Can the establishment of Israel be justified?

[Led Zeppelin]

If you believe the establishment of the state of Israel was in any way valid, you are by definition a Zionist.

I don't believe it was valid, and I don't believe it can be justified, and here is why:


The important points, I think, remain these:

1) Zionists were arguing for a Jewish state before the Holocaust
2) They knew the land they wanted was populated by another people, a people they knew would not tolerate, and would not be tolerated by, the state they saught to create
3) The imperialists states who backed Israel's independence were under no doubt about its function, and neither were the Israelis. This was a "watchdog" (Haaretz's words) for the imperialists in the Middle East
4) As such, Marxists must oppose the state of Israel, no matter the tremendous trauma of the Holocaust and the sympathy and doubt it must create in any person who hears the story

We cannot use one crime to justify another. Nazi Germany would probably not have come into being had Germany not been hit so hard at Versailles. What would you say to someone who tried to downplay or excuse Nazi crimes by referencing Versailles.

Looked at objectively, the Holocaust was certainly the worst example of genocide ever known, but it was not the only one and if you compare the way the Holocaust is looked at compared to, say, the way the Armenian Genocide is looked at, you can see a clear strategy. Armenians have no powerful state friendly to the west, so who speaks for them?

Indeed America only even recognised the Armenian Genocide last year and Britain still officially denies it for fear of offending Turkey. Nobody has a monopoly on suffering. Jewish blood is no different from Armenian blood, or Arab blood or anyone else's blood. The position leftists have to take is to criticise all atrocities; not to claim that one atrocity justifies another.

This book by Normal Finkelstein on the matter is also very interesting: The Holocaust Industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry)

What do you think?

[Invader Zim]

I haven't read Finkelstein's book so I can't pass much comment; but looking at the wikipedia link you have provided, some big names have panned it.

As for the issue of zionism, it is wrong to emmigrate to a foreign country which is already populated by around half a million people and seek to impliment a new state.

[BobKKKindle$]

The establishment of Israel was not justified, because there were already people living in the area which was chosen as the location for the Israeli state. Despite the fact that the Jewish people comprised less than half of the population (despite sustained immigration) and owned less than ten percent of the land, the UN partition plan gave the Jewish people more than half of the total land area. The only acceptable position for Socialists is to argue for a single state, which provides equal rights to all inhabitants, regardless of religion or ethnic origin.

I request that this poll be made open, so we can identify the people who voted in favour.

[Wanted Man]

I request that this poll be made open, so we can identify the people who voted in favour.
I rather wonder if anyone will post to back up their opinions themselves. All the people who have openly identified as zionists here also expressed extreme racism against Arabs and were quickly restricted or banned. Others switched to supporting Israel, and also switched to supporting capitalism right away.

Anyway, I agree with the above posters on the formation of the Zionist entity. I support a single Palestinian state with right of return, as well as equal rights for minorities.

[Led Zeppelin]

I request that this poll be made open, so we can identify the people who voted in favour.

I believe the poll is already open, can't you view the voters when you click on the number indicating the people who voted in the poll?

If not I'll post the result after a while.

Here is my take on the current Israel-Palestine issue:

I would support either a workable two-state solution (and by "workable" I mean that a lot of concessions need to be made by the Zionists, such as full right of return, Jerusalem as the capital city of the Palestinian state etc.) or a single-state solution but that would require the current Israeli state to be overthrown and replaced by a new state which treats all its citizens as equals, and I don't believe that is possible within the framework of capitalism.

I prefer the latter because I believe it is the long-term solution to the problem.

I doubt the former would happen because I don't believe the Israeli bourgeoisie would ever concede on those points.

[Dros]

The Jewish nation deserves regional self determination but not in the way that is currently being implemented in Palestine.

[Random Precision]

The Jewish nation deserves regional self determination

What exactly do you mean by that? What's the "Jewish nation"?

As to the question, the establishment of the state of Israel was historically unjustified. This article (http://www.isreview.org/issues/38/zionism_antisemitism.shtml) sums it up pretty well, in light of the CC drama and Malte's idiotic position on the subject:


It was not until the rise of fascism in Europe that the Jewish population in Palestine got a significant boost. But it was also in this period that Zionism’s ugliest face reared up in regards to European Jewry. Within months of Hitler coming to power, the leading German Zionist organization sent him a memo offering collaboration. In fact, while the Nazis were smashing socialist and Jewish resistance organizations, they allowed the Zionists to continue operating. The leading Zionist organizations, for their part, worked to undermine a worldwide anti-German boycott.27

Zionist leaders believed that the fight in Europe was a distraction from winning a Jewish state in Palestine. Time and again they chose to negotiate for the immigration of Jews to Palestine rather than saving Jews from the Holocaust. In the process they decided which immigrants were desirable. Chaim Weizmann for instance declared: "From the depths of this tragedy I want to save young people. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in the a cruel world…. Only the branch of the young shall survive."28 Similarly, the chair of the Jewish Agency’s committee refused to divert funds from Palestine into rescuing European Jews. The agency decided to spend money on acquiring land in Palestine.

And David Ben-Gurion, who was to become Israel’s first prime minister, opposed a plan to allow German Jewish children to emigrate to Britain. His explanation for this despicable stance was to say:

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them [by bringing them] to Israel, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children but also the history of the people of Israel.29

Zionist organizations acted on these views, for example organizing against attempts to change immigration laws in the U.S. and Western Europe.

I support the establishment of a single, secular Palestinian state in the territory currently defined as the nation of Israel and the so-called Palestinian "territories" of the West Bank and Gaza, minus of course the areas such as the Golan Heights and others that were seized from neighboring nations. This state would have the complete right of return and guaranteed equality for national minorities, including any Jews who chose to stay in Palestine, as I expect many of them would flee to the United States.

[Dros]

What exactly do you mean by that? What's the "Jewish nation"?

I don't mean this in a racialist kind of way. I'm referring to a diverse group of people with many elements of shared culture and a common ethnic identity. They deserve regional autonomy like all national groups do.

If you accept that anti-semitism exists, you accept the existence of a "Jewish nation". If you deny anti-semitism, you are crazy.

[Post-Something]

The Arab-Israeli conflict is what turned me to Marxism eventually. I really dislike the state of Israel to say the least and I cannot see any justification for it.

[Random Precision]

I don't mean this in a racialist kind of way. I'm referring to a diverse group of people with many elements of shared culture and a common ethnic identity. They deserve regional autonomy like all national groups do.

But where? If it's anywhere in the territory currently occupied by the state of Israel, then you're endorsing a continuation of colonialism.


If you accept that anti-semitism exists, you accept the existence of a "Jewish nation". If you deny anti-semitism, you are crazy.

Bullshit. Jews have been scattered throughout the world for over 2,000 years and thus are of many different nationalities. Jews have no common origins, language or customs. Thus they are not a nation. And even if they were, that is no reason to support Jewish nationalism or "self-determination", as Zurdito correctly points out.

[Zurdito]

I don't mean this in a racialist kind of way. I'm referring to a diverse group of people with many elements of shared culture and a common ethnic identity. They deserve regional autonomy like all national groups do.

If you accept that anti-semitism exists, you accept the existence of a "Jewish nation". If you deny anti-semitism, you are crazy.

Revolutionaries call for self-determination for all oppressed nations, i.e. set of people with distinct language and customs who are conquered by a state, denied the right to speak their language or follow their customs, institutionally discriminated against, and forced to recongise this state's authority against their will.

This does not apply for Jews, therefore Jews aren't an oppressed nation, therefore revolutionaries don't support their "self-determination", as it's a non-question for us. Where in the world, today, do Jews constitute an oppressed peoples?

In fact come to think of it, there's not even really a marxist precedent of calling for "national liberation" for indigenous people in Latin America for example, even though (unlike Jews) this is a structurally oppressed group, and certainly a huge and quite self-conscious ethnic group in most Andean countries...this would be because the definition of a nation is not just any broadly identifiable ethnic group, but a clearly identifiable national community with its own national structure which is effectively conquered from the outside by a state which is clearly identifiable as "foreign".

It seems to me actually that you're mixing up Leninist self-determination with petty-bourgeois nationalism, and by your logic every ethnic minority is a "nation".

What next, will we start supporting Scottish or Welsh independence? What about independence for Santa Cruz in Bolivia?:lol:

[Led Zeppelin]

The only person to have voted Yes so far is Communist Firefox, and he hasn't bothered to defend his position as of yet.

I'll post the Yes votes as they come along, we already know that the basic revolutionary leftist position is the No vote so I don't see a need to post the result of that as well.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Well as the question is formulated:


Do you believe the establishment of Israel was in any way valid?Then I'd have to say yes. The right for self-determination counts here as well, obviously it's practical implementation was completely wrong. But that doesn't make it invalid in every way. And part of it's validity lies in the fact (if we're talking why the USSR supported it back in time) that the USSR had a lot of enemy's in the Middle-East this way they tried to find support in that region.



It seems to me actually that you're mixing up Leninist self-determination with petty-bourgeois nationalism, and by your logic every ethnic minority is a "nation".Actually, it does apply at some level. For the Jews made up a significant part of the Palestine nation, the right to self-determination isn't a right that would automatically apply to any ethnicity that already is/has been a nation, it applies to every ethnicity. I don't see why we should not support Jewish right to self-determination. Of course looking at the current situation objectively it would be preferable to have one unified Palestinian land. But now I'm drifting of, all I'm saying is that it does have legitimacy in some way.

Edit: bad reading skills, my bad. The right to self-determination should be applied as much as possible, for different customs require different methods and ways of reaching socialism.

[Devrim]

I support the establishment of a single Palestinian state in the territory currently defined as the nation of Israel and the so-called Palestinian "territories" of the West Bank and Gaza strip, minus of course the areas such as the Golan Heights and others that were seized from neighboring nations.

It seems to me that the whole argument here is one of which bourgeois states to support. This poster support the idea of a Palestinian state as opposed to an Israeli one. Malte seemed to support the Israeli one.

In what way would a Palestinian state be 'justified' when an Israeli one isn't?


Revolutionaries call for self-determination for all oppressed nations, i.e. set of people with distinct language and customs who are conquered by a state, denied the right to speak their language or follow their customs, institutionally discriminated against, and forced to recongise this state's authority against their will.

And with the dominant ideas in society always being those of the ruling class, this is a straight forward call to support different sectors of the bourgeoisie.

Of course, in every conflict the leftists can be relied upon to back, and even act as recruiting sergeants for, different factions of the bourgeoisie.


I think that it would be impossible to find any wars in the modern epoch (post 1914) where their weren't leftists supporting both sides.

The outrageous think is that they do it in the name of internationalism.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Devrim, no one said that we wouldn't rather have a socialist Palestinian or Israeli state, but unlike you we don't blow soap-bubbles about some future possibility.

We choose the side of the oppressed over the oppressor while at the same time agitating and arguing for our own programme.


The right for self-determination counts here as well, obviously it's practical implementation was completely wrong. But that doesn't make it invalid in every way. And part of it's validity lies in the fact (if we're talking why the USSR supported it back in time) that the USSR had a lot of enemy's in the Middle-East this way they tried to find support in that region.

So you're saying it had some validity because it helped the reputation of the USSR in the Middle-East?

Wow...you can't really respond to that.

[Random Precision]

Then I'd have to say yes. The right for self-determination counts here as well, obviously it's practical implementation was completely wrong. But that doesn't make it invalid in every way. And part of it's validity lies in the fact (if we're talking why the USSR supported it back in time) that the USSR had a lot of enemy's in the Middle-East this way they tried to find support in that region.

So you admit that the USSR supported Israel's nationhood for completely opportunistic reasons? And that you support Israel's nationhood because it was something historically supported (out of diplomatic opportunism) by Stalin?

Wow, I really thought this site couldn't get any more idiotic.


Actually, it does apply at some level. For the Jews made up a significant part of the Palestine nation, the right to self-determination isn't a right that would automatically apply to any ethnicity that already is/has been a nation, it applies to every ethnicity. I don't see why we should not support Jewish right to self-determination. Of course looking at the current situation objectively it would be preferable to have one unified Palestinian land. But now I'm drifting of, all I'm saying is that it does have legitimacy in some way.

Edit: bad reading skills, my bad. The right to self-determination should be applied as much as possible, for different customs require different methods and ways of reaching socialism.

Try reading a bit more closely, then. Jews are neither a "nation" nor are they "oppressed", therefore self-determination doesn't apply to them.


Devrim, no one said that we wouldn't rather have a socialist Palestinian or Israeli state, but unlike you we don't blow soap-bubbles about some future possibility.

We choose the side of the oppressed over the oppressor while at the same time agitating and arguing for our own programme.

This.

[Red October]

Voted yes on accident, but I meant no. Israel's existence is by no means justified, but there's still a few million Israelis there, so any solution is going to have to benefit them as well. I don't see a two state solution doing much to help both groups unify.

[Devrim]

Devrim, no one said that we wouldn't rather have a socialist Palestinian or Israeli state, but unlike you we don't blow soap-bubbles about some future possibility.

I don't blow soap-bubbles. I speak clearly, and truthfully about what the real situation is. The working class in Palestine, and Israel are amongst the most defeated working classes in the Middle East. The endless cycle of conflict between the Israelis, and the Palestinians offers nothing to workers on either side. I don't tell lies like many leftists about the 'Palestinian working class being undefeated'.


We choose the side of the oppressed over the oppressor...

We don't choose 'the side of the oppressed over the oppressor'. It is not, in our opinion, the role of communists to back the weaker side in struggles between different bourgeois factions.


...while at the same time agitating and arguing for our own programme.

Really, so your lot have a section there. I am very surprised. I have never heard of it.

What I think the vast majority of leftists mean by things like this is that they add a little, 'but' onto the end of their cheer leading for Palestinian nationalism.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

We don't choose 'the side of the oppressed over the oppressor'. It is not, in our opinion, the role of communists to back the weaker side in struggles between different bourgeois factions.

I didn't know bourgeois factions were oppressed?

I was referring to the Palestinian working-class being oppressed by both the Israeli state and their own Palestinian proto-state.

We oppose both.


