Leftwing Anti.Semitism? [Archive]

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ComradeMan

14th December 2009, 20:14

i did not write this article but found at the link given, written by Marxists. Although I disagree on the workable practicality of a two-state solution I do agree with a lot of the points. In view of recent debate it would be interesting to hear critique.

ARTICLE FROM
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/5041 (http://www.workersliberty.org/node/5041)

What is left anti-semitism?

We have opened a discussion in Solidarity about the important issue of “left-wing anti-semitism” or judeophobia. It is worthwhile here to make it clear what we are, and are not, talking about.

What is “left-wing anti-semitism”? Where is it manifested? What is to be done about it?

There are three difficulties, three confusions and obfuscations, that stand in the way of rational discussion of what we mean by “left-wing anti-semitism”.

The first is that left-wing anti-semitism knows itself by another and more self-righteous name, “anti-Zionism”. Often, your left-wing anti-semite sincerely believes that he or she is only an anti-Zionist, only a just if severe critic of Israel.

The second is that talk of left-wing anti-semitism to a left-wing anti-semite normally evokes indignant, sincere, and just denial - of something else! “No, I'm not a racist! How dare you call me a racist?”

No, indeed, apart from a nut here and there, left-wing anti-semites are not racist. But there was anti-semitism before there was 20th-century anti-Jewish racism. And there is still anti-semitism of different sorts, long after disgust with Hitler-style racism, and overt racism of any sort, became part of the mental and emotional furniture of all half-way decent people, and perhaps especially of left-wing people.

Left-wingers are people who by instinct and conviction side with the oppressed, the outcasts, those deprived of human rights, the working class, the labour movement; who naturally side against the police, the military, and the powerful capitalist states, including their “own”; who are socially tolerant; who, in contrast to the “hang ‘em, flog ‘em, build more jails” types, look to changing social conditions rather than to punishment to deal with crime — people who want to be Marxists and socialists, or try to be consistent democrats. Confused such people may be, racists they are not. We are not saying that left-wing anti-semites are racists.
The third source of confusion and obfuscation is the objection: “You say I’m an anti-semite because I denounce Israel. I’m not anti-Jewish when I denounce Israel, but anti-Zionist”. And sometimes, at this point, you get the addition: “By the way, I am myself Jewish”.

The objector continues: Israel deserves criticism. Even the harshest criticism of Sharon’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, and of Israel’s long-term treatment of the Palestinians, is pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, not anti-semitic. To equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism is just crude and hysterical Zionist apologetics.

No, by “left-wing anti-semitism” we emphatically do not mean political, military, or social criticism of Israel and of the policy of Israeli governments. Certainly, not all left-wing critics of Israel or Zionism are anti-semites, even though these days all anti-semites, including the right-wing, old-fashioned, and racist anti-semites, are paid-up “anti-Zionists”.
Israel frequently deserves criticism. Israel’s policy in the Occupied Territories and its general treatment of the Palestinians deserve outright condemnation. The oppressed Palestinians need to be politically defended against Israeli governments and the Israeli military. The only halfway equitable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, a viable, independent Palestinian state in contiguous territory, side by side with Israel, needs to be argued for and upheld against Israeli power.

Solidarity condemns Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. We defend the Palestinians and champion an independent Palestinian state side by side with Israel.

The difference here between left-wing anti-semites and honest critics of Israel — a category which includes a very large number of Israeli Jews as well as Israeli Arabs — is a straightforward one of politics, of policy.

The left-wing anti-semites do not only criticise Israel. They condemn it outright and deny its right to exist. They use legitimate criticisms, and utilise our natural sympathy with the Palestinians, not to seek redress, not as arguments against an Israeli government, an Israeli policy, or anything specifically wrong in Israel, but as arguments against the right of Israel to exist at all. Any Israel. Any Jewish state in the area. Any Israel, with any policy, even one in which all the specific causes for justly criticising present-day Israel and for supporting the Palestinians against it have been entirely eliminated.

The root problem, say the left-wing anti-semites, is that Israel exists. The root “crime of Zionism” is that it advocated and brought into existence “the Zionist state of Israel”.

Bitterly, and often justly, criticising specific Israeli policies, actions, and governments, seemingly championing the Palestinians, your left-wing anti-semites seek no specific redress in Israel or from Israel, demanding only that Israel should cease to exist or be put out of existence.

They often oppose measures to alleviate the condition of the Palestinians short of the destruction of Israel. Thus the petitions and chants on demonstrations: “Two states solution, no solution!”

A neat illustration of this was provided three years ago when, at a meeting of the council of the SWP-dominated Socialist Alliance, a supporter of this newspaper proposed the slogan “Israel out of the Occupied Territories”. It was voted down, and much vaguer ones, “Free Palestine”, “Victory to the intifada”, voted in.

Why? “Free Palestine” can be understood in different ways, depending on your definition of “Palestine”. Therefore it can accommodate those who, without having studied the complexities or the history of the Jewish-Arab conflict, instinctively side with the oppressed and outmatched
Palestinians, and for whom “Free Palestine” means simply that Israel should get out of the Occupied Territories. And it can also accommodate those, like the proponents of the slogan, the political Islamists of the Muslim Association of Britain/ Muslim Brotherhood and others, who define “Palestine” as pre-Israel, pre-1948 Palestine, and by “Free Palestine” mean the destruction and abolition of Israel, and the elimination in one way or another of the Jewish population of Israel, or most of them.

The political differences spelled out here are easily understood. But why is the drive and the commitment to destroy Israel anti-semitism, and not just anti-Zionism?

Because the attitude to the Jewish nation in Israel is unique, different from the left’s attitude to all other nations; and because of the ramifications for attitudes to Jews outside Israel. Apart from a few religious Jews who think the establishment of Israel was a revolt against God, and some Jews who share the views of the leftists whom we are discussing here, those Jews outside Israel instinctively identify with and support Israel, however critically. For the left-wing anti-semite they are therefore “Zionists”, and proper and natural targets of the drive to “smash Zionism”.

The attitude of the “anti-Zionist” left to Israel brings with it a comprehensive hostility to most Jews everywhere - those who identify with Israel and who defend its right to exist. They are not just people with mistaken ideas. They are “Zionists”.

In colleges, for example, where the anti-Zionist left exists side by side with Jewish students, this attitude often means a special antagonism to the “Zionist” Jews. They are identified with Israel. They, especially, are pressured either to denounce Israel, to agree that it is “racist” and “imperialist” and that its existence is a crime against the Arabs — or else be held directly and personally responsible for everything Israel does, has done, or is said to have done.

In such places, where the left “interfaces” with Jews, the logic of the unique attitude to Israel takes on a nasty persecuting quality. In the past, in the mid 1980s for example, that has taken the form of attempting to ban Jewish student societies. Non-Jews who defend Israel’s right to exist are not classified in the same category.

But is the attitude of the “absolute anti-Zionists” to Israel really unique? There are seeming similarities with left attitudes to one or two other states — Protestant Northern Ireland, apartheid South Africa, or pre-1980 white-ruled Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) — but the attitude to Israel is unique, because the reality of Israel cannot properly be identified with Northern Ireland, apartheid South Africa, or white Rhodesia.

In apartheid South Africa and white Rhodesia a minority lorded it over the big majority of the population, exploiting them. Israel is a predominantly Jewish state consisting of all classes. The Jewish nation does not subsist, and never has subsisted, on the exploitation of Arab labour, or depended in any essential way on such exploitation.

The general left hostility to the Northern Ireland Protestants — who are not exploiters of Catholic labour, and who are the compact majority, if not of the Six Counties, then of the north-east half of the Six Counties — is the closest to the attitude to Israel.

But it is not widely believed on the left that the Northern Ireland Protestant-Unionists simply have no right to be there. The right of the Jews to “be there” is denied in those sections of the left that we are discussing. The organisation of Jewish migration to Palestine — that was the root “crime” of Zionism, of which the “crime” of establishing Israel was only a further development. The “solution” is not only to undo and abolish Israel, but to reverse Jewish “migration” — which now includes people born there, to parents born there — and to roll the film of Middle-Eastern history backwards.

The prerequisite for left-wing anti-semitism is the catastrophic decline in the culture of the left over the last decades, a decline which allows people who want to be socialists to chant “Sharon is Hitler, Israel is Nazi” and similar nonsense without checking on the words. The specific framework within which what we have been describing exists, and without which it probably couldn’t exist in these “left-wing” forms, is the poisonous and systematic misrepresentation and falsification of the history of the Jewish-Arab conflict and of the Jewish people in the 20th century. We can only touch on that here.

In real history, Jews fled to Palestine, where a small Zionist colony and a small pre-Zionist Jewish community already existed, from persecution in Europe in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. In the 1930s and 40s they fled for their lives from Nazism, which killed two out of every three Jews alive in Europe in 1939, in a world in which no non-persecuting state would let them, or enough of them, in.

They fled to the existing Jewish national minority in Palestine (a long-established minority which, though small, was for example the majority in Jerusalem in 1900).

While Hitler was organising mass slaughter, Britain shut out Jews from Palestine, interning those who tried to enter. Overloaded, unseaworthy boats carrying illegal cargoes of Jews sank in the Mediterranean trying to get to Palestine (for example, the Struma, in which over 700 people died).
Israel was set up by those Jews on licence from the UN, which stipulated two states in Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab. When the state of Israel was declared in May 1948, the surrounded Arab states invaded. States like Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt were then British-dominated, and some of the armies were staffed by British officers.

The Israelis defended themselves and won. In the war three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs were driven out or fled; in the same period and afterwards, about 600,000 Jews were expelled from or fled Arab countries. In the Arab invasion of 1948, the Arab-Palestinian state was eliminated. Most of its territory went to Jordan, and fell under Israeli control in the war of 1967. That was a tremendous tragedy that will only be redressed when an independent Palestinian state takes its place alongside Israel.

This complex and tragic history is presented by the “absolute anti-Zionist” left as a conspiracy of Zionism, conceived of as a demonic force outside history. It is not rare to find “left anti-Zionists” arguing that this Jewish-Zionist conspiracy was so all-powerful that it was able even to manipulate Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust in which six million Jews died (see the play by the veteran Trotskyist Jim Allen, Perdition, of which Ken Loach planned a performance at a London theatre in 1987).

The core idea, the root of modern left-wing anti-semitism, is that Israel, in one way or another, is an illegitimate state; and that therefore, in one way or another, it should be done away with. If its citizens will not be the first in history to voluntarily dismantle their nation-state and make themselves a minority in a state run by those whom they have had to fight for national existence; if they will not agree to voluntarily dismantle Israel and create a “secular democratic Arab state”, in which Israeli Jews can have religious but not national rights - then they must be overwhelmed and compelled to submit or flee by the Arab states, now or when they are strong enough.

