Is it anti-Jewish to say Israel has no right to exist?

[Adi Shankara]

I hear this argument alot, and it seems to be on the left even.

"If you're against Israel, you're against Jewish people, since Israel was a state founded by Jewish people".

sounds like good logic, but the truth couldn't be further. Israel was founded by an elite class of secular white men who, despite being atheists, wanted to colonize the Levant under the guise that the current Arab inhabitants were "living in Jewish land holy to them".
As anyone with a education beyond highschool freshman year would know, that's not true. Arabs have been living in Israel since at least the 800's, and the Abbasid Caliphate for some time too was in control of the Palestine region.

I also hear this argument that to say that the Israeli state is illegitimate is anti-Jewish and borderline white supremacist (which I find laughable).
NO ONE had a problem criticizing South Africa. Israel is creating the exact same scenario as apartheid South Africa did before them, even down to pass laws and scheduled, state-segregated neighborhoods.

So what makes Israel taboo but not South Africa? South Africa was an illegitimate state. they were dismantled peacefully. why can the same not be done in Palestine?

Also, the so-called "Holocaust Industry", a term devised by the (himself Jewish, and descended from Holocaust Survivors) professor Norm Finkelstein, who got sick and tired of Zionists milking the tragedy of the 6,000,000 dead, so he wrote that book. of course, both the Israeli press secretary and ADL chairman called him an "anti-semite", Ironic, considering he actually had family who died in the Holocaust.

what and why is this? is this all racism, what I talked about? does it make you uncomfortable? if so, why? I am trying to understand so myself, why such a apartheid, racially segregated state could be above such criticism.

(and even though I shouldn't have to say this, as Israel and the Jewish people shouldn't be synonyms, but I have nothing against the Jewish people.)

[Robocommie]

Frankly, I think it'd be awesome if the Jews had their own nation-state, I don't mind the idea one bit. Unfortunately, the land they ended up putting it on was already occupied by somebody else, and they just don't make new land.

[Adi Shankara]

Frankly, I think it'd be awesome if the Jews had their own nation-state, I don't mind the idea one bit. Unfortunately, the land they ended up putting it on was already occupied by somebody else, and they just don't make new land.

Wells that's my thinking too. I don't see why they couldn't have petitioned Germany or somewhere else, or even the Palestinians democratically, to have a settlement plan in a place not occupied by an indigenous people.

[M-26-7]

"Is it anti-Jewish to say Israel has no right to exist?"

It depends what you mean by it. If you mean that Zionism is and always has been a racist, colonial ideology, then you're spot on. If you mean that certain modern residents of Palestine, who were born in Palestine, should leave it simply because they happen to be Jewish, then that is just as racist as Zionism.

There should be no "Jewish state", no "Arab state", no racial state of any kind, in Palestine. Or anywhere else. Ever.

I think the analogy to South Africa is apt. There was nothing "anti-white" about opposing apartheid completely and without reservations, and there is nothing anti-semitic about being against modern-day Zionist apartheid in Palestine. The fact that the mass of South Africans now suffer under neoliberal capitalism is a different issue, and I would hope that Palestine doesn't suffer the same fate after the end of its apartheid finally comes.

And if that is a different issue, it goes without saying that the holocaust is a completely different issue. Please don't allow anyone to drag that into the debate. The murder of 6 million Jews in Germany, Poland, and East Europe in the last years of WWII is an epic tragedy, but it is an epic tragedy that has nothing to do with Zionism and its colonization of Palestine. Nationalists on both sides try to manipulate the tragedy (Zionists by trying to draw justification for their continued apartheid in Palestine, Arabs by trying to downplay the holocaust or denounce Zionism's exploitation of it), but in reality there is little or no connection. The same British Imperialism which supported the original creation of the racist Zionist state in Palestine was already supporting Zionism in the inter-war period, before the holocaust. The Balfour Declaration was made in 1917, and the Arab Revolt was in 1936.

Besides, the holocaust is a momentous enough historical tragedy that it deserves better treatment than to be used for cheap political purposes (by anyone).