Really, so your lot have a section there.Yes, the CWI actually has: Link (http://maavak.org.il/maavak/?newlang=english)


Ma`avak Sotsyalisti is an organization of workers, unemployed, students, youth and pensioners. We take an active part in workers struggles and other social struggles against exploitation and oppression, against the rule of capital and the Neo-Liberal attacks. We're fighting for a socialist and democratic society, which is the only solution to the permanent war and bloodshed in the Middle-East. We're struggling against the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian masses and against all attempts to divide the workers. We're calling to form a mass working-class party that will be able to protect the interest of the toiling masses in the region - Jewish and Arab - and to defeat the lies of nationalist politics.Is that revolutionary enough for you or do you want them to be explicitly Left-Communist before you will support them?

[abrupt]

Wow, we have 4 votes for 'Yes' and 20 for 'No'.

That disturbs me that anyone on this site would vote for Yes and consider themselves a leftist.
I have already learned to not trust all posts I see on here, but this scares me.

[Zurdito]

We don't choose 'the side of the oppressed over the oppressor'. It is not, in our opinion, the role of communists to back the weaker side in struggles between different bourgeois factions.

I don't consider this as a criticism. When a semi-colonial bourgeoisie runs up against an imperialist bourgeosie, and is forced to lean on the masses for support, then there is no shame in admitting that as Leninists we support that cross-class, nationalist united front against imperialism, as it rests on popular mobilisation, and communists should always be on the side of the masses against any oppression, even if the demands of the mass movement do not currently go as far as full socialism. This the reason why a revolutionary should also give critical but unqualified support to civil rights movements, for example. Communists should support any struggle which strengthens the hand of the working class, as it's only through victories that a revolutionary movement is moulded.

[Devrim]

Really, so your lot have a section there.

Yes, the CWI actually has: Link (http://maavak.org.il/maavak/?newlang=english)

Ma`avak Sotsyalisti is an organization of workers, unemployed, students, youth and pensioners. We take an active part in workers struggles and other social struggles against exploitation and oppression, against the rule of capital and the Neo-Liberal attacks. We're fighting for a socialist and democratic society, which is the only solution to the permanent war and bloodshed in the Middle-East. We're struggling against the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian masses and against all attempts to divide the workers. We're calling to form a mass working-class party that will be able to protect the interest of the toiling masses in the region - Jewish and Arab - and to defeat the lies of nationalist politics.

Is that revolutionary enough for you or do you want them to be explicitly Left-Communist before you will support them?

It says that it is an organisation in Israel, none of the writers names are Arabic, and there are mistakes in the Arabic.

As to whether I would support them, it is a bit of a bizarre question. What does it mean to 'support' an organisation like this?

On the CWI's politics in general, they do come across as much more left wing than they used to be. CWI articles do argue against sectarianism, and for working class unity, yet deep down their is a contradiction that they seem to avoid mentioning. How can you argue for working class unity, and yet still support national liberation movements.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I don't consider this as a criticism. When a semi-colonial bourgeoisie runs up against an imperialist bourgeosie, and is forced to lean on the masses for support, then there is no shame in admitting that as Leninists we support that cross-class, nationalist united front against imperialism, as it rests on popular mobilisation, and communists should always be on the side of the masses against any oppression,... Communists should support any struggle which strengthens the hand of the working class, as it's only through victories that a revolutionary movement is moulded.

I don't think that it does strengthen the working class. It ties them to the bourgeoisie, destroys their class independence, and often ends up with them massacring other workers on behalf of the 'nation'.

Devrim

[Zurdito]

It says that it is an organisation in Israel, none of the writers names are Arabic, and there are mistakes in the Arabic.


are these better? btw I'm not posting the arabic to make a point, jsut that my computer has sadly found it hard to delete, for some reason, and with google translate, it pastes both languages.

btw to those who don't speak arabic, if you google arjas al awda and translate the website, it's pretty well translated.

http://www.ajras.org/


Who are we?


بمبادرة من مجموعة "بادر - للدفاع عن حق العودة" في سوريا، أنشئ موقع أجراس العودة ليكون منبرًا حرًا للدفاع عن حق الشعب الفلسطيني بالعودة والاتحاد من جديد فوق أرضه، كما ليكون رمزًا لوحدة الهوية والمصير التي تجمع كافة أبناء الشعب الفلسطيني وتشير بالتالي نحو أفق الحلّ لقضيته المرتبطة بالضرورة بقضايا الأمّة العربية ونضالها مع أمم الأرض ضد الهيمنة الإمبريالية.
The initiative of the group "took the initiative - to defend the right of return" in Syria, a site bells return to be a free platform for the defence of the Palestinian people's right to return, the Russian again over its territory, as a symbol of the unity of identity and fate by grouping all the sons of the Palestinian people and therefore suggest some agreed solution To cause issues associated necessarily the Arab nation and its struggle with the nations of the world against imperialist hegemony.


A site from the very structure of participation among all those who strive for a democratic secular state in the whole Palestinian national soil, which made the foundation based on the editorial board independent of the group "took the initiative."


هذا التوجّه هو الذي جمعنا والكاتب الناشط الماركسي (رئيس تحرير أجراس العودة) سلامة كيلة ومجموعة من المثقفين والناشطين، عادت وتحلقت معهم حركة "ناطرينكم – صوت فلسطين48 لأجل ثقافة العودة" في أراضي 48 ليصار تأكيد البناء التشاركي للموقع.
This trend is collected by the writer and activist Marxist (chief editor of bells return) the safety of his agent and a group of intellectuals and activists, and flew back with them "movement Natrenkm - Voice of Palestine 48 for the culture of return" in the territory of 48 to be the participatory construction of the site.


واليوم في سعينا لتعريف أنفسنا نؤكد الأفكار التأسيسية للموقع بما هو موقع تشاركي بين كل المناضلين من أجل عالم أفضل يتحرر فيه الإنسان من الهيمنة الإمبريالية وكافة أشكال الاستغلال والقهر والتمييز، ونسعى لأن يكون نضالنا لأجل الدولة الديمقراطية العلمانية في فلسطين نموذجًا لتداخل مستويات النضال الطبقي والوطني والقومي والإنساني.
Today, in our quest to define ourselves emphasize ideas, including the founding of the site is a partnership between all the fighters for a better world where man is liberated from imperialist domination and all forms of exploitation, oppression and discrimination, and strive to be our struggle for democratic secular state in Palestine, a model of overlapping levels of class struggle and national and pan-and humanitarian .

[Led Zeppelin]

It says that it is an organisation in Israel, none of the writers names are Arabic, and there are mistakes in the Arabic.

That has nothing at all to do with the practice of that organization.

Do the Left-Communist have a section in Iran? No? Then your position is wrong no matter what you say because you have no members with names that are Iranian.

That's not an argument.

Anyway, this thread is about Israel if you didn't notice, and you said you had no interest in debating the right of nations to self-determination and its relation to anti-imperialism with me (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158444&postcount=35), so I'm not going to pursue this discussion with you unless you are going to argue in support of the premise of the thread, i.e., in support of the establishment of Israel.


Wow, we have 4 votes for 'Yes' and 20 for 'No'.

That disturbs me that anyone on this site would vote for Yes and consider themselves a leftist.
I have already learned to not trust all posts I see on here, but this scares me.

It's 3, one voted Yes by mistake.

One of them is a dogmatic USSR nostalgic, so I'd ignore that vote if I were you.

The other two haven't bothered to defend their views, which says enough about them.

[Wanted Man]

It seems to me actually that you're mixing up Leninist self-determination with petty-bourgeois nationalism, and by your logic every ethnic minority is a "nation".

What next, will we start supporting Scottish or Welsh independence? What about independence for Santa Cruz in Bolivia?:lol:
I'm getting that impression as well. There is a difference between self-determination, and simple bourgeois separatism at all costs. As if a revolution will only come when the world is shredded into bourgeois statelets. Maybe all the Latin American countries should have independent little native American states... Heck, with such arbitrary definitions of what constitutes a nation (oppressed or otherwise), that actually sounds pretty good compared to some other nationalisms. Let's go for independent Fryslan, Cascadia, Sicily, Xinjiang, Manchuria, etc. as well.

Yup, some people won't be satisfied until the world is divided into tiny states. Of course, it's unpractical, since it goes against all the interests of the bourgeoisie. And it's not always clear which part of land belongs to whom. You'd have more bloody wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, etc.

Anyway, let's get this back on-topic. I think the poll question is phrased quite simply: do you believe the establishment of Israel was in any way valid? The bolded part shows what you need to know. The question is about the actual establishment of Israel, and all that came with it (Nakba, etc.).

[Panda Tse Tung]

So you're saying it had some validity because it helped the reputation of the USSR in the Middle-East?

Wow...you can't really respond to that.

Yeah, the poll asked whether the foundation of Israel was in any way legitimate.
Not asking whether or not we support Israel, nor it's foundation.


So you admit that the USSR supported Israel's nationhood for completely opportunistic reasons? And that you support Israel's nationhood because it was something historically supported (out of diplomatic opportunism) by Stalin?

Yes to question 1. No to question two.

again:

Do you believe the establishment of Israel was in any way valid?



Try reading a bit more closely, then. Jews are neither a "nation" nor are they "oppressed", therefore self-determination doesn't apply to them.

Actually, no your repeating your former argument. I think you should read my post again.

[Led Zeppelin]

Yeah, the poll asked whether the foundation of Israel was in any way legitimate.

I know, but your position is absurd.


Not asking whether or not we support Israel, nor it's foundation.

If you believe its establishment had any validity you support its foundation.

And the only reason you do so is because it "helped the reputation of the USSR in the Middle-East".

As I said, that's an absurd position, it's not even worthy of a reply to be honest.

[Panda Tse Tung]

If you believe its establishment had any validity you support its foundation.

No. Thats is quite un-materialist of you. So if someone says 'well at least the trains drove on time under Mussolini' it means they automatically support Fascist Italy?

[Zurdito]

No. Thats is quite un-materialist of you. So if someone says 'well at least the trains drove on time under Mussolini' it means they automatically support Fascist Italy?

Actually I think this is a language issue.

"Valid" surely means "correct" and not just something that we can udnerstand from a materialist perspective without supporting it.

I wouldn't say that the trains running on time is a valid reason to support Mussolini, even if I accept such arguments as a materialist explanation for his success.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Fine, i'm not debating language. So it's simple. I don't support Israel in any way.

[rouchambeau]

2) They knew the land they wanted was populated by another people, a people they knew would not tolerate, and would not be tolerated by, the state they saught to create
I don't believe this is the case. It is my understanding that the early Zionists only established communities on vacant land.

[chimx]

I voted that the creation of Israel was not valid, but had the poll asked if Zionism was valid, I would have voted 'yes'.

[Dros]

But where? If it's anywhere in the territory currently occupied by the state of Israel, then you're endorsing a continuation of colonialism.

I said regional autonomy. That is, ideally, Jews should have been allowed to govern themselves in places where they were the majority (government of their own communities).


Bullshit. Jews have been scattered throughout the world for over 2,000 years and thus are of many different nationalities.

They are born in many different countries. They are, and would consider themselves to be, one nation.


Jews have no common origins, language or customs.

That's not true at all.


Thus they are not a nation.

I'm glad you feel entitled enough to tell the Jewish community what they are or aren't.


And even if they were, that is no reason to support Jewish nationalism or "self-determination", as Zurdito correctly points out.

I don't support Jewish nationalism and I staunchly oppose all forms of Zionism. I said I took the Marxist approach of regional autonomy.

[Panda Tse Tung]

They are born in many different countries. They are, and would consider themselves to be, one nation.

Thats bull-shit, jet Palestine is a wholly different situation because there is such a high concentration of Jews.

[Dros]

Revolutionaries call for self-determination for all oppressed nations, i.e. set of people with distinct language and customs who are conquered by a state, denied the right to speak their language or follow their customs, institutionally discriminated against, and forced to recongise this state's authority against their will.

The Leninist position is that all people are due regional self determination. How is my position inconsistent with that? And yes, I won't say all but many ethnic minorities constitute nations. I don't advocate nationalism and in a Communist society nations will be all but gone.


national structure which is effectively conquered from the outside by a state which is clearly identifiable as "foreign".

White people aren't clearly foreign?

But again, I'd say you are both misinterpreting my argument and the definition of a nation. In fact, most definitions specify that a nation is in fact a "large aggregate" of people and not necessarily clearly delineated.


And with the dominant ideas in society always being those of the ruling class, this is a straight forward call to support different sectors of the bourgeoisie.

Of course, in every conflict the leftists can be relied upon to back, and even act as recruiting sergeants for, different factions of the bourgeoisie.


I think that it would be impossible to find any wars in the modern epoch (post 1914) where their weren't leftists supporting both sides.

The outrageous think is that they do it in the name of internationalism.

Either explain how I have in anyway been expressing a bourgeois view or shut the fuck up. You clearly have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about so stop pretending that you have any understanding at all of my argument. Make an argument or quit trolling.

[Random Precision]

I said regional autonomy. That is, ideally, Jews should have been allowed to govern themselves in places where they were the majority (government of their own communities).

So how do you plan to do that, hm? Where will these communities be? If it's going to be places where they "were the majority", at which point would you set to determine that? 1914? 1947? 1890? 938 BC?


They are born in many different countries. They are, and would consider themselves to be, one nation.

How can you define a group as a "nation" if it comes from no one area in the world? That's just absurd, and no self-described Jew I've discussed this with has said that they would consider Jews to be a "nation" in any meaningful sense of the word.


That's not true at all.

Jews may have their origins in Germany or the countries of eastern Europe (Ashkenazi Jews), Spain and Portugal (Sephardic Jews), or all over the Middle East and Central Asia (Mizrahi Jews). There are thus no common origins. Jews also speak many different languages, like the language of the nation they are born in, or a hybrid of that language and Hebrew (Yiddish, Russian Yiddish, Ladino) and Hebrew itself is undergoing a revival. While it's true that many Jews identify themselves as adherents of Judaism, a great deal of Jews in the west are completely non-religious. Are you still a Jew if you don't practice the religion? There's also the issue of conversion, and whether that makes one truly Jewish or not. This is indeed an important issue, as throughout history the Jews have sustained themselves as a people by attracting converts to Judaism, so no Jewish person could be considered "pure Jew" by any stretch of the imagination.

