Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism [Archive]

Tim Cornelis

12th March 2013, 23:59

Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism
For a long time, as an anti-zionist, I considered this statement to be utterly ridiculous. Zionism, after all, represents not all Jews. However, I just read an article by a communist of sorts trying to disprove many arguments that anti-zionism rests on anti-semitic assumptions (as made by another communist of sorts). Ironically this gave, in my view, some credit to the notion that anti-zionism is anti-semitic, although I don't necessarily agree it makes for interesting discussions.

Communists tend to recognise more things as racist than social-democrats do and especially more than conservatives do. Conservatives generally would deny any institutional racism in the United States, whereas communists generally recocgnise it. Keep this in mind.

From a communist perspective, all (bourgeois) states are as legitimate as the next, and all nation-states need to be disintegrated. Thus, the singling out of the Zionist state is peculiar. Surely, there are far more oppressive and even more racist states than Israel? Zimbabwe comes to mind, Syria's treatment of Kurds, Iran's treatment of Kurds and Arabs, China's ethnic colonisation of Tibet is similar to Israel's colonists, and the treatment of women in Saudia Arabia is ostensibly worse in many regards than the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis.*

*
*You may reply Saudi women are not systematically murdered, I would reply, deaths due to domestic violence are high but isn't really the same, but imagine if these Saudi women began armed resistance, their treatment would be the same if not worse than Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

So if you do not identify as 'anti-Syrian' why should you identify as anti-Zionist? It may not be explicit racism, but anti-zionism, especially amongst the far-left, may rest on implicit anti-semitic sentiment. Like conservatives do not recognise institutional racism in the US because it isn't explicit, may we be doing the same for anti-Zionism? This is especially so since many of the anti-Zionist arguments rely on liberal politics, e.g. "Israel stole land" is a common argument, while communists recognise all land is stolen.

You may reply, "I'm an anti-Zionist, but I also advocate the destruction of all nation-states." Then why the need to identify yourself as an anti-Zionist? Being anti-nationalist includes opposition to zionism, while identifying anti-Zionist implies a priority of opposing Israel over other nation-states. Why this priority?

Some food for thought.

melvin

13th March 2013, 00:08

Durruti's friend

13th March 2013, 00:17

As I get it, Zionism is/was the movement for the creation of the State of Israel and as such is sort of imperialist and definitely reactionary. But, on the other hand, it really isn't any worse than the things you mentioned, or Hamas, for that matter.

But what I find interesting is the Zionist stance on the salvation of Jews before and during WWII. David Ben-Gurion said during the Evian Conference:

''If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.''

So, I'd say that Zionism's goal isn't even securing the lives of Jews facing oppression but only the creation of an 'ethnicly clean' Jewish state because of religious and nationalist reasons. It seems to me that Zionism isn't only anti-Arab, but even anti-Jewish to a point.

And I never call myself explicitly anti-Zionist, always only anti-nationalist.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

13th March 2013, 00:19

It is a curious issue. I guess that because it was a political issue within the last century in terms of a new nation being granted at the expense of another people (the Palestinians), and that that state has probably been at least on a par with countries like Zimbabwe, Syria etc. in terms of oppression of the Palestinian people and Israeli Arabs, that it's a particular focus.

I do agree though, i'm rather suspcious of people who are so focused on anti-Zionism. Not that one shouldn't be against the actions of the Israeli government and the treatment of the Palestinian people, and the power distribution between Israelis and Palestinians, but yeah, anybody can see that conflict resolution requires a bit more balance than some on the left tend to have. Note: not concilliation or acceptance, but balance.

Yuppie Grinder

13th March 2013, 00:30

People who buy into National-Liberation movements are of course going to side with Palestine over Israel, and it's plain to see Israel is the imperialist aggressor in that situation. I don't think it has anything to do with anti-semitism.
As a Marxist, I don't think it's possible to effectively oppose imperialism by picking sides in inter-capital warfare, and I don't think national liberation movements are in any way progressive in the epoch of decadent capitalism.
Israel does practice apartheid bordering on genocide.

Lord Hargreaves

13th March 2013, 00:54

I don't really see why leftists/communists have to beat themselves up over not being against everything bad equally, or for not spending the same amount of time denouncing each of those individual things that they are against. It just has the feeling to me of wildly unrealistic standards being fostered upon us by our enemies.

If we had to be completely even handed about every criticism we make, giving "equal time" to all sides and all concerns, we would end up saying nothing at all... and isn't that the result that those raising such criticisms of us leftists were aiming at in the first place? (let's be honest)

It is a nonsense that, say, we can't condemn racism because, hell, whites are having a hard time too; or that we can't condemn sexism and homophobia because white lesbians living in the West aren't doing as badly as straight men in poorer countries. These criticisms are not contradictory, they do not reveal hypocrisy or double standards: ultimately, in fact, all these positions come together, they are complementary.

And it is a nonsense too that we can't be anti-imperialists and oppose the expropriation and subjugation of an entire people because "all property is theft!"... or we can't support Palestinian statehood because all states are bad. In my own personal opinion, it is false to say that it is "the communist position" that all states are the same, all nations and nationalisms are the same, that there is no difference in legitimacy whatsoever between that government and any government. That is quite simply nihilism, not communism.

If we are anti-Zionists, that says nothing about our views concerning the oppressive nature of many Arab states, and how they treat their minorities. It actually puts us in a stronger position morally, not a weakened one, for us to then go on from criticising Israel to criticising those Arab states and their own abuses against their own people.

Why "prioritize" Israel? Well, because it is a colonial state, backed by the United States and Europe, so we have an extra responsibility - those of us living in the West - to oppose such policies. And no, I don't believe it is necessarily the case that Israel isn't as bad as other places: it is, in many instances, quantitatively the most racist and unjust state on the planet.

But even if the treatment of Palestinians wasn't that bad, even if there really are places that are far worse, who cares that we choose to focus on Israel? Focusing our criticisms on Israel just because that happens to be a popular position, or just because you are trying to appeal to Muslim voters in your constituency, or just because that was your major in college and the history of the region interests you, or whatever it is, doesn't mean you are being anti-Semitic . Can you not see what a startlingly large leap that is? To even suggest such a thing would be - and given the context, I'm not at all sorry to say this - succumbing to Zionist propaganda.

blake 3:17

13th March 2013, 01:10

At the OP -- very good and fair question. There's an element missing in your thinking which seems to equate Israelis with Zionists -- the two are certainly not identical, and there are many Zionists who are not Jews.

And neither the nation or the state are going away for a long time, so we gotta deal with these things. One can propose utopian models which will just not happen or try to be a little bit realistic.

So there are several questions here -- Why is Zionism so dangerous? Why focus on Israel as a human rights abuser? Is the oppression of the Palestinian people more urgent than others?

To passively watch the genocide of the Palestinian people is clearly unacceptable on a very basic moral level. The alliance between Israeli, Canadian, and American states is an extremely dangerous one for the entire world.

I've been asked why I single Israel out (which is only true in the sense that I support the BDS campaign) and I feel a special responsibility given the amount of support it is given by Canada both financially and ideologically. When I walk to work I pass two massive bill boards requesting donations for Israel. Does any other country do this? Does any other country do this while bulldozing houses, jailing children, and bombing schools? No. This is insanity.

blake 3:17

13th March 2013, 02:03

As a Marxist, I don't think it's possible to effectively oppose imperialism by picking sides in inter-capital warfare, and I don't think national liberation movements are in any way progressive in the epoch of decadent capitalism.

Are you suggesting the Israeli Palestinian conflict is between capitals?

And, yes there are Palestinian capitalists, they are extraordinarily weak as a class, and the Palestinian people are represented by very weak bureaucracies.

This is hardly the same as a very powerful capitalist class, a very powerful state, a very powerful military, and many many very powerful institutions and bureaucracies.

Skyhilist

13th March 2013, 02:13

Living in the U.S., Zionism is especially relevant because of our governments strong support of it in siding with Israel. That's why I think many people who consider themselves anti-imperialists in general emphasis "anti-Zionism", at least in this country. That certainly isn't to say that the other mistreatments you mentioned should be ignored though.

Per Levy

13th March 2013, 02:24

cant we just all agree that some anti-zionism is most certantly anti-semitic while other anti-zionism isnt.

a_wild_MAGIKARP

13th March 2013, 03:24

Like others have said, it's different mostly because of how much of an influence Israel has on western countries. The idea that Israel controls western governments, while exaggerated, is not entirely conspiracy theory bullshit. The fact that the US gives 8 million dollars to Israel every single day is good enough evidence that the Zionazi state has a very strong influence in the world.
If someone asked what my political ideology is, obviously I wouldn't say anti-Zionist instead of Communist, but if we were discussing Israel or Zionism, then I would make it clear I am an anti-Zionist.
The idea that opposition to Zionism is anti-Semitic is like saying that opposition to Nazism is anti-German. Zionism isn't as bad, of course, but still.

homegrown terror

13th March 2013, 03:46

i oppose the zionist invasion of palestinian lands not due to stolen ownership but due to the forced removal of the palestinian people, which in my mind is neo-colonialism. those who know me know that i hate the RELIGION of judaism, but not more so than i do for islam or christianity, and while i don't believe anyone has a right to own land, i think everyone has a right to a home they can feel safe in, and the occupation of israel robbed a lot of people of that right. that is why i am anti-zionist, separately from being anti-statist.

Sinister Cultural Marxist

13th March 2013, 04:45

What's antisemitic is when the criticism of Zionism is applied to the Jewish people and tradition, and not applied to a particular national project. Particularly pernicious is the attempt to exaggerate the influence of the Jewish communities or create conspiracy theories.

Also, what Israel does to Palestinians should not be judged as "worse" than what Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria do or did to Kurds, what the British did to the Irish, or any other colonial-imperial projects. The point is that we should criticize an ideological distinction between people when it comes to access to political and economic rights (be that a distinction between Jewish person and Muslim/Christian Palestinian, Englishman and Irishman, Arab/Turk/Iranian and Kurd, etc)

Hexen

13th March 2013, 05:44

Like others have said, it's different mostly because of how much of an influence Israel has on western countries. The idea that Israel controls western governments, while exaggerated, is not entirely conspiracy theory bullshit. The fact that the US gives 8 million dollars to Israel every single day is good enough evidence that the Zionazi state has a very strong influence in the world.

Well it is because the U.S. and Israel are simply allies and the rest is all conspiracy bullshit. I would argue however it's actually the other way around that it's the U.S. and the Western world that controls Israel since it's essentially white/European colonialism of the Middle East like South Africa was.

Tim Cornelis

13th March 2013, 12:33

Israel does practice apartheid bordering on genocide.

To passively watch the genocide of the Palestinian people

In four decades, Israel killed less Palestinians than Syria's regime killed civilians in the last two years. There is no genocide. At the very worst we can speak of ethnic cleansing.

At the OP -- very good and fair question. There's an element missing in your thinking which seems to equate Israelis with Zionists -- the two are certainly not identical, and there are many Zionists who are not Jews.

I calculated that in with the explicit implicit racism. I wondering if anti-zionism rests on implicit anti-semitic presumptions. That they prioritise opposing Israel over other nation-states that are more oppressive, because of an implicit anti-semitism as Israel is a Jewish state. This doesn't presuppose thinking all Jews are Zionists.

Sasha

13th March 2013, 13:16

its a difficult problem to get to the root of,
there is definitely a undercurrent of implicit and explicit antisemitism in most anti-zionism (also among many of the radical left).
but, as Hajo Meyer argues in his book "the end of Judeaism" modern antisemitism (esp in the middle east and among those who feel related to what happens there) is something quite different from traditional/historic antisemitism and current Zionism and those Jews who dont actively oppose the (policies of) the state of Israel have def in part themselves to blame for it.
but then again, i cant see the rabid focus on the conflict of someone like dries van agt (former dutch Christian-democrat PM turned staunch Israel critic) as somewhat related to his Catholic background and the traditional antisemitism thats alive and well there. And if someone as Hayo Meyer not only shares regularly shares a stage with van Agt but also defends him from criticisms I get caught between a rock and a hard place..

Rurkel

13th March 2013, 13:38

From a communist perspective, all (bourgeois) states are as legitimate as the next, and all nation-states need to be disintegrated.
However, there's no denying that Israel practices policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that your regular bourgie democracies currently don't. Israel presenting itself as being a liberal-democracy plus rabidly pro-Israeli feeling in the US is the reason many leftists focus on Israel. When you're surrounded by the "omg poor Israel" propaganda, it's understandable why you would focus on Israel's atrocities.

After all, Israel is strongly supported by the US, so for US leftists struggle against Zionism can be perceived as struggle against the bourgeoisie at home.

I do not think that Israel practices "genocide", but I don't think that labelling it as practicing such is anti-semitic in itself.

On the other side, some leftists seem to adopt a "if you're anti-Zionist, then you can't be an anti-Semite, since anti-Zionism is Good, while anti-Semitism is Bad" attitude. This is obviously false (someone who thinks that the Jewish Conspiracy to Control the Entire World currently manifests itself in expansion of Israel's borders and worldwide influence is clearly both). Also, the "Zionism is responsible for the dissolution of the USSR, the economic crisis, the tsunami and the pimple on my ass"-type 'anti-Zionism' is also anti-Semitic, even if preceded by a "not all Jews are Zionist" disclaimer.

DDR

13th March 2013, 13:52

Sasha

13th March 2013, 14:29

This train of thoug, to say that Antizionism is the same as antisemitism, is plain and utterly ridiculous. Using this reasoning, one can say that Zionism and the support of the state of Israel is antisemitism, since Palestinians are also semites. Semite is mostly used for jews, but not al semites are jews. By language, for example, Maltese people are semites.

thats the second time someone brought up that very stupid cop out, any dictionary and encyclopedia defines "antisemitism" as hatred of jews;

Definition of ANTI-SEMITISM : hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group

that its a slight misnomer because from an ethnic perspective not all semites are jews and not all jews are semites doesnt matter, thats like saying racism doesnt excist because from a genetic perspective there are no human "races".

DDR

13th March 2013, 14:54

@Psyco:

Yes, I know, that, the same is in Spanish:

antisemita.
1. adj. Enemigo de la raza hebrea, de su cultura o de su influencia. Apl. a pers., u. t. c. s.

But that doesn't chage that semites are a linguistic and etnological entity, which is mainly asociated with jews, but they are not the only ones. Because of that I prefer to use the term judeofobia instead of antisemitism, it's more clear and accurate. And that's my two linguistics cents :D

Ocean Seal

13th March 2013, 15:08

Identifying as anti-aparthied is anti-white, and identifying as anti-fascist is anti-European because you can just identify as anti-capitalist and thus oppose everyone:)! This like your example, is non-sequitur. You can identify as something particular even when it is already encompassed within your views.

goalkeeper

13th March 2013, 16:47

@Psyco:

Yes, I know, that, the same is in Spanish:

But that doesn't chage that semites are a linguistic and etnological entity, which is mainly asociated with jews, but they are not the only ones. Because of that I prefer to use the term judeofobia instead of antisemitism, it's more clear and accurate. And that's my two linguistics cents :D

No, this whole "Arabs are semites too" thing is complete bullshit. Yes Arabic is a semitic language, but calling someone a "Semite" makes no sense. Antisemitism was just some bullshit term which the German journalist Wilhelm Marr gave to Jew hatred (which he shared). The term antisemitism has only ever meant the hatred towards Jews, in particular the very specific and unique hatred that came about in the late 19th century culminating in the Shoah. Just because some stupid 19th century Journalist, influenced but the pseudoscientific discourse surrounding race at the time, gave his hatred of Jews a sloppy term like antisemitism it does not mean the term that encompasses all semitic speaking people. This is a stupid semantic game. Arabs can be antisemitic according to how the term is popularly understood in both academia and everyday use. A better term is perhaps needed but the term has gained such popular currency now it seems pointless.

Sinister Cultural Marxist

13th March 2013, 16:51

Since freepalestine is accusing me of being a "Zionist" over personal chat (before and after calling judaism a "false religion") repeatedly for simply saying that the historical Jewish narrative might have some truth to it the way pretty much every other people's historical narrative does, I am a little more sympathetic with the thread's title ... I think that it is important to remember that some anti zionists take a principled stand against Israel without making this an issue of the Jewish people and religion, while others are going on about how every Jewish scholar in history was a liar or that the protocols of the elders of zion are accurate (I certainly hope that no "anti-zionist" believesin the accuracy of the elders of zion on this forum, but you never know). There are people who are taking a stand against a nationalist and statist project, and there are others who just don't seem to like there being too many Jews in the Levant or people who sympathize with Jewish folks I guess.

The sad thing is that the only thing that will liberate that part of the world is the greater body of Palestinian and Israeli workers overcome their differences and unite around a common social/political/economic program the way the Bolsheviks tried to unite the various national groupings of the Russian Empire.

goalkeeper

13th March 2013, 16:56

That not all opposition to Zionism is antisemitic is, i think, undeniable. However it does seem that the Left downplays or ignores that a lot of "anti-zionism" is rooted in antisemitism.

IrishSocialist

13th March 2013, 17:02

Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Many left thinking people are against the fascist crimes of the illegal state of Israel, on the Palestinian people. Like I opposed Hitler's Germany, Franco's Spain, it is not a matter of religion, but a matter of opposing war crimes.

goalkeeper

13th March 2013, 17:07

there are others who just don't seem to like there being too many Jews in the Levant or people who sympathize with Jewish folks I guess.

It is interesting to here what people have to say about Zionism before the state of Israel. I remember a few years ago reading some book about Palestine and Zionism by some (I assume) SWP hack printed by Bookmarks. The way it spoke of European Jews emigrating to Palestine in the late 19th century and early 20th century and simply buying land to farm, you would think the idea of open borders and freedom of movement for all people was something the author did not support. Not that I think it was a particularly good or progressive idea for Europe's Jews to "return to the land" and become farmers in the Levant (although it did save them from the horror of Europe), but there is nothing inherently wrong with a Jewish guy from Poland wishing to emigrate to another part of the world. Sometimes people cite the prejudiced attitude of Jewish pioneering Zionists towards the Arab inhabitants, and even attacks. But this just reminds me of the anti-immigrant discourse we get today ("Muslims think less of British people" "These Muslims only like their own kind", "these Muslims beat up white kids, rape white girls" etc), so it doesn't hold weight. THe actions and private thoughts of some European Jews towards Arabs in the pre-Israel days is of course deplorable (although it went both ways; look at the pogroms and riots of the 1920s), but the fundamental point is there was nothing wrong or inherently bad about arguably the most oppressed and downtrodden people in Europe deciding to leave Europe and buy land from the Ottoman's in the Levant in the late 19th century to the early 20th.

Rurkel

13th March 2013, 18:00

However, the Zionist movement included racist and colonialist strands from the beginning (see the infamous "land without a people for a people without a land" quote).

goalkeeper

13th March 2013, 18:09

However, the Zionist movement included racist and colonialist strands from the beginning (see the infamous "land without a people for a people without a land" quote).

Sure. I think this largely speaks to the context within which it developed. Emerging in the late 19th century it obvious that it would use the dominant discourse of the time of the pioneering colonist in far away lands. However, I don't think that the wretched of Europe buying land in the Southern Levant to farm and create a new home can be compared to the Colonialism of the big powers in the same time.

That quote comes from a non-Jewish British guy if I recall correctly though.

Also, I just realised i keep using the word "discourse" in this thread and Im not sure why. I'm not a pretentious "academic" person, I promise.

hatzel

13th March 2013, 18:24

Let's check ourselves for a minute here: anti-Zionism =/= antisemitism. However, there are antisemitisms which clothe themselves in anti-Zionism and anti-Zionisms that employ antisemitic rhetoric (though I tend to deny that anti-Zionisms that make use of antisemitism are anti-Zionisms at all, so perhaps there is only the former, and the latter is what the former pretends to be), and anybody who wants to deny that should start going to Palestine solidarity marches in a kippah, the worms will crawl out then. Needless to say anybody on the left would have to oppose such currents if they want to retain credibility - some do, some don't (or oppose it with their tongues alone).

Problem is we've got a bit of a boy who cried wolf situation going on. There are some who can't distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism (which - despite the fact that one can masquerade as the other - are wholly distinct, not ever occupying a single continuum), and they tend to shout pretty loud when they're making their accusations. Still, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Some don't notice this because - in classic boy who cried wolf fashion - the villagers dismiss it out of hand; there are even supposed anti-racists who simply laugh in the face of every accusation of antisemitism, they treat it as a big joke and never think to question where the accusation comes from. I've even known Jews who have been active in anti-Israel struggle for almost a decade, pointing out that a particular slogan is antisemitic and being greeted by a barrage of abuse from young upstarts, 'all you Jews always trying to defend Israel, calling all criticism antisemitic!' Arguably antisemitic itself, but you can't point that out because that would only 'prove' the claim. Typical.

But then the waters get muddy. Even in this thread, 'it's because Israel controls the US to get all the money!' Any decent leftist would realise that the US is pushing its own imperialist interests, backing its various pawns. Some would call the accusation that Israel controls western foreign policy (as we saw here, but also in things like 'the US went to Iraq and Afghanistan to push Zionist interests, Israel forced us!' - the right makes all such claims, and something tells me they won't soon decide it was Kurdish influence what did it) antisemitic in itself, in representing the classic Jewish domination myth, but maybe it's just a matter of having shitty political analysis. Which one is it? Be fucked if I know! The most sensible suggestion would be that it depends: some who make the claim are antisemitic, others are ignorant. Problem is distinguishing between the two requires some serious consideration, which can prove either difficult or uninteresting to some...

Rurkel

13th March 2013, 18:25

Sure. I think this largely speaks to the context within which it developed. Other immigration movements in this time, however, didn't include colonial strands. There was nothing like that in Irish or Jewish immigration to the US, for example.

The fact that Zionism (with the possible exception of some uninfluental pacifistic flavors) wanted to create a nation-state is what distinguished it from other immigrations and set it on a road of conflict with the local Arab population.

though I tend to deny that anti-Zionisms that make use of antisemitism are anti-Zionisms at all,
Why? It's better to just define anti-Zionism as "opposition to the existence of a nation-state only, or dominantly, for Israeli Jews".

GerrardWinstanley

14th March 2013, 00:07

All of the above are recognised as states on the basis of their people's legitimate right to sovereign territory.