Usually beginning with the benign-seeming proposal to sink Israel into a broader Arab-majority entity in which “everyone could live in peace”, the chain of logic rooted in the idea that Israel should not have come into existence, that it is an illegitimate state, leads directly — since Israel will not agree to abolish itself — to support for compulsion, conquest, and all that goes with it. Israel must be conquered.

Even the work of a writer like Hal Draper can feed into this poisoned stream. While Draper made valid and just criticisms of Israel, he accepted that it had a right to exist and a right to defend itself. He denounced those who wanted to destroy it. But he made his criticisms in the tone and manner of a prophet denouncing sin and iniquity. He too thought that Israel was an illegitimate state, that it should never have come into existence and should go out of existence as soon as possible.

By agreement, and only by agreement, he believed; but the subtleties got lost. There is nothing to stop someone swayed by Draper’s denunciations of Israel, and accepting his idea that Israel is an illegitimate state, then impatiently insisting: if not by agreement, then by conquest.

And so an increasingly-disoriented SWP-UK could look to a Saddam Hussein to “free Palestine”, that is, conquer Israel. The point here is that states and nations are the products of history. There is no such thing as an illegitimate nation or a “bad people” which does not deserve the rights conceded to other peoples.

The German socialist leader August Bebel, confronted by raucous denunciation of "the Jews" ludicrously depicting them as the epitome and embodiment of capitalism said of anti-semitism that it was “the socialism of the fools”.

The anti-semitic left today, which depicts Israel as the hyper-imperialist power — either controlling US policy, or acting as its chief instrument, the story varies — is in the grip of an “anti-imperialism of the fools”. And that in practice leads to a comprehensive hostility to Jews not far from what Bebel called the socialism of fools.

One of the great tragedies of today is that many young people, whose initial instincts to oppose Bush and Blair in Iraq and to support the Palestinians are healthy, are being poisoned with “left-wing” anti-semitism through the “anti-war movement”.

“Left-wing anti-semitism” is, in short, a comprehensive hostility to most Jews alive, branding them as “Zionists” and seeing that description as akin to “racist" or “imperialist”. It excepts only those Jews who agree that Israel is racist imperialism in its most concentrated essence, and oppose its continued existence.

The general antidote to this anti-imperialism of fools is the propagation of rational democratic and socialist politics. Such politics focus on a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. They measure and criticise Israel — and the Arab states — according to their stand in relation to that just solution — the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

There is an immediate “antidote” to left-wing anti-semitism too, and it is a very important task for Marxist socialists like those who publish Solidarity: relentless exposure and criticism of their politics and antics — without fear of isolation, ridicule, or the venomous hostility of the vocal and self-righteous left-wing anti-semites.

black_tambourine

14th December 2009, 22:35

That article doesn't even make any kind of coherent case for the existence of left-wing anti-Semitism, it just equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism over and over again in the hope that the reader will start to agree via crude Pavlovian conditioning.

By the way, here are some fun facts about the "Alliance for Workers' Liberty":

- Their leader Sean Matgamna is an admitted Zionist who recently advocated a pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iran.
- A majority of AWL members more or less support continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- The AWL's site is full of vicious screeds against Muslims and the religion of Islam generally, wherein they take the same tack as American neoconservatives, namely that Islam is fundamentally "anti-Enlightenment" and barbaric. Of course, considering your own anti-Muslim bigotry, you probably think this is just hunky-dory.

bcbm

14th December 2009, 22:42

i think this (http://www.pinteleyid.com/past/) is a much better text on antisemitism and the left.

Yehuda Stern

15th December 2009, 00:12

Here's a critique - you're a disgusting racist just like your Zionist AWL buddies.

Also, I too have a very good article on anti-Semitism and the left that I bet you'd approve of. It's about self-hating Jewish leftists (http://jtf.org/israel/israel.self.hating.jews.want.to.destroy.israel.htm ) who want to destroy Israel.

h0m0revolutionary

15th December 2009, 00:21

i'm so very glad to see, that despite all the shit politics that smear this forum, the AWL is still provokes such amazing reaction. :D

Fuck the AWL..

15th December 2009, 05:18

ComradeMan, you have my sincerest pledge that I will do everything in my power to see that you are banned from this site.

cska

15th December 2009, 05:29

Now now. I don't agree with what ComradeMan is saying, but until this post, he wasn't really arguing anything that was too unreasonable (I do understand that it would be difficult to create a state where non-Jewish Palestinians and Jews live side by side in peace, and a two State solution isn't that far-fetched). I think, considering that pretty much all of us were arguing against him he got a bit desperate. There isn't any need to ban him, but he needs to understand that muslims are for the most part he oppressed, not the oppressors, wether in Palestine or Switzerland.

Edit: misspelled "there".

Robocommie

15th December 2009, 06:40

ComradeMan, you have my sincerest pledge that I will do everything in my power to see that you are banned from this site.

Haha, it's on now.

I think it's funny that people could assume a Leftist might actually be down with the idea of a two-state solution, since even religious leftists tend to favor secular government, and how the fuck are we supposed to like the idea of two states neighboring one another, dedicated to one single religious group, both with claims on the other's land? Might as well just outright state that you don't think the situation in Kashmir province is hair-raising enough. But no, if we don't support the right of Israel to exist, we hate Jews.

One state for three religions. The apartheid must end now.

15th December 2009, 08:04

^Yes, I think it is one thing to be confused about the situation in Palestine, and that is forgivable because the amount of digging and learning necessary to get straight information on it is often tremendous. It is something else entirely to slander Marxists - or anyone else for that matter - as anti-Semites because they don't support imperialism and ethnic cleansing.
And not only that, by employing this term against people who do not have an anti-Semitic bone in their body, and against anti-Zionist Jews themselves (as ComradeMan has repeatedly done on this board), these revolting human tools hugely detract from and undermine the seriousness of the claim; they muddle up and water down what constitutes genuine anti-Semitism to the point that the word is rendered meaningless, and therefore impotent. Which is really a dangerous thing because - as I have unfortunately been reminded on many occasions - genuine anti-Semitism is still a living force in the West, even if not presently on the institutionalized level that it was in much of the 20th century. Not that ComradeMan, the morons in the AWL, the anti-Germans, etc. actually give half a shit about genuine anti-Semitism to begin with... they don't; they're merely concerned with issuing various justifications and apologetics for ethnic cleansing and slandering everyone into supporting imperialism.

Woyzeck

15th December 2009, 11:25

LuÃs Henrique

15th December 2009, 11:56

The left-wing anti-semites do not only criticise Israel. They condemn it outright and deny its right to exist.

And with good reason - it is a racist/theocratic State. And we oppose, and should do so, any State based on racist or theocratic ideas. We do oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran, because it is Islamic. We would oppose the existence of any "Christian State" or "Buddhist State", and we do oppose the existence of a "Jewish State". This is the reason we also oppose a "two State solution". We favour one State, where Jews and goys can be citizens with equal rights.

Luís Henrique

ComradeMan

15th December 2009, 12:19

How much mindless gibberish are people going to write? I wrote at the top, I do not agree with all the points in the article, but seeing as it dealt with a lot of the issues that have been raised currently and seeing that it came from a leftwing forum- albeit one that is not popular, it was worthy of critique. But as usual there are some who do not even wish to address the article but stoop to attacks ad hominem and insults because they are incapable of cold, rational thought or even evaluating an opinion which may differ from their own.

I have said so at the beginning and I have said so at the end, all the way through that the only solution to the problem that I think corresponds to left thinking and respects the human rights of all people and furthermore is based on geographical and demographical factors is the secular one-state solution.

A bi-national one state solution in which equal rights are guaranteed for all with high degree of self-determination/autonomy for all the peoples involved and which guarantees respect for each group. In that way Jewish people could stay in their "holy land" without fear of persecution and the Palestinians would be full and equal citizens in the land of their birth. Now, what is Zionist about that? Certainly my idea would not even be given hearing time by Zionists! Please answer me that?

My initial point was the dilemma, how can we say we respect peoples' rights to self-determination and yet deny the Jewish people that same right? For this I was then told that the very concept of Jewish people is Zionist propaganda to which I responded to deny the existance of a Jewish people is anti-Semitic and there the whole argument went off in a spiral.

I think CSK and Luis Henrique have come close to what I believe is the right way ahead- and I have all along said that the tragedy is the one workable solution seems to be the one that neither side, both ricalcitrant and incapable of compromise, appear to want.

Dimentio

15th December 2009, 12:46

No one is denying the Jews the right to self-determination. What people are denying is the right of Jews (or any other for that matter) to seek to deprive others of their self-determination.

Then the question is arising: What is self-determination?

If two or more ethnic groups are living inter-twined in a very small area, is it justifiable to draw senseless borders or promote ethnic cleansing just to create states with armies? Isn't self-determination about the right to not be oppressed, not to have a state with an army?

ComradeMan

15th December 2009, 13:16

No one is denying the Jews the right to self-determination. What people are denying is the right of Jews (or any other for that matter) to seek to deprive others of their self-determination.

I doubt that not, but others have and have stated it point blank when I asked the question to them they built up a convenient Zionist strawman to bash. Even the fact that despite historical, genetic, religious and linguistic history I dared mention "Jewish People" I was branded a Zionists. I am sure plenty of non-Zionists Jews would not have a problem at the idea of the Jewish people. Of course I no more support an exlusively Jewish state than I believe in an exclusively "whatever religion you want to put here" state, there is a difference between a secular state in which Jewish people are "safe from the pogroms" and have a right to run their own affairs alongside others to an exlusively Jewish state.

Then the question is arising: What is self-determination?

EUREKA! Exactly the point and not an easy one to answer. In my vision of a secular one-state there would be secular laws and courts but people would have the autonomy to decide for example to go the Beth Din as long as it did not interefere with state law. Hebrew would be taught in schools as the first language where it was a majority language and a second language where it wasn't- vice-versa for Arabic... I'm sure you follow me. There would be state run secular schools or privately funded religious ones... and so on. I don't see what is so reactionary about this.

If two or more ethnic groups are living inter-twined in a very small area, is it justifiable to draw senseless borders or promote ethnic cleansing just to create states with armies? Isn't self-determination about the right to not be oppressed, not to have a state with an army?