So in conclusion: Jewish identity is completely plastic, Jews are not a nation and you have no idea what you're talking about.


I'm glad you feel entitled enough to tell the Jewish community what they are or aren't.

Yes. It comes with having a materialist, Marxist perspective on these issues, which you clearly do not.


I don't support Jewish nationalism and I staunchly oppose all forms of Zionism. I said I took the Marxist approach of regional autonomy.

Except regional autonomy has no definite meaning and is a bourgeois rather than Marxist concept. Well done.

[Dros]

So how do you plan to do that, hm? Where will these communities be? If it's going to be places where they "were the majority", at which point would you set to determine that? 1914? 1947? 1890? 938 BC?

You are again missing my point. I'm offering an historical alternative to an historical problem. At the time of the creation of Israel, Jewish communities in Europe were largely separate from the rest of society, especially in parts of Eastern Europe. I'm saying that ideally, giving those communities increased autonomy would have been the best solution to the problem. However, that was not feasible for the anti-semetic, bourgeois democrats who returned to power after the collapse of fascism.


How can you define a group as a "nation" if it comes from no one area in the world? That's just absurd, and no self-described Jew I've discussed this with has said that they would consider Jews to be a "nation" in any meaningful sense of the word.

An aggregate of people with common cultural, linguistic, and social traditions that do have some degree of common ancestry or a long history of greater genetic seclusion.


This is indeed an important issue, as throughout history the Jews have sustained themselves as a people by attracting converts to Judaism,

That's not true at all. Judaism is one of the only major religions today that does not actively pursue converts.


so no Jewish person could be considered "pure Jew" by any stretch of the imagination.

Hopefully, no one here cares about such silly social constructions as "purity". I'm a Communist not a Nazi.


So in conclusion: Jewish identity is completely plastic, Jews are not a nation and you have no idea what you're talking about.

:lol: Hopefully, Jews find your petty chauvinism endearing.


Yes. It comes with having a materialist, Marxist perspective on these issues, which you clearly do not.

:lol:

What can you say to that?!:lol::lol::rolleyes:


Except regional autonomy has no definite meaning and is a bourgeois rather than Marxist concept. Well done.

I guess you've totally decided to reject Lenin. Oh wait, you're a Trotskyist so it makes sense that you don't really care about Leninism.

[Post-Something]

I voted that the creation of Israel was not valid, but had the poll asked if Zionism was valid, I would have voted 'yes'.

Aren't the two things tied up in each other? Zionism is necessarily to do with the "Land of Israel", or am I missing something? I thought Zionism was in Palestine or it just wasn't.

[chimx]

Aren't the two things tied up in each other? Zionism is necessarily to do with the "Land of Israel", or am I missing something? I thought Zionism was in Palestine or it just wasn't.

Modern day Zionists would like people to believe that the political ideology has historically been one-dimensional, but in reality it was a very diverse movement that at times was extremely influenced by socialist values. Up until the mid-40s, there was a split within the international Zionist movement on the issue of creating a nation state. The Herzl side pushed for the creation of a Jewish nation state, while many socialist Zionists opposed the idea.

[Post-Something]

Ahh, alright, fair enough.

[rampantuprising]

i also believe that the creation of the state of israel was NOT justified. a few weeks ago, i had read a book titled "the palestine-israeli conflict" which was very informational. it was written by two authors; dan cohn-sherbok, an american rabbi, and dawoud el-alami, a former palestine lawyer (now an academic). at the end they do have a debate (which honestly i hadn't read completely because i had already chosen my position on the matter). RELIGION is the reason innocent people are dying over there. seems to me that the main focal point was in jerusalem at the site of the gold-domed mosque (cant remember the name of it). but apparently this is the exact spot where the prophet mohammed had ascended into heaven. COINCIDENTALLY, the zionist's claim that this is the same spot where abraham first resisted some sort of temptation from God. and there are several examples of these controversies throughout the book.

the point that i am trying to make is that religion, false deities, and the idea of an eternal life...is being used as a justification for murder, whether it be jews or arabs. but the zionists knew what they were getting into, and when you have two groups of people who so firmly believe in that religious...stuff...then you are bound for destruction

(different viewpoints gladly accepted, as i said i havent read much about it...i just wanted to make it clear that i feel religion kills people.)

[Random Precision]

You are again missing my point. I'm offering an historical alternative to an historical problem. At the time of the creation of Israel, Jewish communities in Europe were largely separate from the rest of society, especially in parts of Eastern Europe. I'm saying that ideally, giving those communities increased autonomy would have been the best solution to the problem. However, that was not feasible for the anti-semetic, bourgeois democrats who returned to power after the collapse of fascism.

And you are missing mine. How do you plan to establish "regional autonomy" for Jews, and which "regions" would it affect?


An aggregate of people with common cultural, linguistic, and social traditions that do have some degree of common ancestry or a long history of greater genetic seclusion.

What degree of common ancestry or "genetic seclusion" is necessary to define a group of people as a nation? With your theory I could just as easily claim that the Amish constitute a nation.

But as I've demonstrated, Jewish identity is so heterodox that one cannot claim Jews are a nation.


That's not true at all. Judaism is one of the only major religions today that does not actively pursue converts.

Yes... that's true today. In the past it was not.


I guess you've totally decided to reject Lenin. Oh wait, you're a Trotskyist so it makes sense that you don't really care about Leninism.

Lenin talked about the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, not of "regions". As I've already demonstrated, Jews are not a nation. But if they are, then why are you just arguing for "regional self-determination", instead of national self-determination? Maybe because that would put you in the embarrassing position of being a Zionist?

Although it does fall in line with Stalinist "theory" (of which you're a proponent) to just make shit up and then pretend it came from Lenin based on ignorance of his work.

[Zurdito]

The Leninist position is that all people are due regional self determination. How is my position inconsistent with that.

No, the Leninist position is to support the national liberation struggle of all oppressed nations.

as for trotskyists not adhering to Leninism, that's rich coming from you. here's Lenin on this issue:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/oct/22a.htm

Absolutelyuntenable scientifically,[2] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/oct/22a.htm#fwV07P100F01) the idea that the Jews form a separate nation is reactionary politically. Irrefutable practical proof of that is furnished by generally known facts of recent history and of present-day political realities. All over Europe, the decline of medievalism and the development of political liberty went hand in hand with the political emancipation of the Jews, their abandonment of Yiddish for the language of the people among whom they lived, and, in general, their undeniable progressive assimilation with the surrounding population. Are we again to revert to the exceptionalist theories and pro claim that Russia will be the one exception, although the Jewish emancipation movement is far broader and deeper-rooted here, thanks to the awakening of a heroic class- consciousness among the Jewish proletariat? Can we possibly attribute to chance the fact that it is the reactionary forces all over Europe, and especially in Russia, who oppose the assimilation of the Jews and try to perpetuate their isolation?

...

Wethus arrive at the conclusion that neither the logical, nor the historical, nor yet the nationalist arguments of the Bund will stand criticism. The period of disunity, which aggravated waverings among the Russian Social-Democrats and the isolation of the various organisations, had the same effect, to an even more marked degree, in the case of the Bundists. Instead of proclaiming war on this historically evolved isolation (further increased by the general disunity), they elevated it to a principle, seizing for this purpose on the sophistry that autonomy is inherently contradictory, and on the Zionist idea of a Jewish nation. Only if it frankly and resolutely admits its mistake and sets out to move towards fusion can the Bund turn away from the false path it has taken. And we are convinced that the finest adherents of Social-Democratic ideas among the Jewish proletariat will sooner or later compel the l3und to turn from the path of isolation to that of fusion

[RevolverNo9]

Shame on the five who have voted 'yes'...

[Cybersomatix]

I don't think the validity of Israel is the question anymore. It's there, the question is what to do with the people and institutions that make it up, now that it is.

[Dros]

And you are missing mine. How do you plan to establish "regional autonomy" for Jews, and which "regions" would it affect?

I'm not proposing that we do that as there are no longer any predominantly Jewish areas that aren't colonial in nature. I'm making an historical argument harkening back to mid 20th century Europe when Jewish people were largely isolated.


What degree of common ancestry or "genetic seclusion" is necessary to define a group of people as a nation? With your theory I could just as easily claim that the Amish constitute a nation.

As I've already stated, nations are not some rigid, imperical entity.


But as I've demonstrated, Jewish identity is so heterodox that one cannot claim Jews are a nation.

You could make that claim about any nation. And you'd be right!


Yes... that's true today. In the past it was not.

That's not true at all. Judaism is one of the few religions where theology does not demand missionary work. This is because Judaism does not claim to have a monopoly on salvation, just a covenant between their people, and God. And that last bit, by the way, is the historical and cultural reason why Jews see themselves as a nation.


Lenin talked about the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, not of "regions". As I've already demonstrated, Jews are not a nation. But if they are, then why are you just arguing for "regional self-determination", instead of national self-determination?

Mao talked about national self determination. I'm a Maoist. But moreover, I direct you to the foremost Leninist source on the national question, one that Lenin praised highly: "Marxism on the National Question" by J. Stalin.


Maybe because that would put you in the embarrassing position of being a Zionist?

Or perhaps it has more to do with that being the correct Leninist position on the matter.


Although it does fall in line with Stalinist "theory" (of which you're a proponent) to just make shit up and then pretend it came from Lenin based on ignorance of his work.

Actually, it does fall in line with "Stalinist" theory considering that Stalin literally wrote the book on the issue.

As for Stalinists making up things about Lenin, the irony of a Menshevik telling me off about Lenin is going to inflame my lungs from laughter.

Zurdito:

It is quite obvious that Lenin is attempting to refute the claims of Jewish nationalism in that segment. I do not advocate or support any kind of nationalism. Period. Even his language, referring to a group of people, a discernible aggregate of people, proves my thesis.

And even if we accept that Lenin didn't think the Jews were a nation, I would disagree. The difference between us is that you have thrown out a huge piece of Leninism and I have thrown out a minor claim made at one point.


Shame on the five who have voted 'yes'...

And this as well.

[Kami]

I don't think the validity of Israel is the question anymore. It's there, the question is what to do with the people and institutions that make it up, now that it is.


This. No, the establishment of the state of Israel cannot be justified, but we're 60 years too late for that question.

[Devrim]

It says that it is an organisation in Israel, none of the writers names are Arabic, and there are mistakes in the Arabic.That has nothing at all to do with the practice of that organization.

No, it doesn't. The question I asked though was whether you had a section in Palestine. Maybe it wasn't clear.


Do the Left-Communist have a section in Iran? No? Then your position is wrong no matter what you say because you have no members with names that are Iranian.

At the moment we have contacts in Iran. EKS leaflets on the international situation in Farsi have been distributed there. We are working on it.

What you claimed though was that you are 'at the same time agitating and arguing for our own programme'. To me that implies organised activity.

I obviously don't think that not having a section somewhere makes your position on that place wrong. It does, however, mean that you don't have organised work there.

Devrim

[Invader Zim]

I agree with the sentiments of Kami; the Israel is a state, and no amount of complaining that it shouldn't have been created is going to change that; debating it as anything other than a matter of historical interest is a waste of time.

[Sentinel]

I voted no, the jewish should have been granted territory from Germany instead.

I basically agree with what Kami, Zim etc have said, though. We should focus on finding solutions to problems rather than debating whether something should have happened or not.

And the preferred solution now, in my opinion, would obviously be one secular society with equal rights for all. Second to that, the two state solution with Jerusalem under joint administration.

There shouldn't be an Israel in it's present form, but neither can Palestine as it was be restored without prolonging the conflict. That would only cause the reverse situation to the present, with Israeli groups fighting the state.

[Zurdito]

There shouldn't be an Israel in it's present form, but neither can Palestine as it was be restored without prolonging the conflict. That would only cause the reverse situation to the present, with Israeli groups fighting the state.

Does this mean you oppose the right of return?

[Sentinel]

Does this mean you oppose the right of return?


Of course not, how did you even come to that conclusion? Like I said, I'd prefer one secular society -- neither Israeli or Palestinian -- with equal rights for all in the territory of Palestine. By which I mean, that both Jewish and Palestinians should have the right to live there, and under the same conditions.

[Led Zeppelin]

No, the establishment of the state of Israel cannot be justified, but we're 60 years too late for that question.

Obviously it still matters because most people who believe its establishment was valid still support the state of Israel's right to exist as it is today.

If you support that you undermine any possible solution to the problem, because it is the current state of Israel which is standing in the way of any workable solution.

Your argument makes no sense, if this was a poll asking; "Would you support Hitler coming to power in Germany?" and you said "Oh no, that doesn't matter anymore, it's been over 60 years!" you would be ridiculed and rightly so.

The question of Hitler coming to power, as the question of Israel's establishment being valid, are historical questions, yes, but the people who support them take their views to their logical conclusion in today's world.

The people in support of Hitler coming to power are most likely Nazi's or Nazi-nostalgics, so they are reactionary to the core, and the people supporting the establishment of Israel most likely support the current imperialist Zionist puppet-state of Israel which is killing innocent people and occupying a whole people as we speak.

So the question certainly does matter, because if you believe the establishment of Israel was not valid, you can understand the current problem more thoroughly and thereby come up with a correct position on it.

As for the people who votes Yes, only 3 people have done so: Communist Firefox, rouchambeau and Dragonsign.

Mao Chi X and Red October voted wrongly, the former due to a misunderstanding of the question and the latter due to a mistake.

Now let's examine the Yes voters.

Communist Firefox is an "Orthodox Marxist" gone Zionist, I have no idea how this works, but I guess you never know with "Orthodox Marxists", as they never have any set political beliefs beside some vague generalizations.

He hasn't bothered to defend his view.

rouchambeau posted this: "It is my understanding that the early Zionists only established communities on vacant land."

First of all this is not true in all cases, secondly it is irrelevant because the declared Israeli state (not the early Zionists) did not establish itself "on vacant land", unless of course you consider land lived on by Arabs to be "vacant".

This poll asked about the establishment of Israel, not about the early Zionists.