[Forward Union]

Yea it's really racist

[el_chavista]

Yea it's really racist
Or it is a matter of wording: is it Israel, Judea, Zionism or the Likud party you are referring to?

[Raúl Duke]

There should be no "Jewish state", no "Arab state", no racial state of any kind, in Palestine. Or anywhere else. Ever.This.

I don't care if it's called Israel, Palestine, or whatever...what needs to end is the discrimination and opression against Arabs by the state in that area.

[Adi Shankara]

Why do people keep calling Israel "the Jewish State"? when did the world's Jewish people appoint the colonial power in the Middle East as their figurehead?

I don't remember the world's jewish people (esp. American jewry, who seem mostly opposed to Israel) saying they ever thought Israel was a legitimate spokesperson for the world's jewish people...ever.

[jake williams]

Zionism is inherently racist, ie. it's the ideology that a particular "race" (the Jews) have an inherent and god-given right to a particular piece of land (Palestine). It's not racism to oppose that, it's anti-racism.

To answer your question directly though, it has to do partly with what you mean. I would argue that states have no right to exist in general. France has no abstract "right to exist".

There's a separate question as to whether or not a particular state should exist, and often when we're talking about whether or not Israel "has a right to exist", we're really talking about whether or not Israel should exist. I don't think it should. I think that Israel is a particular settler-colonial nation state and its existence as a Jewish nation state entails the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous inhabitants and the systematic deprivation of their national and democratic rights. But that said, I also don't think that the Canadian state should exist, because likewise, the existence of the particular settler-colonial nation state I inhabit entails the systematic deprivation of the democratic and national rights of the indigenous peoples here. It's also a monarchial-capitalist state led by a borderline fascist dictator with an utter disregard for even bourgeois democracy.

There are states I think should exist, for various reasons. I think it makes sense, for now at least, to have a Palestinian state (not an Islamist state, mind you), to begin to grant basic human rights to Palestinians, something the Israeli state refuses to allow (and can't allow unless it as an institution is fundamentally altered to the point of unrecognizability). I support the existence of workers' states used to defend the establishment of socialism (few if any exist presently). But I don't think settler-colonial states, or capitalist states in general, should exist.

What is racist is the notion that a Jewish settler-colonial state in particular, but not other settler-colonial states, should not exist - if you think this, you are being anti-semitic, if not, you're not.

[Jazzhands]

A Jewish state is as dangerous as any other religious or racial regime like Iran and South Africa. That's how we need to approach this issue. We also need to make it very clear that Israel was formed by forcing tens of thousands of Arabs off their land.

I know this seems like a no-brainer, but since a huge percentage of the people on Revleft don't have brains :rolleyes: I feel like it's worth saying:

NEVER MAKE NAZI COMPARISONS. EVER. To convince a pro-Israel activist that you're not anti-semitic and then compare Israel to them makes you sound like a complete moron. Even if the comparison is justified, that's probably the worst (and most common) argument I've ever heard against Zionism.

[praxis1966]

Here's the problem with the "race" arguments as they pertain to the Israel-Gaza/West Bank issue. Jews and Palestinians are all Semitic peoples, so the division isn't technically along racial lines. Further, there are Christians who've fought on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of this conflict, so it can't properly be described as religious conflict either.

In this way, I sort of see it as analogous to the Northern Ireland question. Both the loyalist and republican sides have Christian (though different sects) participants so it's not accurate to call it a religious war. Though some might say that's debatable given the sectarian nature of the conflict, I'd argue that sectarianism in the North is a byproduct of a colonial regime giving preferential treatment to one ethnicity over the other and that the sectarian divide (in my mind) is coincidental. It's also not properly a "race war" either, as all parties involved are white and a large chunk of the loyalist/unionist side is of Scottish stock, making them Celtic as well. This furthers the sectarian coincidence argument, as the Scots in Northern Ireland were basically seen as useful idiots by English colonials in the preservation of empire.