Exactly and that is the problem too with the two-state solution and/or the groups who would like to drive the Jewish people out of the land once and for all inasmuch as ultra-Zionists are completely ricalcitrant and wish no compromise either. :(

Dimentio

15th December 2009, 13:25

All states and borders are essentially creating more problems than they are solving.

I am glad that you are supporting a secular one-state solution.

manic expression

15th December 2009, 13:44

ComradeMan: did Jews in North Africa speak Yiddish? If not, then why are you going on about "linguistic history"? It would be like saying all Catholics are one nation because the use of Latin unites them, it's patently absurd and has no basis.

Almost no one wants to "run the Jews out of the land". Your argument is the same boogey-man that Afrikaners indulged in when painting a picture of an ANC-run South Africa. "They will run us into the sea!", the same refrain of South African apartheid is being used by the defenders of Zionist apartheid, and it's no surprise that these two regimes were rare allies to one another while the former still existed. The fact is that Palestinians want right of return and political enfranchisement in the territories stolen from them; Israel has refused to even vaguely consider this time and again because the Zionists know that it would undermine their goal of a "pure" state. It's the same exact fear that every fascist movement mines its fuel from. Basically, your argument is based on nothing but willful paranoia for the purpose of oppressing Palestinians.

Revy

15th December 2009, 15:25

If I recall correctly, the first Prime Minister of Israel, while being part of "Labor Zionism" (member of Mapai, and was also secretary general of the Histadrut Zionist labor union), David Ben-Gurion wanted to annex southern Lebanon into Israel and turn the northern part of Lebanon into a Maronite Christian puppet state (the motivation being resource imperialism, so it is easy to see exactly why Israel has invaded Lebanon so many times) The left Zionists knew nothing but their own ultra-nationalist reactionary settler beliefs.

Ben-Gurion used parties like the Democratic List of Nazareth and the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs and cronies like Seif el-Din el-Zoubi to try and legitimize his Zionism before the Arab world. But that was mostly a smokescreen. Arabs weren't even allowed to become members of the Zionist parties.

Mapai election poster (targeted toward Arabs, main slogan apparently says "Toward good future with the Arab lists allied to Mapai":
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Mapai-arabic.png
this really is a disturbing poster, because it looks like a wall....I don't know Arabic so I don't know the whole context though.

(what I said about Mapai also applies to Mapam, pro-Soviet (during Stalin's era) "Marxist-Zionists" who set up separate Arab lists because they did not allow Arab members.)

Dimentio

15th December 2009, 16:47

ComradeMan: did Jews in North Africa speak Yiddish? If not, then why are you going on about "linguistic history"? It would be like saying all Catholics are one nation because the use of Latin unites them, it's patently absurd and has no basis.

A nation is not a nation because of language, religion or even history. A nation is a cultural concept which is changing over time and basically those who believe they are nation are a nation.

If the Japanese, the Turks and the Finns tomorrow started to believe them all to be the same nation, they would constitute a nation.

Swiss is a nationality, even though Switzerland is divided in several ethnic groups.

Palestinian Arabs, apart from people living in Palestine during generations, do consist of large groups of people who migrated to Palestine from Egypt in consecutive waves during the early 20th century. They are a nation because they think they are nation, just as Jews are a nation because they view themselves as one.

National self-determination doesn't mean that you need to have a state, an army or any political structure at all under the control of who you deem as your ethnicity. National self-determination is about not being repressed, discriminated or murdered for what ethnic group you happened to be born in.

Nations, unlike classes, are made-up concepts.

manic expression

15th December 2009, 17:04

A nation is not a nation because of language, religion or even history. A nation is a cultural concept which is changing over time and basically those who believe they are nation are a nation.

If the Japanese, the Turks and the Finns tomorrow started to believe them all to be the same nation, they would constitute a nation.

Not true at all. Nations can be given a consistent and concrete definition: for starters, a people that share a common history, a common language and a common historical geographic region. You answered your own quandary: the Finns will not consider themselves Japanese because there is no reason for them to do so; they DO consider themselves Finns because they have a concrete basis for this. The impossibility of your hypothetical, combined with the conditions you put forward (Finns call themselves Finns, etc.) essentially proves my position.

Swiss is a nationality, even though Switzerland is divided in several ethnic groups.

Almost there: Switzerland is made up of several nationalities, as was the Soviet Union, as is the United States. Switzerland does not only see different ethnic groups, it also sees different languages which historically and presently correspond to those ethnic groups; the traditions of these groups are also different. Thus, calling them distinct nationalities is not made up at all, and is based entirely on fact.

Palestinian Arabs, apart from people living in Palestine during generations, do consist of large groups of people who migrated to Palestine from Egypt in consecutive waves during the early 20th century. They are a nation because they think they are nation, just as Jews are a nation because they view themselves as one.

Provide some evidence of that 20th century migration claim. From everything I've seen, Palestinians as we know them today have been living in the region for centuries, and have constituted a political and geographic entity recognized by everyone from Richard the Lionhearted to Joseph Stalin.

Jews, on the other hand, have no commonly shared language or geographic region since around the year 70 CE (and even then it's a tenuous claim). In exploring what constitutes a nation and what does not, we are discovering the truth of the matter: nations exist.

National self-determination doesn't mean that you need to have a state, an army or any political structure at all under the control of who you deem as your ethnicity. National self-determination is about not being repressed, discriminated or murdered for what ethnic group you happened to be born in.

And why is that? Care to offer something of an argument behind these statements?

Nations, unlike classes, are made-up concepts.

And yet you do not and will not justify this satisfactorily, making it baseless ultra-leftism.

15th December 2009, 17:06

No one is denying the Jews the right to self-determination. What people are denying is the right of Jews (or any other for that matter) to seek to deprive others of their self-determination.

I doubt that not, but others have and have stated it point blank when I asked the question to them they built up a convenient Zionist strawman to bash. Even the fact that despite historical, genetic, religious and linguistic history I dared mention "Jewish People"

You will, of course, have to do a better job than this if you want to backtrack by playing dumb. You know damn well that I have not been arguing that there are no Jewish people; on the contrary, I explained to you in an argument about Zionism the other day that I was a Jew, and radiating self-righteous indignation, you proceeded to explain to me that my being Jewish did not preclude my rabid anti-Semitism (I hate myself and I want to die).
So unless you have been stricken with delirium, you do not believe I then went on to argue that I do not actually exist. We all know the difference (and I specified it parenthetically more than once) between "a people" and "people"; "The Jewish People" is a euphemism for "the Jewish Race", and there is no Jewish Race. I took the time to quote extensively from different sources and to provide links to you with regard to this, about how "The Jews" as a single unified people was an anti-Semitic/Zionist myth. You responded to this with a pathetic attempt to discredit the Israeli historian who I'd quoted by suggesting... what was it... that someone asked him a question once (of course, you didn't know what that question was) and he didn't answer it?

Then the question is arising: What is self-determination?

EUREKA! Exactly the point and not an easy one to answer.Oh, cool, so you've been throwing around accusations of anti-Semitism at people who are arguing against a "right" ("self-determination" for an oppressor state) which you now indicate cannot even be objectively defined. There is really no use in continuing this conversation.

Dimentio

15th December 2009, 18:13

Not true at all. Nations can be given a consistent and concrete definition: for starters, a people that share a common history, a common language and a common historical geographic region. You answered your own quandary: the Finns will not consider themselves Japanese because there is no reason for them to do so; they DO consider themselves Finns because they have a concrete basis for this. The impossibility of your hypothetical, combined with the conditions you put forward (Finns call themselves Finns, etc.) essentially proves my position.

Almost there: Switzerland is made up of several nationalities, as was the Soviet Union, as is the United States. Switzerland does not only see different ethnic groups, it also sees different languages which historically and presently correspond to those ethnic groups; the traditions of these groups are also different. Thus, calling them distinct nationalities is not made up at all, and is based entirely on fact.

Provide some evidence of that 20th century migration claim. From everything I've seen, Palestinians as we know them today have been living in the region for centuries, and have constituted a political and geographic entity recognized by everyone from Richard the Lionhearted to Joseph Stalin.

Jews, on the other hand, have no commonly shared language or geographic region since around the year 70 CE (and even then it's a tenuous claim). In exploring what constitutes a nation and what does not, we are discovering the truth of the matter: nations exist.

And why is that? Care to offer something of an argument behind these statements?

And yet you do not and will not justify this satisfactorily, making it baseless ultra-leftism.

Arabs do not primarily view themselves as Arabs, despite a common language and to some extent a common history. Rather, they view themselves as North African Arabs, Iraqi Arabs, Egyptian Arabs, Lebanese Arabs, Palestinian Arabs...

Most Americans consider themselves as Americans, not as Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, German-Americans or Irish-Americans.

Most Swiss consider themselves Swiss.

Nationality is not the same thing as ethnicity. It is more complicated than so.

As I defined self-determination, its the right to not be repressed because of your culture. If that is ultra-left, so be it.

progressive_lefty

15th December 2009, 18:53

Yes I don't really like this article either. Sure you're going to find anti-Semites on the left, just like you find loonies with-in any ideology. But I can't think of many leftists that would be prepared to put up with some anti-Semitic fool that changes the focus from the brutal occupation to a theory of Jewish global domination.
Hey I really really hate what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and the way it behaves, but I'm not into saying things like 'Free Free Palestine', because its very comparable to some of the arguments that the settlers make. Sure most of the population in Israel took the land from the original owners, but realistically speaking, theres no way that I would support moving that Jewish population. And there is no way that that will happen. They are there now, and the Palestinians must have a right to compensation or some sort of arrangement where they can at least visit their Arab-Israeli relatives.

The left never ever forgets that the most important people working courageously against the Occupation in the West, are mostly Jews.

manic expression

15th December 2009, 19:07

Arabs do not primarily view themselves as Arabs, despite a common language and to some extent a common history. Rather, they view themselves as North African Arabs, Iraqi Arabs, Egyptian Arabs, Lebanese Arabs, Palestinian Arabs...

Naturally. Maghreb Arabs are very different from Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, linguistically, culturally, historically and even religiously.

Most Americans consider themselves as Americans, not as Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, German-Americans or Irish-Americans.

Which is much the same as...

Most Swiss consider themselves Swiss.

Right. Doesn't change the fact that German-Swiss, Italian-Swiss and French-Swiss are not the same. I'm reminded of the immigrant who barely speaks a word of a country's language, wouldn't know the country's culture from another, and yet waves the flag higher and more furiously than most. Does that change the fact that s/he comes from and belongs to another nation? No.

Again, through our discovery of what nationality is and is not, we find that nationality is concrete and real.

Nationality is not the same thing as ethnicity. It is more complicated than so.