Israel came to be recognised as a state through a process of military expansionism and even those parts of historical Palestine it successfully annexed are colonised under a racist division between Jewish settlers and Palestinian arabs, the latter of whom lack access to the most basic rights. Aggressive war is the worst of all crimes and Israel does it with impunity. What also makes Israel extraordinary is that the pretext for setting up a Jewish state in Palestine was to protect jews from the very same acts persecution visited upon Palestinians today.

blake 3:17

14th March 2013, 00:43

From wikipedia : "The crimes committed during an ethnic cleansing is similar to that of genocide, but while genocide includes complete extermination of the target group as the stated goal, ethnic cleansing may involve murder only to the point of mobilizing the target group out of the territory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

Sasha

14th March 2013, 01:01

Israel came to be recognised as a state through a process of military expansionism and even those parts of historical Palestine it successfully annexed are colonised under a racist division between Jewish settlers and Palestinian arabs, the latter of whom lack access to the most basic rights.

Wut? Now i would be the first to acknowledge that Israel is a deeply racist society, and that this also seeps through into the political and juridical system but Arabs within Israel "lack acces to the most basic rights?" Orly?

goalkeeper

14th March 2013, 01:39

All of the above are recognised as states on the basis of their people's legitimate right to sovereign territory.
.

Oh, so I suppose the formation of the Turkish state did not involve forced deportation of Greeks in Anatolia and the mass killing and deportation of Armenians.

All ethnic based nation states are formed through violence and disposition as ethnic nationalism is a zero sum game where different nationalities are living in the same area and making competing claims to a bit of land. This is why ethnic nationalism itself is what should be opposed.

homegrown terror

14th March 2013, 07:05

i'd like to see what some of the israel-supporting rightists would say if some governing force invaded and took over romania in order to "give" it to the romany (who have been persecuted exactly the way jewish people have been throughout history) see whether it'd strike a chord with them if the people being torn from their homes happened to be WHITE people.

Ablearcher

14th March 2013, 07:27

There has never been a shortage of reasons as to why the Left should criticize the Israeli government. However, all credibility is lost when anti-Zionists make sweeping indictments of all the people of Israel and are completely hostile towards Israeli culture and civil society. At that point, it's not a stretch to say you've crossed the line between reasoned criticism and bigotry. To make no distinction in your arguments between the machinations of the Israeli bourgeois and the average citizen requires, for the sake of being consistent, you must also believe that as an American citizen you too are guilty of every crime your government has committed. For a group that likes to pride itself on thorough analysis, most of the Left takes such a myopic black & white approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, easily one of the most complex and nuanced, that their arguments come off as incredibly anti-semitic. Something which only strengthens the conservative reactionary stratum of Israeli society and assists in winning it support. I've always believed that the number of people on the Left who are so uncompromisingly anti-Israel indicates that it has become "fashionably Left" to be pro-Palestine. The near complete level of uniformity in opinion and lack of debate on this subject, particularly among the younger people on the left who may know next to nothing about the situation, isn't helping anyone. It's high time we stop stoking the flames of Arab and Israeli nationalism and instead focus our efforts on helping both groups realize the true enemy- the capitalist class.

goalkeeper

14th March 2013, 11:59

hatzel

14th March 2013, 13:24

Why? It's better to just define anti-Zionism as "opposition to the existence of a nation-state only, or dominantly, for Israeli Jews".

Fine, if you want to be the one to say that genuine anti-Zionism can, in fact, be antisemitic, be my guest. I didn't say it, but if you want to take that approach, I won't be the one to stop you because I don't really care enough to regulate everybody's thoughts. But in my personal opinion it's advantageous to maintain a distinction between opposition to Israel based on a principled critique of nationalism, imperialism, the concrete actions of the Israeli state etc. (ie anti-Zionism) and an opposition to Israel based on hatred of Jews (ie antisemitism); doing so has many potential benefits, the most obvious of which is that it excludes antisemites from the anti-Zionist camp, in the same way we would exclude those who oppose 'Jewish bankers' from the anti-capitalist camp - because their opposition is not based on a critique of Zionism/capitalism/etc. itself (which would allow it to be equally applied as a general principle even if Zionism had been a movement of Roma or the banker happens to be a Frenchman), but is a simple manifestation of their antisemitism. I cannot personally see how an opposition to Israel based on antisemitism deserves to be called anti-Zionism when it hasn't even engaged with Zionism itself (beyond noticing it's kinda Jewish therefore it's bad), nor would I call those who don't engage with capitalism anti-capitalists, it's as simple as that.

Considering certain elements of the left seem far more willing to embrace antisemitic critics of Israel as 'fellow anti-Zionists' than they are to embrace antisemitic critics of Jew-finance (no matter how much they may attempt to paint this as a principled opposition to capitalist economic forms) as 'fellow anti-capitalists,' I feel that my approach is very useful, but as I said, you're free to collapse the distinction if you wish. I don't know if maybe you'd find it a little harder to challenge the accusation that anti-Zionism is antisemitic if your response is 'well yeah sometimes, but if you oppose Israel you oppose Israel, that's more than enough, so welcome to the anti-Zionist club!' but I guess that's not really my problem and I can't exactly live everybody's life for them now, can I? For me genuine anti-Zionists and antisemitic opponents of Israel are not and will not ever be 'on the same team,' and an uncompromising recognition of that fact (something which has by no means been axiomatic in the anti-Zionist movement, neither historically nor today, when antisemites have either been outright defended or simply brushed under the carpet, under the misguided assumption that drawing attention to and criticising antisemites masquerading - in my eyes, at least, even if you disagree - as anti-Zionists would discredit anti-Zionism itself) would be of great benefit for the credibility of the movement, and should therefore be of utmost importance...

Rurkel

14th March 2013, 17:53

But in my personal opinion it's advantageous to maintain a distinction between opposition to Israel based on a principled critique of nationalism, imperialism, the concrete actions of the Israeli state etc. (ie anti-Zionism) and an opposition to Israel based on hatred of Jews (ie antisemitism);
That just sounds like insisting that only leftish anti-Sovietism is truly anti-Soviet, and a neo-Nazi that hates the USSR is "not really anti-Soviet". Furthemore, anti-semitism and anti-semitic anti-Zionism are related but different beasts, who should not be wantonly confused.

Labor Aristocrat Killer

14th March 2013, 19:38

For a long time, as an anti-zionistCrypto-Zionists love to pretend to oppose Israel.

Zionism, after all, represents not all Jews Considering that the Original Jews are the Palestinian people, this is true.

See professor Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People) for details.

However, I just read an article by a communist of sorts trying to disprove many arguments that anti-zionism rests on anti-semitic assumptions (as made by another communist of sorts). “Communists of sorts,” lol.

Ironically this gave, in my view, some credit to the notion that anti-zionism is anti-semitic, although I don't necessarily agree it makes for interesting discussions. Interesting for crypto-Zionists, perhaps.

Communists tend to recognise more things as racist than social-democrats do and especially more than conservatives do. Conservatives generally would deny any institutional racism in the United States, whereas communists generally recocgnise it. “Communists” that don't recognize it aren't communists at all, but mouthpieces of white racism.

From a communist perspective, all (bourgeois) states are as legitimate as the next This is, of course, nonsense.

Thus, the singling out of the Zionist state is peculiar. There is nothing “peculiar” about opposing genocidal European Settlerism.

Surely, there are far more oppressive and even more racist states than Israel? Zimbabwe comes to mind That this “comes to mind” shows that you're basically a vile racist apologist of White Power.

Syria's treatment of Kurds, Iran's treatment of Kurds and Arabs All the enemies of Israel “come to mind” when you're trying to figure out which states are “even more racist” than Israel?

You're a crypto-Zionist advocate of White Power.

China's ethnic colonisation of Tibet is similar to Israel's colonists Only in the mind of crytpo-Zionist neo-Nazi radicals like yourself is the liberation of Tibetan people from the murderous rule of the Llamas equal to what the Euro-Settler genocidal nation of Israel is.

and the treatment of women in Saudia Arabia is ostensibly worse in many regards than the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis. The House of Saud and Zionism are best friends, so that makes sense.

So if you do not identify as 'anti-Syrian' why should you identify as anti-Zionist? What a horrendously racist question.

It may not be explicit racism, but anti-zionism, especially amongst the far-left, may rest on implicit anti-semitic sentiment. The Real Jews are the Palestinian people.

This is especially so since many of the anti-Zionist arguments rely on liberal politics, e.g. "Israel stole land" is a common argument, while communists recognise all land is stolen. This is, of course, moronic nonsense. You neither know nor care what communists “recognize.”

goalkeeper

14th March 2013, 20:12

"crypto-zionism" LOL

Out of curiosity, if Palestinians are the "Real Jews", does that mean they are not Arabs? Or they are Arabized Jews? Or were the Jews always Arabs?

Labor Aristocrat Killer

14th March 2013, 20:19

"crypto-zionism" LOL

Kosher Anti-Zionism is another term for the phenomenon.

The Palestine Solidarity Movement: A Recipe for Kosher anti-Zionism (http://empirestrikesblack.com/2012/06/the-palestine-solidarity-movement-a-recipe-for-kosher-anti-zionism/)

Out of curiosity, if Palestinians are the "Real Jews", does that mean they are not Arabs?

It means the Palestinian Jews converted to Islam a long time ago.

goalkeeper

14th March 2013, 20:22

Does this mean Palestinians are not Arabs?

goalkeeper

14th March 2013, 20:27

The link Labour Aristocrat Killer posted talks of a "a religious observance of and adherence to the dogma of ‘the holocaust’."

Wow. So I guess here we have a prime example of what we are talking about in this thread.

A comment on the website:

Pro-Gentile said:
These so-called “anti-zionist” scumbags can go to hell.

Anti-zionism means the dismantling of the demonic state and the expulsion of the thieves from the land. That means those infiltrators from 1880 onwards. If your family wasn’t living in Palestine before 1880, you have to get the hell out.

Any other definition of anti-zionist, is one that is approved by the zionists themselves.

When the disgusting nature of these so-called good jews, subverting a real pro-Palestine agenda, what can you expect from the uninformed?

So called “anti-semitism” will rise very substantially… zionism has sealed our fate as well as yours.

This says it all really.

Comrade #138672

14th March 2013, 21:14

What do the anti-nationalists think of Black nationalism then? And Palestinian nationalism?

ed miliband

14th March 2013, 22:14

What do the anti-nationalists think of Black nationalism then? And Palestinian nationalism?

what do you think we think of it? it isn't that difficult to work out.

homegrown terror

14th March 2013, 23:02

"nationalism" of any stripe is to be opposed, since it's a divisive feature of capitalist society. bigotry and discrimination of any kind have long been tools of the capitalists and statists. they play upon the uglier base instincts of the human psyche, give the proletariat the bullets to fire into their own heads, and the heads of their comrades. the division system is a tool to keep the workers from uniting under a class-conscious banner and casting off the deadweight they labor under. black nationalism, in particular, is insidious because it takes a people who have been particularly oppressed, and tells them that, rather than fight the system which perpetuates oppression, they should turn their aggression upon their white comrades, who truth be told are far more their brothers and sisters than the true enemy: the CEO, the senator, the governor, the police officer and the foreman.

blake 3:17

15th March 2013, 03:05

What do the anti-nationalists think of Black nationalism then? And Palestinian nationalism?

I don't know. I am sympathetic to both Black and Palestinian nationalisms. There are inherent dangers in any sort of nationalism.

Anyways...

I am much less concerned with anti-Zionism and the fine contours of Palestinian ideology than working towards a just peace in the Middle East. There are Zionists who do very good work on basic human rights issues and an emergent sector of Zionists supporting the BDS campaign.

Left reformists or ultra leftists who oppose BDS may use this to undermine the BDS campaign, but I could I could not care less.

From the Daily Beast : Liberal Zionists Should Support BDS
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/liberal-zionists-should-support-bds.html

Sinister Cultural Marxist

15th March 2013, 17:14

Anyone who argues that Palestinians are the "real Jews" is missing the point. It's certainly true that today's Palestinians come from old Hebrews, Canaanites and Samaritans who converted to Christianity and Islam. It's also probably true that various groups of Hebrews from Palestine went abroad or were sold into slavery. People convert religions, marry outside their ethnic groups, and move all the time. For all we know half of the Mediterranean has some ancestor from Palestine.

The real issue is that property relations, the state and the armed forces are being used by one ethno-linguistic group to deny rights to another. The issues of genetics and heritage are non-issues.

Labor Aristocrat Killer

15th March 2013, 19:01

The link Labour Aristocrat Killer posted talks of a "a religious observance of and adherence to the dogma of ‘the holocaust’."

The full quote is:

"This relatively small incident demonstrates how the Palestine Solidarity Movement is not only subject to Zionist bullying, infiltration, and lobbying, but more importantly cultural indoctrination. We are instilled with a cardinal fear of discussing the holocaust outside of the officially accepted narrative – a ‘thoughtcrime’ in this democracy and beacon of free speech known as Great Britain.

The knee-jerk ‘we do not tolerate anti-Semitism‘ emotional reaction is sadly typical, and it is trotted out before one iota of thought has been given to the content and substance of the discussion.

It is incredibly sad and disheartening to see that the Palestine Solidarity Movement is utterly beholden to Zionism’s biggest rhetorical weapon: false charges of anti-Semitism coupled with a religious observance of and adherence to the dogma of ‘the holocaust’."

That you choose to quote it out of context shows your allegiance to Zionism, which is a racist European ideology.

A comment on the websitelol

That you think a comment on an article means anything at all is hysterical.

Labor Aristocrat Killer

15th March 2013, 19:07

This is the reality of Israel: anti-African race riots:

African asylum seekers injured in Tel Aviv race riots (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/24/tel-aviv-protest-violence-immigration?newsfeed=true)

jGJVX6jYjI0

This is because "Israel Belongs to the White Man (http://electronicintifada.net/content/sudanese-face-expulsion-minister-declares-israel-belongs-white-man/11394)," according to neo-Nazi Zionists.

blake 3:17

17th March 2013, 00:13

People like O'Keefe should be made unwelcome.

Paul Pott

19th March 2013, 02:08

They're not the same thing, but actual anti-semites like to parade around as "anti-zionists" and pretend that zionism is something other than the colonization of the middle east. Like in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

bcbm

19th March 2013, 08:17

The full quote is:

"This relatively small incident demonstrates how the Palestine Solidarity Movement is not only subject to Zionist bullying, infiltration, and lobbying, but more importantly cultural indoctrination. We are instilled with a cardinal fear of discussing the holocaust outside of the officially accepted narrative – a ‘thoughtcrime’ in this democracy and beacon of free speech known as Great Britain.

The knee-jerk ‘we do not tolerate anti-Semitism‘ emotional reaction is sadly typical, and it is trotted out before one iota of thought has been given to the content and substance of the discussion.

It is incredibly sad and disheartening to see that the Palestine Solidarity Movement is utterly beholden to Zionism’s biggest rhetorical weapon: false charges of anti-Semitism coupled with a religious observance of and adherence to the dogma of ‘the holocaust’."

why stop there?

As activists and truth seekers, are we actually going to conflate historical revisionism (the practice of investigating and revising our understanding of history based on facts and free debate) with racism?

. . .

Palestine Place’s official ‘Safe Spaces Policy’ bars holocaust revisionism(13) (http://palestineplace.wordpress.com/safe-spaces-policy/) (the act of enriching our understanding of history on an ongoing basis by examining and documenting the facts). I must reiterate: what legitimate reason could we possibly have for shielding any historical event from examination? What are they afraid of?

. . .

'holocaust revisionism' is just a codeword for holocaust denial used by its proponents to try and pretend they are simply ' enriching our understanding of history on an ongoing basis by examining and documenting the facts,' when any cursory look at what they are suggesting makes it very clear what their agenda is and i can't fault anyone for taking a 'no platform' stance on that.

When we are held emotionally hostage by certain ideas, we must ask why.

We must never stop the pursuit of truth, regardless of the level of ‘herd mentality’ around us. We must take a step back and think objectively.

Exposing any and all deceptions which alter perceptions about Israel, anti-Semitism, and Palestine, is our place.

i think anyone who has spent much time trolling nazis or arguing with holocaust deniers will recognize some of this language, and i do have to wonder about a piece which spends a lot of time on holocaust 'revisionism' ending with a line about 'exposing all deceptions.' this is some dodgy shit.

newdayrising

19th March 2013, 16:28

It's obvious that the anti zionism = anti semitism thing is used by supporters of Israel to discredit all criticism.
However, the idea that zionism is worse and particularly different than other nationalisms is a bourgeois, reactionary notion and anti-zionism as a specific politics is therefore anti-communist, if not necessarily antisemitic.

JPSartre12

19th March 2013, 16:52

Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism

No. I'm a born-again evangelical Christian, and we're stereotyped as being fanatically pro-Israel, but I'm against it. My entire religion is based on Jewish history and their practices so I'm in no way anti-semitic, but I'm (generally) against Israel for the human rights violations that they commit against the Palestinians.

cantwealljustgetalong

19th March 2013, 16:57

I think it's perfectly consistent to support Palestinian national liberation and be a Marxist. Lenin's analysis essentially has us take the national question on a case-by-case basis, so that no one-size-fits-all strategy can just be plugged in every situation.

Israel is special in the international community. It gets away with defying the wishes of the international community and even its allies. This is not because of some vast Jewish conspiracy, but rather due to the well-organized Zionist lobbying core in the US and the geopolitical need for the US to maintain a colonial outpost in the Middle East. After all, there must be some explaining that the only UN resolution in history to be revoked is the one that determines Zionism a form of racism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_3379) The focus on Israel is an outcry against a rogue apartheid state that acts with impunity, yet gets US political and financial aid seemingly unconditionally. They won't even admit that they have nuclear weapons.

It just so happens because of the historical intersections of the West, the state that claims to represent the Jewish people is the only one with the political capital to maintain an antiquarian colonial state in the age of indirect colonial domination. It hurts me as a Jew to see what's happened to Jewishness via its association with Zionism, but that's no reason to shy away from the facts of ethnic cleansing and genocide (taken by their denotations). Also for me, it's a struggle to retain the old Yiddish-speaking Bundist internationalist culture as the real Jewish tradition, instead of this Hebrew-speaking manufactured right-wing "national Judaism"; Jewish leftists have always made comparisons between Zionist brutality and fascism, since it is obvious where our people learned how to use racial ideology, paramilitary terror, and forced labor to maintain power.

And yes, there are anti-Jewish people that hide behind anti-Zionism, just like there are anti-Jews who hide behind anti-capitalism; that doesn't mean we should line up to make soft defenses of capitalism to not seem "anti-Semetic". And yes, Arabs are Semetic peoples and it is bigoted to reserve the word for only the right kind of Semetic peoples (seriously, how the hell do you justify that?).

For a nominally revolutionary board, the politics here boggle my mind.

newdayrising

19th March 2013, 17:08

You're entitled to your opinion.
Even though I don't believe national liberation is a solution for anything, I don't equate supporting it for Palestine with being an "anti-zionist" per se. You can be be a zionist, meaning, being for a Jewish state and being for a Palestinean one as well.
I do think though that the role of communists is not to build new nation states but to smash them. And that's not just sloganeering, it just seems clear that bourgeois states have nothing to offer the working class anymore and supporting them just drives them towards supporting their own exploiters and dying for the right to be exploited by "their own people". Also, there's no "liberation" under imperialism, just picking different blocs to be a part of.

cantwealljustgetalong

19th March 2013, 17:21

I don't understand how we can claim to be on the side of the oppressed, but wash our hands of national oppressions because of our theoretical commitments about how the nation-state is "bourgeois". So it doesn't seem to matter to you that a racist occupying force has crushed the relevant Palestinian economic and bureaucratic organs under the jackboot of militarism, because it's too bourgeois to care about colonialism. I get that nation-states aren't the answer to all problems, but this is a historical injustice that will not melt away in a revolutionary movement.

How the hell can you be a Zionist and for a Palestinian state, when the reality of Zionism is one of ethnic cleansing of the land of Palestine? It's like saying you support the American colonialism and the indigenous American Indians at the same time, ignoring all the while that the former is dedicated to the eradication of the latter.

newdayrising

19th March 2013, 17:48

The same way you can be for national liberation when in reality it means oppression and exploitation by one's own kind. Just look at Palestine's "nationally-liberated" neighbors.

Apart from that, zionism actually means being for a jewish fatherland. So people who believe in a two state solution could actually be zionists and pro-palestinean state. Chomsky's one of those actually.

The main thing is that labels such as "zionist" mean very little if anything. "Nationalist" and "for national liberation", or even "pro-israel" or "pro-palestinean state" have more meaning, I suppose.

One can have exactly the same politics on this issue and be a nominal "zionist" or "anti-zionist" as long as they support the existence of both states. It's a fairly popular postion on both sides actually.

How the hell can you be a Zionist and for a Palestinian state, when the reality of Zionism is one of ethnic cleansing of the land of Palestine?

lemushyman

19th March 2013, 17:57

All of these states must be condemned by any Marxist, but I just voice the whole Anti-Zionism thing because Israel is basically a NATO control tool for the Middle East and destroying the state of Israel would be more beneficial to the people of the arab world than Syria, which is falling any way.

cantwealljustgetalong

19th March 2013, 19:23

Chomsky consciously ignores the historical racism of Zionism in order to express his support for a Jewish homeland in the abstract, but he in no way condones the actual form Zionism has taken. Significantly, this real Zionism has always wanted Arabs gone from all of the land. So no, you can't support Zionism and Palestinian nationalism at the same time. Zionism is not some abstract form of Jewish nationalism; it's a real, colonial movement that has consciously made an effort to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Advocating a two-state solution papers over this reality in an attempt to solidify Israeli gains in the region and amounts to a segregationist approach. Why shouldn't Palestinian Arabs be able to return to where they used to live and have the same rights as Israelis do?

Does Chomsky really support a two-state solution? Last time I checked, he was calling the bombing of Gaza "a genocide in slow motion".

blake 3:17

20th March 2013, 03:47

Does Chomsky really support a two-state solution? Last time I checked, he was calling the bombing of Gaza "a genocide in slow motion".

Chomsky promotes two-state solution in Gaza Strip By JPOST.COM STAFF10/21/2012 15:53

n his first visit to the Gaza Strip, prominent Jewish-American academic, author and linguist Noam Chomsky advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that any other formula is "not sensible," speaking on Saturday.