Both of them, however, are characterized properly as "ethnic" conflicts, as ethnicity is largely dependent on culture as opposed to skin color or genetic origin. If anyone here has a gripe with the NI comparison, perhaps you'd prefer the Rwandan Genocide as a good measuring stick.

[Weezer]

http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/feb2007/neturei_karta_nov9_2006_nyork.jpg

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/thought_for_the_day/6a00d834522bcd69e200e551d070ce8833-640wi.jpg

http://heavenawaits.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/anti-jews.jpg

http://bigdogdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/anti-zionist-jews-in-london.jpg

http://www.salem-news.com/stimg/february102010/end_of_zionism_2.jpg

I'm a Humanistic Jew by the way.

[jake williams]

Here's the problem with the "race" arguments as they pertain to the Israel-Gaza/West Bank issue. Jews and Palestinians are all Semitic peoples, so the division isn't technically along racial lines. Further, there are Christians who've fought on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of this conflict, so it can't properly be described as religious conflict either.

In this way, I sort of see it as analogous to the Northern Ireland question. Both the loyalist and republican sides have Christian (though different sects) participants so it's not accurate to call it a religious war. Though some might say that's debatable given the sectarian nature of the conflict, I'd argue that sectarianism in the North is a byproduct of a colonial regime giving preferential treatment to one ethnicity over the other and that the sectarian divide (in my mind) is coincidental. It's also not properly a "race war" either, as all parties involved are white and a large chunk of the loyalist/unionist side is of Scottish stock, making them Celtic as well. This furthers the sectarian coincidence argument, as the Scots in Northern Ireland were basically seen as useful idiots by English colonials in the preservation of empire.

Both of them, however, are characterized properly as "ethnic" conflicts, as ethnicity is largely dependent on culture as opposed to skin color or genetic origin. If anyone here has a gripe with the NI comparison, perhaps you'd prefer the Rwandan Genocide as a good measuring stick.
I'm not usually one to harp on the point, but race is an artificial construct concocted by ruling classes in particular situations as ways of advancing their particular class interests. Irish immigrants in the United States, some of the palest people on earth, weren't, for awhile, considered to be white people. The fact that some Israeli Jews are very closely related to Arab Palestinians is irrelevant as far as the Israeli state mythology is concerned, which means that racism is a relevant issue.

[Alf]

Does Israel have the right to exist?

My answer to this question is another question.

What states do you think do have the right to exist in this epoch of history?

[Adi Shankara]

Does Israel have the right to exist?

My answer to this question is another question.

What states do you think do have the right to exist in this epoch of history?


States founded by a plural majority of their own people who share a collective history. Burkina Faso, Japan, and Brazil come to mind.

[praxis1966]

I'm not usually one to harp on the point, but race is an artificial construct concocted by ruling classes in particular situations as ways of advancing their particular class interests. Irish immigrants in the United States, some of the palest people on earth, weren't, for awhile, considered to be white people. The fact that some Israeli Jews are very closely related to Arab Palestinians is irrelevant as far as the Israeli state mythology is concerned, which means that racism is a relevant issue.

I agree that race is an artificial construct created by ruling classes. That's why I was attempting to characterize it differently, ie in terms of ethnicity which is more culturally derived. I may not have explained myself well, but I was trying to put things in proper context in terms of the way sociologists would.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So what makes Israel taboo but not South Africa?A large and confident movement in the US. The ANC was called "terrorist" and "communist" by the US government and if it was not for the solidarity movement here (obviously that could not exist without the resistance inside South Africa as well as the domestic effects of the US civil-rights and Vietnam-influenced anti-imperialist sentiment), I think we would not have seen the public sentiment change as it did in the years prior to the end of official apartheid. While the US government was more vocal in criticizing apartheid, like Israel, the US supported the government because it was a key part of keeping the US imperialist order together and would not give up their strategic bulwark easily.

I'm not that familiar with the US anti-apartheid movement so people who have more of a background should maybe give more details or correct me. The divestment movement had been going from the 1960s (with roots starting in the 1950s) and so I think that we have to look at the Palestinian solidarity movement in terms of a decades long project as well.