Naturally, but that's because it encompasses multiple factors.

However, in a way, ethnicity is more complicated because it's impossible to scientifically define, but that's another discussion.

As I defined self-determination, its the right to not be repressed because of your culture. If that is ultra-left, so be it.

And what gives rise to culture? It isn't "made-up", is it? Saying culture exists while denying the place of nationalities is like saying smoke exists but fire is imaginary.

Dimentio

15th December 2009, 20:01

Rather, culture is the fire but nationality is the smoke.

Nationalities and identities are generated by culture and by the social and economic development of entities of collectives.

ComradeMan

15th December 2009, 20:27

You will, of course, have to do a better job than this if you want to backtrack by playing dumb. You know damn well that I have not been arguing that there are no Jewish people;

I didn't say it was you did I? But if the cap fits as they say.... As for playing dumb- well you are the one who can seem to offer nothing productive, informative or non-emotive to the debate. All you seem to be doing at the moment is denying anything which does fit your own narrow point of view on the subject, hurling insults, making veiled threats and screaming "Zionist" all over the place. As for arguing that there are no Jewish people- see below I quote: "We all know the difference (and I specified it parenthetically more than once) between "a people" and "people"; "The Jewish People" is a euphemism for "the Jewish Race", and there is no Jewish Race. " So one moment you are not arguing that there is no Jewish people and then in the same post you go on to say that the concept is a euphemism for something which does not exist- now unless Rosa can offer her opinion on some area of dialectics I have missed:), it seems to me you have contradicted yourself here.

on the contrary, I explained to you in an argument about Zionism the other day that I was a Jew, and radiating self-righteous indignation, you proceeded to explain to me that my being Jewish did not preclude my rabid anti-Semitism (I hate myself and I want to die).

I explained to you that it was completely irrelevent to the argument.

So unless you have been stricken with delirium, you do not believe I then went on to argue that I do not actually exist. We all know the difference (and I specified it parenthetically more than once) between "a people" and "people"; "The Jewish People" is a euphemism for "the Jewish Race", and there is no Jewish Race.

I never said there was a Jewish Race, Jews don't even say there is a Jewish race. Interestingly, "euphemisms" are words used to avoid using bad words or things we deem unpleasant, here- although I doubt deliberately, you have said that Jewish People is a euphemism for Jewish Race and thus, albeit Freudianly, imply that Jewish race is a bad thing? Is that not anti-Semitic. :)

I took the time to quote extensively from different sources and to provide links to you with regard to this, about how "The Jews" as a single unified people was an anti-Semitic/Zionist myth.

I never said a single unified people- in which you imply a homogeneity which I did not- I said the Jewish People, יְהוּדִים‎,- Yehudim!!!! Just as one could talk about an American people in a sense despite the heterogeneity of citizens of the United States one could talk about the Jewish People- which most people do without taking this to be some perceived sign of blatant Zionism, which it is not. One could even extend this to all forms of "people-hood", Italian, French, Brazilian and so on.

You responded to this with a pathetic attempt to discredit the Israeli historian who I'd quoted by suggesting... what was it... that someone asked him a question once (of course, you didn't know what that question was) and he didn't answer it?

No, I responded with the actual example of how Schlomo Sand was condemned for bad research, false conclusions and the inability to answer a simple question on the genetics debate, which forms part of the argument albeit not all of the argument.

Oh, cool, so you've been throwing around accusations of anti-Semitism at people who are arguing against a "right" ("self-determination" for an oppressor state) which you now indicate cannot even be objectively defined. There is really no use in continuing this conversation.

More strawmen here. Not once have I ever said that the Israeli government is justified, not once have I ever defended the wrongs perpetrated by successive Israeli regimes. All I said is that inasmuch as all other peoples have a right to self-determination (which is not synonymous with oppressing other people or exlusive mono-ethnic states) so too do the Jewish people. Self-determination can be simply defined as looking after your own affairs and not being interfered with by others as long as you too do not interfere with them, no more, no less.
As for accusation well for simply trying to highlight the dilemmas and problems surrounding the idea of self-determination for the Jewish people- in light of an historical experience we all know and obviously affects things- and for proposing a secular and united country in which all peoples, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druze and anyone else for that matter might live in peace and reap the benefits of their beloved "promised land" together- I have been called ignorant, file, disgusting, imperialist, zionist and racist...

Yehuda Stern

16th December 2009, 00:04

Well, ComradeMan has been running away from answering Apikoros' and my arguments for a while now; he keeps repeating the same old garbage. So I'll just say two things about Sand:

1. ComradeMan never brought any proof to his claim that Sand was unable to answer the question he mentions, or that it was ever asked for that matter;

2. He ignored and continues to ignore what I said when he first raised this argument, that an Israeli professor of genetics, Raphael Falk, actually proved that there is no biological connection between Jews of different countries - thus taking away to basis for CM's and all the Zionists race theories. Therefore, if the question was asked, I am not surprised Sand was unable to answer - you can't give an opinion on phony "facts." But you can expose them - just like many of us have been doing to those raised by CM in this and two other threads.

blake 3:17

16th December 2009, 03:59

I have no real interest in following the twists and turns of the logic of Zionist colonialism, anymore than I'm interested in the subtle thought of promoters of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the varied and highly intelligent opposition of women's rights.

Defending the rights of the Palestinian people to live with freedom and dignity has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. What we do oppose is a miltarist racist theft of land from a people. To use European anti Jewish bigotry, oppression and genocide as a justification for the oppression and genocide of the Palestinian people is insanity.

Edited to add: Please join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli Apartheid, and in the coming weeks join the international forces bringing material and political aid to the people of Gaza. http://gazafreedommarch.com/article.php?list=type&type=416

http://www.bdsmovement.net/

ComradeMan

16th December 2009, 12:03

Well, ComradeMan has been running away from answering Apikoros' and my arguments for a while now; he keeps repeating the same old garbage. So I'll just say two things about Sand:

I haven't run away from a single argument, I've tried to answer all of them.

ComradeMan never brought any proof to his claim that Sand was unable to answer the question he mentions, or that it was ever asked for that matter;

A propos the first point, I can't bring proof, I was watching Hardtalk on BBC World I think, about two weeks ago- if that's any help.

As for Sand he has been accused of some very grave academic flaws such as drawing conclusions as for example, Josephus does not explicitly mention the diaspora as such so therefore it did not happen. Strange that the Italkian Jewish community in Rome is one of the oldest in "the diaspora" and Jewish memorials in Rome and Italy (the Roman Empire) go back to the time of the emperors, at least 3rd century C.E. and before.

He conveniently forgets the 97,000 Jewish exiles that Josephus mentions (being one himself) captured after the siege of Jerusalem. He conveniently forgets to note that Trajan's Column in Rome shows the Roman army marching out with the relics it plundered from the Temple or Roman coins of the Neronic age commemorating the conquest of the Temple etc.

He has also been accused of a basic prejudice in that for him "Jews" are Yiddish speakers whilst he makes other esoteric claims about the "real or Biblical Jews" being the Palestinian Arabs. Therefore he makes his own definition of who is a Jew and spends the rest of his book aiming to prove his own point.

He also sets up a strawman argument too. No Jewish scholar would say that all Jews are 100% direct descendants of some "Abraham" in the first place just as it would be equally ridiculous for all Americans to claim descent from the Pilgrim Fathers or all Egyptians from the Pharoahs and so on. The genetic evidence that has been accepted by mainstream science is that there is definitely inter-relatedness amongst Jewish groups from around the world suggesting common origins, no one has ever suggested they are identical!

He ignored and continues to ignore what I said when he first raised this argument, that an Israeli professor of genetics, Raphael Falk, actually proved that there is no biological connection between Jews of different countries - thus taking away to basis for CM's and all the Zionists race theories. Therefore, if the question was asked, I am not surprised Sand was unable to answer - you can't give an opinion on phony "facts." But you can expose them - just like many of us have been doing to those raised by CM in this and two other threads.

You have also ignored all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Falk is a respected academic but in his book he states that one should not mix genetics and politics and yet he seems to break his own rule. All Falk proved is what reasonable science knew already- it's ridiculous to suggest that all Jewish people are genetically exactly the same- as extreme Zionists do- thanks Raphael, most people already knew that- he did go on to show that there is inter-relatedness between some groups more than others, once again thanks Raphael.

However, he is then guilty of falling into his own well-meaning trap of asserting some kind of "homogenous" Jewish race argument that does not exist. He quotes Zionists from over 120 years ago who had no idea of modern genetics, Y-chromosones, Mitochondria etc and who lived in an era of "racial science"- now largely debunked as being based on fallacies as a basis to attack the notion of there being a Jewish race which no one serious, including the Jews, actually says there is.

I draw your attention once again to the idea of a Jewish people- which is supported by culture, religion, sentiment, language (Hebrew that was preserved for liturgical use) and that entered into the vernaculars Yiddish, Judezmo-Ladin, etc of those peoples and a supporting argument of genetics that there is a degree of inter-relatedness between disparate groups as well as showing that there is also a high level of genetic material that would link these groups back to the ancient Middle East as all being factors in determining the "Jewish people".

manic expression

16th December 2009, 12:20

Yehuda Stern

16th December 2009, 12:25

Dimentio

16th December 2009, 15:07

Jewish or Israelite history is quite touchy.

But the old testament is an exceptionally bad claim to have the right to live in a land. In fact, it is about as good as Hitler's arguments for invading the Soviet Union.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/joshua/index.html

Dimentio

16th December 2009, 16:39

So Judea was conquered and plundered by the Romans...join the club. The diaspora started long before the Roman conquest, and moreover it wasn't the last time a Jewish kingdom existed. To say that the Jews who were scattered in 70 CE have a common history with the Jews who were conquered (and likely scattered to some degree) by Ivan the Terrible more than 1,000 years later is just funny. You might as well say that Angolans who were sold into "New World" slavery have a shared historical experience with Angolans living in Angola today.

Yes, there were already many Jews living around the Mediterranean during Caesar's time at least. Jews were an important minority in Rome itself. There were even Roman noblemen who had converted to Judaism or financed the building of synagogues in Rome.

ComradeMan

16th December 2009, 21:00

ComradeMan, you're avoiding the issue again. You are the one who claimed that all Jews are genetically linked, and you still do, despite having to accept that Falk proved otherwise. I hope everyone who reads this debate can tell by now that you are simply a liar who doesn't stand a chance in a debate with anti-Zionists.