Dragonsign has also not posted to defend his view, but he only has 2 posts so I will ignore his vote.

[chimx]

I voted no, the jewish should have been granted territory from Germany instead.


Many Zionists would have gladly accepted. Herzl was a secular Jew and was not tied to Israel at all. He had been talking to political leaders in Africa, elsewhere in the Middle East, and I believe even as far away as South Africa for land that Jews could settle on. Israel became decided upon not by Herzl but because of the influence that Orthdox Eastern Jews had on the Zionist movement.

[apathy maybe]

(Coincidently, I'm currently reading a book on Yitzhak Rabin, the man who "won" the Six Day War. And I just finished a book on the creation and history of modern Saudi Arabia.

And, I was going to start a thread similar to this one, sooner or later.)


I voted no, the jewish should have been granted territory from Germany instead.
This, by the way, is the position that many Arabs (or, at least the Saudi Arabian leadership) took at the time.

And the preferred solution now, in my opinion, would obviously be one secular society with equal rights for all, second to that the two state solution with Jerusalem under joint administration. There shouldn't be an Israel in it's present form, but neither can Palestine as it was be restored without prolonging the conflict.
And I agree with that.



Was the establishment of the Israeli state justified? No state is justified.

Do leftists support free migration? Well, yes we do. Do we support the right of the migrants to force people already living in a place out? No we don't.

So, I support the right of the Jewish migrants to move to Palestine, I think that an area in Germany, or the USA, would equally be acceptable (or Australia or Canada, which were both options I believe).

However, I think that the method in which the state of Israel was created was absurd. A federal Palestinian state would have been the best option at the time. Jews and Arabs (both Christian and Muslim) had lived for many centuries side by side without problems.

The solution now? What Sentinel said above.

[Mania]

Was the establishment of the United States in any way valid?

Was the establishment of Australia in any way valid?

Should we argue against the existence of these nations, since they too were built on a system of oppression which continues today?

[Led Zeppelin]

Was the establishment of the United States in any way valid?

Was the establishment of Australia in any way valid?

Should we argue against the existence of these nations, since they too were built on a system of oppression which continues today?


We do, we're what you may call "communists" here, surprisingly enough.

[chimx]

Do leftists support free migration? Well, yes we do. Do we support the right of the migrants to force people already living in a place out? No we don't.

Prior to the creation of Israel when it was just Britain's Palestinian Mandate, the largest problem Palestinians took with Zionism was that Zionists demanded free migration rights. Zionists weren't always kicking Arabs out of their homes exactly, but the massive emigration was completely destroying the local economy. The biggest demand of Palestinians at this time was to put a cap on emigration.


Was the establishment of the United States in any way valid?

I think more people still get upset by Israel because it happened much more recently in history, and the crimes of its creation still persist today in very large quantities.

[Dean]

I think this is an interesting thread, more interesting to note that the mild support given to Israel is more about what the state exists as currently, not in regards to its creation.

As for Malte, he once said that he actually feels a kinship with the self-hating German tendencies which are obsessed over appeasing Israel and obsessing over the crimes committed by Germany in the thirties and forties. So I take that strange nationalism / racialism with a grain of salt.

As for the question, the answer is more than obvious. It doesn't give us a present-day answer though, and as one person pointed out, it makes it seem like a two-state solution is out of the question. Ideally, this is clearly true, but the alleviation of this conflict is much more complicated.

[Mania]

We do, we're what you may call "communists" here, surprisingly enough.

My point was that Americans, English and Australians all denounce the Israeli state for their actions and call for its dismantling.

Yet they too are standing on soil which was only gained via the oppression of indigenous people.

So: by all means, call for the removal of Jewish capitalists, but you should also call for the removal of American capitalists, Australian capitalists and others based on the concept of the 'right to self-determination.'

[Led Zeppelin]

My point was that Americans, English and Australians all denounce the Israeli state for their actions and call for its dismantling.

Yet they too are standing on soil which was only gained via the oppression of indigenous people.

That analogy doesn't make sense because the governments of all those countries support Israel.


So: by all means, call for the removal of Jewish capitalists, but you should also call for the removal of American capitalists, Australian capitalists and others based on the concept of the 'right to self-determination.'

I do call for the removal of all those capitalists, as all Marxists do...

[Mania]

That analogy doesn't make sense because the governments of all those countries support Israel.

Could you explain further?

Israel too supports those countries. I don't see your point.


I do call for the removal of all those capitalists, as all Marxists do...

Yes, of course we call for their 'removal.'

Not on the basis of self-determination, however, but on communist principles, which preclude supporting one nation's ruling class over another's, I might add.

[DancingLarry]

Being an anarchist, naturally I oppose the foundation of any state. This is a slipperier topic for the statists: do you support the demand for statehood of some peoples (Palestinians, Kurds) but oppose the same demand on the part of other peoples (Jews, Tibetans)? If so, by what objective criteria do statists determine whether a people "deserve" a state, or not?

[Led Zeppelin]

Could you explain further?

Israel too supports those countries. I don't see your point.

You said that Americans, Australians and English people oppose the state of Israel and therefore they are hypocritical.

But that doesn't make sense because the governments of those countries, not individuals within that country, do support Israel.

It doesn't make sense to extend the importance of an individual American, English or Australian to the realm of support for a nation from America, Australia or England, instead you have to look at the position of their governments regarding the matter.


Yes, of course we call for their 'removal.'

Not on the basis of self-determination, however, but on communist principles, which preclude supporting one nation's ruling class over another's, I might add.

It does not matter on what basis it is called for, your original point is rendered moot by the fact that we do.

[Dean]

Being an anarchist, naturally I oppose the foundation of any state. This is a slipperier topic for the statists: do you support the demand for statehood of some peoples (Palestinians, Kurds) but oppose the same demand on the part of other peoples (Jews, Tibetans)? If so, by what objective criteria do statists determine whether a people "deserve" a state, or not?

I find it very interesting how its just fine to support Middle eastern independence from imperial regimes- despite the existence of extremely oppressive native governments - whereas support for tibet comes between support for the theocracy versus the Chinese imperials, and the leftists here voice support for Chinese aggression. What makes them qualitatively different?

[Zurdito]

Of course not, how did you even come to that conclusion? Like I said, I'd prefer one secular society -- neither Israeli or Palestinian -- with equal rights for all in the territory of Palestine. By which I mean, that both Jewish and Palestinians should have the right to live there, and under the same conditions.

I didn't come to that conslusion, it was just a question, because I assumed you meant that you didn't want to see a majority Palestinian state created when you said that you didn't want the restoration of Palestine in its previous form.

Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you meant...unless you were sayign that you wouldn't want to see the state under formal British rule via a small Arab elite...which I doubt anyone would argue for so it kind of goes without saying, and I guess that I wouldn't phrase this as being about the "form" of Palestine, becsause that sounds more like a demographic/borders question than one of the particular form of government...

If you were talking about demography and borders, then, you're aware that in its previous form, there Jews in Palestine, they constituted a significant minority, and they had equal rights to Arabs...so in that sense, restoring Palestine to its previous form would be a good thing...because you realise that if the Palestinians acheive right of return, then Jews will very likely become a minority.

I'm not trying to be aggressive and I wasn't accusing you of anything, I was just confused by the statement, maybe I just misunderstood something though :)

[Zurdito]

drosera:



It is quite obvious that Lenin is attempting to refute the claims of Jewish nationalism in that segment. I do not advocate or support any kind of nationalism. Period. Even his language, referring to a group of people, a discernible aggregate of people, proves my thesis.

And even if we accept that Lenin didn't think the Jews were a nation, I would disagree. The difference between us is that you have thrown out a huge piece of Leninism and I have thrown out a minor claim made at one point.


No, Lenin was not just refuting the claims of Jewish nationalism with regards to some specific reactionary set of claims, he was saying that Jews are not a nation. Period. This is because an oppressed nation is one where if the ruling state left, a fucntioning community would already be there to operate as a nation. This is because Leninist self-determination is nothing to do with vague "identity politics" where we back up anyone's feelign that they belong to some kind of chosen "nation". What next, will we start tlaking about Islamic "national liberation"? Because some Muslims already do, eh, and Muslims suffer discrimination, so it must be true. :rolleyes:

I don't mind if you disagree with Lenin, but if you have to go around giving it the whole cliched, "ultra-stalinist" act, covered up with replacing "Stalin" with "Lenin" whenever its convenient for arguing with Trotskyists, at least get your facts right before you call us hypocrites.

[Random Precision]

I'm not proposing that we do that as there are no longer any predominantly Jewish areas that aren't colonial in nature. I'm making an historical argument harkening back to mid 20th century Europe when Jewish people were largely isolated.

Wait. So you're proposing we go back to a model that was already obsolete at the beginning of the 20th century? I don't know what to say.


You could make that claim about any nation. And you'd be right!

Prove your assertion or shut the fuck up.


That's not true at all. Judaism is one of the few religions where theology does not demand missionary work. This is because Judaism does not claim to have a monopoly on salvation, just a covenant between their people, and God. And that last bit, by the way, is the historical and cultural reason why Jews see themselves as a nation.

What about non-religious Jews, hm? What about Jewish converts to Christianity?


Mao talked about national self determination. I'm a Maoist. But moreover, I direct you to the foremost Leninist source on the national question, one that Lenin praised highly: "Marxism on the National Question" by J. Stalin.

No, the foremost Leninist source on the national question is The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm) by V.I. Lenin. Stalin discredited his own stance on the national question during the Georgian Affair, on which I'll direct you to Lenin's last notes on the subject (link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm)). But in any case, I'd like to see where Stalin identifies the Jews as a nation and how he justifies "regional self-determination", cause it's a fact that he disagreed with Lenin if he did, and so do you.


Or perhaps it has more to do with that being the correct Leninist position on the matter.

Actually, it does fall in line with "Stalinist" theory considering that Stalin literally wrote the book on the issue.

Shut up, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

[Holden Caulfield]

i think this debate should have closed with all agreed with Bobkindles opening post,

[Led Zeppelin]

Bobkindles didn't make the opening post?

[Holden Caulfield]

bobkindles first post that he made, was what i ment to say

[Led Zeppelin]

Well, I think it's rather damning that no one who voted Yes has bothered to come forward to defend his/her views coherently.

So about 90% of members are Anti-Zionists, that's not bad, though it should've been 100%.

[redSHARP]

i think israel deserves to exist, but the way it was created was a tragic event that not only screwed over the arabs and muslim people, but the jewish community as well. the whole israel affair has split the radical jews who believe in the whole messiah bullcrap with secular jews who could care less about israel. in fact, there is a small jewish minority who says that israel must never be created until god gives them the word to do so (those jews were also present at the holocaust denial conference in Iran). and further more i support any peoples who want a homeland, as long as we do it in a logical and judicial way (not just taking a pencil to a map and drawing lines).

[Holden Caulfield]

Well, I think it's rather damning that no one who voted Yes has bothered to come forward to defend his/her views coherently.

So about 90% of members are Anti-Zionists, that's not bad, though it should've been 100%.

true dat, cant the poll be opened to see who voted yes?

[Led Zeppelin]

These are the Yes votes so far:

Communist FireFox, DancingLarry, Dragonsign, Mao Chi X, Red October, redSHARP, rouchambeau

Mao Chi X votes Yes due to a misunderstanding and Red October votes Yes by mistake.

[Dros]

Wait. So you're proposing we go back to a model that was already obsolete at the beginning of the 20th century? I don't know what to say.

This is really not complicated at all. I'm not advancing a modern solution to the issue. I'm talking about a preferred historical solution. It's really quite simple.


Prove your assertion or shut the fuck up.

I'm afraid I just did.


What about non-religious Jews, hm? What about Jewish converts to Christianity?

What about 'em?


I'd like to see where Stalin identifies the Jews as a nation and how he justifies "regional self-determination", cause it's a fact that he disagreed with Lenin if he did, and so do you.

OMG I contradicted an out of context passage from Lenin!!!

I didn't say Stalin said the Jews were a nation. I said that Stalin takes the position, on which
Lenin agreed that there should be regional self determination.


I don't mind if you disagree with Lenin, but if you have to go around giving it the whole cliched, "ultra-stalinist" act, covered up with replacing "Stalin" with "Lenin" whenever its convenient for arguing with Trotskyists, at least get your facts right before you call us hypocrites.

Go back and find where I claimed that Lenin said that Jews constitute a nation before you accuse me of making things up. I think you'll find I never did.

[Zurdito]

Go back and find where I claimed that Lenin said that Jews constitute a nation before you accuse me of making things up. I think you'll find I never did.

Who cares? You said trotskyists don't adhere to Lenin on the same thread where you argued an anti-leninist position.

[Dros]

Who cares? You said trotskyists don't adhere to Lenin on the same thread where you argued an anti-leninist position.

As I've already said, it is not anti-Leninist simply to contradict Lenin. Lenin wasn't god and he never thought himself as such. I have disagreed with Lenin on a point of trivia. You have sold off a huge part of Leninism!

[Random Precision]

This is really not complicated at all. I'm not advancing a modern solution to the issue. I'm talking about a preferred historical solution. It's really quite simple.

So how can the Jews have "regional self-determination" if there are no regions for them to self-determine in?


I'm afraid I just did.

Prove that, as you said, every nation has a plastic identity, as the Jews do.


What about 'em?

Are they part of the Jewish nation, even though they don't accept the covenant with Yahweh?


I didn't say Stalin said the Jews were a nation. I said that Stalin takes the position, on which that there should be regional self determination.

Quote him on it, then. And while you're at it, quote Lenin agreeing with his assertion.


As for Stalinists making up things about Lenin, the irony of a Menshevik telling me off about Lenin is going to inflame my lungs from laughter.

Surely not more than for me when a two-stageist accuses me of being a Menshevik. :rolleyes:

[Zurdito]

As I've already said, it is not anti-Leninist simply to contradict Lenin. Lenin wasn't god and he never thought himself as such.

Yes thanks for telling me that. Of course, you find it a huge deal if trotskyists "don't adhere to Lenin", but you're allowed to pick and choose, wheras in our case, any deviation is ground for condemnation.