Chomsky explained that "in spite of continued settlement expansion," a two-state solution is more realistic because of the near unanimous support it enjoys in the international community.

To push for a solution that nobody supports, he said, is not sensible.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=288689

Rurkel

20th March 2013, 08:58

How the hell can you be a Zionist and for a Palestinian stateTwo-state solution is both Zionist and for a Palestinian state of some kind*. There's a fairly significant sector of Israeli society that advocates such kind of Zionism (see Haaretz).

On his first visit to the Gaza Strip, prominent Jewish-American academic, author and linguist Noam Chomsky advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that any other formula is "not sensible," speaking on Saturday.Yes, that makes Chomsky pro-Zionist.

*Of course, a Palestinian state in 1967 borders will likely be an Israeli vassal, being unable to achieve real independence, and if you're going to advocate 1948 borders, you might as well advocate a one-state solution anyway when it comes to "what's realistic".

barbelo

20th March 2013, 19:24

l'EnfermÃ©

20th March 2013, 19:55

"Two-state solution", hahahahahaha, what a stupid piece of shit idea. It's basically the geopolitical version of admitting that when a man rapes a woman, it's a terrible injustice and all that, but the injustice has been commited and can't be undone, so the woman has to marry the man against her will and be a subservient wife for him.

And nope, OP, Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism and I think you should reconsider whether or not you are a communist because a communist would never propagate this Zionist garbage.

The Intransigent Faction

21st March 2013, 04:09

Meh, why waste time and effort discussing about Israel and Zionism at all?
99,9% of the people who talk about Israel, be the ones who defend it or the ones which are against it, has never been there and doesn't know how the reality there is.

People live in their houses in California, Toronto or London, they read all these shitty internet newspapers and they think they really understand how things in Israel are, they think are apt to give judgments. It's really sad, it's indeed sad to see how much material and financial interests are invested in both sides of this never ending struggle.

I only wish people would admit their ignorance and stop speaking so much crap.

Oh not that tired bs argument again. By this logic we may as well give up on internationalism because we "haven't been there and don't know how the reality there is" in any other part of the world in which we have not yet physically set foot, even though we have the technology to instantly send information to the other side of the planet. As if people can't recognize that genocide is being committed just because it's not their hospitals being bombed.

Seriously, nobody will buy that kind of apologism, so don't bother trying to sell it here.

EDIT: As for why to talk about it, well, because we don't live in a fucking bubble and we care about the suffering that any, particularly U.S.-backed, state inflicts on displaced and dispossessed people.

BIXX

21st March 2013, 05:51

I would think that Zionism would actually hurt the Jewish population... I mean, to be honest I don't know a ton about it, but it seems simple enough, but one thing (can't remember where, so maybe not a reliable source) I read states the zionists don't want other Jewish people or descent to become part of other cultures, which in my opinion would result in the stagnation of the culture, and thus, harm the Jewish population. Unless I just was completely mistaken.

blake 3:17

21st March 2013, 05:54

Meh, why waste time and effort discussing about Israel and Zionism at all?
99,9% of the people who talk about Israel, be the ones who defend it or the ones which are against it, has never been there and doesn't know how the reality there is.

People live in their houses in California, Toronto or London, they read all these shitty internet newspapers and they think they really understand how things in Israel are, they think are apt to give judgments. It's really sad, it's indeed sad to see how much material and financial interests are invested in both sides of this never ending struggle.

I only wish people would admit their ignorance and stop speaking so much crap.

Us fools in Toronto who started Israeli Apartheid Week. Us fools in Toronto who defy our rabidly right wing government in saying that the Palestinian people are a people and deserve national rights. Us fools in Toronto who face losing our jobs because we think Three Wishes should be in schools. Us fools in Toronto who gather in front of the Royal Ontario Museum when the IDF massacres children in Gaza.

Where are the financial interests? Do you think Yasser Abbas takes part in any of this?

Earlier I said we were trying to stop a genocide. I've been corrected. It's an "ethnic cleansing" -- which is the same thing but less hateful and more concerned with territory. I see little moral difference.

Glad to be foolish.

barbelo

21st March 2013, 06:56

we may as well give up on internationalism because we "haven't been there and don't know how the reality there is" in any other part of the world in which we have not yet physically set foot

Yeah right. Because Israel is exactly like any other place, it isn't polemical and controversial at all, it isn't a topic where countless words has been wasted and it isn't a place where a lot of conflicting forces invest their interests, right?
But... I'm not proposing this, I'm not saying that someone should have visited a place before criticizing it.
I'm only saying that this Israel you guys talk about doesn't exist, it is a distortion, it is as unreal as the Israel of Breivik and Pamela Geller, "the only democracy in the middle east", "the bastion of civilization against muslims", it is an Israel created to fit a certain political agenda.

People who praise Israel as a democratic and secular country doesn't know how strong religion is in their politics and how for example, one can't have a lay marriage there, needing to travel to Cyprus for this.
People who talk about genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid obviously never visited Nazareth, never saw that the Dome of the Rock is standing in the center of the old city although the government of Israel have absolute practical control of Jerusalem and could destroy it at a whim, never heard the arabic version of I'll survive in a hipster pub of Jerusalem together with a palestinian architecture student of Bezalel, never read the survey among arabs populations inside Israel, never visited Hebron and never visited Gaza.

Like I said it's useless, I don't even know why I still partake in this kind of discussion, we're just adding more shit to an already enormous pile of shit, and nothing will change.
But I guess some people instead of being humble will always chose another way, one that will give them some sense of aggrandizement or taking part on something.

Where are the financial interests?

Are you honestly questioning this? It won't be me who will lecture you about middle east and lobbies.

Glad to be foolish.

Unfortunately the first world has been generating a lot of fools lately.

Akshay!

21st March 2013, 07:02

Zionism is a form of racism.
Antisemitism is a form of racism.

Whoever says that anti-Zionism = antisemitism is saying anti-racism = racism.
Doesn't make any sense.

Danielle Ni Dhighe

21st March 2013, 07:11

At the very worst we can speak of ethnic cleansing.
Well, as long as it's just ethnic cleansing and not genocide, I guess that's okay then. :rolleyes:

I wondering if anti-zionism rests on implicit anti-semitic presumptions. That they prioritise opposing Israel over other nation-states that are more oppressive, because of an implicit anti-semitism as Israel is a Jewish state.
That's certainly the argument put forward by Zionists, that anti-Zionism is merely the new face of antisemitism. So my question to you is, why are you arguing reactionary propaganda here?

I mean, there were more oppressive states than apartheid South Africa, too, but was it wrong to oppose apartheid?

Israel is a racist state created and maintained by ethnic cleansing, which has the support of US imperialism specifically and western imperialism generally.

Danielle Ni Dhighe

21st March 2013, 07:12

Like I said it's useless, I don't even know why I still partake in this kind of discussion, we're just adding more shit to an already enormous pile of shit, and nothing will change.
Spoken like a bourgeois liberal!

Lord Hargreaves

21st March 2013, 07:51

Is it really the case that the fight for a two-state solution must flatly contradict a more radical movement for one state? Must we choose?

I'm torn on the issue: two-states has the agreement of the huge majority of people, and institutional backing by all the world's governments (the US and Israel support it "in principle", whether we really believe that or not). Yet, my understanding of Zionism leads me to think that Israel will never let an autonomous Palestinian state emerge on its borders. And even if it did, that new state would always exist in a subservient, dependent economic relationship. Plus, even basic matters of justice like "the right of return", and the right of Muslims and Arabs to full political equality within Israel, just seems incompatible with the existence of a "Jewish state".

If a two-state solution is achieved, will the anti-Zionists and Palestinian solidarity movements just pack up and go home? Or will they then go on to fight for something else? This idea in my head makes me highly skeptical that the two-state solution will ever be sufficient to bring a peaceful and equitable solution to the region.

Lord Hargreaves

21st March 2013, 08:00

Yeah right. Because Israel is exactly like any other place, it isn't polemical and controversial at all, it isn't a topic where countless words has been wasted and it isn't a place where a lot of conflicting forces invest their interests, right?

[...]

Like I said it's useless, I don't even know why I still partake in this kind of discussion, we're just adding more shit to an already enormous pile of shit, and nothing will change.

But I guess some people instead of being humble will always chose another way, one that will give them some sense of aggrandizement or taking part on something.

We've all felt like this. Some of us feel defeatist very often, especially on such issues as Israel/Palestine. But as a general viewpoint it is incompatible with radicalism or revolutionary leftism ,which is above all else precisely a commitment to work towards change that seems impossible to most people.

Achieving an equitable solution in Palestine will be easy as piss compared with overthrowing capitalism!

ed miliband

21st March 2013, 13:21

somewhat related, medhi hasan (yeah, i know...) on antisemitism and the british muslim community:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/sorry-truth-virus-anti-semitism-has-infected-british-muslim-community

hatzel

21st March 2013, 14:11

It's basically the geopolitical version of admitting that when a man rapes a woman, it's a terrible injustice and all that, but the injustice has been commited and can't be undone, so the woman has to marry the man against her will and be a subservient wife for him.

For some strange reason I doubt this little analogy just fell out of the sky and - by sheer coincidence! - happens to resemble a direct reference to Devarim 22:28-29. So I can't help but feel that this was a conscious attempt to criticise the two-state solution as 'Old Testament justice' (or, dare I say it, even 'Jewish justice'), so once again I have no choice but to call you out for bringing Judaism into the Zionism-discussion for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever. When are we going to be able to stop with this little game of cat-and-mouse, exactly? And to top it all off you've got the gall to go and accuse somebody else of 'propagat[ing] this Zionist garbage,' when you clearly think there is a continuity between the historical Jewish tradition and the contemporary Zionist reality - the very cornerstone of Zionist ideology, may I remind you...

Rurkel

21st March 2013, 14:40

Yet, my understanding of Zionism leads me to think that Israel will never let an autonomous Palestinian state emerge on its borders. I don't think that an 1967-borders-Palestine is a viable state at all. That's the main reason for rejecting the "two-state-solution" - Palestinians will receive only a small statelet, critically dependent on Israeli infrastructure, and thus, open to Israeli strangling and blackmail. Had Israel/Palestine been the size of France or something - now then we could talk.

when you clearly think there is a continuity between the historical Jewish tradition and the contemporary Zionist realityWell, Zionism certainly has some roots in pre-Zionist Jewish traditions. Nationalisms don't invent everything on the spot.

Mind you, does L'enferme still advocate deporting all Israeli Jews back to where they came from, or am I misremembering things? If so, whatever is your attitude to this proposal, it's certainly more radical then occasionally taking a jab at the Old Testament!

blake 3:17

25th March 2013, 07:19

Let's Get Free

25th March 2013, 07:46

Palestinians are Semitic people as well. Zionism is actually the worst form of anti-antisemitism.

goalkeeper

25th March 2013, 09:25

Palestinians are Semitic people as well. Zionism is actually the worst form of anti-antisemitism.

No, no, no.

When Wilhelm Marr wrote his pamphlets expressing his hatred of Jews in the 19th century and came up with the term "anti-semitism" to describe this phenomena, he did not have in mind Palestinians or any Arabs or any other "semitic" language speakers. The term anti-semitism has only ever been a term concerned with the Jews.

Stop this stupid rhetorical trick, it makes you look stupid.

Let's Get Free

25th March 2013, 09:33

The term Semite means a member of any ancient and modern peoples originating in the middle east. The "anti-semitism" your talking about is an artificially created term.

goalkeeper

25th March 2013, 10:56

The term Semite means a member of any ancient and modern peoples originating in the middle east. The "anti-semitism" your talking about is an artificially created term.

The anti-semitism I am using is the one that has always been used. To expand "anti-semitism" to mean being racist against anyone who speaks a semitic language would be to render the term meaningless. The term refers to the very specific and unique form of hated against Jews that developed in the late 19th century and culminated in the Final Solution.

Devrim

25th March 2013, 11:31

Achieving an equitable solution in Palestine will be easy as piss compared with overthrowing capitalism!One would think. I find it very crazy when the Left I identify with -- the Revolutionary Socialist, Communist, and Anarchist -- thinks it can solve widespread long term problems without solving any short or medium term, local, national or regional problems.

I wouldn't think so at all. I think this is very muddled thinking. For revolutionaries the solution is revolution. I can't imagine any solution to the Palestinians situation coming within capitalism.

I would imagine that I am older than the majority of people on here, and this is something that has always been there. For all of the left's talk about what sort of solution there should be, there has been little or no progress in the direction of any solution.

I can imagine three basic futures to the Palestinian question.

a) Arab victory- This would almost certainly involve an dramatic change in the international balance of power, full scale regional war, and probably widespread ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population of Israel.

b) Expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank- This is the dream of the Israeli far right. It means massive human suffering and ethnic cleansing.

c) A continuation of the present situation- This means that the war will essentially go on as it is. There may be a few cosmetic changes such as the setting up of a Palestinian 'Bantustan', but nothing more.

None of the above choices seem to me to offer anything for socialists. I don't see how there is a mechanism that could allow anything else, let alone any 'real solution'.

How do you think that the situation can be solved?

As difficult as it may be, I can see a mechanism that can lead towards workers' revolution and communism, which in turn can offer a solution to the Palestinian question. I don't think that the left can offer this solution. Only the working class itself can. Also I think that the solution does lie in Palestine itself. The Palestinian working class is one of the weakest and most defeated in the entire region. Only a region wide class movement can offer a solution to the question, and ultimately only a world wide class movement can solve it.

Devrim

Lucretia

26th March 2013, 03:08

l'EnfermÃ©

26th March 2013, 21:41

blake 3:17

28th March 2013, 22:08

@ Devrim -- I agree with you in many ways. The fundamental causes of exploitation and empire need to be undone and replaced with Socialism/Communism/Whatever. While we may agree about underlying causes, we see immediate responses very differently

But this ends in abstract posing and essentially a form of Stalinist stage-ism or the worst of Trotskyism or anti-communist workerism.

To dismiss the movement leadership of the Palestinians is bankrupt.

For many years, the PLO identified the enemy in three steps : 1) the corrupt Arab regimes, 2) the United States, and finally 3) Israel.

The whole thing is gonna be a mess for a long time. And maybe my perspective as Canadian is skewed and fucked up.

Devrim

29th March 2013, 12:46

Rafiq

29th March 2013, 15:37

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

29th March 2013, 16:12

For some strange reason I doubt this little analogy just fell out of the sky and - by sheer coincidence! - happens to resemble a direct reference to Devarim 22:28-29. So I can't help but feel that this was a conscious attempt to criticise the two-state solution as 'Old Testament justice' (or, dare I say it, even 'Jewish justice'), so once again I have no choice but to call you out for bringing Judaism into the Zionism-discussion for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever. When are we going to be able to stop with this little game of cat-and-mouse, exactly? And to top it all off you've got the gall to go and accuse somebody else of 'propagat[ing] this Zionist garbage,' when you clearly think there is a continuity between the historical Jewish tradition and the contemporary Zionist reality - the very cornerstone of Zionist ideology, may I remind you...

The coincidence becomes less than impressive when one remembers that similar ideas had been, and unfortunately still are, part of the patriarchal ideology in a number of cultures. Do Jews (or rather, Hebrews) have some sort of monopoly on the codification of misogyny? Or have I inadvertently parodied some book of the Talmud, therefore proving beyond the shadow of doubt by covert antisemitism?

This is ridiculous. Yes, certain sections of the anti-Zionist movement are antisemitic, consciously or unconsciously. Yes, anti-Zionism is sometimes used as a coded language for antisemitism. But desperately trying to portray everyone that disagrees with Zionist colonialism as an antisemite just helps mask the real occurrences of antisemitism.

Zanos

2nd April 2013, 03:16

goalkeeper

2nd April 2013, 11:19

It's actually more like Zionism=Anti-Semitism

Why?

Because most of those so-called Zionists are not Semites. [Check what Semites are: wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Semitic_people] Those killed in Europe in the WW2 were actually "common" white Europeans with Jewish/Semitic traditions but not (or at least not any more) Semitic. Same as saying that the Spanish or the French despite speaking a Latin language have no special right over the city of Rome.
So these Jews mostly European and American went after the war to colonize that piece of land and formed Israel with some kind of theocratic government. Nowadays those (white) colonizers who despise the black Jews from Ethiopia, call everyone that oppose to the legitimacy of their state (aka someone anti-Zionist) or someone who contradicts what their government says, by Anti-Semitic, accusing the person of being racist.
What in fact happens in Israel nowadays is racism and Anti-Semitism. The Palestinians are Semites and are being treated just like as black people were during the Apartheid times in South Africa, or as some people, going further, dare to compare: the type of treatment that nazis and fascists had over their ancestors during WW2.

Therefore Anti-Semitism is very real and it exists nowadays inside Israel.

Hey Asswipe,

Ever looked into the roots of the word anti-semitism beyond a frigging dictionary? Wilhelm Marr and his anti-semite league ring any bells?

You do realise this ridiculous tract you wrote would basically mean that the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, the Protocols of the Elders and Zion forgery, Nazism, the Holocaust can no longer be described as anti-Semitic? This is the lunatic world you inhabit.

Get this this through your thick head: Anti-semitism, as a term, as only ever been a term concerned with the Jews. The actual meaning of the term is inaccurate, but we use the term anyway in order to designate a specific historical belief held by some people. Anti-semitism, as a term to designate a specific historical belief, has never been a term to describe the hatred of other semitic language speaking people and to do so would basically render the term entirely meaningless. I mean really, do you think anti-semitism should also describe a dislike of the Akkadians?

Also, as much as we may dislike the militaristic policies of the Israeli state, to call it theocratic is completely ridiculous.

Sasha

2nd April 2013, 11:20

Shut up already with the "Palestines are the Semites" bullshit word games, as already explained several times in this thread its mindboggingly stupid (and not to mention brings another "racial" component in a thread which already got distgusting amount of it)
Also, Israel is not a theocracy, don't say stupid stuff like that.

Edit: goalkeeper beat me to the punch again...

Rafiq

2nd April 2013, 13:05

goalkeeper

2nd April 2013, 15:42

the nazis never identified with the term 'anti semitism' because due to their geopolitical and strategic.advantage in the mideast, they considered arabs, assyrians, etc. 'true semites' and jews 'mixed, impure' etc.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Distancing themselves from the term "anti-semitism" was a later consideration after the Nazis had gained state power. Of the top of my head, Hitler used the term approvingly in 1919 in the phrase "rational anti-semitism". You will always find a whole heap of seemingly approving references to "anti-semitism" in Mein Kampf. But the Nazis deciding to drop that phrase to appeal to Arab nationalists is irrelevant; there is no doubt that Nazi hatred towards Jews grew out of the new racial and conspiratorial (Jewish world conspiracy etc) hatred towards Jews that began in the late 19th century for which the term anti-semitism emerged and is used to describe.

Geiseric

2nd April 2013, 16:35

I wouldn't think so at all. I think this is very muddled thinking. For revolutionaries the solution is revolution. I can't imagine any solution to the Palestinians situation coming within capitalism.

I would imagine that I am older than the majority of people on here, and this is something that has always been there. For all of the left's talk about what sort of solution there should be, there has been little or no progress in the direction of any solution.

I can imagine three basic futures to the Palestinian question.

a) Arab victory- This would almost certainly involve an dramatic change in the international balance of power, full scale regional war, and probably widespread ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population of Israel.

b) Expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank- This is the dream of the Israeli far right. It means massive human suffering and ethnic cleansing.

c) A continuation of the present situation- This means that the war will essentially go on as it is. There may be a few cosmetic changes such as the setting up of a Palestinian 'Bantustan', but nothing more.

None of the above choices seem to me to offer anything for socialists. I don't see how there is a mechanism that could allow anything else, let alone any 'real solution'.

How do you think that the situation can be solved?

As difficult as it may be, I can see a mechanism that can lead towards workers' revolution and communism, which in turn can offer a solution to the Palestinian question. I don't think that the left can offer this solution. Only the working class itself can. Also I think that the solution does lie in Palestine itself. The Palestinian working class is one of the weakest and most defeated in the entire region. Only a region wide class movement can offer a solution to the question, and ultimately only a world wide class movement can solve it.

Devrim

The proper demand for this moment, which Communists should support, is an independent Palestinian state, with its own standing army. They can kick the Israelis out much easier, or HELL maybe they won't even have to, after the 6 million expulsed Palestinians get their land back. One state with the returning Palestinians making a majority is the immediate thing to be done. You might call this Reformist, but it will take a revolution to happen at all.

It is very possible given recent research that the Palestinians may have more genetic relation to the Roman era Jews as well who stayed after the Diaspora, so the entire facade of Zionism could fall apart if this information goes out. Most jews in Israel are from Eastern Europe, which is the result of a migration of Khazars from Central Asia, whom converted in about the 9th century.

Sasha

2nd April 2013, 18:28

Rafiq

2nd April 2013, 18:30

Distancing themselves from the term "anti-semitism" was a later consideration after the Nazis had gained state power. Of the top of my head, Hitler used the term approvingly in 1919 in the phrase "rational anti-semitism". You will always find a whole heap of seemingly approving references to "anti-semitism" in Mein Kampf. But the Nazis deciding to drop that phrase to appeal to Arab nationalists is irrelevant; there is no doubt that Nazi hatred towards Jews grew out of the new racial and conspiratorial (Jewish world conspiracy etc) hatred towards Jews that began in the late 19th century for which the term anti-semitism emerged and is used to describe.

....i agree, my point wasn't about the nature of the term but that nazi (or historical) antisemitism was exclusively anti jewish

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Geiseric

2nd April 2013, 18:51

^ So it still boils down to race A has more rights to the place than culture/religion B....
How leftist.
Why don't you self deport to wherever your family came from and give SF and the US back to the natives...
And how far back should we go anyway, maybe the whole world populace should just all be deported back to Africa?
Or is this exclusion to the "humans should be able to live where they want to, race and nation states are reactionary social constructs" only for Israeli Jews and their offspring? Because then we came full circle to the OP.
Please say so if that's the case, in the mean time ill be packing my stuff and try to figure out how I'm going to splice myself so I can send my askinazi part back to somewhere near the black sea while my Aryan, pardon me, causcasian part can stay here on its blut und bodem...