No, no, no. YOU are the one who claimed that there was NO such thing as "the Jewish people" and when, amongst other things, I used evidence from genetic studies that does suggest varying degrees of inter-relatedness not only between Jews but also with Middle-Eastern/Levantine peoples you got all hot under the collar. I never said all Jews were genetically identical because I never spoke of the Jewish race, you did!!! I said it is one of the pieces in the puzzle if you like, along with religion, language, shared identity and custom. Falk did not prove anything that people did not know already. You seem to jump from Schlomo Sand to Raphael Falk as you please. I have discussed the merits of Falk above.

I hope everyone who reads this debate can tell by now that you are simply a liar who doesn't stand a chance in a debate with anti-Zionists

More appeals to the forum I see? More popularism and no substance to your arguments. All you have to offer is that your argument is right and everyone else is wrong.

By the way, your barn must be pretty empty now, you must be running out of straw.:)

Lumpen Bourgeois

16th December 2009, 22:16

“Left-wing anti-semitism” is, in short, a comprehensive hostility to most Jews alive, branding them as “Zionists” and seeing that description as akin to “racist" or “imperialist”. It excepts only those Jews who agree that Israel is racist imperialism in its most concentrated essence, and oppose its continued existence.

Cuban-Americans tend to be right-wingers. Left-wingers, we can say, are naturally hostile towards right-wingers. Does this mean left-wingers should be taken to task for their “anti-cubanism” as well? If we follow the logic of this article, they should be.

2. He ignored and continues to ignore what I said when he first raised this argument, that an Israeli professor of genetics, Raphael Falk, actually proved that there is no biological connection between Jews of different countries - thus taking away to basis for CM's and all the Zionists race theories.

Can you please expound on this point? Are you arguing that there are no biological similarities between jewish populations across various regions of the world? None whatsoever?

This seems to run contrary to some of the genetic research that I've examined. [1] (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/09/science/y-chromosome-bears-witness-to-story-of-the-jewish-diaspora.html)[2] (http://www.pnas.org/content/97/12/6769.full)

One of Raphael Falk's books is reviewed here (http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000575.html) by a zionist. It turns out that the zionist finds much to agree with so I'm a bit addled by how Falk's research supposedly belies zionist rhetoric.

Dimentio

16th December 2009, 22:47

Yehuda Stern

16th December 2009, 23:22

ComradeMan: True, I said that there's no Jewish people. Falk's research does prove the lack of biological interrelatedness between Jews of different countries (especially, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, but then you're too ignorant to even know what the letter are as you have shown in another thread). All of this just takes away the basis for your argument that there is a world Jewish people: no common language, no common territory, no common heritage.

As for talking about a Jewish race, considering that you are the one discussing biological interrelatedness, I'd say you are the one who is trying to argue that there is a Jewish race.

And I didn't "jump" from Sand to Falk: you brought up a supposed challenge that was supposedly raised at Sand (and you have yet to prove that it was), and I showed that this "challenge" is in fact not real. You have, of course, failed to address this.

your barn must be pretty empty now, you must be running out of straw.

Oh ha ha, you Zionists are as funny as you are clever.

Lumpen Bourgeois: I tend to trust a book by a well-respected genetics professor more than random experiments committed by who knows who. I'm not saying that that fully addresses your concerns, but having very little knowledge in that field I can only say that I trust one source more than the other.

Also, I'm not saying there's absolutely no similarity. I just don't think there's more similarity than there would be between people who live close to one another, i.e. I don't think there would be much similarity between a Moroccan Jew and a Russian Jew.

As for Falk's book belying Zionist rhetoric, it does belie that of mainstream Zionism which, as Falk implicitly says in his book, did base itself on race theories. The article you quoted comes from a supposedly "progressive" Zionist website, and therefore it uses different rhetoric, and claims that Zionism doesn't need race theories to be valid. Fair enough. On my part I can say that I would oppose Zionism just as much as I do know if it did turn out that Jews constitute a "race" of some sort.

Revy

17th December 2009, 00:00

It is antisemitism if you claim that Israel is in control of the USA and that Jewish bankers are running the world. It is not antisemitism to criticise the State of Israel or wanting its dissolution though.

And worse still, such theories of Zionist control of the USA come from a nationalist point of view, attempting to posit that the wars are for Israel and not for US imperialism. As if the US would not be doing such things even if Israel did not exist....

Dervish

17th December 2009, 14:34

ComradeMan: While Sand's work has many defects, the conclusion he reaches is simply unavoidable: there is no such thing as a Jewish people. That means that there's no Jewish race, no Jewish culture, no Jewish language, arguably a Jewish faith and a plethora of Zionist lies.

Dimentio

17th December 2009, 15:29

And worse still, such theories of Zionist control of the USA come from a nationalist point of view, attempting to posit that the wars are for Israel and not for US imperialism. As if the US would not be doing such things even if Israel did not exist....

I have heard some leftists claim that the United States is controlled by Israel. I agree it is tragic for the reason that it is derailing the discussion about US imperialism and giving USA a green card from responsibility.

ComradeMan

17th December 2009, 22:46

ComradeMan: True, I said that there's no Jewish people. Falk's research does prove the lack of biological interrelatedness between Jews of different countries (especially, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim,

One scholar's theories do not not prove anything when plenty of other scholar's research shows the contrary. It proves only that Jewish people are not all identically descendants of one patriarch. Let's talk about the Cohen Model haplogroup? Let's talk about all the evidence that does show inter-relatedness? What about he genetic information I posted? All discounted by you I suppose.

but then you're too ignorant to even know what the letter are as you have shown in another thread). All of this just takes away the basis for your argument that there is a world Jewish people: no common language, no common territory, no common heritage.

Stop being such a berrit :D! The "letter" (sic) are not one homogenous group either but they all still form part of the Jewish people, just like all Italians are not genetically identical nor speak the same nor have the same local cultures nor one common ancestor but they are still Italians. I think you are the one who is being ignorant. You decide there is no Jewish people despite the fact that you know just as well as I what the complexities of the argument are. You set up strawmen all over the place. Despite the fact that out of about 15 million Jews around the world most of them would talk of the Jewish people and yet understand fully that this does not mean a homogenous group who are all exactly the same. Basically, you set up your own definitions of what constitutes a people and then try to prove how your definitions show that the Jewish people do not exist.

As for talking about a Jewish race, considering that you are the one discussing biological interrelatedness, I'd say you are the one who is trying to argue that there is a Jewish race.

No, arguing that genetic studies show inter-relatedness between groups of people who claim a common land of origin in the distant past is not arguing that there is a Jewish race.

And I didn't "jump" from Sand to Falk: you brought up a supposed challenge that was supposedly raised at Sand (and you have yet to prove that it was), and I showed that this "challenge" is in fact not real. You have, of course, failed to address this.

I told you, HardTalk, BBC world interview with Andrew Marr in which he dodged the question about the genetic evidence that suggested that his conclusions were not accurate. He also gave an interview on BBC 4 Radio by my calculations the 9th November. I saw him in the last week on BBC World international TV.
You haven't shown anything, all you have said is that you believe Sand because he says what you want to hear basically.
How come wherever the Jewish people have gone a local language has developed into which Hebrew and Aramaic words have merged to form various Judaeo- dialects? Does this not in itself suggest that there might have been some linguistic unity? Why does Trajan's column show the Roman's marching out of Jerusalem with the Menorah? "Many fled to areas around the Mediterranean. Titus reportedly refused to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God". (Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana 6.29).

You have no points.

Yehuda Stern

18th December 2009, 00:42

18th December 2009, 05:23

@ComradeMan:

I suppose it is worth pointing out, at this point, that it actually doesn't matter. If the ignorant racist alternate reality of ComradeMan et al. were actually true - in which the only Jews that exist or matter are Ashkenazim and Yiddish can be heralded as the common Jewish language proving the interrelatedness of all Jewish people (or perhaps he takes no position at all and simply covers his ears with his hands while screaming "anti-Semitism!"; it's hard to tell as his position changes quite regularly) - my position on the State of Israel would still be exactly the same. The biology of Jews is really inconsequential; it is a point I raise when pro-Zionists insist on sanctifying the mythology of "The Jewish People" as a justification for their support for Zionist imperialism, but it is not the basis of the argument against Zionism and in favor of a Palestinian workers' state. And, since you have no argument to offer - aside from scanning the web for some quick Zionist refutations of the Israeli historians and scholars who have been cited - there is really no sense in continuing this fruitless "debate" (lol), so let's move beyond it.

It should be made clear, ComradeMan, that communists do not expect or insist that one group of oppressed workers stand idly by while the rest of the working class in the region reaches the appropriate level of consciousness (assuming this ever happens at all). It is true of this situation that the Israelis - and this includes the Israeli working class - benefit at the direct expense of the Palestinians (and of the Palestinian workers in particular). The Palestinian workers have nothing to lose but their chains and no beneficial state of affairs to maintain. This cannot be said - to anyone with even a modicum of honesty - of the Israeli working class, which would necessarily have to part with the privileges afforded it at the expense of the Palestinians in order to join the struggle against Zionism. Are you suggesting - for the sake of "realpolitik" or whatever other additional ridiculous reformist "excuse" you might throw in the road - that the Palestinian workers should hold off on resisting Zionist oppression and imperialism while the Israeli Jewish workers develop revolutionary consciousness (pretending for a moment that such a scenario were even possible, at any point in the future of this region)? If not, what are you suggesting? Do you even know? Or am I an anti-Semite simply for asking?

It is essential that you understand - though I see no sign that you're even remotely interested in understanding anything at all - that the calls for a Palestinian workers' state are not calls for racial exclusion. The criterion - as Yehuda correctly noted elsewhere - is political, not racial. Jews who join the struggle - or who, at least, do not actively oppose it - at the expense of the privileges afforded them by the Zionist State will not be excluded from equality and reasonable cultural autonomy within a Palestinian workers' state, so long as such things aren't enjoyed on the backs of the Palestinians. But because of the relationship between the two groups under Zionism, whereby the Israeli working class benefits at the expense of the Palestinians, it can only logically be concluded that the majority of revolutionaries who undertake the task of building such a workers state will be (Palestinian) Arabs - because they have no privileges to protect by maintaining the present state of affairs - and so such a workers state would naturally reflect this national character, hence a Palestinian workers state.

ComradeMan, in your userpage you have listed your organization as Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, surely your organization must have a concrete position on the Palestinian question; could you relate what that position might be?

Die Rote Fahne

18th December 2009, 08:18

As an agnostic member of the anti-zionist left, with Jewish heritage...

I resent being called an anti-semite. But, if someone wishes to compare me to the Nazis because they fear that zionisms barabristic and reactionary policies are threatened, so be it, I'll continue to call them morons.