[M-26-7]

*pictures of Orthodox Jews protesting Zionism*

I'm a Humanistic Jew by the way.

It is a bit misleading (or rather incomplete) to posts pictures of Orthodox Jews holding signs against Zionism without giving a link to any of the reasons why they oppose it, many of which are religious rather than humanitarian:


Because of all of this and other reasons the Torah forbids us to end the exile and establish a state and army until the Holy One, blessed He, in His Glory and Essence will redeem us.

http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/opposition.cfm

[Crimson Commissar]

As was said before in this thread, there should be no Jewish or Arab state in Palestine. Instead, there should be a nation for both the Jews and the Arabs. Both ethnic groups have a right to live in Palestine, but neither of them have the right to force the other out of it.

[praxis1966]

A large and confident movement in the US. The ANC was called "terrorist" and "communist" by the US government and if it was not for the solidarity movement here (obviously that could not exist without the resistance inside South Africa as well as the domestic effects of the US civil-rights and Vietnam-influenced anti-imperialist sentiment), I think we would not have seen the public sentiment change as it did in the years prior to the end of official apartheid. While the US government was more vocal in criticizing apartheid, like Israel, the US supported the government because it was a key part of keeping the US imperialist order together and would not give up their strategic bulwark easily.

I'm not that familiar with the US anti-apartheid movement so people who have more of a background should maybe give more details or correct me. The divestment movement had been going from the 1960s (with roots starting in the 1950s) and so I think that we have to look at the Palestinian solidarity movement in terms of a decades long project as well.

Years ago I actually wrote a research paper on the history of apartheid in South Africa (though it's been a while so some of the actual dates may be a bit hazy). Some details that might help...

The anti-apartheid movement really didn't snowball until the mid-80s here in the US. Believe it or not, the match which lit the fuse was right here in the SF Bay Area, when in 1984 longshoremen from the ILWU began refusing to cross picket lines aimed at blockading the unloading of ships from South African companies. This catapulted the issue into the popular consciousness, and the movement picked up steam from there. This was, incidentally, the inspiration for the blockade of the Israeli Zim line here in Oakland last month.

The US government, on the other hand, though critical vocally of the apartheid regime, did little in the way of actually attempting to correct the problem in terms of foreign policy. This had in large part to do with SA's status as one of the world's largest exporters of gold, diamonds, and certain minerals (such as cobalt, I believe) in the non-communist world. Once the Berlin wall fell in 1989, all that changed. However, then President GHW Bush was never particularly big on human rights (recall Panama, the Iran-Contra Affair, the Salvadorian Civil War which had CIA and military involvement, but also that it was during his tenure as director of the CIA that he oversaw drug running operations out of South and Central America) so there wasn't much of a policy shift.

It wasn't until Bill Clinton took office that there was a new attitude toward apartheid. Clinton hosted Nelson Mandela at the White House in 1993, a clear signal of the change in US policy toward the De Klerk government. It's worth also mentioning that there were economic sanctions against South Africa proposed in the United Nations on three separate occasions, twice during the Nixon administration and once during the Reagan administration, and all three times the sanctions were blocked. This block was lead by the United States, France, Great Britain, and Israel, if I'm not mistaken. That isn't to say the Democrats of the period were much better, since they had Carter in office from '77-'81 and he did fuck all about apartheid in SA. Anyway, I'm of the mind that though Clinton was in ways no friend of the poor and definitely no enemy of capitalism, he was a lot better than his predecessors in terms of foreign policy as it related to human rights (much of which may well have had to do with the consciousness raising activities of activists and his personal history as an anti-Vietnam War activist).

A good portion of the eventual fall of apartheid may well have had to do with forces organic to South Africa. However, those forces had been there in one form or another ever since colonization. It wasn't until new rumblings from the top levels of Western governments could be heard that the government realized it had no choice but to acquiesce.