All I'm saying is that if you're going to use that line of argument at least be consistent! you proudly call yourself a "sectarian bastard" so at least know about your own sect!


have disagreed with Lenin on a point of trivia. You have sold off a huge part of Leninism

You think that on an argument that centres around whether Jews are a nation, that the question fo whether Jews are a nation is a "point of trivia"?

And, what part of Leninism have I sold off?

[Dean]

If you believe the establishment of the state of Israel was in any way valid, you are by definition a Zionist.

This is an unfair generalization.

First off, many consider Israel to be a beacon of Jewish self-determinism. Considering that it gained its contemporary Jewish population due to antisemitism in much of the world, and that even during the holocaust most western states were reluctant to take them in, there is a case for the creation of a force used to defend Jewish interests. Unfortunatly, the state became the final Jewish ghetto and served as a dump for the rest of the western world for what they views as human refuse. It is clear that the major players in the creation of the Zionist movement and the creation of the Zionist state were primarily interested in segregation.

While the strocities that militant zionism carried with them were clearly wrong, I don't think its fair to say that nationalist Zionism is purely about antagonizing the Palestinian people. This is also an incorrect description of Zionism, which is really a general ideology based around promoting Jewish migration to historical Israel. What Zionism became in the mainstream was rejected by Zionists who had lived for a long time in harmony with the Arab population.

Lastly, you are not necessarily a Zionist if you see any reason to support the creation of the state. I think it is wrong, but I can understand the position to some degree.

I would like to see the defenses that people who voted in support of Israel have. I don't understand any really conmprehensive, leftist viewpoint which supports the creation of the state.

[Led Zeppelin]

Lastly, you are not necessarily a Zionist if you see any reason to support the creation of the state. I think it is wrong, but I can understand the position to some degree.

Your other criticisms weren't really criticisms, they were just an elaboration of the history of Zionism, it didn't really have anything to do with what I said.

I would like to see you explain though how you are not necessarily a Zionist if you support the establishment of Israel?

What could you possible be if not a Zionist?

That is the definition of the term.

[Dean]

Your other criticisms weren't really criticisms, they were just an elaboration of the history of Zionism, it didn't really have anything to do with what I said.

I would like to see you explain though how you are not necessarily a Zionist if you support the establishment of Israel? What could you possible be if not a Zionist? That is the definition of the term.

My impression, and others share this proposal (Chomsky and Einstein for starters) is that Zionism is basically an ideology which supports the movement of Jews to Israel. I am well aware of the historical context for present-day Zionism, and I don't conflate that with what might be called "humanist zionism." Its important to note that zionism doesn't necessarily imply violence towards or dominance over the Palestinian people. It is sad that the term has such connotations today, but it is no surprise considering what power the pro-Israeli lobby and censorship groups have in the west. What bothers me is that such a definition can include people who are totally against the aggression, expansion and nationalism present in Israel today. Jewish migration to Palestine is widely thought of as Zionism, be it in the context of oppressive acts or not. And there is nothing wrong with that movement of people (except for some religious dogma, perhaps).

You have to understand these struggles in their entirety, and the fact is that Zionism is not universally a violent ideology. That the powerful zionist leaders have conflated the two is sad, but certainly no reason for us to share in their lies.

[PRC-UTE]

How can you argue for working class unity, and yet still support national liberation movements.

Devrim

I would actually turn that question around. I don't see how you can unite the working class if you refuse to defend the most oppressed setion of it. And by most oppressed, we're talking about poeple being denied clean water, suffering ethnic clensing, driven from their homes and the like. If you turn around and say to them that they do not have a right to fight back (because the left communists claim this is fighting for 'national capital', apparently :confused:) and you are telling them to not rock the boat in the interest of uniting the working class on purely economic demands, you are on the path to reformism.

[PRC-UTE]

My impression, and others share this proposal (Chomsky and Einstein for starters) is that Zionism is basically an ideology which supports the movement of Jews to Israel. I am well aware of the historical context for present-day Zionism, and I don't conflate that with what might be called "humanist zionism." Its important to note that zionism doesn't necessarily imply violence towards or dominance over the Palestinian people. It is sad that the term has such connotations today, but it is no surprise considering what power the pro-Israeli lobby and censorship groups have in the west. What bothers me is that such a definition can include people who are totally against the aggression, expansion and nationalism present in Israel today. Jewish migration to Palestine is widely thought of as Zionism, be it in the context of oppressive acts or not. And there is nothing wrong with that movement of people (except for some religious dogma, perhaps).

You have to understand these struggles in their entirety, and the fact is that Zionism is not universally a violent ideology. That the powerful zionist leaders have conflated the two is sad, but certainly no reason for us to share in their lies.

This strikes me as uselessly abstract.

More of the problem with a Zionist state is the fact that to survive it must constantly maintain sectarian divisions in the working class, much like the six county British state in Ireland. So while it may have advanced productive forces at one point in history, today it is a barrier to a democratic solution, and that means it retards the workers movement.

[Dros]

Yes thanks for telling me that. Of course, you find it a huge deal if trotskyists "don't adhere to Lenin", but you're allowed to pick and choose, wheras in our case, any deviation is ground for condemnation.

How many times must I repeat myself. There are things that are significant and things that aren't. You have disavowed the whole Leninist theory set out in "Marxism on the National Question".


All I'm saying is that if you're going to use that line of argument at least be consistent! you proudly call yourself a "sectarian bastard" so at least know about your own sect!

I have read that statement by Lenin (in context btw) and I'm aware of his position. The fact that I have a different position on this issue, ie. that the Jewish people constituted an historically defined nation at that point in time, does not represent a break with Leninism. What you are doing is petty dogmatism. You are looking at Lenin's word as cannonical wrote (at least insofar as it applies to my position), something Lenin condemned. At the same time, you are ignoring and breaking with significant portions of Lenin's actual theory.

[Zurdito]

How many times must I repeat myself. There are things that are significant and things that aren't. You have disavowed the whole Leninist theory set out in "Marxism on the National Question".



I have read that statement by Lenin (in context btw) and I'm aware of his position. The fact that I have a different position on this issue, ie. that the Jewish people constituted an historically defined nation at that point in time, does not represent a break with Leninism. What you are doing is petty dogmatism. You are looking at Lenin's word as cannonical wrote (at least insofar as it applies to my position), something Lenin condemned. At the same time, you are ignoring and breaking with significant portions of Lenin's actual theory.

So in other words, you think that Lenin didn't even follow his own theory?

If not, what part of Lenin's "axctual theory" am I breaking with? I'm not being dogmatic, I'm asking you to back up your accusation.

[Devrim]

I would actually turn that question around. I don't see how you can unite the working class if you refuse to defend the most oppressed setion of it.

No, one is refusing to defend the most oppressed section of the working class. What we are saying is that the way to defend them isn't starting nationalist murder gangs. The PKK shooting a couple of soldiers in the mountains every couple of weeks in no way defends the most oppressed sections of the working class.


If you turn around and say to them that they do not have a right to fight back and you are telling them to not rock the boat in the interest

Strangely enough we tend to think that there is a difference between people 'fighting back', and getting dragged into ethnic wars.


And by most oppressed, we're talking about poeple being denied clean water, suffering ethnic clensing, driven from their homes and the like.

Like all of the other 5,000,000 residents of Ankara, we don't have a clean water supply. When I was a child, my family was driven from our home. It wasn't called ethnic cleansing in those days though.

Devrim

[redSHARP]

Well, I think it's rather damning that no one who voted Yes has bothered to come forward to defend his/her views coherently.

So about 90% of members are Anti-Zionists, that's not bad, though it should've been 100%.


i rather you not call me a zionist; i find it insulting. cant i say i support both people's right to exist and for peace? its a long shot, but it can work as long as we stop blaming or picking sides. to end the crisis, a honest broker and neutral party is needed, and if people continue to blame, that wont happen. and some say different people wont live on the same land; if communism or anarchy was introduced (which it had before the zionist purged them), then both people would work together on the same land. this senario worked in Yugoslavia, Russia, and for the most part China. and for my last thought, the US needs to stop pulling the strings.

[bcbm]

this senario worked in Yugoslavia

What? In the former Yugoslavia the different ethnic groups are hardly living and working in peace together and what stability exists there today only exists because it was a way for Western imperialists to gain a strong economic grasp on the region.

[redSHARP]

really? cause from what i gathered was that Tito kept a lid on all the ethnic tension. after he died, then all that shit went down. sorry if i was not clear/wrong.

[bcbm]

really? cause from what i gathered was that Tito kept a lid on all the ethnic tension. after he died, then all that shit went down. sorry if i was not clear/wrong.

Oh, I see what you meant now.

Yes, Tito somewhat kept a lid on it, but of course after he died the tensions all came right back to the surface. An authoritarian state apparatus doesn't seem the best way to deal with such concerns anyway.

[bcbm]

A question this thread brought to mind...

What do people propose should have happened to the Jews who were deported to Palestine (after no other place would accept them) before and during the war, as well as those who left immediately after?

[black magick hustla]

The dichonomy of "zionism and anti-zionism" is a false one for communists. Leftists embrace it as some sort of decision between suppoting a bourgeois republic over the other. Furthermore, standard leftist anti-zionism is flawed in as much as it is based on the old, outdated argument of "damn white settlers" I even read TC saying once that it was ok for palestinian ethnic murder gangs to murder random jewish civilians because they are
"occupiers".

Communists don't base their arguments on bourgeois concepts like "private property" or the right for "self-determination". The principle for national determination (similar to the democratic principle) is apriori idealism because unless there is a god that assigned patches of land to certain ethnic groups, there is no way of deciding who owns the land. Before the Spanish came to murder and conquer the indigenous of latin-america, many indigenous people were displaced from their land by other indigenous groups. This is probably the same for every ethnic group deemed by leftists as opressed.

In short, we don't take a stance in bourgeois squabbles for land. There is a reason why we are communists -- because we wish to transcend all the wars excarberated by the different sectors of global capital through communist revolution.

[Led Zeppelin]

i rather you not call me a zionist; i find it insulting. cant i say i support both people's right to exist and for peace?

You don't understand the history which preceded the issue if you want to reduce it to "the right of both to exist".

I don't advocate the wiping out of all Israeli citizens, and this poll wasn't even related to the current state of Israel, it was related to the establishment of it.

At its establishment Arabs who had lived on those lands for centuries lost their homes, land, and were in some cases murdered, and all of this happened because the United States wanted a puppet-state in the Middle-East and Zionism gave them the perfect excuse.

If you support that, you are by definition a Zionist, I'm sorry if that offends you but I can't change definitions of terms for you.


What do people propose should have happened to the Jews who were deported to Palestine (after no other place would accept them) before and during the war, as well as those who left immediately after?

All citizens of Israel deserve to live there as well, however if they are occupying the houses and lands of Arabs who used to live there they would obviously have to move to somewhere else.

The state would have to organize all of this to ensure that both sides are equally treated, this is why I believe the best (and really only) solution to the problem would be a single socialist state in that region, encompassing both Palestine and Israel.

[Redmau5]

In short, we don't take a stance in bourgeois squabbles for land

You honestly believe that the Palestinian struggle is simply a "squabble for land", when, as PRC-UTE pointed out, the Palestinian people are denied some of the most basic things such as clean water?


or the right for "self-determination"

People of a certain nation have a right to determine what happens in that nation. I mean, what else do you propose happen? A foreign nation come in and decide their affairs for them? Oh wait....

[Leo]

You honestly believe that the Palestinian struggle is simply a "squabble for land", when, as PRC-UTE pointed out, the Palestinian people are denied some of the most basic things such as clean water?

So are many other people. We don't have clean water here in Ankara. This does not mean that nationalism is in the interests of those who don't have clean water.


People of a certain nation have a right to determine what happens in that nation.

And what exactly do you think makes up a nation?

Do you think that it is made of classes?

When you support "nations' right to determine what is to happen in that nation", what you support becomes the ruling class of the "nation" and their "right" to determine what is to happen, that is their right to rule. Thus, you end up supporting the bourgeoisie of a certain "nation" against the working class of that "nation".


I mean, what else do you propose happen? A foreign nation come in and decide their affairs for them?

This posts implies that you explain what is going on in the world as a "struggle of nations". So much that let alone the idea of workers from different "nations" uniting and joining up in common struggle for socialism against their bosses, workers struggling against the "national" bourgeoisie seems unthinkable unthinkable for you.

[PRC-UTE]

Strangely enough we tend to think that there is a difference between people 'fighting back', and getting dragged into ethnic wars.

This is a good example of the weak and approximate understanding many on the Left have of anti-imperialism. The fact is that many anti-imperialist movements are not fighting ethnic wars, even if they are fighting for an oppressed ethnic group. For example, the republican tradition in Ireland was founded by Protestants who were reaching across the sectarian divide to oppressed Irish Catholics.



Like all of the other 5,000,000 residents of Ankara, we don't have a clean water supply.

The Palestinian's water supply isn't just unclean- I should have been more specific: it's often deliberately poisoned beyond use by Israelis. They don't just need the water to drink but also many use it for their livelihood, cultivating small lots of agriculture. Destroying their means to survive is as good as murder.

If you want to evaluate and constructively criticise the Palestinian movement, go for it. I would point out how cross-class collaboration led to compromises that led to further destablisations, demoralisations and defeats for instance. But your argument is rooted in useless abstraction. It seems roughly: resistance to colonialism equals nationalism (if you have anywhere an exception to this argument, a concrete proposal for resistance to colonialism that you don't label nationalist, I would be interested in seeing it). This is not only defeatist, but not corresponding to the actual facts. Since most Palestians engaged in resistance (until recently) have sought to create a democratic state where people from all faiths and backgrounds have essentially equal political rights, this is not classical nationalism but more in line with Irish Republicanism and other genuine anti-imperialist movements. Movements trying to finish the tasks of the democratic revolution as capital is unwilling or unable to do so now.



When I was a child, my family was driven from our home. It wasn't called ethnic cleansing in those days though.

As have many of my family members. And I wouldn't lecture them on what they should be doing in that instance.

[Devrim]

For example, the republican tradition in Ireland was founded by Protestants who were reaching across the sectarian divide to oppressed Irish Catholics.