ComradeMan

18th December 2009, 20:18

So, let's see: you claim that the "Jewish people" is made of different groups, that aren't interrelated, but still form a people. Then you compare them to the Italians, who have a common language and territory. This unlike the Jews - for whom the only evidence you give that they are a people is some mystical relation between *groups that are in fact not interrelated.

Yeah, and I have no points...

EDIT: fixed *

You really are being moronic now. Firstly I never claimed that the Jewish people were not interrelated- you did. Secondly, interrelatedness does not mean identical. Why is everything so black and white with you all the damn time?

As for the comments about Italians, that just shows how little you know about Italy- who's ignorant now?

the Italians, who have a common language and territory.

Ma che minchia stai dicendo? Which common language? The mutually unintelligible dialects or the Tuscan-Florentine dialect that became Italian and was only spoken by more than 50% of the population in the 1950's. Many elderly Italians still struggle with the "common language". To that we could add Bolzano German speakers, Aostan French-Provencal speakers, Salentine Greeks, Sardinian speakers, Catalans, Friulians and Italkian Jews- not to mention Sicilian and Calabrian Albanian and Greek. The common territory claim would be interesting too, especially along the border and over into Istria or along the French borders too. Let's not forget the Italian Swiss Canton and of course all the people of Italian origin in the world who have an Italian identity from Brooklyn, Brukalino:), to Buenas Aires!!!

When Italy win the world cup they nearly all cheer the same however-- (Other than the Lega Nord who are a bunch of tossers!!!)

Back to the Jewish people. You obviously have no idea of what constitutes a people and reveal your own narrow-minded reverse racism in your comments.

IsItJustMe

18th December 2009, 20:39

First of all, what are you going to do about the right of return? You have millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps all over the Arab world, who are apparently unable to find any final place to live. They need to go home. When they do go home, they will be, if not the majority, very close to the majority, in Israel. Furthermore, the Palestinian territories are terribly overpopulated as well, and some of those people need to go back into what is now Israel. I know this is a very uncomfortable topic, but these people are not going to just disappear, now are they?

Second, what on earth is the idea behind a Jewish state? How would you feel about a black state or a white state? A Christian state or an Islamic state? A state can't be primarily for one of its ethnic or religious groups. It has to belong equally to all of them.

No: The sensible approach is dual statism as a long-interim solution, while the foundation of a unified, multi-ethnic Palestine is laid.

ComradeMan

18th December 2009, 20:40

I suppose it is worth pointing out, at this point, that it actually doesn't matter. If the ignorant racist alternate reality of ComradeMan et al. were actually true - in which the only Jews that exist or matter are Ashkenazim and Yiddish can be heralded as the common Jewish language proving the interrelatedness of all Jewish people (or perhaps he takes no position at all and simply covers his ears with his hands while screaming "anti-Semitism!"; it's hard to tell as his position changes quite regularly) - my position on the State of Israel would still be exactly the same.

Funny, because your "prophet" Schlomo Sand has been accused of exactly that kind of Yiddish bias you accuse me of. BTW who are you calling a Yiddishe kop? :) Never heard of the Italkim?
The biology of Jews is really inconsequential; it is a point I raise when pro-Zionists insist on sanctifying the mythology of "The Jewish People" as a justification for their support for Zionist imperialism, but it is not the basis of the argument against Zionism and in favor of a Palestinian workers' state.

Genetics is not the most important thing at all, but when people like Sand go around spouting that the very idea of a Jewish people with common origins is a lie and yet there is much scientific evidence to suggest the contrary... and to worsen matters cannot even justify their claims, well, think about it. By the way, if it were inconsequential then why did you make a big deal out of it? Tripping up over your words again. What is this? Some kind of conspiracy? Why is it that the Jewish people can only seem to exist when they are being persecuted?
And, since you have no argument to offer - aside from scanning the web for some quick Zionist refutations of the Israeli historians and scholars who have been cited - there is really no sense in continuing this fruitless "debate" (lol), so let's move beyond it.

Poor little diddums, you can't actually answer anything can you? All you do is set up your own strawmen and knock them down again and then congratulate yourself. Anyone who disagrees with you is a Zionist.... yawn.... When you use the same arguments that can be found on the vilest Anti-Semitic websites such as Jew Watch, what do you expect?

It should be made clear, ComradeMan, that communists do not expect or insist that one group of oppressed workers stand idly by while the rest of the working class in the region reaches the appropriate level of consciousness (assuming this ever happens at all).

I am not a communist my friend! Anarchist! Ha ha ha.
How the hell are you going to build any kind of workers state along your lines when 62% of the Palestinians polled in 2007 seemed to support Hamas and most people on both sides seem resigned to the two-state solution? Answer me that?
You keep mixing arguments here for your own propaganda. I said it was anti-Semitic to deny Jewish people the same rights as all other people's are accorded and affirmed in UN article 15, if I am not mistaken. I also said it was anti-Semitic to deny the existence of an entire people just because some of them may be nutters. That's like saying there is no German people just because Hitler had crazy ideas about some Aryan Germanic nation.
If anyone dares speak of the Jewish people in whatever sense you have decided already that they are Zionists.

Dimentio

18th December 2009, 21:46

A people is what it is identifying itself as. Period.

Dragonsign

18th December 2009, 22:07

woa, that article was really some of the greatest dung of **** I ever read!

Pro-Palestine = Anti Isreal = Anti Jews = Antisemite..... :confused:

Jewish = Pro Israel = Zionist :confused:

Was this crap written by the Israel's government or something?

Yehuda Stern

18th December 2009, 23:17

19th December 2009, 01:10

Lumpen Bourgeois

20th December 2009, 04:10

I tend to trust a book by a well-respected genetics professor more than random experiments committed by who knows who.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “random experiments”. Perhaps you mean that a small band of second-rate fringe scientists just decided on a whim one day to do research on Jewish genetics and their haphazardly conducted experiments yielded findings that were inconsequential. I suppose such experiments could be “random” in that sense.

Anyway, let’s take a look at Falk’s general position according to this (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776995.html) Haaretz interview:

According to the view of the recent generations of geneticists, all Jews are related, and are descendants of a single mother and father: Abraham and Sarah. In other words, we are all branches and sub-branches of the same tree-trunk, which is distinct from other trees and their related branches. A few branches may be a little farther away from the rest (such as the Ethiopians, perhaps, or the Jews of Cochin), but generally speaking, according to this argument, we are all Jews not only in our tradition and customs and religion, but also in our common origin.

And what do you say?

This whole argument contains a mistaken initial premise - populations of human beings multiplied as branches of the same trunk. That is, that the closeness of the communities defined as Jews and their segregation arose because of their common origin and that their history is that of a splitting and divergence of branches. Yet it is really religion, tradition and customs, as well as persecution, which have always defined Jews. This is what caused them to form gene pools that were somewhat isolated from their surroundings and what caused the common genetic connections among them.

Unless his views have changed considerably since this interview, it seems that he’s saying that there is biological interrelatedness between jewish populations (which seems to comport at least in part with the genetic evidence committed by "who knows who?” that I cited in my last post), but this alone does not prove a common origin.

I think this quote better encapsulates this point:

When I saw the results of studies from recent years that found that Jews share some common elements at the DNA level, it threw me at first, and then I came up with what philosophers of science like to call an auxiliary hypothesis, which says that what underlies this phenomenon isn't a common origin, but a common culture, and this auxiliary hypothesis is just as plausible as the opposite hypothesis."

This notwithstanding, he seems to be in the minority with regards to the latter point.

Also, I'm not saying there's absolutely no similarity.

I must’ve misconstrued you when you declared that “there is no biological connection between Jews of different countries”. Mea Culpa.

As for Falk's book belying Zionist rhetoric, it does belie that of mainstream Zionism which, as Falk implicitly says in his book, did base itself on race theories. The article you quoted comes from a supposedly "progressive" Zionist website, and therefore it uses different rhetoric, and claims that Zionism doesn't need race theories to be valid. Fair enough.

Thanks for clearing things up.

20th December 2009, 10:16

@Lumpen Bourgeois:

I realize your comment was not addressed to me, but perhaps you could clarify...
I'm not sure if you are suggesting that the article you've linked supports the idea of Jews being biologically related. If that is indeed what you are suggesting, I'd recommend rereading the article. Falk is saying that the differences between Jews of a given region and gentiles of the same region can be attributed to the relative isolation of Jews in said region. He is not suggesting that Jews from one part of the world and Jews from a completely different part of the world are biologically related to one another. In fact, he makes it very clear throughout the article that the notion of common Jewish genetic markers is patently false.

Here's the link to the article again, for anyone who is interested: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776995.html

It is a good read which essentially vindicates the argument which some of us have been making throughout this thread (and several others...) with ComradeMan - his hysterical (and repulsive, needless to say) accusations of anti-Semitism notwithstanding.

ComradeMan

20th December 2009, 14:31

ComradeMan tried to make a "don't criticize me and I won't criticize you" pact with me through PMs. I obviously did not accept and now he's reduced to flaming and repeating his other ridiculous claims. Oh well.

Would you like me to post the message I sent to you? I don't believe it said anything of the sort.

I apologised for calling you and your friend indirectly a schmuck and felt bad about the accusation of being self-hating Jews. I further went on to state my position as I have done here and merely asked for us to stop fighting as we would probably agree on a lot of other stuff. I also wished you Happy Hanukkah- your response was telling me to "save it" and accusing me of not even understanding what Hanukkah would be about seeing as it has its origins in anti-imperialistic struggle. I see this analogy but thing it also ironic that the Maccabees probably were the first "Zionist expansionists" of the historical era yet you should throw this in my face.

As for flaming? Where? All I have done is respond to your points and challenges.

Besides all that, lying and twisting what people say in private messages is pretty low.

ComradeMan

20th December 2009, 14:55

CM, why don't you just admit that you don't know anything at all about the situation in the region and that is why you are unable to address any of the points I put forward - let alone provide the position of what you claim to be your own organization - and save yourself the embarrassment of looking like an even bigger idiot than you already do?

EDIT (because I couldn't resist):
Not you, obviously; the more suitable term would be 'goyisheh kop', though to be honest, I can think of many others which would convey my sentiments much better. :rolleyes:

Point 1. You and your friend have already been shown up the other day when you accused me of making up lies and posting Zionist propaganda and another comrade pointed out that you two were in the wrong- which calls into question how much you know about the situation.

Point 2. I have never claimed anywhere to represent the point of any organisation. These are my own thoughts and opinons as a free-thinking individual.