EDIT: As an aside, I do have some reservations about how realistic it is to think that there's much that can be done in the way of changing Israeli policy in Palestine. Frankly, this would require (in my mind) a drastic cut, if not elimination, of US foreign aid to Israel. I don't know that this can be achieved politically given the death grip Christian fundamentalists have on the Republican Party and the mainstream Jewish lobby has on the Democratic Party. The only thing that can be done at this point is drawing enough attention to the reality of the situation in the hopes that perhaps mainstream America will realize what the fuck is going on over there. I think Jimmy's right in his calculation that this thing could take decades.

[eclipse]

Is it anti-Jewish to say Israel has no right to exist?

Yes, it is in a certain way. If you put your head out of ideology into reality for a while, Israel has become a safe beacon for jewish people worldwide over the half of the last century, at least in the mind of a lot of people.
Face it, the majority of Jews are not going to give up Israel again, and if, it will be boots forward. You can like it or not, but this is an historical fact. And the holocaust, or the paranoia of another one, has everything to do with that, as has growing world wide antisemitism. Well, Israels politics certainly does not help with the latter. :(

If you deny Israel right to exist at the moment (i agree that no nation has the right to exist, and all should be abolished. But this seems not to be something that's about to happen in the near future it seems), in consequence you call out for genocide or at least a quite ugly war with a massacre of quite a lot of people, if you mean it or not.
Fuck, as if it was possible to eradicate a nuclear power from the map, in another way than from within.

Israel will stay there as long as it can, what`s much more necessary than antagonizing further is a real peace process and a two states - solution that works for both sides, or maybe, in an utopian future, a one- or no - state one.
A military conflict cannot be successful anyway, it just causes more grief and hatred, and the longer it takes the more desperate the situation gets.

[M-26-7]

And the holocaust, or the paranoia of another one, has everything to do with that

And what Al-Nakba? Does that have anything to do with present day Israel, or is that historical tragedy somehow irrelevant to modern events, while the holocaust somehow remains timely? You seem to have swallowed the Zionist (mis)reading of history whole, unfortunately.

[Adi Shankara]

Yes, it is in a certain way. If you put your head out of ideology into reality for a while, Israel has become a safe beacon for jewish people worldwide over the half of the last century, at least in the mind of a lot of people.

Are you mad!?! Jewish immigration to the USA is higher than to Israel these days, except for the poorest of Jews who can't get into the USA, because the threat of violence is so imminent. does the fact that the entire country is constantly mobilized for war mean anything to you? (and I know you share the opinion that Israel is a "safe haven" as well)



Face it, the majority of Jews are not going to give up Israel again, and if, it will be boots forward. You can like it or not, but this is an historical fact. And the holocaust, or the paranoia of another one, has everything to do with that, as has growing world wide antisemitism. Well, Israels politics certainly does not help with the latter. :(

I don't see any growing anti-semitism, nor does anyone else (I think). In fact, anti-Arabism and islamophobia is becoming much more prominent (look at France, the Netherlands, etc. and they're increasing bigotry towards muslims and Arabs)

Also, the Jews aren't the ones to "give up" israel. the WHITE EUROPEANS squatted on people's territory that did not belong to them. it's not much more simple than that.


If you deny Israel right to exist at the moment (i agree that no nation has the right to exist, and all should be abolished. But this seems not to be something that's about to happen in the near future it seems), in consequence you call out for genocide or at least a quite ugly war with a massacre of quite a lot of people, if you mean it or not.

Horseshit. that didn't happen to South Africa, South Africa was on the brink of civil war, and they handled their differences peacefully.

[praxis1966]

Yes, it is in a certain way. If you put your head out of ideology into reality for a while, Israel has become a safe beacon for jewish people worldwide over the half of the last century, at least in the mind of a lot of people.
Face it, the majority of Jews are not going to give up Israel again, and if, it will be boots forward. You can like it or not, but this is an historical fact. And the holocaust, or the paranoia of another one, has everything to do with that, as has growing world wide antisemitism. Well, Israels politics certainly does not help with the latter. :(

If you deny Israel right to exist at the moment (i agree that no nation has the right to exist, and all should be abolished. But this seems not to be something that's about to happen in the near future it seems), in consequence you call out for genocide or at least a quite ugly war with a massacre of quite a lot of people, if you mean it or not.
Fuck, as if it was possible to eradicate a nuclear power from the map, in another way than from within.