...And ended up as gangs who commit sectarian murders of workers.


If you want to evaluate and constructively criticise the Palestinian movement, go for it. I would point out how cross-class collaboration led to compromises that led to further destablisations, demoralisations and defeats for instance.

It seems quite strange to talk about cross-class collaboration in a national movement, which is by definition cross class.


As have many of my family members. And I wouldn't lecture them on what they should be doing in that instance.

You seem to be saying here that people's personal experiences make there politics/actions immune from activity. I reject that approach.

Devrim

[Invader Zim]

Your argument makes no sense, if this was a poll asking; "Would you support Hitler coming to power in Germany?" and you said "Oh no, that doesn't matter anymore, it's been over 60 years!" you would be ridiculed and rightly so.Nobody said that it 'doesn't matter anymore'; people have simply said, and correctly so, that we are 60 years too late to do anything about it.

[PRC-UTE]

...And ended up as gangs who commit sectarian murders of workers.

They weren't 'gangs' unless you seriously believe what Thatcherites tell you. The vast majority of attacks carried out by republicans were waged against the security forces. The British state's internal documents concur that the republican armed campaigns were not the work of thugs or criminals. Those are objectively speaking not 'gangs', unless you stretch the meaning of the word 'gang' to the point that it is meaningless.

I agreed with you a few months back that the PIRA (and less so, but also occasionally the INLA) were at times drawn into sectarian violence- not because they're an 'ethnic murder gang' as you put it at the time, but because of their need to fulfil the role of catholic defenders. You at the time said yourself that wasn't their entire motivation or purpose, so I wish you would cease simplifying issues to the point that it is innaccurate and nothing meaningful can be discussed.


...And ended up as gangs who commit sectarian murders of workers.
It seems quite strange to talk about cross-class collaboration in a national movement, which is by definition cross class.[/quote]

Except this a mere polemic; the Irish bourgeoisie do not support the republican struggle and nearly to a man want to see it crushed. Only the working class can complete the tasks of the national democratic revolution. It doesn't matter how many times you claim they are fighting for the bourgeoisie or 'national capital'- it contradicts the basic facts of the situation.



You seem to be saying here that people's personal experiences make there politics/actions immune from activity. I reject that approach.


I don't know what you're trying to say here...

[PRC-UTE]

Nobody said that it 'doesn't matter anymore'; people have simply said, and correctly so, that we are 60 years too late to do anything about it.

If you feel that nothing can be done about injustice, then why are you on a form for the revolutionary left?

[Devrim]

I agreed with you a few months back that the PIRA (and less so, but also occasionally the INLA) were at times drawn into sectarian violence- not because they're an 'ethnic murder gang' as you put it at the time, but because of their need to fulfil the role of catholic defenders. You at the time said yourself that wasn't their entire motivation or purpose, so I wish you would cease simplifying issues to the point that it is innaccurate and nothing meaningful can be discussed.

I have never said that this is their 'motivation'. I amsure that many of them see themselves as genuine socialists. That said I believe, and you too have admitted, that they end up 'being drawn into sectarian violence'. I think that this violence plays its part in dividing the working class.


Except this a mere polemic; the Irish bourgeoisie do not support the republican struggle and nearly to a man want to see it crushed. Only the working class can complete the tasks of the national democratic revolution. It doesn't matter how many times you claim they are fighting for the bourgeoisie or 'national capital'- it contradicts the basic facts of the situation.

Are you seriously claiming that Irish republicanism, or Palestinian nationalism for that matter, is a wholly working class movement?

The 'the national democratic revolution' belongs to the century before last and has nothing to offer the working class today.


I don't know what you're trying to say here...

You said 'As have many of my family members [been burnt out]. And I wouldn't lecture them on what they should be doing in that instance.'

I would tell people if I thought what they were doing was anti-working class. However bad their experiences at the hands of different nationalist gangsters had been.

Devrim

[Invader Zim]

If you feel that nothing can be done about injustice, then why are you on a form for the revolutionary left?

I didn't say that; maybe you should address what I say, not something you have dredged up from your imagination and attributed to me. What I said was that nothing can be done about the creation of Israel, not injustice as a whole. Israel has been created, it exists, and it would be just as much an injustice to abolish it while remaining under capitalism. The progressive solution in Israel is to establish a non-partisan socialist state, like every other egion of the globe, which provides all people who live there with equality. Simply replacing the state of Israel with another, equally reactionary, capitalist state will do nothing to end injustice in Palestine/Israel.

[Chapter 24]

I find the Israeli state to be horrendous, like the U.S. founded on the blood-soaked lands of those who lived there prior to the state's establishment. I have not read up on the actual founders of Zionism and the history of Zionist thought - including the different types, such as Labor Zionism - but the basics to the ideology are the desire to create a Jewish nation and homeland.
In this way it can be said to promote Jewish nationalism, which is quite interesting a term because as Jews are currently in a diaspora there is really no nationalism to be had, as nationalism is a term referring to a doctrine or political movement that holds a nation, usually defined in terms of ethnicity or culture, has the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community based on a shared history and common destiny.
The thing about Zionism though, in its promoting of "Jewish nationalism", is that it pretty much exclusively relies on Judeo-Christian texts as its foundation. After all, why did Zionists want their homeland to be in Palestine anyway? Because this is historically the homeland of Hebrews - the Land of Israel is the region of land which, according to the Hebrew Bible, was promised to God to the Hebrew people. In this way a true Zionist cannot possibly be anything other than Jewish or Christian.
Why is this? Many Zionists argue that their being in Palestinian territory is justified due to the Israelites' homeland being within that territory and as it was their ancestors' land it is therefore theirs, inherently. And of course this is an easy argument to refute because as we know if historically people's ancestors were living in a certain area and therefore their descendants receive such land, then of course this could be the same for plenty of other ethnic groups who were driven, captured, or otherwise from their homeland during ancient times.
Zionists, as a result of this argument, cannot look at their ideology as an historical argument that fundamentally allows them to take back land that was supposedly once theirs; they must use holy scripture to justify their presence, as the Book of Deuteronomy states that God proclaimed the Nation of Israel as the Hebrews' land.
This is the very basis of Zionist thought. There is no logical argument, as they know, to say that land that was once supposedly their ancestors', inherently belongs to them; therefore, they must resort to religious argument by proclaiming that God gave them that land.
This is why Zionism only works in the interests of Judeo-Christian texts and is as a result a flawed ideology that promotes the nationalism of those with no nation. You can just as easily be Jewish by birth in a Jewish family or convert to Judaism. Your ancestors don't have to be Israelites for you to be Jewish and so the very idea of any nationalism among Jews (and religious people in general) is not only baffling, it's just insane.
The establishment of Israel cannot be justified under any historical pretext or any other rational one. It can only be justified under Jewish and Christian text.

[Unicorn]

I don't mean this in a racialist kind of way. I'm referring to a diverse group of people with many elements of shared culture and a common ethnic identity. They deserve regional autonomy like all national groups do.

If you accept that anti-semitism exists, you accept the existence of a "Jewish nation". If you deny anti-semitism, you are crazy.
That is not the Marxist definition of a nation. The Jews who don't speak a common language do not constitute a nation and therefore have no such "right to autonomy".

It surprises me that you as a Maoist make that kind of claim because Stalin clearly said that Jews are not a nation.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm

[PRC-UTE]

I didn't say that; maybe you should address what I say, not something you have dredged up from your imagination and attributed to me. What I said was that nothing can be done about the creation of Israel, not injustice as a whole. Israel has been created, it exists, and it would be just as much an injustice to abolish it while remaining under capitalism. The progressive solution in Israel is to establish a non-partisan socialist state, like every other egion of the globe, which provides all people who live there with equality. Simply replacing the state of Israel with another, equally reactionary, capitalist state will do nothing to end injustice in Palestine/Israel.

I thought the hwole point was that Israel - a nation-state that oppresses non-Jews had to be replaced by a democratic state that respects the rights of all traditions (and yes, this will be socialist by necessity).

[Invader Zim]

I thought the hwole point was that Israel - a nation-state that oppresses non-Jews had to be replaced by a democratic state that respects the rights of all traditions (and yes, this will be socialist by necessity).

It depends on whom you are asking.

But in the case of this thread, it is not about the very far off solution to the Israel/Palestine (which as you say must, by necessity, be a socialist solution) situation, but about whether the creation of Israel was justified. The answer to that is obviously no, but my point is that while that is the case there is not a lot of point debating that outside of the realms of it being a interesting historical anecdote because short of complete international revolution there is not much to be done about it 60 years on. You might as well complain about the injustice of the Norman Conquest for all the good it will do you.

[PRC-UTE]

You might as well complain about the injustice of the Norman Conquest for all the good it will do you.

So what do you advocate? What are your politics?

[Invader Zim]

So what do you advocate? What are your politics?

I told you what my politics are:

"solution to the Israel/Palestine (which as you say must, by necessity, be a socialist solution) situation, but about whether the creation of Israel was justified. The answer to that is obviously no,"

"short of complete international revolution there is not much to be done"

"The progressive solution in Israel is to establish a non-partisan socialist state, like every other region of the globe, which provides all people who live there with equality. Simply replacing the state of Israel with another, equally reactionary, capitalist state will do nothing to end injustice in Palestine/Israel."

From the last two posts I have made in this thread.

[manic expression]

It depends on whom you are asking.

But in the case of this thread, it is not about the very far off solution to the Israel/Palestine (which as you say must, by necessity, be a socialist solution) situation, but about whether the creation of Israel was justified. The answer to that is obviously no, but my point is that while that is the case there is not a lot of point debating that outside of the realms of it being a interesting historical anecdote because short of complete international revolution there is not much to be done about it 60 years on. You might as well complain about the injustice of the Norman Conquest for all the good it will do you.

a.) It does matter whether or not the foundation of Israel was justified. If you don't believe me, argue with any Zionist, since the argument oftentimes touches upon this controversy. If it still comes up in arguments and disagreements, then it still matters purely by virtue of the prevailing discourse. Secondly, it matters historically, and I don't even need to explain to you why that is important.

b.) The comparison to the Norman Conquest is ridiculous. Even though such a claim doesn't really deserve to be treated seriously, I will anyway. The wounds caused by the Norman Conquest are long healed, and it's not like the Norman aristocracy is still oppressing the Ango-Saxon population. The wounds of Israel's foundation, on the other hand, are still very fresh, and the right of return (from the atrocity of al-Nakba in 1948) is still one of the central demands of the anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian movement.

South African apartheid, coincidentally, came into existence at almost the same time, and yet it would have been patently absurd to accuse the anti-apartheid movement of fighting an unimportant injustice in that very action.

The bottom line is that the foundation of Israel is an unjustice that is with us today, and therefore it must be fought today.

[Invader Zim]

a.) It does matter whether or not the foundation of Israel was justified. If you don't believe me, argue with any Zionist, since the argument oftentimes touches upon this controversy. If it still comes up in arguments and disagreements, then it still matters purely by virtue of the prevailing discourse. Secondly, it matters historically, and I don't even need to explain to you why that is important.

b.) The comparison to the Norman Conquest is ridiculous. Even though such a claim doesn't really deserve to be treated seriously, I will anyway. The wounds caused by the Norman Conquest are long healed, and it's not like the Norman aristocracy is still oppressing the Ango-Saxon population. The wounds of Israel's foundation, on the other hand, are still very fresh, and the right of return (from the atrocity of al-Nakba in 1948) is still one of the central demands of the anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian movement.

South African apartheid, coincidentally, came into existence at almost the same time, and yet it would have been patently absurd to accuse the anti-apartheid movement of fighting an unimportant injustice in that very action.

The bottom line is that the foundation of Israel is an unjustice that is with us today, and therefore it must be fought today.


a.) It does matter whether or not the foundation of Israel was justified.Nobody claimed it doesn't matter or that it is 'unimportant', as I have said (regarding this very same claim) to others, please address what is said, not some stance you have retrieved from the depths of your imagination and mistakenly attributed to other people.


The comparison to the Norman Conquest is ridiculous.Wrong. They are both examples of a foreign entity usurping the 'rights' of another group, and establishing control over said group.


and it's not like the Norman aristocracy is still oppressing the Ango-Saxon population.The Norman aristocracy became the 'English' aristocracy. And the wounds are not 'healed', the attempts by the Norman conquerers to extend their control over the entire region, have played a large part in the creation of the fractal state of national politics within the British Isle. To take the example of Wales, the idea of Welsh nationalism stems from the near near four centuries of violent invasion and rebellion against the Norman conquers of Britain from 1066 until the rise of Henry Tudor (Tewdwr) (the Son of Prophecy); and the hundreds of thousands of Welsh nationalists who live today and call for an independent Wales most certainly would not agree that the wounds have been 'healed'. I would also suggest that you look up the Norman invasion of Ireland, and what that has led to.



South African apartheid, coincidentally, came into existence at almost the same time,There is nothing coicidental about it, both are in part the result of post-war British policy towards its costly empire.

[manic expression]

Nobody claimed it doesn't matter or that it is 'unimportant', as I have said (regarding this very same claim) to others, please address what is said, not some stance you have retrieved from the depths of your imagination and mistakenly attributed to other people.

Then what, exactly, are you implying when you said:

What I said was that nothing can be done about the creation of Israel, not injustice as a whole. Israel has been created, it exists, and it would be just as much an injustice to abolish it while remaining under capitalism.

It seems you're dancing around the issue. If the foundation of Israel was unjustified, how could it be possibly as much of an injustice to abolish it? You need to justify your position.


Wrong. They are both examples of a foreign entity usurping the 'rights' of another group, and establishing control over said group.

Under completely different circumstances and with completely different motives. One was in a dynastic dispute, one wanted to establish an ethnically pure state. Yeah, it's exactly the same...if you ignore every condition surrounding them. You're comparing apples to a tossed garden salad (exactly like when you tried to convince everyone that modern ideas of race have existed since time immemorial).