I don't own any land taken from Native Americans, nor does 80% of the california population. I would support giving previously taken land back to the Arawaks who are from San fransisco though, or at least if there are already people living there to try to come to some agreement so the Arawaks are compensated.

Most Israelis don't own any land taken from palestinians. There's no reason they can't live together, however the Israeli state needs to be more or less dismantled for the property relations to change to that degree.

Rurkel

2nd April 2013, 19:06

There's no reason they can't live together, however the Israeli state needs to be more or less dismantled for the property relations to change to that degree. I agree with this, but there's no need to engage in very dubious Khazar origin theories (the Khazars lived in Caucasus and Lower Volga, BTW, not exactly Central Asia, modern Khazakh people don't have anything to do with the Khazars) to advocate anti-Zionism. At least, there's good evidence for Palestinians largely being the descendants of Jews, but it's still the language of ethnicity and blood origin, so expect the Leftcommunist-Anarchist Conspiracy (LAC) to be cautious of emphasising that aspect too much.

Sinister Cultural Marxist

2nd April 2013, 19:37

No, no, no.

When Wilhelm Marr wrote his pamphlets expressing his hatred of Jews in the 19th century and came up with the term "anti-semitism" to describe this phenomena, he did not have in mind Palestinians or any Arabs or any other "semitic" language speakers. The term anti-semitism has only ever been a term concerned with the Jews.

Stop this stupid rhetorical trick, it makes you look stupid.

The significant fact is that racism, orientalism and religious bigotry colored European beliefs about Jews and Arabs alike, and now many Zionists, while dropping those beliefs about Jews, assert them about Palestinians. It doesn't really matter whether people mean Jews or Jews and Arabs when they use the term "antisemitism". The point is that, today, a significant portion of people in Western Europe associate that term with anti-Jewish sentiments

The proper demand for this moment, which Communists should support, is an independent Palestinian state, with its own standing army. They can kick the Israelis out much easier, or HELL maybe they won't even have to, after the 6 million expulsed Palestinians get their land back. One state with the returning Palestinians making a majority is the immediate thing to be done. You might call this Reformist, but it will take a revolution to happen at all.

It is very possible given recent research that the Palestinians may have more genetic relation to the Roman era Jews as well who stayed after the Diaspora, so the entire facade of Zionism could fall apart if this information goes out. Most jews in Israel are from Eastern Europe, which is the result of a migration of Khazars from Central Asia, whom converted in about the 9th century.

I don't think it matters really where people's ancestors came from, although its interesting from a historical point of view. Yeah it might challenge some Zionist assumptions that some Jews out there descend from converts not migrants, but it neither rules out the fact that Jews migrated or were sold into slavery during Roman times nor has an impact on what a political order should look like today.

I don't own any land taken from Native Americans, nor does 80% of the california population. I would support giving previously taken land back to the Arawaks who are from San fransisco though, or at least if there are already people living there to try to come to some agreement so the Arawaks are compensated.

Most Israelis don't own any land taken from palestinians. There's no reason they can't live together, however the Israeli state needs to be more or less dismantled for the property relations to change to that degree.

"Giving land back" is dangerous - we should focus on allowing populations (Palestinian refugees, Jews and African immigrants alike) some kind of freedom of movement and space to live, but one should be careful when it comes to kicking people out of the homes that they've lived in for 50 years because somebody's ancestor lost it in unfair circumstances.

When we talk about land redistribution, it's important to realize that the economically productive and habitable land did switch hands. Houses, farms and hunting grounds were taken. If you include all of these, a very large portion of the inhabited US and Israel were both being lived in and utilized before being settled by Whites and Zionists.

This form of logic is not exclusive to judaism, it pervades throughout all abrahamic religions. If you are raped, for example, in a country which practices sharia law, you have to marry the rapist.

Though Christianity shares a lot of the moral assumptions of the other Abrahamic faiths, and these assumptions play a huge role in informing the legal system, there's not really a good Christian analog of Jewish and Islamic law. The Christian bible includes Mosaic law but it is seen as God's commandment with the Jewish community of the time it was written but not necessarily something to be adopted by Christians (hence the amount of Pork eaten in Europe).

cyu

3rd April 2013, 01:00

For the kids ;)

http://exchangedownloads.smarttech.com/public/content/d8/d85e4eae-ab58-4c52-9ad8-8c3f8bbb10b3/previews/medium/0002.png

Devrim

5th April 2013, 14:31

The proper demand for this moment, which Communists should support, is an independent Palestinian state, with its own standing army. They can kick the Israelis out much easier, or HELL maybe they won't even have to, after the 6 million expulsed Palestinians get their land back. One state with the returning Palestinians making a majority is the immediate thing to be done. You might call this Reformist, but it will take a revolution to happen at all.

And how do you envisage that an independent Palestinian state will come into existence?

Devrim

l'EnfermÃ©

5th April 2013, 14:46

And how do you envisage that an independent Palestinian state will come into existence?

Devrim
By driving the Zionists into the sea, naturally!

Devrim

5th April 2013, 14:48

By driving the Zionists into the sea, naturally!

But how? Do you think that the present Palestinian organisations have the military ability to do this? Do you envisage a wider regional war? There must be a mechanism.

Devrim

l'EnfermÃ©

5th April 2013, 15:38

But how? Do you think that the present Palestinian organisations have the military ability to do this? Do you envisage a wider regional war? There must be a mechanism.

Devrim
That's exactly the tragedy though isn't it? There is no plausible mechanism.

goalkeeper

5th April 2013, 17:43

That's exactly the tragedy though isn't it? There is no plausible mechanism.

The tragedy is that the only solution to the conflict you can envision is driving Jews into the Mediterranean sea.

Sasha

5th April 2013, 18:01

I assume 'lenferme was being sarcastic, (i made the same mistake with their posts before)
While sometimes close 'lenferme is apperently not a brainless anti-imp as some other users here..

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

5th April 2013, 18:13

And how do you envisage that an independent Palestinian state will come into existence?

An extended struggle by the oppressed people of Palestine, both against Israel and against "Palestinian" collaborationist authorities, that would make the maintenance of Israel in its present state much too costly for the imperialists.

l'EnfermÃ©

6th April 2013, 03:26

The tragedy is that the only solution to the conflict you can envision is driving Jews into the Mediterranean sea.
I was half-sarcastic. Drowning millions of people is not a very nice thing to do. I was making a joke about Arab anti-Zionist rhetoric and at the same time making a point. My point is, only a military defeat of Israel will create the possibility for an independent Palestinian. But this purely stuff of fantasy. There is no power in the world capable of defeating Israel in a conventional war that has a reason to go to war with Israel.

There is simply no mechanism for an independent Palestine.

I assume 'lenferme was being sarcastic, (i made the same mistake with their posts before)
While sometimes close 'lenferme is apperently not a brainless anti-imp as some other users here..
Comrade psycho is absolutely correct. I am brainless, but I am no anti-imp.

Rurkel

6th April 2013, 04:42

I think that the "push into the sea" rhetoric refers to deportation, not to actual mass drowning.

While sometimes close 'lenferme is apperently not a brainless anti-imp as some other users here.. It's fine to oppose the imps, they're nasty little demonic creatures...

Sinister Cultural Marxist

6th April 2013, 04:45

I think critical analysis would lead one to the conclusion that Palestinians and Jews, alongside any other immigrant communities who moved to that land, have a right to live there and should be able to do so after whatever kind of revolution. The tough part is getting people on both sides to understand that. The idea of socialist revolution is to change society without resorting to the usual reactionary alternatives to socialism, such as pogroms, colonialism and police states, because the very contradictions that seem to lead to those are overcome.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th April 2013, 08:24

I was half-sarcastic. Drowning millions of people is not a very nice thing to do. I was making a joke about Arab anti-Zionist rhetoric and at the same time making a point. My point is, only a military defeat of Israel will create the possibility for an independent Palestinian. But this purely stuff of fantasy. There is no power in the world capable of defeating Israel in a conventional war that has a reason to go to war with Israel.

There is simply no mechanism for an independent Palestine.

I am not sure this is true; India, for example, achieved independence even though the United Kingdom had not suffered a military defeat. Angola never defeated the Portuguese military. And so on. The point, as I mentioned earlier, seems to be making the continued oppression unprofitable.

Sasha

6th April 2013, 09:24

Except that the Israeli populace has in a nationalist struggle (opposed to a communist one) no place to go and are in all likelyhood facing another genocide. The British could just go home when faced with losing India, Israeli's are already home (at least in their opinion and for most of them who are born and raised there for that's undeniably right).
They have a lot more incentive to fight to the bitter end.
Sure, a military defeat, retreat to the 1967 borders and a dismantlement of the settlements is somewhat conceivable, an end of the state of Israel itself can only through two ways, nuclear holocaust or communist revolution.

Rurkel

6th April 2013, 09:34

Sure, a military defeat, retreat to the 1967 borders and a dismantlement of the settlements is somewhat conceivable,Considering the exact situation on the ground, this would make Palestine an Israeli (or, in case in really severe Israeli defeat) some Arab state's vassal.

Israeli's are already home (at least in their opinion and for most of them who are born and raised there for that's undeniably right).You're assuming that the non-revolutionary end of Israel as we know it can only come though deportation of Jews. Some leftists seem to share that position, which seems weird to me. Many Jewish and Arab commentators proposed a bi-national democratic state in the place of Israel/Palestine (Lucretia mentioned one in this thread). Of course, it's currently implausible, but, as pointed out, an Israeli military defeat is also implausible.

South Africa is a good analogue here. Of course, a bi-national state wouldn't mean "the land of peace and honey", just like today's South Africa is anything but.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th April 2013, 09:41

Except that the Israeli populace has in a nationalist struggle (opposed to a communist one) no place to go and are in all likelyhood facing another genocide.

Why? Last time I checked, white people still lived in South Africa, for example. Yes, certain Israeli property would probably have to be expropriated, but the deportation of the entire Jewish population is unlikely.

They have a lot more incentive to fight to the bitter end.

The state of Israel does. But the interests of the imperialist powers are not necessarily aligned with those of Israel.

Devrim

6th April 2013, 10:07

An extended struggle by the oppressed people of Palestine, both against Israel and against "Palestinian" collaborationist authorities, that would make the maintenance of Israel in its present state much too costly for the imperialists.

How extended would you like it to be? At the moment it has been going on for 65 years. It is the time that it takes for a person to be born grow old and retire. Is that not extended enough for you?

Do you think that the struggle of the Palestinians is somehow leading in a direction that will make the maintenance of Israel more costly? Personally I would imagine that it is going in quite the opposite direction. I would expect that the 'quasi-independence' of Gaza and the West Bank is much cheaper for the Israeli state than direct occupation was.

A question that also needs to be asked is how costly is too costly. I think that the costs would have to be pretty high for Israel's US backers to decide to throw her to the dogs.

I am not sure this is true; India, for example, achieved independence even though the United Kingdom had not suffered a military defeat. Angola never defeated the Portuguese military. And so on. The point, as I mentioned earlier, seems to be making the continued oppression unprofitable.

As has been pointed out already there is a difference between the situation in Israel far flung colonies.

Why? Last time I checked, white people still lived in South Africa, for example. Yes, certain Israeli property would probably have to be expropriated, but the deportation of the entire Jewish population is unlikely.

There are also differences between South Africa and Israel. One of the main ones is in the demographics. In South Africa, whites made up less than 10% of the population. However, Jewish Israelis still just about make up the majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and within the State of Israel itself they make up an overwhelming majority.

Devrim

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th April 2013, 10:17

How extended would you like it to be? At the moment it has been going on for 65 years. It is the time that it takes for a person to be born grow old and retire. Is that not extended enough for you?

The character of the struggles has changed quite a bit in those 65 years.

Do you think that the struggle of the Palestinians is somehow leading in a direction that will make the maintenance of Israel more costly? Personally I would imagine that it is going in quite the opposite direction. I would expect that the 'quasi-independence' of Gaza and the West Bank is much cheaper for the Israeli state than direct occupation was.

It might not be, if Palestinian groups could effectively use the increased freedom to exacerbate their attacks on the Israeli state. In any case, I do not think the present Palestinian tactics are that effective - I think they should increase the number of attacks on the IDF, on government officials, and particularly on economic entities, as the Naxalites do.

A question that also needs to be asked is how costly is too costly. I think that the costs would have to be pretty high for Israel's US backers to decide to throw her to the dogs.

Possibly; but what else would you have the Palestinians do? Sit on their arses waiting for the revolution that the Israeli oppression hinders?

There are also differences between South Africa and Israel. One of the main ones is in the demographics. In South Africa, whites made up less than 10% of the population. However, Jewish Israelis still just about make up the majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and within the State of Israel itself they make up an overwhelming majority.

Since the state of Israel has been cleansed of its Arab population. If the Palestinians are allowed to return, however, the Jewish population would be in a minority.

Devrim

6th April 2013, 10:18

I was half-sarcastic. Drowning millions of people is not a very nice thing to do.

Sarcasm doesn't come across well on the internet.

I was making a joke about Arab anti-Zionist rhetoric and at the same time making a point. My point is, only a military defeat of Israel will create the possibility for an independent Palestinian. But this purely stuff of fantasy. There is no power in the world capable of defeating Israel in a conventional war that has a reason to go to war with Israel.

There is simply no mechanism for an independent Palestine.

Basically I would agree with this. To expand upon it though I would say that the military defeat of Israel would only be possible with significant changes in the world balance of power. The military defeat of Israel could only be brought about by a new expansionist superpower challenging American hegemony in the Middle East. China looks a long long way from this position at the moment. How 'independent' a future Palestinian state established under these conditions would be is another question.

I think that the "push into the sea" rhetoric refers to deportation, not to actual mass drowning.

When I think of pushing people into the Sea, I think of Smyrna in 1922. I think that it is something that most educated Arabs interested in the history of national liberation struggles in the Middle East would be aware of. It means pushing them into the sea.

Sure, a military defeat, retreat to the 1967 borders and a dismantlement of the settlements is somewhat conceivable, an end of the state of Israel itself can only through two ways, nuclear holocaust or communist revolution.

As I have said above, I can at least see a mechanism for the total military defeat of Israel short of nuclear holocaust.

Devrim

Rurkel

6th April 2013, 10:55

Could a potential withdrawal of US support from Israel de-stabilize the situation?

Danielle Ni Dhighe

6th April 2013, 11:15

I would expect that the 'quasi-independence' of Gaza and the West Bank is much cheaper for the Israeli state than direct occupation was.
Based on my knowledge of the Irish situation, which took a similar course, I must agree.

Devrim

6th April 2013, 12:55

The character of the struggles has changed quite a bit in those 65 years.

They have, but d you think they are getting any nearer to any sort of victory.

It might not be, if Palestinian groups could effectively use the increased freedom to exacerbate their attacks on the Israeli state. In any case, I do not think the present Palestinian tactics are that effective - I think they should increase the number of attacks on the IDF, on government officials, and particularly on economic entities, as the Naxalites do.

Firstly, I don't think that there is any sort of increased freedom here. Secondly, the Naxilities operate in a very different environment to that in Palestine. Do you really think they Palestinian nationalists should adopt similar tactics?

Possibly; but what else would you have the Palestinians do? Sit on their arses waiting for the revolution that the Israeli oppression hinders?

What are you saying here? Is it that the Palestinians should do something just for the sake of it even though you think that the activity is quite possibly pointless?

Regardless of that I think it isn't a question that communists should concern themselves with anyway. The question for communists is about what revolutionaries should do, and about what the working class should do, not about what national groups should do.

Since the state of Israel has been cleansed of its Arab population. If the Palestinians are allowed to return, however, the Jewish population would be in a minority.

As my grandmother used to say, "If wishes were horses beggars would ride". I don't even see what the point of this statement is.

Devrim

blake 3:17

6th April 2013, 13:50

While I have theoretical differences with Devrim, I am glad for a sane and thoughtful voice here.

The only hope I see is coming from the international BDS movement http://www.bdsmovement.net/ and sections of Palestinian and Israeli youth fed up with nihilistic sectarianism.

cyu

6th April 2013, 14:01

It's kind of strange when I read things like Palestians should do this because Israelis would do that. Do all Americans, Egyptians, Saudis, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Germans, Greeks, or Hondurans think alike? Why should events in IsraelPalestine be framed purely in terms of an ethnic group conflict? Is this website not about class struggle?

Personally I like these guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchists_Against_the_Wall

On 26 December 2003, during an AATW demonstration near Mas'ha, the Israeli Defense Forces shot and wounded Gil Na'amati, an anarchist and former paratrooper.

On 12 March 2004, during a demonstration at Kharbatha, Itay Levinsky was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.

On April 3 Jonathan Pollak was shot in the head with a tear gas canister from an M16 at Bil'in, leaving him with internal brain hemorrhaging

In February 2006, Matan Cohen, a 17-year-old member of Anarchists Against The Wall, was shot with rubber bullets during a demonstration in Beit Sira. Cohen, whose left eye was injured, told reporters, "My feeling is that the blood of left-wing activists and the Palestinians is cheap."

On August 11 in Bil'in, an Israeli officer shot Limor Goldstein in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet. video evidence indicates that the shot was unprovoked With border police officers at the scene refusing to provide medical treatment to his injury, or let others treat him properly.

http://awalls.org/files/images/N%2017-7-09.jpg

http://awalls.org/files/images/Shministim.jpg

http://awalls.org/files/images/Screen%20shot%202012-04-08%20at%207.01.04%20PM.preview.png

http://awalls.org/topics/recent_activities

Narodnik

6th April 2013, 16:44

Anti-Zionism = Anti-semitism is like saying opposition to Americal imperialism = hatred and/or discrimination of anyone who is an American.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

6th April 2013, 17:43

Firstly, I don't think that there is any sort of increased freedom here.

There could be; there isn't because of the collaborationist policy of the PLO and the confusion of the major left-wing resistance groups (PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP and others).

Secondly, the Naxilities operate in a very different environment to that in Palestine. Do you really think they Palestinian nationalists should adopt similar tactics?

Obviously the Palestinian resistance should not copy every Naxalbari tactic. But targeting economic units - factories, orchards etc. - would put increased pressure on the state of Israel and would ultimately make it prohibitively costly for the imperial powers to do business with Israel.

What are you saying here? Is it that the Palestinians should do something just for the sake of it even though you think that the activity is quite possibly pointless?

Not at all. What I am saying is that armed resistance, even though the cost in terms of lives and so on will be significant, is better than waiting the deliverance of the worldwide revolution, which is what the ultraleft wants.

Regardless of that I think it isn't a question that communists should concern themselves with anyway. The question for communists is about what revolutionaries should do, and about what the working class should do, not about what national groups should do.

In Palestine, the working class should overthrow Israeli oppression, and this is a necessary condition for the development of all-round class consciousness in Palestine.

As my grandmother used to say, "If wishes were horses beggars would ride". I don't even see what the point of this statement is.

The point is that once the right of return has been implemented, the demographics of Israel will look much like the demographics of South Africa, concerning the percentage of the newly liberated and the formerly oppressing groups.

Devrim

7th April 2013, 16:03

The point is that once the right of return has been implemented, the demographics of Israel will look much like the demographics of South Africa, concerning the percentage of the newly liberated and the formerly oppressing groups.

This is just the worst example of how you are completely cut off from reality. Who is going to implement the Palestinian right of return? I don't think the Israeli state will, do you? So what is the mechanism for achieving this?

There are some pretty shocking things in your last post particularly the way you are willing to sacrifice people's lives to your stratergy, but there is no connection at all to reality there. It is all just leftist masturbatory fantasy.

Devrim

LuÃs Henrique

7th April 2013, 21:13

From a communist perspective, all (bourgeois) states are as legitimate as the next, and all nation-states need to be disintegrated.

This is quite a confusion.

Even if all States were equally illegitimate, it doesn't follow that we oppose them to the same degree and with the same intensity. I oppose the United States more than I oppose Kenya, and France more than Liechtenstein. Questions of strength, geopolitical importance, and, yes, ideology, might be at stake here. So there is nothing necessarily wrong with opposing the State of Israel more than one opposes, say, Panama.

Second, a State is not only its borders and its relation to the nationalities within it. There is a fundamental difference between the Bundesrepublik, or the Republic of Weimar, and Nazi Germany. It is absurd to posit that our opposition to any of those is an opposition to the "German State" in abstract, just as it would be absurd to oppose South Africa as it is of now on the same grounds as we opposed the apartheid regime. And so, there is nothing necessarily wrong with particularly opposing the "State of Israel" as in opposing the set of laws and institutions that constitute its apartheidish nature, in contrast to opposing it because we don't think the Jews deserve or need a national State of their own.

Thus, the singling out of the Zionist state is peculiar. Surely, there are far more oppressive and even more racist states than Israel? Zimbabwe comes to mind, Syria's treatment of Kurds, Iran's treatment of Kurds and Arabs, China's ethnic colonisation of Tibet is similar to Israel's colonists, and the treatment of women in Saudia Arabia is ostensibly worse in many regards than the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis.*

Well. Zimbabwe comes to my mind as a State with a particularly repulsive government, but not as a State that is, in and of itself, demanding a peculiar degree of opposition. The same "Zimbabwe", rid of its semi-dictatorship, would be a nation-State not much worse than Spain or Switzerland. It is defined, as far as I know, as the State of the people, of varied ethnicities, residing within the boundaries that have been historically assigned to it. Israel, on the contrary, is a State at war with a particular subset of the people who dwell within its boundaries. Syria is today a State at war with most of its own population; it deserves a high degree of opposition; it has such degree of opposition. It will quite certainly be succeeded by a new, different, and hopefully slightly less undemocratic Syrian State. Iran and Saudi Arabia are theocracies; they do deserve a special degree of opposition due to that fact, and, were I am concerned, they do have such special degree of opposition. Again, it is not the peculiar relation of these States to the nationality of people living under their yoke that is the problem, but rather their dictatorial nature and the intertwinning of politics and religion in their respective constitutions.

So if you do not identify as 'anti-Syrian' why should you identify as anti-Zionist?

Well, I identify as anti-Baathist, which is the correct equivalent of anti-Zionist (I oppose the base ideologies of each of those States). I don't identify as 'anti-Syrian', for the same reason I don't identify as 'anti-Israeli'.

It may not be explicit racism, but anti-zionism, especially amongst the far-left, may rest on implicit anti-semitic sentiment.