Israel will stay there as long as it can, what`s much more necessary than antagonizing further is a real peace process and a two states - solution that works for both sides, or maybe, in an utopian future, a one- or no - state one.
A military conflict cannot be successful anyway, it just causes more grief and hatred, and the longer it takes the more desperate the situation gets.

Look, if you had actually read the posts here, you could see that nobody's arguing for a military invasion of Israel. Further, I don't care what the Israeli government says about "self-defense" or it's Holocaust fears, that's all bullshit political posturing and everybody knows it. From 1948 on the government of Israel has been a neo-colonial state and it's Palestine policy is an extension of that.

I personally don't know whether a two state or one state solution is the better one and I further couldn't tell you which is the historically correct one (since Israel and her neighbors have been fighting over the same territory for thousands of years). What I do know is that there are serious human rights violations that take place at the hands of Israeli persecutors in Palestine on a daily basis which have to stop and there's nothing you can say to change that.

[Adi Shankara]

The South African Nationalist Party should've learned: if they wanted to keep their racist government in power with world support, they should've just constantly brought up the British slaughter of Boer women and children and turned other people's suffering into political capital.

[9]

Short answer to the OP is: no.

[Psy]

States founded by a plural majority of their own people who share a collective history. Burkina Faso, Japan, and Brazil come to mind.
Japan unified under a feudal ruling class using military might.

[The Red Next Door]

Japan unified under a feudal ruling class using military might.

Don't forget there were people already in Japan before the japanese.

[eclipse]

I knew this would happen. =_=
Fuck this, I never apologized anything Israel did, I just wanted to show that there are two (better four, even more) sides to this conflict.
I don`t say, anyone posting here called for "driving the jews back into the waves" (quoting hamas charta) but this is the only consequence Israels existence can end at the moment, it will not end any other way because there are existential interests of a lot of people at hand, call them Jews or white europeans if you like, that does not matter. What matters is their own identity. To neglect Israels right of existance at the moment, has no other effect than water on the mills of propaganda for a war that cannot be won. Perhaps that doesn`t fit into the revolutionary iconography of black hooded guys with bazookas, we all seem to like, but Palestines right so self determination and an end to all this tragedies happening on the hands of Israeli (and Palestinian) perpetrators cannot be won in a military way. Strategically, tactically. I am not even arguing from a pacifist stance here. If you put the existance right of the nation at risk, this is what you are hinting at. Conciously or not. In which other way should the nation end to exist? Voluntary?
Don`t be a clown.

The right of the state to exist has nothing to do with ending the ongoing conflict, why even bring it up? It helps only in antagonizing people.

Why is Israel a safe haven, immigration rates, the ongoing war aside? Because it is a nominally jewish state, and can depend on itself if things go seriously wrong. They could. I am not going do search the internet on statistics on growing antisemitism for you, you can do that on your own. Last time I did, I found the results to be quite alarming. And yes, islamophobia is the same. These developments are even interependent and polarizing each other in a way.

South Africa is a very bad example imo. Absolutely different situation.

[Psy]

Don't forget there were people already in Japan before the japanese.
Well yhea but didn't they get assimilated? Not that that is good but better then segregation or extermination.

[praxis1966]

The right of the state to exist has nothing to do with ending the ongoing conflict, why even bring it up?

This is something that doesn't have anything to do with ideology, it has to do with intelligence. Any rational, intelligent person should be willing to discuss and/or debate any and every topic so that they can learn something about said topic.

[AK]

States founded by a plural majority of their own people who share a collective history. Burkina Faso, Japan, and Brazil come to mind.
I remember reading something in the AFAQ about how nations and national identity are merely a result of the state (through the nation-state acting as a barrier between different peoples, therefore making different populations in their respective states nearly homogenous - something which the state takes advantage of and uses it to invent all this "national identity" bullshit).