The Norman aristocracy became the 'English' aristocracy. And the wounds are not 'healed', the attempts by the Norman conquerers to extend their control over the entire region, have played a large part in the creation of the fractal state of national politics within the British Isle. To take the example of Wales, the idea of Welsh nationalism stems from the near near four centuries of violent invasion and rebellion against the Norman conquers of Britain from 1066 until the rise of Henry Tudor (Tewdwr) (the Son of Prophecy); and the hundreds of thousands of Welsh nationalists who live today and call for an independent Wales most certainly would not agree that the wounds have been 'healed'. I would also suggest that you look up the Norman invasion of Ireland, and what that has led to.

Not that it matters, but that's an oversimplification, the Normans became "English" over time after their control of Normandy ended. And the wounds of William the Conqueror defeating King Harold have mostly ended, the other wounds you speak of are tertiary to what we're talking about. Lastly, the claims of nationalists shouldn't be taken as fact. Irish nationalists oftentimes view British (English and Scottish) involvement in Ireland as a foreign invasion, but in reality it was oftentimes the result of Irish warlords trying to gain an upper hand on one another. Hardly something stemming from the Battle of Hastings.


There is nothing coicidental about it, both are in part the result of post-war British policy towards its costly empire.

It's coincidental to your position. Surely, you wouldn't tell Nelson Mandela in 1985 that his struggle was over water under the bridge, right? Same deal here. The abolition of Afrikaner Apartheid was just and necessary, just as the abolition of Zionist Apartheid is just as needed.

[Invader Zim]

Then what, exactly, are you implying when you said:Exactly what I said.


It seems you're dancing around the issue.No, it doesn't. It seems like you are reading what has been said, and then stating that it says something totally different.


If the foundation of Israel was unjustified, how could it be possibly as much of an injustice to abolish it?Largely because, until socialism is adopted the replacement regime will be just as bad if not worse. Rather than one group being exploited it will simply be the other, an equally unsatisfactory position of benefit only to the ruling elite of the group in power. However should a socialist system be adopted, by either side, it won't matter whether the state is known as Israel or Palestine.

This is exactly what I said, above; how is that dancing round the issue? It is the only leftist solition; any other answer you may think you have is inherently reactionary as it clearly supports the position of the ruling elite as does any form of nationalism as it necessarily keeps the international working class, or on this level the Israeli and Palestinian working class, divided.

So sorry, if you don't agree with this, I rather think the person who needs to be justifing their position is you.



that modern ideas of race have existed since time immemorialAre you the person who attempted to suggest that race is 'capitalist' concept despite the fact that we have plenty of medieval sources which directly attribute skin colour to inherent superiority?


Not that it matters, but that's an oversimplification, the Normans became "English" over time after their control of Normandy ended.You're right, it is an oversimplification, but you are also right that your criticsm doesn't matter and that the point still stands.


And the wounds of William the Conqueror defeating King Harold have mostly ended,No, they haven't; I've explained this to you. If you want to contradict me; fine, but you are going to have to provide more than assertion.


Irish nationalists oftentimes view British (English and Scottish) involvement in Ireland as a foreign invasion, but in reality it was oftentimes the result of Irish warlords trying to gain an upper hand on one another. Hardly something stemming from the Battle of Hastings.You can challenge the Irish nationalists on their history all you like, but I don't see you providing any substancial challenge to the points I have raised.


Surely, you wouldn't tell Nelson Mandela in 1985 that his struggle was over water under the bridge, right?To quote you, 'you're comparing apples to a tossed garden salad'.

[manic expression]

Exactly what I said.

Then read exactly what I said and stop dancing.


No, it doesn't. It seems like you are reading what has been said, and then stating that it says something totally different.

No I'm not, you're dodging the implications of what you've said. See below.


Largely because, until socialism is adopted the replacement regime will be just as bad if not worse. Rather than one group being exploited it will simply be the other, an equally unsatisfactory position of benefit only to the ruling elite of the group in power. However should a socialist system be adopted, by either side, it won't matter whether the state is known as Israel or Palestine.

Multiracial South Africa is just as bad as apartheid South Africa.

Right? Wrong.


This is exactly what I said, above; how is that dancing round the issue? It is the only leftist solition; any other answer you may think you have is inherently reactionary as it clearly supports the position of the ruling elite as does any form of nationalism as it necessarily keeps the international working class, or on this level the Israeli and Palestinian working class, divided.

Wrong. The defeat of an inherently racist and imperialist state is a step for the workers of the world. What do you think Israel does? It promotes American imperialist interests; with Israel gone, that goes with it. South Africa is a good example of this. Using your logic, Mandela is just as bad as Verwoerd!


So sorry, if you don't agree with this, I rather think the person who needs to be justifing their position is you.

You haven't justified your own.


Are you the person who attempted to suggest that race is 'capitalist' concept despite the fact that we have plenty of medieval sources which directly attribute skin colour to inherent superiority?

No, that's not what I claimed. Perhaps you thought I claimed that then, which may explain a lot. What I claimed, something backed up by all the research on the issue, is that conceptions of race changed dramatically along with relations between different ethnicities. When slaves were freed in the British Empire, whites needed new categories with which to define race beyond "slave", "master" and "freeman". You opposed this obvious fact.


You're right, it is an oversimplification, but you are also right that your criticsm doesn't matter and that the point still stands.

No, I'm right in that your criticism has nothing to do with my point.


No, they haven't; I've explained this to you. If you want to contradict me; fine, but you are going to have to provide more than assertion.

I did. Perhaps you didn't read my response closely enough.


You can challenge the Irish nationalists on their history all you like, but I don't see you providing any substancial challenge to the points I have raised.

That was a challenge. A valid one. Your incapacity to see it is irrelevant.


To quote you, 'you're comparing apples to a tossed garden salad'.

So you're mistaken AND unoriginal.

[Invader Zim]

Then read exactly what I said and stop dancing.I have read exactly what you said; you are challenging statements and positions I haven't made or adhere to. I fail to see why I should justify positions I do not hold. For example i never claimed that it wasn't important or doesn't matter; I said that there is little to be done about it now; and qualified that with the exception of socialist revolution. Not the same thing as 'unimportant', wouldn't you say?


Multiracial South Africa is just as bad as apartheid South Africa.Again, thats not the same thing. I don't think it is too late for the Israeli's to begin treating Palestinians as equals; but that is not the same thing as national liberation.


The defeat of an inherently racist and imperialist state is a step for the workers of the world. But replacing it with another inherently racist and imperialist state is going to be an improvement. Of course I could be mistaken, and the ruling elite may turn out better than the rather low expectations I have of them, but I doubt it.


It promotes American imperialist interests; with Israel gone, that goes with it.Ah, so you would argue that another, equally reactionary capitalist state, which isn't in league with America is somehow going to be better for the population currently living in Israel/Palestine? Perhaps for the Palestinians, but I very much doubt it for the five a half million Israeli's and I also purport that the socialist solution is the only truly progressive one. But I doubt that any amount of debate is going to change your mind.


You haven't justified your own.Not to you perhaps, but I still maintain that a fair portion of your criticsms attack position I don't actually hold.


is that conceptions of race changed dramatically along with relations between different ethnicities.This is a differen't discussion; but actually you claimed that "race and other concepts are all capitalist ideas". Your ammended position "conceptions of race changed dramatically along with relations between different ethnicities" makes much more sense and I agree with it for the most part; but the idea that race and in turn racism is a capitalist ideal is just plain wrong.


No, I'm right in that your criticism has nothing to do with my point.We are going to have to agree to disagree on that one.


I did."And the wounds of William the Conqueror defeating King Harold have mostly ended,"

That is an assertion, and which think contradicts the facts; if you have some information I am unaware of on this topic please do share it.


That was a challenge. A valid one.Actually, that too is an assertion; one you purport to be valid, yet haven't provided any evidence to support it. And, while I don't mean this to be offensive, I very doubt you have understanding or knowledge of the history in question to be able to support your assertion if you were to put your point to Irish nationalists, or be it about Welsh or Scottish nationalists for that matter. Certainly in the case of Welsh history I think you are way off the mark.


So you're mistaken AND unoriginal.For the former, so you keep saying and for the latter [insert plagiarised witticism here].

[manic expression]

I have read exactly what you said; you are challenging statements and positions I haven't made or adhere to. I fail to see why I should justify positions I do not hold. For example i never claimed that it wasn't important or doesn't matter; I said that there is little to be done about it now; and qualified that with the exception of socialist revolution. Not the same thing as 'unimportant', wouldn't you say?

Wouldn't you say that the destruction of an imperialist state based on racism would be a good thing? That is basically my contention here.


Again, thats not the same thing. I don't think it is too late for the Israeli's to begin treating Palestinians as equals; but that is not the same thing as national liberation.

The Zionists have had their share of chances to treat Palestinians with a modicum of respect; they failed each time. It's very little different than what the Afrikaners did in South Africa, the Palestinians have been pushed onto small pieces of economically insufficient land while all else was occupied by the imperialists. If you think the apartheid and its Bantustans bear no resemblance to Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, then I suggest you look again.


But replacing it with another inherently racist and imperialist state is going to be an improvement. Of course I could be mistaken, and the ruling elite may turn out better than the rather low expectations I have of them, but I doubt it.

I agree with the last part: a Palestinian state doesn't have to be racist. A South Africa dominated by black Africans isn't very racist, so Palestine could achieve the same. A difficult goal? Of course. Worth fighting for? Yes.


Ah, so you would argue that another, equally reactionary capitalist state, which isn't in league with America is somehow going to be better for the population currently living in Israel/Palestine?

Yes.


Perhaps for the Palestinians, but I very much doubt it for the five a half million Israeli's and I also purport that the socialist solution is the only truly progressive one. But I doubt that any amount of debate is going to change your mind.

The 5.5 million Israelis aren't all in support of Israel, although unfortunately their electorate keeps electing lunatics into office. At any rate, a non-racist Palestinian state wouldn't hurt them too much, the Afrikaners are doing OK for the most part.

And I completely agree that the socialist solution is the progressive one, but national liberation, IMO, is part of that. To me, the end of racist rule in the region would be great progress on which to build greater things on.


Not to you perhaps, but I still maintain that a fair portion of your criticsms attack position I don't actually hold.

That might be so, but it seems we're actually getting down to what we disagree upon, which is an improvement I guess.


This is a differen't discussion; but actually you claimed that "race and other concepts are all capitalist ideas". Your ammended position "conceptions of race changed dramatically along with relations between different ethnicities" makes much more sense and I agree with it for the most part; but the idea that race and in turn racism is a capitalist ideal is just plain wrong.

Then I misspoke. I was trying to say that the connection between the modern nation-state and race was a recent development, which is tied to the development of capitalism.


We are going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

Fair enough.


"And the wounds of William the Conqueror defeating King Harold have mostly ended,"

That is an assertion, and which think contradicts the facts; if you have some information I am unaware of on this topic please do share it.

I've already provided examples for this. If you don't agree then fine, this isn't really an important point.


Actually, that too is an assertion; one you purport to be valid, yet haven't provided any evidence to support it. And, while I don't mean this to be offensive, I very doubt you have understanding or knowledge of the history in question to be able to support your assertion if you were to put your point to Irish nationalists, or be it about Welsh or Scottish nationalists for that matter. Certainly in the case of Welsh history I think you are way off the mark.

I read that very thing (Irish warlords inviting English and Scottish involvement to Ireland as part of power struggles) in a review on early Irish-British history somewhere. I'll try to find it. The guy was from Oxford IIRC.

By the way, I thought that the Welsh had been at odds with the English since the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; I don't think the Normans started that conflict, they mostly inherited it.


For the former, so you keep saying and for the latter [insert plagiarised witticism here].

[Insert snarky remark here].

[Invader Zim]

Wouldn't you say that the destruction of an imperialist state based on racism would be a good thing?Personally I see the destruction of all states as being a good thing, and I fail to see the point in destroying one state for the benefit of the ruling elite of another racist state. I also don't see why the destruction of the state is at all necessary; the elimination of the racist policies on the part of the Israeli elite, should be the goal, eliminating the state and replacing it is neither here nor there.


It's very little different than what the Afrikaners did in South Africa, the Palestinians have been pushed onto small pieces of economically insufficient land while all else was occupied by the imperialists.

In some areas it is similar, but the aim of the Palestinians is very different from that of the South African people, and also the demographics also make it increasingly difficult to see a change in state that will last.


a Palestinian state doesn't have to be racist.Indeed they don't have to be, but I suspect they will be.


By the way, I thought that the Welsh had been at odds with the English since the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; I don't think the Normans started that conflict, they mostly inherited it.The Wales as a single political entity did not exist. They had their own small lordships and kingdoms, such as Gwynedd (in the North), Powys (in the middle), Deheubarth (in the south), and a shit load of other small lordships and until Llywelyn the last very few managed to gain control over all the kingdoms and as soon as they did they soon lost control. It was as much a reaction to the threat from the Norman/English border that Welsh unity (through invasion and rebellion), came into being. The key points in generating political unity in Wales all see the threat of English/Norman rule or even attempt at rebellion from that rule. You can see that from the point of the Norman invasion to the end of the medieval period. Significant land marks being the invasion of the various kingdoms of Wales within ten years of the Norman invasion. Others later in the middle ages include the rise of Llywelyn the Great, Llywelyn the last, Owain Lawgoch, Owain Glyndŵr, etc.

[PRC-UTE]

I told you what my politics are:

"solution to the Israel/Palestine (which as you say must, by necessity, be a socialist solution) situation, but about whether the creation of Israel was justified. The answer to that is obviously no,"

"short of complete international revolution there is not much to be done"

"The progressive solution in Israel is to establish a non-partisan socialist state, like every other region of the globe, which provides all people who live there with equality. Simply replacing the state of Israel with another, equally reactionary, capitalist state will do nothing to end injustice in Palestine/Israel."

From the last two posts I have made in this thread.

I read that already, thanks. What I was wanting to know is something more concrete, what is to be done and what stance socialists should take now.

[PRC-UTE]

I have never said that this is their 'motivation'. I amsure that many of them see themselves as genuine socialists. That said I believe, and you too have admitted, that they end up 'being drawn into sectarian violence'. I think that this violence plays its part in dividing the working class.

You're confusing cause and effect.