In no way. Anti-stalinism doesn't rely (necessarily; I'm sure in some sectors of the non-Russian right it does) in anti-Russian racism; opposition to the diverse array of ideologies that make the base of the United States does not rely in racism against American people - if for no other reason, because the United States are not intrinsically built upon the denial of citizenship to a part of its population. Unlike Israel, might I say.

Like conservatives do not recognise institutional racism in the US because it isn't explicit, may we be doing the same for anti-Zionism? This is especially so since many of the anti-Zionist arguments rely on liberal politics, e.g. "Israel stole land" is a common argument, while communists recognise all land is stolen.

The issue, to me, is not that Israel "stole land" (though it obviously did it, and in some ways that are structurally different from the way in which "all land is stolen"), but that Israel systematically denies citizenship rights to the people who were victims of their land grabs. It is as if the United State denied citizenship to Americans of Native descent, and not only political citizenship but even civil rights that civilised nations grant even to foreign residents - the right to use the same roads, the right to move to where they want, the right to achieve property, etc, etc, etc.

You may reply, "I'm an anti-Zionist, but I also advocate the destruction of all nation-states." Then why the need to identify yourself as an anti-Zionist?

Because it is not the same thing. The destruction of the political entity known as "Spain" is only demanded as part of a socialist revolution. To me, without a socialist revolution, it is indifferent whether Spain remains as it is (though I would certainly prefer it became a republic) or if it is broken into four or five smaller States such as Euzkadi, Catalunya, Galiza and Castilla, or if gets federated into a hypothetical United States of Europe. Concerning Israel, its destruction as Israel - ie, as a "Jewish State", as a State that structurally excludes Muslims, Christians, and Atheists not of Jewish matrilineal descent - is to me a demand even within capitalism.

Being anti-nationalist includes opposition to zionism, while identifying anti-Zionist implies a priority of opposing Israel over other nation-states. Why this priority?

Because Israel is a peculiar kind of State, which is structured around the exclusionary dominance of a particular political ideology, that of Zionism. It is not the same generic anti-nationalism that I hold against all States; it is on par with anti-Baathism in the case of Syria, of anti-Green Book in the case of Libya, of anti-theocratism in the case of Iran, etc.

Luís Henrique

Rurkel

8th April 2013, 02:02

Well, I identify as anti-Baathist, which is the correct equivalent of anti-Zionist (I oppose the base ideologies of each of those States). I don't identify as 'anti-Syrian', for the same reason I don't identify as 'anti-Israeli'.

Strange, it's the opposite with me. The word "Zionism" had been abused so much ("Zionism is responsible for the financial crisis, US foreign policy and the pimple on my ass") that I'm not identifying as "anti-Zionist". On the other hand, Israel without a Jewish supremacist ideology will be Israel only partially, so opposing Israeli preferences to Jews means agitating for changing Israel from Israel to something like "Israstine".

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

8th April 2013, 09:04

This is just the worst example of how you are completely cut off from reality. Who is going to implement the Palestinian right of return? I don't think the Israeli state will, do you? So what is the mechanism for achieving this?

The overthrow of the state of Israel, obviously, just as the destruction of the apartheid regime was necessary for the disbandment of the bantustans and so on.

There are some pretty shocking things in your last post particularly the way you are willing to sacrifice people's lives to your stratergy[...]

I am willing to sacrifice people's lives to my strategy? That doesn't make the slightest amount of sense. The Palestinian people are struggling against Israelis, and they will struggle regardless of how I feel about their struggle. And struggling, even though it will cost them much, is preferable to accepting the oppression and the apartheid that the state of Israel enforces.

I would have thought that this is all fairly basic, and should not be controversial in the ranks of the radical left.

but there is no connection at all to reality there. It is all just leftist masturbatory fantasy.

It's not as if the Palestinian workers are already struggling against the state of Israel, to the eternal chagrin of the ultralefts that would have them, and all oppressed groups, wait for the global revolution.

LuÃs Henrique

8th April 2013, 12:10

Strange, it's the opposite with me. The word "Zionism" had been abused so much ("Zionism is responsible for the financial crisis, US foreign policy and the pimple on my ass") that I'm not identifying as "anti-Zionist".

How would an ideology intended to build a Jewish national State be responsible for an international crisis of capital? Oh, yes. Because in such context it is being used as a codeword. We can no longer say the crisis is caused by a Jewish international conspiracy, so we substitute the word "Zionist" for "Jewish", and pretend we are not antisemitic racists.

On the other hand, Israel without a Jewish supremacist ideology will be Israel only partially, so opposing Israeli preferences to Jews means agitating for changing Israel from Israel to something like "Israstine".

Probably. People's foolishness seems to be unlimited, so I can't say that they won't kill each others for the issue of a name. But the problem to me are the Israeli racist and otherwise discriminatory laws, which are based on Zionism. Abolish that, and they can call their State whatever name they wish, I'm absolutely unconcerned.

Luís Henrique

Rurkel

8th April 2013, 15:43

Because in such context it is being used as a codeword.
That's exactly the connotations I want to avoid - I've seen it used that way a bit too often. It's a linguistic issue, anyway.

one10

8th April 2013, 18:24

How can it be anti-semitic if many orthodox Jews consider themselves Anti-Zionist as they oppose Jewish nationalism and view it as a violation of the Three Oaths?

I myself am anti-imperialist and anti-nationalist, so I see no reason to label myself anti-zionist to show my disdain for the state of Israel.

Being an anti-zionist becomes anti-semitic if you generally support imperialism or nationalism but are opposed to the nationalistic and imperialistic nature of the state of Israel.

Rottenfruit

8th April 2013, 23:32

Anti-zionism in the west is a part of opposing ones own nation state because Israel is a part of the American power bloc in the world. That is why it makes sense to more outwardly oppose zionist treatment of Palestinians than, for example, Turkish treatment of Kurds. You expose your own states crimes.
ANti zionisim initself is not antisemitic but antizionism has a tendency to cross over to blatant antisemitism and real deal antisemities like david duke use the word antizonist to to legaismite there hatred of jewish people like in this crap by david duke
http://www.davidduke.com/?p=38682
Its not that uncommon for pro palestine groups also to cross over to the david duke viewpoint , the The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has done that
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Palestine_Solidarity_Campaign#Other_branches

The whole Palenstine issue is a very compliated one and im not that knowladge about it which is why i stay away from that subject, but in my view both sides have done alot of wrong so both sides share alot of blame i think

cynicles

9th April 2013, 01:19

Do your tax dollars go to subsidizing Iranian, Syrian, Chinese or Zimbabwean state racism? Does our media and majour political institutions spend disproportionate amounts of time and effort to supporting these state racism? Do these state racisms form the backbone of a regional imperial order?

barbelo

9th April 2013, 02:35

Financial aid to Egypt or Pakistan is cool.
For Israel? No, don't you know, it's for them jews, them evil oppressive people killing the good savage!
It's better to only scapegoat our country imperialism on them, it's not like they had Iraqi missiles over their houses or disocuppied land only because we demanded.

And remember kids, zionism is anti-semitism, because creating a country to gather, protect and accept a persecuted and exiled people is actually harmful to the ones who doesn't want to live in this country; their life in Beverly Hills and New York must be a true suffering, you know with all this idealized good savages wanting to kill them.

barbelo

9th April 2013, 02:39

cynicles

9th April 2013, 05:06

Because nobodies said anything about US support for the Egyptian despot or US collaboration with the Pakistani ruling class in the last ten years. To say nothing of how we've ignored western support for Saudi Arabia, the fascist and Salafists in Lebanon.
And those Iraqi missiles the poor colonists have been living under, are thy anything like the cluster bombs dropped on the people of south Lebanon? Or the bombs Israel dropped on any of other 6 arab countries Israel has bombed. Oh those poor militarily week Israelis I can't think of any good reasons as to why they would get attacked they're just so innocent.

Why am I really surprised to see white people defending colonialism though, any excuse to justify and deflect.

For Israel? No, don't you know, it's for them jews, them evil oppressive people killing the good savage!
Why am I not surprised to see this little racist gem. Racist solidarity for the racist settler colony.

blake 3:17

10th April 2013, 07:00

Also, I know I should create a thread for this, but well, there is already this one.

I was talking with a palestinian who lives in village near Rammalah and asked if the Palestine Authority or at least Gaza issue their own currency.
And she told me they use only NIS and jordanian dinar, the last one for huge quantities.
I'm ignorant in economy and I don't the implication of this.

Why can't Palestinians issue their own money? Would it be bad or good to have a palestinian money?

Why didn't Blacks in the US just develop an alternative economy??? Huh? They had 40 acres and a mule, right? Why don't all these welfare bums just get friggin jobs?

please excuse the caps below

THEY DON'T HAVE THEIR OWN STATE -- THEY DON'T CONTROL WHAT BITS OF TERRITORY THEY'RE 'ALLOWED' TO CONTROL -- THE GAZANS LIVE IN AN OPEN AIR PRISON -- FOLKS IN THE WEST BANK LIVE IN HIGHLY POLICED SLUMS -- THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS AS A PEOPLE, NO RIGHTS AS A NATION, NO STATE -- THE ONLY POLICE THEY'RE ALLOWED IS TO BE USED AGAINST THEMSELVES

Devrim

10th April 2013, 11:14

This is just the worst example of how you are completely cut off from reality. Who is going to implement the Palestinian right of return? I don't think the Israeli state will, do you? So what is the mechanism for achieving this? The overthrow of the state of Israel, obviously, just as the destruction of the apartheid regime was necessary for the disbandment of the bantustans and so on.

You stated previously that:

The point is that once the right of return has been implemented, the demographics of Israel will look much like the demographics of South Africa, concerning the percentage of the newly liberated and the formerly oppressing groups.

Here you say that changing the demographics of Palestine would make it look more like South Africa, and presumably enable the overwhelming majority to overthrow the minority, as it did in South Africa. Your problem though is that as you now point out only the overthrow of the State of Israel will allow that. It is a chicken and egg problem. There is no mechanism for this overthrow.

I am willing to sacrifice people's lives to my strategy? That doesn't make the slightest amount of sense.

Not at all. What I am saying is that armed resistance, even though the cost in terms of lives and so on will be significant, is better than waiting the deliverance of the worldwide revolution, which is what the ultraleft wants.

I think that people talk very easily about the lives things will cost when it is not them or their loved ones paying the bill.

Devrim

goalkeeper

11th April 2013, 01:32

How can it be anti-semitic if many orthodox Jews consider themselves Anti-Zionist as they oppose Jewish nationalism and view it as a violation of the Three Oaths?

Yeah and a bunch of Orthodox turned up to Ahmadinejad's little holocaust denial conference as well.

one10

11th April 2013, 21:16

Yeah and a bunch of Orthodox turned up to Ahmadinejad's little holocaust denial conference as well.

Would Holocaust denial be considered Anti-Semitic? It's obviously stupid, but I wouldn't call it Anti-Semitic.

goalkeeper

11th April 2013, 23:12

Would Holocaust denial be considered Anti-Semitic? It's obviously stupid, but I wouldn't call it Anti-Semitic.

Are the historians that have attempted to portray American slavery as benign racist?

Kirillov

12th April 2013, 03:14

Would Holocaust denial be considered Anti-Semitic? It's obviously stupid, but I wouldn't call it Anti-Semitic.Chomsky made that point once regarding Faurisson (I'm only guessing that that's where you're coming from?) and from that perspective you'd probably have to look at every single case. Although I doubt you'd find many examples where a direct connection wasn't blatantly evident. On the other hand: Chomsky is strongly opposed to social theory. He doesn't think it's valid at all. But as a marxist one might try to theoretically grasp the nature of Anti-Semitism and arrive at different conclusions.

August Bebel once said it's the Socialism of fools. And I think he was quite right about that. Just listen to speeches of Adolf Hitler. He devides capital into two classes: productive and unproductive (money-grubbing) capital. The Jew as basically being personified high-finance, creditors, bankers and so on. They were depicted as anti-national parasites living off of the "Volksgemeinschaft" and destroying it. And there's more to it. Anti-Semitism is essentially a conspiracy ideology: The believe that they (Hitler often talked about a "small internationalist clique" referring to the jews) are controlling the world, inciting hatred between nations for personal gain and so on.

Taking this into account one might ask: What do those people think is the reason for making all of this up and who's behind that? Take Faurisson. When this topic is brought up his answers are always very vague and obscure, but there are quite a few comments which allow for a glimpse. (Didn't include the sources, though you may just google parts of the texts and find them yourself.)
Zionist power stems from the West's belief in the 'Holocaust' myth....The Jews do not tolerate any questioning of the "Holocaust". Against the revisionists they use physical violence and judicial repression because, on the level of historical and scientific argumentation, they have been defeated hands down by the revisionists. We have been able to expose their lies, one by one. Therefore Jews and Zionists seek refuge in violence and intimidation. They treat revisionists like Palestinians.......The more those in the West believe in the "Holocaust", the more Moslems they will kill and cause to be killed in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq or elsewhere.
The claim of the existence of gas chambers and the genocide of Jews by Hitler constitutes one and the same historical lie, which opened the way to a gigantic political and financial fraud of which the principal beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international Zionism, and the principal victims the Germans and the entire Palestinian people.
Mrs. Simone Weil was not gassed, she lives. She's part of those who claim that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. She admits not having seen anything of such but she certifies us that the gas chambers existed. I say for my part that it is a religious act of faith and that it does not have anything scientific. And thus we were invented innumerable gassed forgeries.Regarding Anne Frank's diary he says it's a hoax, her Father "enlarged" an original manuscript and he even spends a whole section asking "a financial swindler?" (referring to Otto Frank) in his follow-up essay. I think that's far beyond simple stupidity.

---

Regarding the whole Zionism/Anti-Zionism topic: Why would one even need to identify as Anti-Zionist? For the term is utterly vague and might refer to anything from Israeli imperialism to an international jewish conspiracy to simply jews living somewhere they find their homeland to be or having a nation state. If you're referring to the former why not call it for what it is? It's far more precise. Regarding the latter and given that all nation states should ultimately be abolished, it seems rather hypocritical to single one of them out as the particular target of this fundamental criticism when it's a state thousands of miles away. And it's quite frankly like asking for being called an Anti-Semite. I can't see any value in that?

Narodnik

12th April 2013, 08:02

Would Holocaust denial be considered Anti-Semitic? It's obviously stupid, but I wouldn't call it Anti-Semitic.
Chomsky would later elaborate: I was asked whether the fact that a person denies the existence of gas chambers does not prove that he is an anti-Semite. I wrote back what every sane person knows: no, of course it does not. A person might believe that Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews in some other way without being an anti-Semite. Since the point is trivial and disputed by no one, I do not know why we are discussing it. In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite.

Are the historians that have attempted to portray American slavery as benign racist?
Maybe, maybe not, but portraying slavery as bening making someone racist is a non-sequitur. People need to learn their logic.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

12th April 2013, 08:16

Here you say that changing the demographics of Palestine would make it look more like South Africa, and presumably enable the overwhelming majority to overthrow the minority, as it did in South Africa. Your problem though is that as you now point out only the overthrow of the State of Israel will allow that. It is a chicken and egg problem. There is no mechanism for this overthrow.

Not really; I first mentioned South Africa in the context of psycho's claim that the Israeli population would "in all likelihood face another genocide" if the state of Israel is destroyed. That has nothing to do with "the mechanism of the overthrow" - and as for the Palestinians being a minority, there exists a substantial Palestinian corpus in exile, that would probably help overthrow the state of Israel when it has been weakened enough, and the so-called "Israeli Arabs" and the most progressive sections of the Israeli Jewish proletariat can, and should be, won over to the cause of a free Palestine without Zionism.

I think that people talk very easily about the lives things will cost when it is not them or their loved ones paying the bill.

That might be so, but it doesn't matter. Are the costs of the Palestinian struggle high? They are. Are the alternatives any better? They are not. Have the Palestinian people, themselves, decided to overthrow Israeli oppression? They have.

Narodnik

12th April 2013, 09:03

If we remember that Arabs are Semites, too, it is pro-zionism that should be considered anti-semitism :grin:

In Heeb Magazine, Chomsky engaged in the following exchange:
Q: Let's return to anti-Semitism for a moment. You've written that you don't perceive anti-Semitism as a problem anymore, at least in this country, since its institutional applications and casual manifestations have basically disappeared. Do you still believe that?

I grew up with anti-Semitism in the United States. We were the only Jewish family in a mostly Irish- and German-Catholic neighborhood, which was very anti-Semitic and pretty pro-Nazi. For a young boy in the streets, you got to know what that meant. When my father was first able to get a secondhand car in the late 30s, we drove to the local mountains and passed hotels that said "restricted" meaning "no Jews". That was just part of life. When I got to Harvard in the 1950s, the anti-Semitism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. In fact, one of the reasons MIT is a great university is that people like Norbert Wiener couldn't get jobs at Harvard—it was too anti-Semitic—so they came to the engineering school down the street. That was anti-Semitism. Now, it's a very marginal issue. There is still racism, but its anti-Arab racism which is extreme. Distinguished Harvard professors write that Palestinians are people who bleed and breed their misery in order to drive the Jews into the sea, and that's considered acceptable. If some distinguished Harvard professor were to write that Jews are people who bleed and breed and advertise their misery in order to drive Palestinians into the desert, the cry of outrage would be enormous. When Jewish intellectuals who are regarded as humanist leaders say that Israel ought to settle the underpopulated Galilee—meaning too many Arabs, not enough Jews—that's considered wonderful. Violent anti-Arab racism is so prevalent that we don't even notice it. That's what we should be worried about. It's in the cinema, advertising, everywhere. On the other hand, anti-Semitism is there, but very marginal.

goalkeeper

12th April 2013, 11:53

If we remember that Arabs are Semites, too, it is pro-zionism that should be considered anti-semitism :grin:

No!

Go and familiarise yourself with the historiography of anti-semitism.

goalkeeper

12th April 2013, 11:59

Chomsky would later elaborate: I was asked whether the fact that a person denies the existence of gas chambers does not prove that he is an anti-Semite. I wrote back what every sane person knows: no, of course it does not. A person might believe that Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews in some other way without being an anti-Semite. Since the point is trivial and disputed by no one, I do not know why we are discussing it. In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite.

Urgh, these are just weasel words from Chomsky.

When someone publishes papers purporting that the holocuast did not actually take place it is pretty obvious what is motivating them. Also, belief that the holocaust did not take place means that you think there is some vast conspiracy in academia to cover up 'the truth'. Guess who is often blamed for being the evil hand behind this conspiracy? Clue: their names often end in stuff like "mann", "baum", "stein", and "burg"

Narodnik

12th April 2013, 12:00

No!

Go and familiarise yourself with the historiography of anti-semitism. I wasn't being serious :rolleyes:

When someone publishes papers purporting that the holocuast did not actually take place it is pretty obvious what is motivating them.Sure. But the point is that an anti-semitic motiovation cannot be logically deduced from someone denying the holocaust.

Also, belief that the holocaust did not take place means that you think there is some vast conspiracy in academia to cover up 'the truth'.Another non-sequitur.

.

goalkeeper

12th April 2013, 14:46

Motivation for denying the holocaust, to insist of denying the most document mass murder in history, would be to either absolve the Nazis of their crimes or to minimise the suffering of Jews. WHy would someone want to do that? Historical enquiry? The question of whether or not the holocaust "actually happened" for anyone with a basic grounding in history must be motivated by anti-semitism.

It is impossible to deny the holocaust without indulging in conspiracy theories controlling academics and manipulating academia. This inevitably leads to rehashing of Protocols theories of a a Jewish (ahem, "zionist") conspiracy.

Narodnik

12th April 2013, 15:45

Motivation for denying the holocaust, to insist of denying the most document mass murder in history, would be to either absolve the Nazis of their crimes or to minimise the suffering of Jews. Or being stupid. Or being crazy. Or being a troll. Or whatever. Denying holocaust -> anti-semitism is a non-sequitur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29#Affirming_the_consequent

LuÃs Henrique

12th April 2013, 18:17

Would Holocaust denial be considered Anti-Semitic? It's obviously stupid, but I wouldn't call it Anti-Semitic.

In itself, no - one could imagine an extreme nationalist Jew denying it happened on the base that the Jews never suffered such a defeat.

On the other hand, I have never seen, heard, or read, any real person denying the Holocaust who wasn't an actual antisemite (and who didn't attribute what they call a "lie" to a Jewish conspiracy).

Luís Henrique

Devrim

18th April 2013, 10:05

Not really; I first mentioned South Africa in the context of psycho's claim that the Israeli population would "in all likelihood face another genocide" if the state of Israel is destroyed. That has nothing to do with "the mechanism of the overthrow" - and as for the Palestinians being a minority, there exists a substantial Palestinian corpus in exile, that would probably help overthrow the state of Israel when it has been weakened enough, and the so-called "Israeli Arabs"...

I am not sure how you think that the Palestinian diaspora is going to 'help overthrow the state of Israel'. Even including the Israeli Arabs, Palestinians are still a minority between the Jordan and the sea. What you have failed to explain is how you think a minority is going to overthrow the majority. All I see is as each year goes by the Palestinians are further and further from that goal. If you compare the situation to when forty or so years ago, today the Palestinians have less support from Arab states, more divisions amongst themselves, and have become more marginal in the economic life of Israel. How the is this overthrow going to come about? What is the mechanism?

and the most progressive sections of the Israeli Jewish proletariat can, and should be, won over to the cause of a free Palestine without Zionism.

I don't think they can. A class movement could win workers to it, but the Palestinian movement is not a class movement, but a nationalist movement. The Palestinian working class is probably the most defeated in the entire region and is subsumed by nationalism, and I don't think that Palestinian nationalism will have any attraction for large groups of Jewish workers.

That might be so, but it doesn't matter. Are the costs of the Palestinian struggle high? They are. Are the alternatives any better? They are not.

Does the national struggle have anything to offer? It doesn't. Is there any hope of its victory? There isn't.

Have the Palestinian people, themselves, decided to overthrow Israeli oppression? They have.

What does this term mean? How did 'the people' decide? You may occasionally throw the word workers into the discussion, but there is no class analysis whatsoever.