Point 3. Your use of emotive language and insults is actually making you look like the bigger fool, or at least infantile.

Point 4. Ah..... I was waiting for that. For those who may not know, "goy" derives from the Hebrew meaning nation, yet in modern usage is equivalent to "gentile"- In modern Yiddish usage it is often pejorative and could be seen as a racist term for a non-kosher Jew, someone of a non-Jewish mother, non-Jew and so on, I am surprised you didn't call me a schkutz, but then you know I could have nailed you more clearly for that one because you will inevitably argue that "goy" is not racist much the same way that some try to say "nigger" only means black because it comes from "negro" etc etc etc.

It is surprising for someone who seems to be so anti-Zionist that you reveal some of the worst traits that ultra-Zionists are accused of- the old two sides of the same coin perhaps?. Resorting to insults based on nationality and religion--- and you call yourself a communist/socialist :D.
It also surprising to see someone who affirms there is no such thing as a Jewish people and (correct me if I am wrong) an atheist, uses such a term which in light of the previous two factors have no significance at all unless of course you are not being honest about what you really believe.

I do apologise for being such a mamzer, of course how dare some of my ancestors marry shiksas:)? In my mischpoche we have a bit of everything I am sorry to say so despite our heritage we are about as kosher as a bacon begel, so I am sorry for being such a mischling in your eyes. But then a goy trying to be fair as opposed to a pognel uttering verbal takorim? You choose.

ComradeMan

20th December 2009, 16:54

Just a quick point-

Re the genetics argument. Whereas fanatics might adhere to some belief of every Jew being descended from Abraham quite literally. no one sensible does. No one other than a lunatic would suggest that all Jewish people are 100% genetically identical than they would suggest all people from any other national group are.

Falk is attacking the ultra-Zionist arguments anyway.

Nevertheless it has been a common anti-Semitic slur against the Ashkenazim that they are not Jewish at all in that they are descended from the Khazars who converted to Judaism. This has been demonstrated false by science.

As complimentary evidence to the idea of a diapsora and spreading out of the Jewish people, who were not probably homogenous anyway in the days of ancient Israel and Judaea, scientific research has noted a striking level of interrelatedness. The reason why Jewish communities have proven interesting is because up until fairly recently the Jewish people were fairly unique in being disperesed throughout the world and they did not "marry out" thus conserving their genetic heritage. Of course some did marry out and there were converts from other nations too. The problem with genetic genealogy is that it can only really tell you about your Y male ancestor and your female Mitochondial ancestor and all the rest is just a jumble.

All the studies suggest is that there does seem to be interrelatedness between Jewish communities that in turn suggests some common origin, oh that and religion, language and sense of Jewishness- but then for certain people here that doesn't count.

It is also interesting that Sand avoids the subject of the Cohen modal haplotype in Italy which some have suggested lends support to the idea of the diaspora and the man Jews taken as slaves to Rome by the Emperor Titus around 70 c.e.

The trouble with Falk is he attacks an extreme position that most people already knew was an extreme position and thus can congratulate himself only on destroying a false argument- that everyone knew was false anyway.

Sand, on the other hand, has no argument and is guilty in my opinion, of using facts to support his theory instead of building a theory on the facts.

20th December 2009, 17:04

Point 1. You and your friend have already been shown up the other day when you accused me of making up lies and posting Zionist propaganda and another comrade pointed out that you two were in the wrong- which calls into question how much you know about the situation.

I have not the slightest idea what you are referring to. Citation needed.

Point 2. I have never claimed anywhere to represent the point of any organisation. These are my own thoughts and opinons as a free-thinking individual.
Right, but what I asked was whether your organization takes a position on this issue.

Point 3. Your use of emotive language and insults is actually making you look like the bigger fool, or at least infantile.
Here's a tip: in the future, if you want to avoid pissing people off/being treated with out-and-out hostility, it might be helpful to not repeatedly level allegations of anti-Semitism and Jewish self-hatred at anyone who happens to take a principled Leninist position, on a leftist discussion board.

Point 4. Ah..... I was waiting for that. For those who may not know, "goy" derives from the Hebrew meaning nation, yet in modern usage is equivalent to "gentile"- In modern Yiddish usage it is often pejorative and could be seen as a racist term for a non-kosher Jew, someone of a non-Jewish mother, non-Jew and so on, I am surprised you didn't call me a schkutz, but then you know I could have nailed you more clearly for that one because you will inevitably argue that "goy" is not racist much the same way that some try to say "nigger" only means black because it comes from "negro" etc etc etc.Indeed, you've cracked through my facade of dry wit to expose the malicious goy-hatred at the core of my being. I can't deny it any longer, ComradeMan; I am an anti-Semitic self-hating Jewish Supremacist.

It is surprising for someone who seems to be so anti-Zionist that you reveal some of the worst traits that ultra-Zionists are accused of- the old two sides of the same coin perhaps?. Resorting to insults based on nationality and religion--- and you call yourself a communist/socialist :D.
This is all quite literally the most artfully deceptive strawman I have ever seen in my entire life. And I walked right into the set-up. Congrats on that.

It also surprising to see someone who affirms there is no such thing as a Jewish people and (correct me if I am wrong) an atheist, uses such a term which in light of the previous two factors have no significance at all unless of course you are not being honest about what you really believe.Absolutely, how revoltingly hypocritical of me to know Yiddish when I reject religion and deny that Jews from all parts of the world comprise a unified "Jewish nation".

I do apologise for being such a mamzer, of course how dare some of my ancestors marry shiksas:)? In my mischpoche we have a bit of everything I am sorry to say so despite our heritage we are about as kosher as a bacon begel, so I am sorry for being such a mischling in your eyes. But then a goy trying to be fair as opposed to a pognel uttering verbal takorim? You choose.:rolleyes: Please stop wasting my time with this shit.

ComradeMan

20th December 2009, 17:35

Apikoros and Yehuda- the mutual thankers.
Blah....blah....blah....blah......... yawn.

Re the citation: Francois Genoud

It seems the pair of you are being so bigotted in your own opinions that you are incapable of discussing anything lest it differ from your narrow point of view.

The fact that you are a Leninist makes not one iota of difference to me whatsoever, especially in that I am not a Leninist. It seems that you hide behind ideologies and converse only in terms of ideologies- a good way to avoid thinking for yourselves.

Not once have you actually addressed the issues directly, nor have you done anything else much but attack over and again. It also shows up in the Genoud point that far from being well-informed on these matters you have some blatant lacunae, you also seem not to understand some very basic concepts and principles either.

As for pissing off people... why would I care whether you were pissed off or not? You seem not to care for what anyone else thinks.

Now, stop dragging the thread away into attacks on the user, why don't you talk about the issue at hand?

As for the other stuff, once again you show your complete sophomoric level of understanding of these matters, that and your blind support of your mutual thanker.

Lumpen Bourgeois

20th December 2009, 21:04

In fact, he makes it very clear throughout the article that the notion of common Jewish genetic markers is patently false.

I'll concede that, at first, he does say that there are no common markers. But towards the end of the interview he turns around and says this:

When I saw the results of studies from recent years that found that Jews share some common elements at the DNA level it threw me at first...

And then he goes on to challenge merely the contention that jews possess a common origin, not that they are at least somewhat related biologically.

Here's the link to the article again, for anyone who is interested: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776995.html

It is a good read which essentially vindicates the argument which some of us have been making throughout this thread (and several others...) with ComradeMan - his hysterical (and repulsive, needless to say) accusations of anti-Semitism notwithstanding.

Sure, it's a good read if you want Falk's opinion on the matter. But he cites no evidence to buttress his claims(which is understandable since it's merely an informal interview), so take it with a grain of salt. For balance, those who are interested should check out the research I cited in my first post in this thread.

Kovacs

20th December 2009, 21:13

worth a look.

To struggle as a Jewish socialist it is a distinct advantage to have been born with three hands—at least three hands. On the one hand it is necessary to struggle against the anti-semitism of daily life both in its casual and its organised forms. On the other hand, it is necessary to struggle against the reactionary Jewish communal leadership which simultaneously advocates zionism in Israel and a form of assimilation in the diaspora as the fulfilment of Jewish identity. On the third hand, it is necessary to resist the anti-semitism that has permeated much of the socialist tradition and which was described by August Bebel, German Social Democrat leader, as the "socialism of fools".

I cannot post a link for some reason: google 'Engage: The Socialism Of Fools' to find the source of the above quote

A proper analysis of leftist anti-Semitism from a leftist perspective

20th December 2009, 22:39

@ComradeMan:

I'm done engaging you on this board; it is a thorough waste of time. Anyone can read the thread(s) and see for themselves your complete inability to formulate any coherent political argument. I won't be responding to anymore of your trollish nonsense.

ComradeMan

21st December 2009, 12:09

So, let's see: you claim that the "Jewish people" is made of different groups, that aren't interrelated, but still form a people.

No, you don't seem to understand that interrelated does not mean genetically identical do you? I no more claim that all Jewish people have one common ancestor than I deny that there is a definite and scientifically proven level of interrelatedness between Jewish peoples that links members of all groups back to the Middle-East and lends some credence to historical accounts of the movements of the Jewish people.

Then you compare them to the Italians, who have a common language and territory.

And I have shown you how generally erroneous that view of Italy is but you don't seem to want to know. Italy only just has a common language and that only due to the efforts of the last 50 years or so and influences such as television. There are still many parts of Italy where standard Italian is basically a second language and people use completely different languages as their main means of communication. Take a trip to Bolzano or Courmayeur.... As for a common territory, that is also a moot point. Ever heard of Corsica? Ever heard of Istria?

This unlike the Jews - for whom the only evidence you give that they are a people is some mystical relation between *groups that are in fact not interrelated.

I never said that.
Some mystical relation- I have raised several arguments and points based on linguistics, anthropology and historical facts from Jewish and non-Jewish sources, all of which you have chosen to ignore.

Yeah, and I have no points...

That's right.

Okay- enough is enough. I refuse to debate this any more with you two. You constantly twist and misrepresent everything someone says, you set up strawmen all over the place and you refuse point blank to accept any information, data or opinions that do not fit 100% into your own narrow views. Your personal attacks and ignorance are quite surprising and your lying about what I said in a PM to you (Yehuda) is downright crass.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

21st December 2009, 16:48

ComradeMan

21st December 2009, 19:49

Kovacs

21st December 2009, 19:59

One little note I'd like to add, when people convert to Judaism- quite a long process, one of the things required of them is an oath of allegiance to the Jewish people made in front of the Rabbinical Court, or Beth Din- you are becoming part of the Jewish people, albeit in a very traditional sense.