Besides, if a nation-state is formed by the entire nation, it's definitely not a state. For a government to be initially founded as a state, it has to be through the emergence of a ruling class.


Don't forget there were people already in Japan before the japanese.
This is actually irrelevant to the statement that Japan (in the sense of a Japanese/Yamato (read: not Ainu) nation-state) was formed by a ruling feudal class.

[Sir Comradical]

Is it anti-Jewish to say Israel has no right to exist?

No, it's just an incorrect statement because Israel does have the right to exist within the 1967 borders. Why? Because these things called "rights" are granted by international authorities hence there is every legal basis for the existence of Israel.

[manic expression]

I knew this would happen. =_=
Fuck this, I never apologized anything Israel did, I just wanted to show that there are two (better four, even more) sides to this conflict.
Comrade, there is only one valid side to the conflict: the human side. The state of Israel is on the other. That's the situation.


To neglect Israels right of existance at the moment, has no other effect than water on the mills of propaganda for a war that cannot be won.
To the contrary, it is a war that no one but Israel chose. For the Palestinians, it is a war of survival, nothing less. That is why they must and will win.


If you put the existance right of the nation at risk, this is what you are hinting at.
We are only hinting at Israel's very nature. It has no right to the land it sits upon, and moreover no state has the right to ethnic purity. I thought we learned this lesson against the Nazis, but I guess we need to re-learn it against the Nazis' prodigal sons.


Why is Israel a safe haven, immigration rates, the ongoing war aside? Because it is a nominally jewish state, and can depend on itself if things go seriously wrong. They could.
Depend on itself? Israel could not depend on itself to tie its own goddamn shoes. A bottomless pit of American money is the only thing propping up apartheid in the region. Take away American support and Israel would crash to the ground within a matter of months.

But most importantly, the socialist movement is the only proven safe haven for Jewish peoples. Never forget that.

[Adi Shankara]

South Africa is a very bad example imo. Absolutely different situation.

How is this so? they're both lands that were colonized by European settlers that espouse a racial ideology (since the original Zionists considered Jews a race unto themselves) that one group has more claim to a piece of land that has been occupied by another group for at least hundreds of years, then to enforce these rules, they create legal segregation and the equivalent of bantustans and "homelands" for displaced Palestinians.

the only difference is the world ended up standing behind black South Africa. Otherwise, it's the exact same situation all over again.

[eclipse]

How is this so?

Mot important, no holocaust behind this, aside from various other historical facts that just do not fit well. Among these are for example, no important religious holy ground for three world religions, no bridgehead - function in a region with ressources geopolitical and economical crucial to the entire world and not encircled by enemy countries. To state the really obvious ones.

[khad]

Mot important, no holocaust behind this
Not to trivialize the Big H, but you do remember where concentration camps were first used, right?

[eclipse]

Cuba under General Weyler. Yes, and the Boer-War of course.
I didn`t want to trivialize that either, but I think it's not comparable in its relevancy to the actual conflict.

[Alf]

Thomas Sankara's answer to my question about which states have a right to exist.
"States founded by a plural majority of their own people who share a collective history. Burkina Faso, Japan, and Brazil come to mind".
Does that mean that you would be against a proletarian revolution which aimed to destroy these states?

[manic expression]

I didn`t want to trivialize that either, but I think it's not comparable in its relevancy to the actual conflict.
Politically speaking, it's entirely comparable. One of the big rationales behind South African apartheid was the claim that the Black Africans would "drive the whites into the sea." And what country would give the Afrikaners safety?

Sound familiar? It should, because it's a carbon-copy of what the Zionist apartheid apologists have been peddling for decades.

Coincidentally enough, after the UN arms embargo of South Africa, there were but two countries on the face of the planet that continued to sell weapons to the apartheid regime. Taiwan...and Israel. Fascists of a feather stick together.