Devrim

cantwealljustgetalong

18th April 2013, 10:34

I'm just going to come out and say it: Zionism is a form of bourgeois racist nationalism, and Zionists on RevLeft should be relegated to OI, just like fascists. If you're a Zionist, I have a hard time believing you can be a socialist in any meaningful internationalist sense (especially if this thread is any indication). You can't be for the colonizers and for the oppressed at the same time—even when the colonizers are formerly oppressed people.

Bostana

18th April 2013, 10:54

I hate it when people (usually conservatives) say that since I'm anti-Zionist I therefore hate the jews. That's just a childish statement based on nothing. Just because it associates it's self with a religion that has a history of being oppressed doesn't mean it's not just as evil as other nationalist parties.

Narodnik

18th April 2013, 10:55

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_3379

The only UN resolution ever that has revoked.

The Intransigent Faction

19th April 2013, 03:03

What? This thread's not in the trash bin yet? :confused:

It's like when white nationalists accuse people of being "anti-white" for calling them out for their racism.

blake 3:17

19th April 2013, 08:03

I don't think they can. A class movement could win workers to it, but the Palestinian movement is not a class movement, but a nationalist movement. The Palestinian working class is probably the most defeated in the entire region and is subsumed by nationalism, and I don't think that Palestinian nationalism will have any attraction for large groups of Jewish workers.

Why should it? THERE IS NO PALESTINIAN WORKING CLASS -- this has been the project of the Labor Zionist movement, the most throughly racist workers movement in history.

It is important to know that many of those we in the West see as part of the Israeli Right were actually part of Israeli Labor -- Ariel Sharon being probably the best known individual.

Devrim

22nd April 2013, 10:05

Why should it? THERE IS NO PALESTINIAN WORKING CLASS -- this has been the project of the Labor Zionist movement, the most throughly racist workers movement in history.

I think there is still a working class in Palestine. I think it is very week, and has difficulty asserting its own interests. There was a big strike wave there in 2006, for example.

If you think there is no longer a working class in Palestine what are the consequences of this?

Devrim

Jimmie Higgins

22nd April 2013, 11:24

I think there is still a working class in Palestine. I think it is very week, and has difficulty asserting its own interests. There was a big strike wave there in 2006, for example.

If you think there is no longer a working class in Palestine what are the consequences of this?

Devrim

Unlike in South Africa or other colonial regimes where oppression was a way to control labor, in Isreal it's displacement and so this is one of the main problems as far as fighting back - there's very little actual power for the Palistinains to use to challenge things. The result is that people might support this or that faction promising either peace or national liberation, they might (and have) risen up in sort of popular revolt, but it is difficult to have a real resistance movement let alone some sort of working class movement.

Ultimately I think it would take working class struggle, but outside of Palistine itself. If revolts in Egypt intensified and politically clarified and a powerful worker's movememnt emerged there, there would likely be the possibility for massive support and solidarity to come from those forces. I guess more passivly, if Isreal was no longer getting massive support from the US, if US imperialism was paralysed, or if there was a more severe economic crisis in Isreal itself, then conditions might also change where they could not have a "guns and butter" sort of arrangement to tie workers to the zionist project and some workers might be drawn to ally with the palistinian struggle against the Israeli ruling class in their own fight against increased exploitation. (Such a desperate situation for a violent ruling class could just as easily go far the other way though too - like full transfer or genocide or all-out war - as their options deminish). Otherwise, IMO it would take a struggle much larger than just Isreal or Palistine to really make a significant impact.

bricolage

22nd April 2013, 12:21

LuÃs Henrique

22nd April 2013, 13:21

40,000 palestinians work in israel, down from a high of 200,000 in the 1990s. I doubt most of them work in banking y'know. ok so this is out a 4 million population but it's a starting point against the idea that there is no palestinian working class. and that's not even including things like this (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=569713) or this (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/2012121912455697775.html) or this (http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/palestinian-workers-strike-at-salit.html).

The "working class", if we want the concept to be in any way useful, is not the class of people who sell their labour power to capital - it is the class of people who have no other way of surviving except selling their labour power to capital.

In other words, what we are seeing is not the abolition of the Palestinian working class, but a terrifying rise in their rate of unemployment.

What on the other hand seems to be very close to extinction is a Palestinian bourgeoisie. Which means that the rate of unemployment among Palestinian workers is a function of the Israeli bourgeoisie attitude towards Palestinian workers.

Luís Henrique

bricolage

22nd April 2013, 13:24

The "working class", if we want the concept to be in any way useful, is not the class of people who sell their labour power to capital - it is the class of people who have no other way of surviving except selling their labour power to capital.
do you not think this applies to the examples I listed?

In other words, what we are seeing is not the abolition of the Palestinian working class, but a terrifying rise in their rate of unemployment.
yeah it's enormous, I think in the gaza strip in edges close to 50% and its around about 20% in the west bank.

blake 3:17

22nd April 2013, 19:41

bricolage

22nd April 2013, 21:24

A big strike wave in 2006. It's 2013. What did this strike wave accomplish?
when was the last big strike wave in the us? what did it accomplish? does the working class exist there?

btw the examples I posted were from 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Adult unemployment is massive with public agencies being the main employers. Most of the stats say 25% - 40%, but that doesn't include the 70% of women or 35% of men who "don't participate" in the work force. In the North of Gaza official rates of unemployment for adults 25 - 29 are 60%.
palestinian unemployment is enormous and completely destructive, but the unemployed are a strata of the proletariat or they are... what?

blake 3:17

23rd April 2013, 08:21

Ain't got time for endless debate on the nature of class here but from one of the articles bricolage linked to :

Government employees in the West Bank have begun a two-day general strike to protest against a delay in the payment of their salaries due to imposed Israeli economic sanctions.

Who's the boss here? Israel and the US and Canada. The sanctions were imposed because of the statehood bid at the UN by the PA.

I'm in no way denying stratification within Palestinian society or the existence of a very small Palestinian capitalist class or that there are Palestinian workers.

What I am saying is that to rely on some abstract class against class nonsense in the face of the destruction of a people is utopian in the worse sense.

For people with sense and decency please do consider being active in the global BDS movment. Lots of great information here : http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Further resources and debate here: http://electronicintifada.net/

FionnagÃ¡in

23rd April 2013, 14:46

I don't know if anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. But a lot of self-described "anti-Zionists" on the left deal heavily in anti-Semitic tropes, which has always made me quite uncomfortable.

blake 3:17

24th April 2013, 04:54

I don't know if anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. But a lot of self-described "anti-Zionists" on the left deal heavily in anti-Semitic tropes, which has always made me quite uncomfortable.

There are stupid worthless anti-Semites who abuse the Palestinian freedom struggle and we do our best to get them the fuck out. If you see or hear anti-Semitism challenge it, like one would any other racism.

I am proud to have worked with some of the signatories of the letter below:

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon
– MARCH 13, 2012

For many years now, Gilad Atzmon, a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Palestinian movement the nature of our struggle, and the philosophy underpinning it. He has done so through his various blogs and Internet outlets, in speeches, and in articles. He is currently on tour in the United States promoting his most recent book, entitled, ‘The Wandering Who.’

With this letter, we call for the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people, and note the dangers of supporting Atzmon’s political work and writings and providing any platforms for their dissemination. We do so as Palestinian organizers and activists, working across continents, campaigns, and ideological positions.

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Palestinians have faced two centuries of orientalist, colonialist and imperialist domination of our native lands. And so as Palestinians, we see such language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Palestinian activists and organizers, their parties, associations and campaigns, have attested throughout the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.

We reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism; nor denying the Holocaust; nor allying in any way shape or form with any conspiracy theories, far-right, orientalist, and racist arguments, associations and entities. Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

Indeed, we regard any attempt to link and adopt antisemitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaffirming and legitimizing Zionism. In addition to its immorality, this language obscures the fundamental role of imperialism and colonialism in destroying our homeland, expelling its people, and sustaining the systems and ideologies of oppression, apartheid and occupation. It leaves one squarely outside true solidarity with Palestine and its people.

The goal of the Palestinian people has always been clear: self determination. And we can only exercise that inalienable right through liberation, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decolonization. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never compromise the principles and spirit of our liberation struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.

As Palestinians, it is our collective responsibility, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grassroots liberation struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.

When the Palestinian people call for self-determination and decolonization of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.

Until liberation and return.

Signed:

Ali Abunimah

Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Omar Barghouti, human rights activist

Hatem Bazian, Chair, American Muslims for Palestine

Andrew Dalack, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Haidar Eid, Gaza

Nada Elia, US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

Toufic Haddad

Kathryn Hamoudah

Adam Hanieh, Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London

Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon! Canada

Monadel Herzallah, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate

Andrew Kadi

Hanna Kawas, Chair person, Canada Palestine Association and Co-Host Voice of Palestine

Abir Kobty, Palestinian blogger and activist

Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, NY

Danya Mustafa, Israeli Apartheid Week US National Co-Coordinator & Students for Justice in Palestine- University of New Mexico

Dina Omar, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine

Haitham Salawdeh, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Sobhi Samour, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London

Khaled Ziada, SOAS Palestine Society, London

Rafeef Ziadah, poet and human rights advocate

Devrim

26th April 2013, 09:14

Who's the boss here? Israel and the US and Canada. The sanctions were imposed because of the statehood bid at the UN by the PA.

I'm in no way denying stratification within Palestinian society or the existence of a very small Palestinian capitalist class or that there are Palestinian workers.

What I am saying is that to rely on some abstract class against class nonsense in the face of the destruction of a people is utopian in the worse sense.

For people with sense and decency please do consider being active in the global BDS movment. Lots of great information here : http://www.bdsmovement.net/

What you seem to be saying here is that the situation is so bad that we have to abandon communist class based politics, and take up what is essentially bourgeois liberalism, which is what the BDS campaign is.

I think this raises huge questions about communist politics. I think for us to adopt these sort of politics there are certain conditions that have to be met. The first is that our own politics have to have nothing to offer. Now, I think that is true in Palestine today. Communists have no immediate solution to end the suffering that is inflicted on people in Palestine. The second condition though is that the politics that you are proposing abandoning class politics for have to have something to offer. In my opinion they don't. I don't reject these sort of politics merely because they lack a class nature out of some abstract dogmatism. I genuinely don't believe that they have anything to offer.

Devrim

Devrim

26th April 2013, 21:00

didn't you go work in 'isreal for many years ??

No, I worked in construction in Israel for a few months. What of it?

Devrim

blake 3:17

27th April 2013, 07:04

Great new & very funny video from John Greyson asking Morgan Freeman and Jian Gomeishi not to participate in a Canadian Friends of Hebrew University event in Toronto on May 6. http://vimeo.com/64853585#

I think this raises huge questions about communist politics. I think for us to adopt these sort of politics there are certain conditions that have to be met. The first is that our own politics have to have nothing to offer. Now, I think that is true in Palestine today. Communists have no immediate solution to end the suffering that is inflicted on people in Palestine. The second condition though is that the politics that you are proposing abandoning class politics for have to have something to offer. In my opinion they don't. I don't reject these sort of politics merely because they lack a class nature out of some abstract dogmatism. I genuinely don't believe that they have anything to offer.

So the answer from a communist perspective is -- NOTHING. In the face of massive social crisis, a communist goes, uhhhhh, whatever, it's unfortunate. And makes socialism & communist politics irrelevant.

The reduction of the Israeli Palestianian conflict to a pure class one only serves the interests of colonialists and their imperial backers. So the Sparts, IMT, whoever the hell else on the Left who opposes BDS, are essentially working to rid Palestine of the Palestinians. Good fucking luck on that one.

What the Israelis are being offered is a choice -- we're going to freeze you out through non-violent means and you better make good. Or we're all fucked. The fact that Devrim condemns a social justice movement as 'bourgeois liberalism' (I'd like to know the bourgeois backers (maybe Roger Waters fits the bill)) which if examined has come largely from proletarian organizations, but maybe insufficiently proletarian according to some nonsensical dogmatic purist class against class line. Maybe some are too gay or girl, I dunno. Folks on here love to hate on Code Pink, while they get shit done, while others are busy doing .... something.

Been thinking of this passage from Walter Benjamin a lot in recent months: "The class struggle, which is always present to a historian influenced by Marx, is a fight for the crude and material things without which no refined and spiritual things could exist. Nevertheless, it is not in the form of the spoils which fall to the victor that the latter make their presence felt in the class struggle. They manifest themselves in this struggle as courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude. They have retroactive force and will constantly call in question every victory, past and present, of the rulers."

Devrim is presenting a course of doing nothing in the face of the oppression of the Palestinian people. Fair enough, as a PERSONAL or ORGANIZATIONAL decision, but to invoke "communist politics" as some be all and end all of ethics, resulting in inaction? Come on. Get a grip on reality here.

FionnagÃ¡in

28th April 2013, 01:23

So the answer from a communist perspective is -- NOTHING. In the face of massive social crisis, a communist goes, uhhhhh, whatever, it's unfortunate. And makes socialism & communist politics irrelevant.
Have you perhaps considered that, in certain contexts, communist politics are irrelevant, or at least of a strictly bounded relevance? We can't assume to begin with that we possess an appropriate response, at least not as communists. It may be the case that the BDS campaign is an appropriate response, you're certainly free to argument as much, but it does not follow from the fact that a communist is making the argument that it is therefore a communist response.

Jimmie Higgins

28th April 2013, 11:45

palestinian unemployment is enormous and completely destructive, but the unemployed are a strata of the proletariat or they are... what?Well of course unemployed workers are workers - specifically in that their interests as unemployed workers is to secure work. However, in terms of potential power, this is a problem - while they may ultimatly have interests alligned with other workers, they do not have the power by themselves as workers. In most cases, this means that the strength of unemployed workers is in building solidarity with the employed - who, especially in times of uncertaintly and crisis - benifit with the identification that we are all a paycheck away from not making rent and having debt-ruin. In the case where marginalized or oppressed workers (like ethnic/religious minorities, immigrants) are targeted for a dispropotionate level of unemployment, barriers may make this indentification trickier and convince some workers that it's better "them" than "us". This is, I think, at play in Isreal, but I think it's also much deeper and much more problematic because the social safty net, Israeli labor, and so on are all tied into the zionist project.

So if 40,000 workers are concentrated in one industry, they might be able to make inroads, but to win equality means ending zionism which I really think would take much more than actions by a tiny percentage of the working class. At some point maybe an anti-zionist, internationalist trend will develop with both Palistinian and Jewish workers (or maybe even immigrant jewish workers who are more exploited and Palistinain workers) but zionist ideology and US military influence and support are big barrieres. Unless those things changed, I think we'd be more likely to see arab-worker solidarity in the region using working class methods to paralize Israel's economy along with movements of Palisitians and allies inside of Israel/Palistine.

blake 3:17

30th April 2013, 03:56

Have you perhaps considered that, in certain contexts, communist politics are irrelevant, or at least of a strictly bounded relevance? We can't assume to begin with that we possess an appropriate response, at least not as communists. It may be the case that the BDS campaign is an appropriate response, you're certainly free to argument as much, but it does not follow from the fact that a communist is making the argument that it is therefore a communist response.

I think you're right that 'communist' politics are largely irrelevant, here, and in most cases. That should be shameful for us, but others seem to think it is a mark of purity. Who cares? I make no claim that BDS is correct due to anything to do with me -- It is the call given by the most left wing democratic forces in Palestinian society and should be respected as such.

The BDS movement doesn't simply everything Israeli as bad or evil or whatever -- it is focused on building a mass non-violent international movement which will prevent the destruction of the Palestinian people.

"Communism", based on pure theory, conjecture, abstract schemes and some weird telos, has and is nothing for the oppressed and exploited. A genuine communism, based on defense of the commons, opposition to basic injustice and inequality, and ecology is a necessity.

Devrim

30th April 2013, 10:12

So the answer from a communist perspective is -- NOTHING. In the face of massive social crisis, a communist goes, uhhhhh, whatever, it's unfortunate. And makes socialism & communist politics irrelevant.

I could argue that it is not the actions of individual communists that change situations such as this. I could explain that for communists it is the action of the working class that has the potential to change things. I could talk about the current position of the working class, and its possibility of exerting its influence on the situation. I could argue that communists can not move the working class by exercising their will alone.

However, the problem with this line of argument is that you already know it to be true:

I think you're right that 'communist' politics are largely irrelevant, here, and in most cases.

Given that we both know then that communist politics can have virtually no influence on this situation, it is not a question of understanding. It is a question of how we respond to this. My response is that communists should try to intervene where they can in the class struggle, and that in the long term, it is only a real change in the balance of class forces that can bring about any positive change in the situation in Palestine. Your response is to throw yourself into activism in what I consider to be a 'bourgeois liberal' campaign.

The question is then concerning the nature of this campaign, and what it has to offer.

The first question then is the class nature of this campaign.

The fact that Devrim condemns a social justice movement as 'bourgeois liberalism' (I'd like to know the bourgeois backers (maybe Roger Waters fits the bill)) which if examined has come largely from proletarian organizations, but maybe insufficiently proletarian according to some nonsensical dogmatic purist class against class line.

If we look at the strategy advocated by the BDS campaign, I think it is very clear that there is no focus at all on the working class:

Boycotts target products and companies (Israeli and international) that profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, as well as Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions. Anyone can boycott Israeli goods, simply by making sure that they don’t buy produce made in Israel or by Israeli companies. Campaigners and groups call on consumers not to buy Israeli goods and on businesses not to buy or sell them.
Israeli cultural and academic institutions directly contribute to maintaining, defending or whitewashing the oppression of Palestinians, as Israel deliberately tries to boost its image internationally through academic and cultural collaborations. As part of the boycott, academics, artists and consumers are campaigning against such collaboration and ‘rebranding’. A growing number of artists have refused to exhibit or play in Israel.
Divestment means targeting corporations complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights and ensuring that the likes of university investment portfolios and pension funds are not used to finance such companies. These efforts raise awareness about the reality of Israel’s policies and encourage companies to use their economic influence to pressure Israel to end its systematic denial of Palestinian rights.
Sanctions are an essential part of demonstrating disapproval for a country’s actions. Israel’s membership of various diplomatic and economic forums provides both an unmerited veneer of respectability and material support for its crimes. By calling for sanctions against Israel, campaigners educate society about violations of international law and seek to end the complicity of other nations in these violations.

What it instead calls for is for states and companies to take action against Israel. If workers are to have any agency at all here it is as individuals consumers being asked to boycott products, not as any sort of collective entity. I would say this strategy is 'bourgeois liberalism'.

Even that though isn't the problem. The problem is that it has nothing to offer. What sort of mechanism is there for this to produce any sort of change in the situation in Palestine? How will this effect change? And we are back to the same problem.

It is worse than that though. It is not just that it has people running around like headless chickens in blind activism. Ultimately, it offers the perspective that problems in society can be solved not by workers taking action to defend their own interests, but by a cross class coalition of concerned individuals companies and states, and in the Middle East, where all forces in society are 'against' what is happening in Palestine, it encourages class collaboration. While in somewhere like Canada, this is quite probably just a coalition of leftists and liberals in the Middle East all sorts of people are involved in these sort of things. If you look at things like this Mavi Marmara ship from Turkey, it was directly backed by the government, and had fascist involvement. In the aftermath of it, I can remember many leftists calling for the state to take firmer action against Israel.

...And when you have the left backing its own state it the pursuit of its own imperialist agenda, and let's be clear, the Turkish state does have imperial interests in the region, then you have a problem.

Devrim

FionnagÃ¡in

30th April 2013, 15:41

I think you're right that 'communist' politics are largely irrelevant, here, and in most cases. That should be shameful for us, but others seem to think it is a mark of purity. Who cares? I make no claim that BDS is correct due to anything to do with me -- It is the call given by the most left wing democratic forces in Palestinian society and should be respected as such.

The BDS movement doesn't simply everything Israeli as bad or evil or whatever -- it is focused on building a mass non-violent international movement which will prevent the destruction of the Palestinian people.

"Communism", based on pure theory, conjecture, abstract schemes and some weird telos, has and is nothing for the oppressed and exploited. A genuine communism, based on defense of the commons, opposition to basic injustice and inequality, and ecology is a necessity.
I'm not sure I follow you on this. On the one hand, you decry a communism-of-abstraction, yet you attribute the practical irrelevance of communism not to the absence of a real communist movement (as would be my inclination), but to our failure to develop a sufficiently robust set of abstractions around which can be built a "mass international movement". So that doesn't make much sense.

blake 3:17

1st May 2013, 00:45

@Devrim -- We just think differently. This kind of class essentialism is really rather grotesque, but since nobody falls for it, it doesn't matter

I'm not sure I follow you on this. On the one hand, you decry a communism-of-abstraction, yet you attribute the practical irrelevance of communism not to the absence of a real communist movement (as would be my inclination), but to our failure to develop a sufficiently robust set of abstractions around which can be built a "mass international movement". So that doesn't make much sense.

I think there's some miscommunication here. When I am referring to a mass non-violent international movement I'm referring to the BDS movement, which has relatively concrete goals, but has other more utopian dimensions to it.

And if it doesn't at all work where you are, or makes no sense where you are, skip it. Life's too short.

The sanest and most radical proposal for a new communist movement has been Walden Bello's call for a new international peasants movement. This is based on very sound reasoning given the current crises in food production, international and intranational migration, and hyper destructive schemes from the IMF etc.

Looking up left critiques of his Food Wars you find great stuff like: "What of the urban poor whose riots forced the question of food onto the agenda?" and "Given the connection to the market, wage labour becomes the precondition for a life without hardship, independently from the vicissitudes of nature."

This is the same kind of Labor Zionist bullshit that Devrim seems so keen on. They're proletarian but very messed up proletarians, so better to replace them with good proletarians who will fight the class war and achieve That Something That We All Want.

Devrim

1st May 2013, 10:08

@Devrim -- We just think differently.

Yes, one of the things that we think differently about is that I don't think that it is OK to blatantly lie about what other people put forward:

This is the same kind of Labor Zionist bullshit that Devrim seems so keen on.

I have never advocated an support for any kind of Zionism including Labour Zionism. Nor am I keen on it in anyway.

Devrim

FionnagÃ¡in

1st May 2013, 10:41

I think there's some miscommunication here. When I am referring to a mass non-violent international movement I'm referring to the BDS movement, which has relatively concrete goals, but has other more utopian dimensions to it.

And if it doesn't at all work where you are, or makes no sense where you are, skip it. Life's too short.

