimacy, and for exactly the same reasons. If we do, at times, make it a particular priority (such as during the Gaza massacre at the start of this year), then it's because particular historical circumstances demand it, not because Israel is any worse than any other state, or because we have any special right or responsibility to do so.
So, yeah, I'm rambling. But basically, up class politics, screw ethnic/national/cultural ones, even inverted ones.
As for what can be done about anti-Semitism, since Jews are either a relatively privileged minority or direct oppressors in most of the world, the ball is in their court. The more Jews break from Zionism and join the ranks of the proletarian revolution, especially in Palestine, the more will we be able to combat the pogromist reactionary tendencies in the Palestinian resistance.
and a similar argument can be seen here, coming from the radical Jewish satire group Jewdas (http://www.jewdas.org/2009/08/jewish-comedy-in-retreat/) (who I have a lot of respect for). The logic behind it seems pretty solid - since Zionism is very hard to defend on its own terms, its advocates usually have to defend it by smearing its critics as anti-Semites, which is obviously a lot harder to do when that criticism is coming from Jews (leading to the invention of the bizarre and offensive concept of the "self-hating Jew" as a way of suggesting that Jews who show solidarity with Palestinians must be doing so because of some psychological complex). Therefore, as Jews we have a special responsibility to speak out against what the Israeli state is doing "in our name", because our opposition is somehow more credible.
But this position is flawed. If it's more important or legitimate for Jews to criticise Israel, does that mean that for gentiles to do so is somehow less legitimate? Surely not, but that's where the logic of the argument leads us. By saying "I hate what Israel's doing, and by the way I'm a Jew so I can't be saying this cos of racism", we do nothing to challenge the idea that our gentile comrades may well be acting out of racist motives (crucially, if say "I hate what Israel's doing, and by the way I'm a communist/anarchist/just generally not a dickhead so I can't be saying this cos of racism", then we do challenge this argument). By accepting this position, we're still ultimately buying into the nationalist logic of allowing states to define who we are and what our priorities must be. As an anarchist of Jewish origin, I totally reject the idea that the Israeli state has any claim on my identity, even a negative one. Yes, I oppose Zionism - but no more and no less than I oppose the nationalist myths used to prop up the ruling class of the UK, US, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea or France. And, equally importantly, I oppose it no more and no less than my gentile comrades do, with no more and no less legitimacy, and for exactly the same reasons. If we do, at times, make it a particular priority (such as during the Gaza massacre at the start of this year), then it's because particular historical circumstances demand it, not because Israel is any worse than any other state, or because we have any special right or responsibility to do so.
So, yeah, I'm rambling. But basically, up class politics, screw ethnic/national/cultural ones, even inverted ones.