Mate, that simply is not true. Indeed there are only seven commandments of the ten that gentile converts must follow in liberal jewish tradition.

ComradeMan

21st December 2009, 20:38

Mate, that simply is not true. Indeed there are only seven commandments of the ten that gentile converts must follow in liberal jewish tradition.

No, trust me... it's true- it depends on which form of Judaism.
http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?ID=27282

I can't find the exact oath anywhere but it is definitely true. As far as only 7 of the 10 commandments, I think you are mixing it up with the Noachide movement. To be a "kosher Jew you must follow all of the commandments and the mitzvot that are required by modern interpretations of the halakha.

Yehuda Stern

21st December 2009, 21:03

when people convert to Judaism- quite a long process, one of the things required of them is an oath of allegiance to the Jewish people made in front of the Rabbinical Court, or Beth Din- you are becoming part of the Jewish people

Yeah, thanks for more evidence that your definition of a people has nothing to do with the modern sense and everything to do with religion and/or race.

ComradeMan

21st December 2009, 21:32

Yeah, thanks for more evidence that your definition of a people has nothing to do with the modern sense and everything to do with religion and/or race.

Thanks for not acknowledging that once again the concept of Jewish people is not some made up Zionist fantasy and a concept that is alive and well amongst the Jewish people- you know perfectly well that religion and ethnicity are interwoven in the Jewish identity. People can convert, it is not a racial thing, just like I can go to America and become an American- take the oath and become part of the American people, it does not depend on race and it does not invalidate the idea of the American people. I never said it did. At the same time you know full well that converts were not encouraged in the past and there is debate today amongst some more conservative and orthodox sections of Judaism. Historically the Jewish diaspora populations tended to marry "in" and not "out" which means that degrees of interrelatedness are probably easier to detect than any other people in the Western World and Middle-East for cultural reasons if not anything else.

22nd December 2009, 14:44

I don't see what the big deal is here.

Whether or not there's a genetic link (or cultural/linguistic link, for that matter), the fact remains that if certain people are clubbed together as Jews, willingly or otherwise, then they're Jews* for all practical purposes.

Even if the Jews themselves deny their identity, it wouldn't matter to those who believe in identity politics (which, unfortunately, is a vast majority in this world). They would have no choice but to stick with the Jewish label, whether or not they like it.

I disagree; this is a rather defeatist line of reasoning. I think one of the tasks of revolutionaries is to challenge conventional assumptions, reactionary views, and ruling class ideologies - regardless of how ingrained in society they may be.
Let’s follow your line of reasoning to its logical conclusion: if blacks are presented as inferior to whites, regardless of scientific data disproving such racist claims, blacks are inferior to whites for all practical purposes. If socialism is slandered as antiquated and proletarian revolution is labeled a pipedream – regardless of the fact that such slander is rooted in myths and capitalist propaganda – for all practical purposes, socialism is antiquated and proletarian revolution is a pipedream.
Do you see what I’m saying? If we accept the dominant views simply because they are currently the dominant views, what business do we have discussing revolutionary politics in the first place?
It is absolutely true, of course, that our opposition to Zionism has nothing to do with genetics. But the myth that Jews throughout the world constitute a unified Jewish Nation, separate from non-Jews, has historically played - and continues to play - an important role in legitimizing both anti-Semitism and Zionism. So for that reason, there is some value in addressing it.
Having said that, it is not so unusual for Zionist apologists to hold on to their lies like grim death, and unfortunately this thread is no exception.

*EDIT: Also, just to clarify, no one is suggesting that people who are Jewish are not Jews. Rather, I am saying Jews from different parts of the world do not constitute a unified "Jewish Nation".

avversione

22nd December 2009, 16:40

If you support the Israeli state, then you’ve put your support behind a brutal ruling class and that cannot be reconciled with any revolutionary perspective and any attempt to do is deluded. The only people who would label that anti-Semitic are apologists of the Israeli state which consistently seek to conflate and blur the differences between opposition to Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Zionists, anti-Germans, the ‘Labour’ Zionists, all form one block of reaction and are daily justifying the oppression and discrimination suffered primarily by Palestinians. What else are these people but parasites?

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

22nd December 2009, 16:43

I disagree; this is a rather defeatist line of reasoning. I think one of the tasks of revolutionaries is to challenge conventional assumptions, reactionary views, and ruling class ideologies - regardless of how ingrained in society they may be.

Perhaps, I didn't explain myself clearly. I never said that we, as socialists, must accept identity politics because it happens to be the dominant view. I only said that most people in this world are going to, since they aren't socialists and do not have any idea what this is all about. Identity politics is all they know...it is as normal to them as breathing is to us.

That is why it is easy for politicians to divide the world on this basis and the 'Jewish nation' is no exception. So why focus on that nation alone to the exclusion of the rest? The logic applied to the Jews might well be applied to the Arabs and the others. I believe that's a legitimate concern and has absolutely nothing to do with Zionism.

Anyway, I bow out of this discussion...there has been too much fighting here.:(

ComradeMan

22nd December 2009, 21:37

Okay, gloves off. I accept any infraction forthcoming!

For fucks sakes!

I am not supporting the brutal Zionism of the past!
I am not saying the Jewish people have exclusive rights to the Holy Land, the land of four faiths and countless denominations!
I am not saying that Jews are better or worse than anyone else!
I am not saying that all Jews are one ethnically and genetically identical people!
I am not saying that the Israeli government is without reproach!- No government is without reproach!

I am saying there is a Jewish people!
I am saying that if all people's under international law have the right to self-determination then so do the Jewish people!
I am saying that there is room for everyone in Israel, Palestine, Canaan or whatever the &)%"("! you want to call it!
I am saying that the best way ahead is a one-state solution with equal rights for all!

I no more support the Palestinian radicals as I would the Irgun!!!

It's not fair! The Jews conveniently become a race when people want to persecute them and throw them in the overns but when they want to assert their identity it is not allowed and they become Zionists? Is that fair? I am not denying that there ar not Zionists nutcases, nutcases exist in every group of people! I do not deny there is a German people because Hitler went mad and had weird ideas about an Aryan master-race! I am not denying the Japanese people because of the extreme Imperialist ideas of the past!

Why is that the Jews are always judged by unfair standards? If people talk about the American people, the Brazilian people, the British or the French no one bats an eyelid but if someone talks about the Jewish people they are automatically a Zionist? !!!!

Come on! We all know the persecution of the Jewish people in history, the Jewish people have never been allowed to assimilate, they have never been alllowed to be the "same"? Why? Because they remained loyal to their culture and their beliefs- even if I do not share all of them, I can understand them and respect them!!! If the Jews are not welcome in any other country or land, then where are they to go? The Holy Land is for the Jewish people a point of reference, a homeland and a right. This does not mean I support this at the cost of others, Arab, Druze, Christian or any other group. This does not mean I am a Sharonist either, all this means is that I recognise the right of the (greater) Jewish people to self-determination as accorderd to all other peoples of the planet as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others.

I can't win- the Zionists call me an enemy of Israel and the leftists call me a Zionist!

ComradeMan

22nd December 2009, 22:12

*EDIT: Also, just to clarify, no one is suggesting that people who are Jewish are not Jews. Rather, I am saying Jews from different parts of the world do not constitute a unified "Jewish Nation".

You might think you are smart in front of the goyim my friend, but you don't fool me! You do not represent the majority view amongst the Jewish people, the Jewish people- the same Jewish people who are prayed for in the synagogue, or "schul" as you Yiddische kopfe might call it:)! i.e. the Yahudim. If there is no concept of a Jewish nation, how come if I rock up in a completely foreign town on Shabbat a Jew is obliged to invite me to his home and break bread? Answer me that? Eh? No ideas of common nationhood here? It doesn't matter where I come from. Don't say it's religious either because we all know how unreligious our own families are, right down to the bacon begel!:)

Now, I don't want to get into a theological argument here, in my own personal opinion a Jew is simply someone who accepts the Shema and nothing else, the Shema is all! But that is not the majority view and you know it. It is also a spiritual view, so I don't expect you to support it either. But you alone cannot project your view of things onto an entire nation of people. Furthermore, to project your weird ideas of Jewishness onto 15 million people or more the world over is completely without any foundation and absurd.

I read the articles in Haaretz and they did call into question many ideas about Jewishness. But I ask you, khever...

If Jewishness is not a people/nation/tribe...

If Jewishness is not a religion (and you declare yourself to be an atheist, and therefore from a religious point of view apostate and no longer a Jew...)

Then, what is it? Don't say Yiddischkeit either....!
:)

Shalom!

blake 3:17

23rd December 2009, 00:26

Okay- enough is enough. I refuse to debate this any more with you two. You constantly twist and misrepresent everything someone says, you set up strawmen all over the place and you refuse point blank to accept any information, data or opinions that do not fit 100% into your own narrow views. Your personal attacks and ignorance are quite surprising and your lying about what I said in a PM to you (Yehuda) is downright crass.

Goodbye.

Dean

23rd December 2009, 00:26

Seems to me that the reason people support Israel from "leftist" positions is because they view the state as a primarily Jewish phenomenon, rather than the colonial-white supremacist state that it is. The more involved you get with the political and economic situation on the ground, the less weight these ethno-centric systems have on a leftist paradigm.

Guerrilla22

23rd December 2009, 01:46

I am not supporting the brutal Zionism of the past!

yup good thing it's over with and no longer a problem.

"Red Scum"

30th December 2009, 23:39

I am so sick of the whole judaism debate, and all the ethnicity vs religion and blah blah blah.

We're all humans aren't we? Race should become a non issue.

(apologies if this doesn't make any sense I'm quite baked but I hope you get what I was trying to say :thumbup1: )

Chambered Word

4th January 2010, 01:45

The left-wing anti-semites do not only criticise Israel. They condemn it outright and deny its right to exist. They use legitimate criticisms, and utilise our natural sympathy with the Palestinians, not to seek redress, not as arguments against an Israeli government, an Israeli policy, or anything specifically wrong in Israel, but as arguments against the right of Israel to exist at all. Any Israel.

Stopped reading right there. That is clearly and obviously an argument against the state of Israel, not the Jewish race. Once again you're just crying racism.

Oh no, now I'm a left-wing anti-Semite. :rolleyes:

4th January 2010, 01:51

^I sympathize with the sentiment you're trying to convey there, and forgive me for being pedantic, but with regards to this:

the Jewish race

As has been said earlier in this thread, there is no such thing as a "Jewish race".