The sanest and most radical proposal for a new communist movement has been Walden Bello's call for a new international peasants movement. This is based on very sound reasoning given the current crises in food production, international and intranational migration, and hyper destructive schemes from the IMF etc.

Looking up left critiques of his Food Wars you find great stuff like: "What of the urban poor whose riots forced the question of food onto the agenda?" and "Given the connection to the market, wage labour becomes the precondition for a life without hardship, independently from the vicissitudes of nature."

This is the same kind of Labor Zionist bullshit that Devrim seems so keen on. They're proletarian but very messed up proletarians, so better to replace them with good proletarians who will fight the class war and achieve That Something That We All Want.
Since when was communism a matter of "sanest and most radical proposals"?

ed miliband

1st May 2013, 13:38

@Devrim -- We just think differently. This kind of class essentialism is really rather grotesque, but since nobody falls for it, it doesn't matter

i've seen people cop out of responding to points raised, but this really takes the biscuit. you engaged with devrim fully aware - surely - that you two "think differently", so why is that now stopping you from properly responding to him? and accusations of "class essentialism" (posh way of saying 'workerism'? lol) and zionism? silly to say the least.

really i think the issue is a matter of you having an activist mentality, the appeal of bds lying in the fact it means you can do something; devrim and others are simply trying to assess the situation with sober judgment.

e: got to say though, i'm mostly just annoyed because i was interested in seeing where the debate was heading, and you just dropped it...

blake 3:17

2nd May 2013, 07:16

Well folks, Devrim is a class essentialist and in this case to try to reduce question of Zionist expansionist murder to one of "class unity" is a frigging cop out that means lending support to the destruction of the Palestinian people.

@Fionnagáin -- "Since when was communism a matter of 'sanest and most radical proposals'?" Uh, like everything decent in the socialist, communist and anarchist movements up to now.

blake 3:17

2nd May 2013, 07:41

ed miliband started a thread last Novemeber 29 with:
my friend is really involved in the palestine group at my uni so i hear a lot about it first hand; the moment israel started bombing gaza the society became really active: multiple meetings daily, protests, stunts, graffiti, etc. at the same time, various student related struggles were completely ignored.

i don't want to sound too flippant, because there are palestinian students involved and it isn't all white kids running around with keffiyehs, but i find the fetishism of palestine amongst students quite strange. that isn't to say that israel don't do terrible things, but it seems there is the assumption that israel is unique in doing terrible things, and all other struggles must pale in comparison to liberating palestine.

like, there was that shit a while ago when some american students were going on hunger strike for palestinian prisoners. just mental.

In his post above he criticizes me saying, "really i think the issue is a matter of you having an activist mentality, the appeal of bds lying in the fact it means you can do something; devrim and others are simply trying to assess the situation with sober judgment."

So, there's an international mass movement led by an oppressed people that is generating tremendous support around the world from trade unionists, left activists, students, progressive churches, etc., and the sober assessment is to ABSTAIN!!??

This is the shit that makes the revolutionary Left seem like a sick joke. Wait! Wait! Wait! We need proper proletarian hegemony before we can act! No revolution would ever have happened if we thought that way and no freedom struggle would ever be won. Would it have been pro-imperialist to have supported the bombing of the trains to Auschwitz? Is calling for legal recognition of unions or the right to an abortion statist? Get off it.

The unity you guys seem to be talking about is simply unity on the grounds of the oppressor. You don't like nations? Tough. They exist. And if it makes me a bourgeois liberal for not wanting little children in Gaza starved or bombed to death, I couldn't care less.

For those interested in sane and radical solutions, please do see http://www.bdsmovement.net/

blake 3:17

2nd May 2013, 07:41

bcbm

2nd May 2013, 08:38

So, there's an international mass movement led by an oppressed people that is generating tremendous support around the world from trade unionists, left activists, students, progressive churches, etc., and the sober assessment is to ABSTAIN!!??

This is the shit that makes the revolutionary Left seem like a sick joke. Wait! Wait! Wait! We need proper proletarian hegemony before we can act!

when there was a bds movement here i was part of it and supported it, but i still think what devrim says on the situation makes the most sense. the world isn't built by our activist movements.

No revolution would ever have happened if we thought that way and no freedom struggle would ever be won.

its been won somewhere?

Would it have been pro-imperialist to have supported the bombing of the trains to Auschwitz?

didnt happen... and would it have stopped the horror? seems like missing the point

Is calling for legal recognition of unions or the right to an abortion statist? Get off it.

yes? doesnt mean it shoudnt be done, but a critical view should be taken

The unity you guys seem to be talking about is simply unity on the grounds of the oppressor. You don't like nations? Tough. They exist. And if it makes me a bourgeois liberal for not wanting little children in Gaza starved or bombed to death, I couldn't care less.

i think devrim is right in saying those realities wont exist without the destruction of capitalism

Flying Purple People Eater

2nd May 2013, 10:10

I don't know if anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic.

Being against theocrat/racialist nationalists is not racism nor is it anti-semitic. How could it in any way be racist to be against nationalism and racialism? Because the Tolmud says so?

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

2nd May 2013, 11:43

I am not sure how you think that the Palestinian diaspora is going to 'help overthrow the state of Israel'. Even including the Israeli Arabs, Palestinians are still a minority between the Jordan and the sea. What you have failed to explain is how you think a minority is going to overthrow the majority. All I see is as each year goes by the Palestinians are further and further from that goal. If you compare the situation to when forty or so years ago, today the Palestinians have less support from Arab states, more divisions amongst themselves, and have become more marginal in the economic life of Israel. How the is this overthrow going to come about? What is the mechanism?

I believe I have already answered that question; continuous militant activity, chiefly through attacks on the Israeli state, large companies, and imperial interests. Eventually, the maintenance of the state of Israel in its present state will become too costly for its imperial sponsors, the Israeli public will have had enough of the conflict, and the Palestinians could press their advantage in order to force the return of the diaspora - or to mechanically eliminate the greater part of Israeli state forces and to take the right of return for themselves.

I don't think they can. A class movement could win workers to it, but the Palestinian movement is not a class movement, but a nationalist movement. The Palestinian working class is probably the most defeated in the entire region and is subsumed by nationalism, and I don't think that Palestinian nationalism will have any attraction for large groups of Jewish workers.

The national-liberation movement in Palestine is, in general, a national-liberation movement (not a nationalist movement such as Zionism), shockingly enough. That said, it has a prominent socialist section (mostly revisionist, but revisionists who do something are far preferrable to purists who have made a religion out of inaction), as do most if not all national-liberation movements in present conditions. Israeli workers can and should be won over to that section - which is something that sanctimonious Israeli and European "socialists" make difficult when they spread panic about "genocide" and so on.

Does the national struggle have anything to offer? It doesn't. Is there any hope of its victory? There isn't.

The national-liberation struggle has to offer only the possibility of a life without checkpoints, without random killing by the settlers and by the state of Israel, life outside of refugee camps, and so on - all prerequisites of the further development of Palestinian class consciousness. And obviously national liberation struggles can and have succeeded. Is Israel somehow magically protected from the fate of other racist settler dictatorships?

What does this term mean? How did 'the people' decide? You may occasionally throw the word workers into the discussion, but there is no class analysis whatsoever.

The Palestinian people - usually this is a useless term since the various classes and strata that make up "the people" have nothing in common, but in this case this grouping is useful due to the racist policies of the Israeli state - have decided to participate in the national-liberation struggle by, and you might find this shocking - participating in the national-liberation struggle.

There is a lot to be said about the position of the Palestinian bourgeoisie and semifeudal classes, but this thread isn't about that, is it? It is about the usual ultraleft denial of the necessity of national (or womens', or LGBT, or whatever) liberation because it's not proletarian enough for their refined palate. Well, if you manage to figure out a way to have a proletarian revolution in Israel without destroying the racist-settler state first, do tell.

I'm just going to come out and say it: Zionism is a form of bourgeois racist nationalism, and Zionists on RevLeft should be relegated to OI, just like fascists. If you're a Zionist, I have a hard time believing you can be a socialist in any meaningful internationalist sense (especially if this thread is any indication). You can't be for the colonizers and for the oppressed at the same time—even when the colonizers are formerly oppressed people.I thought Zionists were restricted.

FionnagÃ¡in

2nd May 2013, 16:24

@Fionnagáin -- "Since when was communism a matter of 'sanest and most radical proposals'?" Uh, like everything decent in the socialist, communist and anarchist movements up to now.
What I'm getting at, here, is the idea of communism as a real movement, as the product of historical necessity, rather than a product of extra-historical reason, as you seem to be arguing. By posing communism as a matter of "sane proposals", you position yourself as the ambassador of a universal rationality set beyond and above the conflicts of "civil society", capable of sifting the proposals of the publicly-minded from those of the interested. In other words, you assume the position of the bourgeois state and not of the working class.

Being against theocrat/racialist nationalists is not racism nor is it anti-semitic. How could it in any way be racist to be against nationalism and racialism? Because the Tolmud says so?
I agree that opposing Zionism does not entail racist and theocratic views. But "anti-Zionism" and "anti-racist/anti-theocratic" are hardly identical categories. There are more than enough racists and theocrats declaring "anti-Zionist" politics, and my concern is that their implicit or explicit anti-Semitism has echoes within the broader anti-Zionist camp.

The national-liberation movement in Palestine is, in general, a national-liberation movement (not a nationalist movement such as Zionism)[.]
Surely "national liberation movement" is a sub-set of "nationalism"? :confused: You can't argue that Nation X should be "liberated" unless you first assume that Nation X is a really-existing entity and derives from the fact of its existence a natural right of territorial sovereignty, which is to assume implicitly an Xish nationalism.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

2nd May 2013, 16:37

Surely "national liberation movement" is a sub-set of "nationalism"? :confused: You can't argue that Nation X should be "liberated" unless you first assume that Nation X is a really-existing entity and derives from the fact of its existence a natural right of territorial sovereignty, which is to assume implicitly an Xish nationalism.

Not really; one can recognise the existence of nations as separate entities and the progressive nature of demands for national liberation without being an ethnic chauvinist or separatist on principle. In fact, this is the only consistent Leninist position.

National liberation struggles aim to destroy existing national oppression; nationalist movements aim to establish or purify some sort of "homeland". The latter are often the enemies of the former.

FionnagÃ¡in

2nd May 2013, 16:49

Not really; one can recognise the existence of nations as separate entities and the progressive nature of demands for national liberation without being an ethnic chauvinist or separatist on principle.
I'm not talking about "ethnic chauvinism or separatism", though. I'm talking about nationalism. Different phenomena. Nationalism is not necessarily chauvinistic, and usually isn't ethnic, while a person may display a pronounced ethnic chauvinism without displaying a trace of nationalism. (To take a provincial example, Gaelo-Norse relations in the Early Medieval period were often tinged by ethnic chauvinism, but none of the participants would have been remotely familiar with the modern concept of nationality.)

In fact, this is the only consistent Leninist position.
It's hardly consistent with Lenin's actual politics, though, is it? If Lenin argued for national independence as as a matter of principle and not merely of strategic expedience, why did he argue for the independence of Ukraine, Latvia and Armenia, but not for Tatarstan, Chechnya or Karelia? Why did he support the formation of an Irish Communist Party, but opposed the formation of a Scottish Communist Party? Whatever one thinks of Lenin's position on the "national question", it can't be seriously maintained from the evidence that he actually bought into the idea that "nations" possess any sort of inherent "right" to self-government.

National liberation struggles aim to destroy existing national oppression; nationalist movements aim to establish or purify some sort of "homeland". The latter are often the enemies of the former.
That seems a difference of phrasing and emphasis, rather than of content. The Palestinians want to end their national oppression/the Palestinians want to establish a national homeland; same thing.

Nationalism, in any conventional definition, is the advocacy of political organisation on the basis of the nation-state. This may be an ethnic or civil nation-state, it may be chauvinistic or cooperative, it may be separatist or it may be cosmopolitan, much as it may be democratic or undemocratic, left-wing or right, religious or secular. All are possible, and all have been evidenced historically. Arbitrarily dividing things up between good "national liberation" and bad "nationalism"- in the process, neglecting the great majority of nationalist movements that have ever actually existed- serves no end but rationalising whatever position you were going to take anyway.

blake 3:17

2nd May 2013, 18:20

What I'm getting at, here, is the idea of communism as a real movement, as the product of historical necessity, rather than a product of extra-historical reason, as you seem to be arguing. By posing communism as a matter of "sane proposals", you position yourself as the ambassador of a universal rationality set beyond and above the conflicts of "civil society", capable of sifting the proposals of the publicly-minded from those of the interested. In other words, you assume the position of the bourgeois state and not of the working class.

That doesn't make any sense.

FionnagÃ¡in

2nd May 2013, 19:23

"Nanana I can't hear you" doesn't become less childish a response because you throw in a bit of snark.

edit, in response to edit:

Makes perfect sense. Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Impossibility of disinterested reason in class society/ideological necessity for the state to presents itself as an embodiment of disinterested reason. By reproducing the logic of rational disinterest, of "most sane proposals", you reproduce the perspective of the bourgeois state- however radical an inflection you may place upon it.

l'EnfermÃ©

2nd May 2013, 22:55

The topic. Stay on it. Without breaking the rules.

Thank you.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

4th May 2013, 12:18

I'm not talking about "ethnic chauvinism or separatism", though. I'm talking about nationalism. Different phenomena. Nationalism is not necessarily chauvinistic, and usually isn't ethnic, while a person may display a pronounced ethnic chauvinism without displaying a trace of nationalism. (To take a provincial example, Gaelo-Norse relations in the Early Medieval period were often tinged by ethnic chauvinism, but none of the participants would have been remotely familiar with the modern concept of nationality.)

Even so, nationalism is nearly synonymous to ethnic chauvinism today. And many nationalist movements fight for independence of entities that are not nations in the Leninist sense.

I am not talking about movements such as Irish or Basque "nationalism", mind you - those movements are concerned with the national liberation of the Irish people, of the Basque etc. I am talking about "nationalism" as the term is commonly used in Europe and America - when talking about American nationalism, for example, Croat nationalism, French nationalism etc.

It's hardly consistent with Lenin's actual politics, though, is it? If Lenin argued for national independence as as a matter of principle and not merely of strategic expedience, why did he argue for the independence of Ukraine, Latvia and Armenia, but not for Tatarstan, Chechnya or Karelia? Why did he support the formation of an Irish Communist Party, but opposed the formation of a Scottish Communist Party? Whatever one thinks of Lenin's position on the "national question", it can't be seriously maintained from the evidence that he actually bought into the idea that "nations" possess any sort of inherent "right" to self-government.

Of course not; the right of nations to self-determination is, like all democratic rights, subordinate to the interest of the revolution in Leninist thought. That said, RKP(b) did support the independence of Karelia, of Chechnya etc. - if there was an actual demand for independence. Karelia became independent after the Second World War as the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, while the formerly independent Tuva was incorporated into the RSFSR, according to the democratic decision of the Tuvans.

That seems a difference of phrasing and emphasis, rather than of content. The Palestinians want to end their national oppression/the Palestinians want to establish a national homeland; same thing.

Not quite; the Irish have a "national homeland" but are still oppressed in the North; whereas the Boers have no such homeland are not oppressed.

FionnagÃ¡in

5th May 2013, 01:25

Rocky Rococo

5th May 2013, 01:38

Israel is second only to its senior partner, the US, in terms of imperial expansionism and aggression. Thus from the point of view of those in opposition to a world of imperial domination, criticism of and opposition to Israeli policy is natural. Show me where Hamas is calling for a Greater Palestine reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates. What's Eretz Yisrael?

Further, while you're busy justifying Israel and denouncing its critics, perhaps you can explain to we benighted ones why the Israeli confiscation of all water sources and supplies on the West Bank is such a fine thing that it should be above all criticism. It (like all other current Israeli policy) puts me very much in mind of US treatment of the Native Americans.

FionnagÃ¡in

5th May 2013, 01:47

Who is that addressed to?

blake 3:17

5th May 2013, 05:39

You derive theory from politics,

????

Rurkel

5th May 2013, 06:11

National liberation struggles aim to destroy existing national oppression; nationalist movements aim to establish or purify some sort of "homeland".
That's an important distinction, and I am not denying the difference between nationalism of the oppressors and the oppressed; but a successful "nationalism of the oppressed" becomes just good ol' "bad nationalism". Once the existing national oppression is destroyed, time to establish/reinforce the homeland, after all. Indian nationalism is a case in point. Bal Thackeray was no progressive figure :p

I guess the Palestinians in such a hopeless position as of now, that it isn't really possible for most people to imagine then "winning".

Show me where Hamas is calling for a Greater Palestine reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
"Greater Israel" is a fairly marginal viewpoint within the Zionist movement, though. Israel should be opposed because it murderously and disproportionately bombs Gaza and denies representation/apartheids the West Bank, not because of these cooky marginal plans.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

5th May 2013, 08:59

Just piling arbitrary distinctions on top of arbitrary distinctions does not make the initial distinctions less arbitrary, it just makes them more ridiculous. You pick nationalisms you like and dub them "national liberation", which is good and noble and to be supported, and pick nationalisms you don't like and dub them "nationalism", which is bad and rotten and to be abhorred. You derive theory from politics, and, worse, principle from opportunity.

I have no idea what the last sentence means.

Nor is my position predicated on what I like and what I dislike - I recognise that Croat national independence from Austria was a progressive demand, for example, though my attitude to the Croat identity is hostile at best. Irish "nationalism", for example, is qualitatively different from movements that are usually called nationalist (and meaning is, after all, determined by use). Calling it "nationalism" was probably a bad idea, but such are the idiosyncrasies of history.

And again, there is nothing arbitrary about the distinction between nationalism and national liberation. National liberation struggles aim to destroy existing national oppression, nationalist movements aim to establish some sort of "homeland" and, most likely, perpetuate national oppression. National liberation does not require independence, and certainly not independence as one state - thus the national liberations struggles of the peoples of the former Russian Turkestan were resolved without the establishment of separate states in most cases.

The nationalist movements that had developed among these people, of course, found this unsatisfactory, and fought the Soviet Union. Was the demand for independence from the Soviet Union and every nation having a single state a progressive one? It was not, particularly considering that this had no support among the Turkestani workers.

Put bluntly, the working class has no nation. The working class is part of no "people". It has no heritage, it has no homeland, no loyalties and no blood-ties. It has, in a very real sense, nothing to lose but its chains. The rest, it's just bullshit.

Well, to put it bluntly, this is simply ultraleft posturing. Cute statements such as "the working class has no heritage" are useless to someone that faces checkpoints, starvation, lack of education, and murder, simply due to speaking the wrong language or being born in the wrong area. If you want the workers to stop bickering over heritage or nationality - as I do - then support them in their efforts to end national oppression, and help build international solidarity for their cause.

That's an important distinction, and I am not denying the difference between nationalism of the oppressors and the oppressed; but a successful "nationalism of the oppressed" becomes just good ol' "bad nationalism". Once the existing national oppression is destroyed, time to establish/reinforce the homeland, after all. Indian nationalism is a case in point. Bal Thackeray was no progressive figure

Fair enough; but leaving the national liberation struggle to the nationalists simply exacerbates these problems. There are, I think, few such figures in the Basque country, where the national liberation movement is primarily socialist and leftoid.

FionnagÃ¡in

5th May 2013, 20:53

I have no idea what the last sentence means.
It means that you begin with an opportunistic populism, and then spin out from that spurious theoretical rationalisations to avoid the obvious criticism that those politics have fuck all to do with communism. Palestinian nationalism is a popular cause among the mainstream left, therefore, we must adopt it to appear in keeping. Explanations as to why this is "Marxist" can always be concocted later, although preferably with an absolute minimum number of references to the work and thought of Karl Heinrich Marx.

Nor is my position predicated on what I like and what I dislike - I recognise that Croat national independence from Austria was a progressive demand, for example, though my attitude to the Croat identity is hostile at best. Irish "nationalism", for example, is qualitatively different from movements that are usually called nationalist (and meaning is, after all, determined by use). Calling it "nationalism" was probably a bad idea, but such are the idiosyncrasies of history.

And again, there is nothing arbitrary about the distinction between nationalism and national liberation. National liberation struggles aim to destroy existing national oppression, nationalist movements aim to establish some sort of "homeland" and, most likely, perpetuate national oppression. National liberation does not require independence, and certainly not independence as one state - thus the national liberations struggles of the peoples of the former Russian Turkestan were resolved without the establishment of separate states in most cases.

The nationalist movements that had developed among these people, of course, found this unsatisfactory, and fought the Soviet Union. Was the demand for independence from the Soviet Union and every nation having a single state a progressive one? It was not, particularly considering that this had no support among the Turkestani workers.
The concept of "national oppression" assumes, to begin with, a concept of nationhood. That is nationalism, at least in the strict sense, if not in whatever Bolshevik cant you've taken to speaking through.

Well, to put it bluntly, this is simply ultraleft posturing. Cute statements such as "the working class has no heritage" are useless to someone that faces checkpoints, starvation, lack of education, and murder, simply due to speaking the wrong language or being born in the wrong area. If you want the workers to stop bickering over heritage or nationality - as I do - then support them in their efforts to end national oppression, and help build international solidarity for their cause.
So instead of ultra-left posturing, we get social democratic posturing. Do something!, comes the cry, even if it means investing yourself totally in the bourgeois state. The working class can organise itself later- we have patriotic shopkeepers to fellate!

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

5th May 2013, 22:30

It means that you begin with an opportunistic populism, and then spin out from that spurious theoretical rationalisations to avoid the obvious criticism that those politics have fuck all to do with communism. Palestinian nationalism is a popular cause among the mainstream left, therefore, we must adopt it to appear in keeping. Explanations as to why this is "Marxist" can always be concocted later, although preferably with an absolute minimum number of references to the work and thought of Karl Heinrich Marx.

Again, I am not interested in "Palestinian nationalism". I don't particularly care if the Palestinian people establish one state, several states, or if they enter into a union with neighbouring nations. What matters is that the Israeli system of national oppression is destroyed, thus accelerating the class struggle in both the Palestinian areas and in the present Israel.