[Adi Shankara]

Thomas Sankara's answer to my question about which states have a right to exist.
"States founded by a plural majority of their own people who share a collective history. Burkina Faso, Japan, and Brazil come to mind".
Does that mean that you would be against a proletarian revolution which aimed to destroy these states?

"plural majority of their own people".

by definition, if it was led by the people, then the people would be forming a proletarian state, thus it would be a legitimate one. I don't view capitalist states as rightful nations. the USSR was founded in rightful revolution as was Cuba (even if I disagree where the USSR ended up), but the modern day Khmer state? that was imposed by the UN onto the Khmer people.

[Alf]

By that definition, no capitalist state has a 'right' to exist, which is closer to a communist position, although we would disagree about the nature of Cuba and the USSR etc. However, the marxist method isn't to go on about abstract 'rights' but to see whether the formation of particular states has a historically progressive function. Marx and Engels supported the formation of certain bourgeois states not because it expressed the will of the 'people' of that country or corresponded to some universal right to national self-determination, but because it marked a step forward compared to feudalism and permitted bourgeois relations of production to develop. This approach was valid in Marx's day, but no longer, since the conditions for the world communist revolution have been with us for a very long tome and capitalism everywhere is a regressive mode of production.

[manic expression]

To Alf, you say that conditions since Marx's time have changed. Very well. However, do you reject the position that the development of monopoly capital, that is imperialism, changes the place of the national question in its own way as well? The dynamics of capitalist society have changed as you say, but they have changed in a manner that makes national liberation from imperialism a distinct victory for the workers. That is one thing that needs to be accounted for if we are to address this issue.

[Alf]

no, I think it's the other way round. It made sense for workers to support causes like Polish independence, the unification of Germany and Italy, the war against the slave-holding states in the USA. In the epoch of imperialism, the epoch of the communist revolution, the tasks of the bourgeois revolution are no longer of the agenda- forming unified nation states is not at all a step forward. On the contrary the revolution of today is against all nation states and for a world human community.

[manic expression]

Why would it make more sense to support national self-determination before imperialism but not after its full development? One of the hallmarks of imperialism is the oppression of nations as nations...without the defeat of this imperialist campaign, we cannot push forward the interests of the workers in either the imperialist country or the occupied/oppressed one. Forming unified nation states is very much a step forward if it includes with it the defeat of imperialism and working-class gains. That's what national liberation is all about.

[progressive_lefty]

I only say something like that in hot-headiness because of what they do to the Palestinians. But those sort of comments come from me about any Imperialistic country that behaves in such violent ways.

[Psy]

Why would it make more sense to support national self-determination before imperialism but not after its full development? One of the hallmarks of imperialism is the oppression of nations as nations...without the defeat of this imperialist campaign, we cannot push forward the interests of the workers in either the imperialist country or the occupied/oppressed one. Forming unified nation states is very much a step forward if it includes with it the defeat of imperialism and working-class gains. That's what national liberation is all about.
Because now the proletariat is a massive centralized class that can hold power itself and we need workers to have solidarity across borders. For example if workers in Isreal take run the bourgeoisie out of Isreal and take over the state not only would the workers of Palestine have to do the same quickly but workers all around the world as only a world revolution would do and anything short of world revolution would be doomed to failure.

[Boboulas]

Before we even try to answer this question we should define what "right to exist" means. I think its a very misleading piece of israeli propaganda that people get caught up in.


We recognize the right of people to exist–and when another state violates human rights, we decry the state. Within our borders we recognize the right of my house to exist, or yours, as a property right. But we didn’t recognize the right of the Saddam/Iraqi government to exist, as we don’t recognize the Iranian gov’t right now, or the Syrian one. I don’t recognize the right of the West Bank settlements to exist, unless it is in the context of a binational state. That doesn’t mean I want to kill the settlers. The "right to exist" is Holocaust-tinged language, and echoes the determination of Hitler to wipe out the Jewish people. But when you talk about a state, you’re not talking about a people, you’re talking about a concept.