As for the accusations of "populism", this is simply desperate. This thread alone demonstrates that there is no shortage of ostensible "leftists" who are outright scared of the possibility of Palestinian liberation - maybe all the cool leftist kids did support the PFLP in the seventies, but these are different times, when every darling of the "mainstream left", as you put it, must do public penance for ever having dared to support the Palestinians. Idiotic statements about culture wars and whatnot will grant you additional points, as will any denunciation or distortion of Leninism.

Lastly, have you actually read anything about the national question in Marxist theory? Or have you taken up the espie hobby of treating "the work and thought of Karl Heinrich Marx" as the holy scripture, and yourself as the last true believer in a sea of heretics?

The concept of "national oppression" assumes, to begin with, a concept of nationhood. That is nationalism, at least in the strict sense, if not in whatever Bolshevik cant you've taken to speaking through.

That is not nationalism, as the term is commonly used. Your "strict sense" is nothing more than an arbitrary redefinition of a widely understood term, cribbed perhaps from one of those awful bourgeois "social science" texts that a lot of people want to replace materialist analysis with.

But yes, Leninists recognise the existence of nations (in the Leninist sense) as distinct entities - to put it simply, no other interpretation is consistent with linguistic and economic facts. Particularly not the idealist subjectivism that the ultraleft revels in.

So instead of ultra-left posturing, we get social democratic posturing. Do something!, comes the cry, even if it means investing yourself totally in the bourgeois state. The working class can organise itself later- we have patriotic shopkeepers to fellate!

First of all, if anyone "invests themselves in the bourgeois state", it would be the ultralefts, at least the lazy variety that has become all to common today. You people have raised the meticulous avoidance of any concrete class-struggle to an art form. Do you think the bourgeois state trembles before the might of your defeatism and workerist purism?

Second, good luck trying to "organise" the Palestinian proletariat to forget that they're being shelled. Good luck with the usual ultraleft strategy of waiting for the workers to spontaneously decide to overthrow the bourgeois state when they can't get basic utilities or a good education.

But hey, at least you've kept you "Marxism" pure, no?

Devrim

8th May 2013, 10:46

Well folks, Devrim is a class essentialist and in this case to try to reduce question of Zionist expansionist murder to one of "class unity" is a frigging cop out that means lending support to the destruction of the Palestinian people.

I don't say that there is any possibility of class unity between Palestinian and Israeli workers. I think that in the short to medium term future there is absolutely no chance of this. What I have said is that at the current time the working class is not strong enough to play any sort of role in changing the current situation. That doesn't imply any sort of support in anyway for the State of Israel. Also I have said that I don't think that Palestinian nationalism or campaigns like the BDS have any possibility of bringing about change either.

The problem with so-called 'reformism' is not that it is not revolutionary. The problem with it is that it has nothing to offer in the way of reforms.

The unity you guys seem to be talking about is simply unity on the grounds of the oppressor. You don't like nations? Tough. They exist. And if it makes me a bourgeois liberal for not wanting little children in Gaza starved or bombed to death, I couldn't care less.

At no point have I talked about 'unity on the grounds of the oppressor'. What I did say is that you won't appeal to Israeli workers with Palestinian nationalism. I think that this is self-evidently true. Take a look at the last sixty-five years. The reason that I mentioned is because of the Trotskyist fantasy expressed by some that Palestinian nationalism can win 'the most advanced sections of the Israeli working class'. It has historically failed to do so. It maybe possible to win over some Israelis on a 'moral' argument based on the inhumanity of the behaviour of Israeli state. While some of the people who are won over in this way may be workers, they are won over as individuals, not as the 'most advanced sections of the Israeli working class'. What the Trotskyists are doing here is completely abandoning class politics, yet still using its language as window dressing.

And if it makes me a bourgeois liberal for not wanting little children in Gaza starved or bombed to death, I couldn't care less.

I don't want little children to be murdered either. I just don't think that what you suggest is going to change that.

Devrim

Devrim

8th May 2013, 11:00

I believe I have already answered that question; continuous militant activity, chiefly through attacks on the Israeli state, large companies, and imperial interests. Eventually, the maintenance of the state of Israel in its present state will become too costly for its imperial sponsors, the Israeli public will have had enough of the conflict, and the Palestinians could press their advantage in order to force the return of the diaspora - or to mechanically eliminate the greater part of Israeli state forces and to take the right of return for themselves.

I believe that I have already pointed out that this answer has absolutely no connection to reality whatsoever. Palestinian nationalists are reduced to firing the occasional ill-aimed rocket at Israel, and while hundreds of Palestinians are murdered in response, occasionally an Israel gets their window broken. To be blunt, they are not capable of anything approaching what you suggest.

The national-liberation movement in Palestine is, in general, a national-liberation movement (not a nationalist movement such as Zionism), shockingly enough.

National liberation movements are nationalist, and surprise, surprise, national liberation movements supported by leftists have a long history of when victorious turning round and massacring communists, workers, and minorities. The Turkish national liberation movement provides a very good example of this, from the time of Lenin.

Israeli workers can and should be won over to that section - which is something that sanctimonious Israeli and European "socialists" make difficult when they spread panic about "genocide" and so on.

This is just a bit of 'class politics' in the window dressing of support for nationalism.

The national-liberation struggle has to offer only the possibility of a life without checkpoints, without random killing by the settlers and by the state of Israel, life outside of refugee camps, and so on - all prerequisites of the further development of Palestinian class consciousness.

I don't believe that it does.

And obviously national liberation struggles can and have succeeded. Is Israel somehow magically protected from the fate of other racist settler dictatorships?

National liberation struggles tended to succeed when they were backed by foreign states and used as pawns in regional power struggles. They also succeeded when they were movements of the overwhelming majority of the population against small minorities. In the case of Palestine other states that support it aren't either capable of or willing to confront Israel and America, and the Palestinians are now a minority.

Devrim

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

8th May 2013, 16:59

I believe that I have already pointed out that this answer has absolutely no connection to reality whatsoever. Palestinian nationalists are reduced to firing the occasional ill-aimed rocket at Israel, and while hundreds of Palestinians are murdered in response, occasionally an Israel gets their window broken. To be blunt, they are not capable of anything approaching what you suggest.

That is an organisational and a logistical problem; obviously there are downswings in any sort of struggle. And the appropriate response to a downswing is not throwing one's arms up and quitting - that is not an option the Palestinians have - but regroupment.

National liberation movements are nationalist[...]

This is simply not the case; I have already explained the distinction, and until you at least address it, instead of screaming about nationalism, I refuse to debate you any further.

[...]and surprise, surprise, national liberation movements supported by leftists have a long history of when victorious turning round and massacring communists, workers, and minorities. The Turkish national liberation movement provides a very good example of this, from the time of Lenin.

Right, because an Entente-partitioned Turkey would have been so incredibly friendly to communists, workers and minorities, just like the various White directorates in Russia, no? And the communists would not have lost all credibility if they refused to fight for basic points of their fucking programme, surely.

This is just a bit of 'class politics' in the window dressing of support for nationalism.

Again, this is simply childish. Unless you wish to seriously argue that class consciousness can develop in the fullest extent in circumstances of unchallenged national oppression - once again, for the tragically daft, this refers to murder, harassment and exclusion, not the inexistence of some Heimat - your constant "proletarian" chest-thumping is but window-dressing for your quietism and fetishisation of inaction.

I don't believe that it does.

No, Israeli racism will be ended by space fairies from the planet Zog, or when a class-conscious proletarian movement leaps from the foreheads of the leftcom intelligenty and spontaneously overthrows capitalism, whichever comes first.

National liberation struggles tended to succeed when they were backed by foreign states and used as pawns in regional power struggles.

Like in Algiers?

They also succeeded when they were movements of the overwhelming majority of the population against small minorities.

Like in Tatarstan?

In the case of Palestine other states that support it aren't either capable of or willing to confront Israel and America, and the Palestinians are now a minority.

Oh God, you can't seriously think that the United States would go to war over Israel? At best they'd sell weapons - at worst, if the pressure against the war becomes too much (and this is one of the tasks of the US proletariat - made rather difficult by people on the alleged left scaring them with racist caricatures of bloodthirsty Palestinian "nationalists" who want to kill every Jew in Palestine), they would force Israel to the negotiating table.

And, again, the Palestinians in the refugee camps are not something that can simply be ignored.

LuÃs Henrique

8th May 2013, 17:38

There are, I think, few such figures in the Basque country, where the national liberation movement is primarily socialist and leftoid.

I fear that the Basque "national liberation" movement is probably one of the worst examples of a "progressist national liberation". Euzkadi is probably the most privileged part of the kingdom of Spain in terms of income; its separatism resembles more that of "Padania" than that of Ireland. And it is "leftoid", exactly; it uses pseudo-leftist terminology but little more than that. This is probably due to a historical inheritance from the period of Francoism, whence the Spanish State did effectively act in oppressive ways against the Basque (and Catalans, and Galicians), especially in terms of linguistic politics, and did it under a far-right discourse.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

8th May 2013, 17:48

Are we discussing anti-Zionism, and wheter it equates to anti-semitism, or are we discussing the Palestinian national liberation movement?

Because while I don't think there is a future for the Palestinian national liberation movement, I still think that Zionism is, or implies, a bad case of "nationalism of the oppressor", has resulted in an apartheid State, very much oppresses Palestinians in a specific way, that cannot be reduced to commonplace exploitation of the working class, and that no, being anti-Zionist does not mean being antisemitic (though it is evidently possible to be both).

Luís Henrique

cyu

8th May 2013, 18:59

I fear that the Basque "national liberation" movement is probably one of the worst examples of a "progressist national liberation". Euzkadi is probably the most privileged part of the kingdom of Spain in terms of income

Totally off-topic (sorry), but are they economically well-off specifically because the area contains more characteristics of economic democracy, as opposed to other parts of Europe ravaged by austerity measures, where it's clear the plutocracy's grip on the economy is reducing them to Third World politics?

FionnagÃ¡in

8th May 2013, 19:50

No, Israeli racism will be ended by space fairies from the planet Zog
Funny thing, there are groups that believe that, and they identify specifically with the Trotskyist tradition, and the pro-natlib wing of it in particular.

barbelo

9th May 2013, 04:07

Why people are still discussing this?
I thought that everyone reached the conclusion that their idea of how things should be is the best, and that Israel as a state should cease to exist and welcome all arabs wanting to live there, and that everyone will live happily and secure, and that everything will work out and everyone will love each other.

I mean, this is a perfect proposition and you guys are just secretly racists from questioning this.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

9th May 2013, 11:08

I fear that the Basque "national liberation" movement is probably one of the worst examples of a "progressist national liberation". Euzkadi is probably the most privileged part of the kingdom of Spain in terms of income; its separatism resembles more that of "Padania" than that of Ireland. And it is "leftoid", exactly; it uses pseudo-leftist terminology but little more than that. This is probably due to a historical inheritance from the period of Francoism, whence the Spanish State did effectively act in oppressive ways against the Basque (and Catalans, and Galicians), especially in terms of linguistic politics, and did it under a far-right discourse.

The Basque country is "privileged" due to a strong industrial base, as far as I know, and the fascist government tried to ruin it; nor is the Basque liberation movement a reaction to increased taxes, for example, as in "Padania" (or in Slovenia and Croatia in the SFRY), but to centuries of linguistic oppression, outright murder etc. (Including murder by the socialist government after Franco.)

I still think the Basque liberation movement is a good example; it's not as if armed Basque thugs are murdering Castillans in the Basque Country and in Navarre.

Funny thing, there are groups that believe that, and they identify specifically with the Trotskyist tradition, and the pro-natlib wing of it in particular.

Every consistent Trotskyist accepts the progressive nature of national liberation; racist groups like the SEP who call themselves "Trotskyist" are closer to your position than they are to any other Trotskyist group. And yes, Posadas had some outlandish ideas (no more outlandish than certain ideas held by, as you put it, "99.99%" of people, but whatever). That said, Posadas also participated in the class struggle; sometimes productively, more often than not in a confused manner, but at the very least he did not fetishise sitting on one's arse and waiting for the revolution to come (because anything else would be "substitutionism") like the ultralefts. I honestly don't even know why most of you people (Bordigists are an honourable exception) even bother to come here, if everything you have to say about revolutionary politics is that it's impossible.

FionnagÃ¡in

9th May 2013, 11:12

I'm a psychic vampire that feeds on self-righteousness.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

11th May 2013, 01:31

I'm a psychic vampire that feeds on self-righteousness.

Mate, stay on topic please. This isn't chit chat and whilst this is a learning resource, i'm sure you're familiar with Revleft wanting to be as advanced a theoretical board as possible at the same time.

Dear Leader

11th May 2013, 02:54

Akshay!

11th May 2013, 03:55

Here's a perfect illustration of how Zionists label every anti-Zionist "antisemitic" - http://www.revleft.com/vb/zionismi-t180586/index.html?p=2615899#post2615899

This happens multiple times in the thread mentioned above. At least 5, as far as I remember.

blake 3:17

11th May 2013, 05:28

Is the argument basically that anti-Semite is an incorrect term?

At the end of the day, it is opposition to the imperialism, brutalization, and apartheid evoked by the Israeli/Jewish Bourgeoisie over the Palestinian people.

I should probably STFU but, no, the issue up to this point -- THOUGH THAT CAN CHANGE and maybe isn't 100% accurate in 2013 -- has been that the vanguard of the Zionist settler colonial movement has been settler Jewish working class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histadrut

And to be fair to be class against class "friends", who I mistakenly identified with Labor Zionism, some sections of the more liberal and pacifist wings of the Labor Zionist movement have had much much better positions on the treatment of the Palestinian people. I've tended to lump Labor Zionists in with the worst strands, but there are thoughtful currents, which maybe entirely social democratic and ultimately racist, but have far more to offer than some ultimate cosmic Class War position.

L1NKS

11th May 2013, 16:59

You may reply, "I'm an anti-Zionist, but I also advocate the destruction of all nation-states." Then why the need to identify yourself as an anti-Zionist? Being anti-nationalist includes opposition to zionism, while identifying anti-Zionist implies a priority of opposing Israel over other nation-states. Why this priority?
Back in the days of South African Apartheid you would not have argued that taking a stance against the Apartheid-regime is to be considered anti-South-African or anti-Christian. Fighting Apartheid would not have been labeled "singling out". It was merely acknowledged to be an effort to deal with the most urgent matters at hand.

But when you fight Zionism, the oppression of the Palestinians, the fact that Israel gets a free pass when it comes to invading and harrassing its neighbors, when you dare to say all that, you are almost instantly labeled an anti-Semit. Now that is a terrific example of a sheer totalitarian doctrine. Stalin would have approved.

Interestingly, the idea that all jews form a nation of their own is an old anti-Semitic Nazi fantasy. I don't believe in it. I refuse to advocate it.

LuÃs Henrique

12th May 2013, 13:09

Back in the days of South African Apartheid you would not have argued that taking a stance against the Apartheid-regime is to be considered anti-South-African or anti-Christian. Fighting Apartheid would not have been labeled "singling out". It was merely acknowledged to be an effort to deal with the most urgent matters at hand.

Well, there was not a long history of systematic discrimination and persecution against boers or Christians, which probably explains it. Though I would say that there was probably a certain degree of scapegoating apartheid on the boers, as opposed as understanding it as a result of British/Dutch colonialism.

But when you fight Zionism, the oppression of the Palestinians, the fact that Israel gets a free pass when it comes to invading and harrassing its neighbors, when you dare to say all that, you are almost instantly labeled an anti-Semit. Now that is a terrific example of a sheer totalitarian doctrine. Stalin would have approved.

Yes, it seems an obvious move: since Jews have been so horribly persecuted through millenia, it is easy to accuse those who oppose Israeli apartheid as antisemites pumping from the old well of religious/economic/racial antisemitism. It doesn't help that some people who oppose Israeli apartheid do share racist views against Jews.

Interestingly, the idea that all jews form a nation of their own is an old anti-Semitic Nazi fantasy. I don't believe in it. I refuse to advocate it.

It is too old to be a Nazi fantasy; it is most certainly a Christian/Islamic/Jewish fantasy.

But in what sence is it more questionable than the idea that all Palestinians form a nation of their own?

Luís Henrique

cyu

12th May 2013, 17:32

The devil's ultimate revenge is to turn you into another version of himself.

[...doesn't happen to all victims of child abuse, of course, but how many abusers model their behavior based on what they themselves went through?]

Rurkel

12th May 2013, 17:34

Interestingly, the idea that all jews form a nation of their own is an old anti-Semitic Nazi fantasy. I don't believe in it. I refuse to advocate it.
That's a pretty bad case of an Argumentum ad Hitlerum.

In what sence is it more questionable than the idea that all Palestinians form a nation of their own?
Yeah, nations are social constructs, and thus as of now a Jewish nation exists and a Palestinian nation also exists, whatever Hitler or L1NKS or "there's no such thing as a Palestinian" winguts say.

FionnagÃ¡in

12th May 2013, 19:52

Yeah, nations are social constructs, and thus as of now a Jewish nation exists and a Palestinian nation also exists, whatever Hitler or L1NKS or "there's no such thing as a Palestinian" winguts say.
If it's a construct, then we're able to adopt a critical attitude towards it, same as any other construct. Just because something exists doesn't mean we have to condone it.

blake 3:17

13th May 2013, 07:42

It is too old to be a Nazi fantasy; it is most certainly a Christian/Islamic/Jewish fantasy.

But in what sence is it more questionable than the idea that all Palestinians form a nation of their own?

Well, some Jews now do have a nation state, and no Palestinian does.

According to certain models, if a people are insufficiently war and state minded, they shouldn't be. The whole of the political spectrum has used this to justify mass atrocity, displacement, murder, and theft.

Nicolas_Cage

13th May 2013, 09:00

In response to OP, the Israel/Palestine transcends one/two countries. It is a source of hatred towards the US and many other western countries throughout the Arab world. While being anti-Zimbabwe might seem as important to you as being anti-Israel or an anti-Zionist, it's really not (by the way, Zionism is an ideology whereas Zimbabwe is a country so they're in two separate fields ;)).

It can be explained this way. Say if we take it that identifying ourselves as anti-Zionists and not anti-Zimbabweists(? :D) is based on some sort of dormant antisemitism. Could it not also be said that since we identify ourselves as anti-fascists that we are racist against Germans or Italians? You might say this is a silly comparison but let's break it down. It is true that there are fascists in other countries and it is an ideology that can be applied to any country but there are also Zionists who aren't Jews and support establishing a Zionist state in Palestine despite they themselves not being Jewish and despite the fact that they aren't living in Palestine.

Devrim

13th May 2013, 15:06

That is an organisational and a logistical problem; obviously there are downswings in any sort of struggle.

I don't think that the situation that the Palestinian nationalist movement finds itself in today is the result of any temporary 'downswing'. The PLO suffered a series of historic defeats, including their expulsion from Jordan in Black September, and their expulsion from Lebanon after the siege of Beirut. These aren't something that can be rectified with better organisation and logistics.

And the appropriate response to a downswing is not throwing one's arms up and quitting - that is not an option the Palestinians have - but regroupment.

What do you mean here by regroupment? Which of the Palestinian nationalist factions would you like to regroup, and under what banner? How do you think that this would affect their struggle?

I think that you must live in some sort of leftist newspaper fantasy world, where the struggle is always militant and just lacking in the right leadership, presumably Trotskyist, to take it forward.

The reality is that no amount of regroupment, or improvements in the organisation, or logistics of the Palestinian nationalist organisations is going to fundementally change the balance of power.

National liberation movements are nationalist...
This is simply not the case; I have already explained the distinction, and until you at least address it, instead of screaming about nationalism, I refuse to debate you any further.

I would advise you to go to the original source material, and look at the sort of things that the leaders of national liberation movements have said to describe their own movements. To talk of one of the movements that has been mentioned on this thread, the Irish nationalist movement, I think you will find that Pádraig Pearse,leader of the 1916 uprising, was a particular blood and soil nationalist.

Right, because an Entente-partitioned Turkey would have been so incredibly friendly to communists, workers and minorities, just like the various White directorates in Russia, no?

At the time that the Russian Party fostered this policy of supporting the Turkish nationalist movement onto the Turkish communists, there was massive discontent, and industrial strife, not to mention war-weariness through out the country.

Was there a possibility of a workers' and peasants' revolution at the time? We will never know, but certainly there was no chance of it when the communists were advocating 'national unity', of the type, incidentally that Trotsky later objected to in China.

It isn't a question of supporting either the nationalists or the occupying powers, but in a situation where the neighbouring country had just had a revolution, and there was massive working class discontent and struggle of supporting a class policy. Would it have been worse if the occupying powers had won? Possibly it would have, possibly it wouldn't have. The Turkish nationalists though were genocidal. Policies of ethnic cleansing and mass murder were that had begun under the Ottoman state were continued under the new republic. This shouldn't have been surprising to the Bolsheviks as the people who they had supported and armed were essentially a part of the Ottoman military machine who had been carrying out these genocides in the first place.

No, Israeli racism will be ended by space fairies from the planet Zog, or when a class-conscious proletarian movement leaps from the foreheads of the leftcom intelligenty and spontaneously overthrows capitalism, whichever comes first.

I said earlier in the thread that outside of mass class struggle across the region, I don't think that it will be ended. I don't believe that 'space fairies' will do it, or that some class movement will emerge in Palestine/Israel. You, on the other hand, seem to believe that there will miraculous be a change in the fortunes of the Palestinian nationalist movement, presumably caused by 'regroupment', 'improved organisation and logistics'. It seems just as absurd as the 'space fairies'.

National liberation struggles tended to succeed when they were backed by foreign states and used as pawns in regional power struggles. They also succeeded when they were movements of the overwhelming majority of the population against small minorities.

Like in Algiers?

Yes, like in Algeria, where the colonists made up less than 20% of the population.

Like in Tatarstan?

No, not like Tatarstan, which I believe is still a member of the Russian Federation.

Oh God, you can't seriously think that the United States would go to war over Israel? At best they'd sell weapons - at worst, if the pressure against the war becomes too much (and this is one of the tasks of the US proletariat - made rather difficult by people on the alleged left scaring them with racist caricatures of bloodthirsty Palestinian "nationalists" who want to kill every Jew in Palestine), they would force Israel to the negotiating table.

No, I don't think that the US would currently go to war over Israel. It doesn't need to. If there was a real change in the balance of power it might feel the need to assert its authority again within the region, which it has done before.

Devrim