The British created the sectarian divisions to start with, prior to any republican movement. The republicans attempted to transcend these divisions (which is why the common leftist slur of 'nationalist' doesn't really fit). The fact that republicans failed doesn't say as much about republicans as it does the very difficult odds they face.



Are you seriously claiming that Irish republicanism, or Palestinian nationalism for that matter, is a wholly working class movement?

Considering that I stated earlier the negative effects of class collaboration on these anti-imperialist movements, I'm not sure where you'd get that one.



The 'the national democratic revolution' belongs to the century before last and has nothing to offer the working class today.

Cos tolerating ethnic clensing, the destruction of their homes and water supplies have something to offer the working class today?

As stated before, you'd have a bit more credibility if you had a concrete alternative to the anti-imperialist politics you dismiss.



I would tell people if I thought what they were doing was anti-working class. However bad their experiences at the hands of different nationalist gangsters had been.


You use the term 'nationalist gangsters' even when it makes no sense- Loyalists certainly aren't nationalists, wouldn't even claim to be, and it's obvious from context what I was referring to. I don't mention this for the sake of being pedantic but to point out how weak you are about the politics of national liberation, not bothering to examine the issue in any meaningful detail.

[manic expression]

Personally I see the destruction of all states as being a good thing, and I fail to see the point in destroying one state for the benefit of the ruling elite of another racist state. I also don't see why the destruction of the state is at all necessary; the elimination of the racist policies on the part of the Israeli elite, should be the goal, eliminating the state and replacing it is neither here nor there.

First of all, cheering the destruction of all states is simply naive. If Cuba were to fall to the capitalists, it would not be something to cheer when it came to the welfare of the Cuban people. Secondly, a Palestinian state need not be racist, I'm not sure where you're getting this assumption from. If you're going to make a conclusion on something like that and stick to it, there's nothing to talk about because you've obviously already made up your mind when everyone else would rather discuss the matter.


In some areas it is similar, but the aim of the Palestinians is very different from that of the South African people, and also the demographics also make it increasingly difficult to see a change in state that will last.

How are their aims different? How are the demographics different? Bear in mind that the Palestinian population is growing much faster than the (Jewish) Israeli population.


Indeed they don't have to be, but I suspect they will be.

And IMO, that's what this comes down to: your suspicions.


The Wales as a single political entity did not exist. They had their own small lordships and kingdoms, such as Gwynedd (in the North), Powys (in the middle), Deheubarth (in the south), and a shit load of other small lordships and until Llywelyn the last very few managed to gain control over all the kingdoms and as soon as they did they soon lost control. It was as much a reaction to the threat from the Norman/English border that Welsh unity (through invasion and rebellion), came into being. The key points in generating political unity in Wales all see the threat of English/Norman rule or even attempt at rebellion from that rule. You can see that from the point of the Norman invasion to the end of the medieval period. Significant land marks being the invasion of the various kingdoms of Wales within ten years of the Norman invasion. Others later in the middle ages include the rise of Llywelyn the Great, Llywelyn the last, Owain Lawgoch, Owain Glyndŵr, etc.

Neat. I still don't think the Normans singlehandedly caused it, the English-Welsh division (not necessarily marked politically but culturally) had long been established by then. The Normans may have forced the Welsh together, but that is, again, something they inherited.

[Comrade_Scott]

yes for the simple fact that everyone deserves a place to call there home. however i do support the two state argument that is the land being divided and shared among the palestinians and israiles.

[Invader Zim]

what is to be doneIsrael's racist policies, they should be opposed on every level.

The issue of soverignty is a much more complex question with an even more complex answer; indeed an answer which I personally cannot provide. To be perfectly honest, if I knew how to solve the problem of Israe prior to socialist revolution, I wouldn't be sat here complaining to you that 60 years on the problem of Israel is an increasingly difficult nut to crack. On the one hand you can argue that we should call for the state to be abolished and replaced with a Palestinian state; however this would go directly against the wishes of the majority who now live there. As many of them, millions in fact, were born in the region and it is indeed likely that their parents were born in the region it is somewhat unfair to punish them, by disenfranchisement, for follies committed before they were concieved or their parents were concieved. Yet on the other hand it is utterly unjust that the Palestinian people should be stripped of soverignty. So I am afraid to say, short of a socialist solution, I have no answers and think that anyone who claims they do is woefully shortsighted; and that is my whole point.


How are their aims different?National liberation vs civil rights. Though the latter is a part of the former in the case of Palestine.


And IMO, that's what this comes down to: your suspicions.I think there is plenty of evidence, if one is to look at some of the more prominent nationalist Palestinian groups, that if they were to have a major contribution in the operation of the state it would be distinctly unfavourable to the now majority population living there.


I still don't think the Normans singlehandedly caused it,Probably not, it is usually foolish to talk in absolutes when discussing history. But I would certainly argue that the Norman invasion is a key factor.

[PRC-UTE]

Israel's racist policies, they should be opposed on every level.

The issue of soverignty is a much more complex question with an even more complex answer; indeed an answer which I personally cannot provide. To be perfectly honest, if I knew how to solve the problem of Israe prior to socialist revolution, I wouldn't be sat here complaining to you that 60 years on the problem of Israel is an increasingly difficult nut to crack. On the one hand you can argue that we should call for the state to be abolished and replaced with a Palestinian state; however this would go directly against the wishes of the majority who now live there. As many of them, millions in fact, were born in the region and it is indeed likely that their parents were born in the region it is somewhat unfair to punish them, by disenfranchisement, for follies committed before they were concieved or their parents were concieved. Yet on the other hand it is utterly unjust that the Palestinian people should be stripped of soverignty. So I am afraid to say, short of a socialist solution, I have no answers and think that anyone who claims they do is woefully shortsighted; and that is my whole point.


Fair enough, mate, thanks for the response.

[Invader Zim]

Fair enough, mate, thanks for the response.
Any time. I must say I suspected you would be less than enamoured by that responce, many other radical leftists I have spoken with tend to have very specific ways they would deal with this situation; how would you deal with it?

[kotahitanga whenua]

:che::che::che:shame on the comrades who voted yes. israle justifis it self with a fake book the bigest book of lies ever. im from a nation who were colinized it aint nice.this site has a lot of members the revolution would purged.sorry but im stalinist all the way.guevara was the same

[Led Zeppelin]

yes for the simple fact that everyone deserves a place to call there home.

This is a totally contradictory statement.

If everyone deserves "a place to call their home" then it wasn't justified because they had to remove that place for other people in order to have it for themselves.

[PRC-UTE]

Any time. I must say I suspected you would be less than enamoured by that responce, many other radical leftists I have spoken with tend to have very specific ways they would deal with this situation; how would you deal with it?

I'd agree with you about opposing its racist policies in any way possible.

And there's loads of racist countries out there, I know. Some Arab countries are if anything even more racist. But as Israel is tied to the US/UK power bloc, and supported by them to an extent that the situation cannot be resolved as it would otherwise be. I see its removal as potentially opening up a more revolutionary situation. much the same way South Africa was as a proxy by the US/UK to fight communist and progressive forces on the Africa continent.

And by its removal, I'd only support a democratic republic that ensures the rights of all people, whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, Arab or European. However as you've said, socialism is the only way it can be completed, carried through all the way, mostly because the bourgeoisie have zero interest in truly resolving the conflict, much the opposite. that doens't mean that resistance now can't play a vital, even irreducable role in a resolution at a later date.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Whether you support Israel or not, it exists and it ain't going anywhere; justification be damned.

TGOW

[Led Zeppelin]

Why did Marxist1917 and nvm vote Yes on this?

Justify your views.

[Yehuda Stern]

[I have posted this already, but it got deleted because of some server problem, I believe]

First off, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Yehuda Stern and I am a member of a small group of Israeli Trotskyists called the Internationalist Socialist League. We support the establishment of a Palestinian workers' state stretching from the Jordan to the Sea, where Jews who wish to live in peace can have equal rights up to a cultural anatomy (but never territorial anatomy, which could be used to revive Zionism and as a basis for attacks against the fledgling Palestinian state). We take a state capitalist view of the USSR, but unlike the Cliffites (the British SWP) we hold that the law of value wasn't brought into Russia from the outside by imperialist pressures, but was caused by the fact that the USSR was a transitional state until the late 30s and an imperialist state from then onwards. In the third world, notably in Palestine and Lebanon, we believe revolutionaries should form a military front with bourgeois forces when they are in a conflict with imperialism. Imperialism is the main enemy of mankind, not reactionary third-world ideologies such as Islamic fundamentalism and bourgeois nationalism. Every defeat for imperialism is a victory for the working class.

Sadly, I must say that these positions contrast sharply with those voiced in the rest of this thread. Many of you believe that Israel can be defended because of anti-Semitism, which Israel fuels and which the Zionist movement has never fought and has often cooperated with, because of Soviet foreign policy, which was throughly reactionary even before the Russian state became imperialist, because the racist Zionist state can be reformed, or because Israel "exists and isn't going anywhere." The last two viewpoints, needless to say, are classic reformism.

Let us begin from the start: what is the Israeli state? Is it, like the Zionists claim, the state of the world Jewish nation? Is it an imperialist state in the classic sense, like the USA or Britain, where the majority of workers can develop a revolutionary consciousness and fight "its" state? Or is it a colonialist state, much like South Africa or ex-Rhodesia? Most of the members of this forum seem to support the second position. The first can only be supported by utter closet-Zionists; both Lenin and Trotsky, never mind Marx, saw right through the claim that the Jews of the world can form a nation. That is an anti-materialist position which holds that a group without territorial continuity can be considered a nation. It is actually the classic position of anti-Semitism, which holds that Jews form a separate nation / race and thus can never become part of the nation. No wonder that many supporters of the anti-Semitic, Stalinist, East European dictatorships support this position.

What then, of the position that the working class in Israel is a revolutionary class? On the level of appearances, the Israeli Jewish workers are like any workers in the world. Not only that, but they are exploited on a far worse qualitative level because of the historical weakness of revolutionary organizations in Israel. But if exploitation was our criteria for whether or not a class is objectively revolutionary, that is, capable of reaching a revolutionary consciousness, then we would not need to have a specifically working class revolution. The fact is that the Jewish workers in Israel are privileged and form a sort of labor aristocracy in relation to their Palestinian class brothers.

This does not mean that there will not be Jews in the revolutionary party in Israel. We believe that under the effect of revolutionary events in the world, a significant minority of Jewish Israeli workers can be won over to the proletarian revolution. But to view Israel as a classic case of an imperialist state when it was in fact formed by a colonialist movement which expelled a million Palestinians from their homes is to fool oneself and others, and consequently to disorientate revolutionaries in Palestine, the Middle East, and the world. As we can see from this thread, this also leads more often than not to actual support for reformist positions in the Zionist state.

One way in which this position manifests itself is when one of you asked why it is necessary to destroy Israel when it could simply be reformed into a "democratic" state (whatever that means in the context of Israeli imperialism). One should try to ask himself if the USA can be reformed so that it would not be racist towards blacks, or if Britain could stop oppressing Ireland of its own accord. (How many readers are already musing that "American blacks have already won civil rights" or that "Ireland is on the road to independence," I wonder. Israeli reformists were singing the same tune about the Oslo Accords before. How long has it been?)

I hardly even know what to say about the position that "Israel exists and isn't going anywhere, justification be damned." This could easily be said about every capitalist state, capitalism itself, anything in existence. But the permanence of existing things is a reformist conception, not a revolutionary one.

Some of you have written that some Zionists have opposed the setting up of Israel. While some very small Zionist groups had reservations about setting up a Zionist state, wanting to wait longer so that they could take more territory, every Zionist group, from the revisionists all the way to Mapam (Zionist Stalinists) and the Stalinist Communist Party, took part in the expulsion and murder of the Palestinian people. Even centrist groups supported Zionism indirectly: the Revolutionary Tendency of the American SWP, the predecessor of the Spartacist League, and Hal Draper, later of the American ISO, supported the right of the "Israelis" for self-determination. This position was later echoed by the semi-Zionist Matzpen, a centrist multi-tendency group in Israel.

The Palestinian centrists, the Revolutionary Communist League, took a neutralist position in 1947-8, as do some of you regarding Israeli aggression against Palestine (or the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" as some refer to it). They consider that this is a revolutionary position, that support of the national liberation struggle is a capitulation to the national bourgeoisie. They forget what Lenin wrote on the subject:

"The epoch of 1789-1871 left deep tracts and revolutionary memories. Before feudalism, absolutism and alien oppression were overthrown, the development of the proletarian struggle for Socialism was out of the question. When speaking of the legitimacy of “defensive” war in relation to the wars of such an epoch, Socialists always had in mind precisely these objects, which amounted to revolution against medievalism and serfdom. By “defensive” war Socialists always meant a “just” war in this sense (W. Liebknecht once expressed himself precisely in this way). Only in this sense have Socialists regarded, and now regard, wars “for the defence of the fatherland”, or “defensive” wars, as legitimate, progressive and just. For example, if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just”, “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slaveowning, predatory “great” powers." (Socialism and War)

And Trotsky as well (he discusses Marx's and Engels' positions as well, for those "pure Marxists"):

"During the past few days I have been reading some of the lucubrations of the Oehlerites and the Eiffelites 176 (yes, there is a tendency of that sort!) on the civil war in Spain and on the SinoJapanese War. Lenin called the ideas of these people "infantile disorders." A sick child arouses sympathy. But twenty years have passed since then. The children have become bearded and even bald. But they have not ceased their childish babblings. On the contrary, they have increased all their faults and all their foolishness tenfold and have added ignominies to them. They follow us step by step. They borrow some of the elements of our analysis. They distort these elements without limit and counterpose them to the rest. They correct us. When we draw a human figure, they add a deformity. When it is a woman, they decorate her with a heavy moustache. When we draw a rooster, they put an egg under it. And they call all this burlesque Marxism and Leninism.

I want to stop to discuss in this letter only the Sino-Japanese War. In my declaration to the bourgeois press, I said that the duty of all the workers' organizations of China was to participate actively and in the front lines of the present war against Japan, without abandoning, for a single moment, their own program and independent activity. But that is "social patriotism!" the Eiffelites cry. It is capitulation to Chiang Kai-shek! It is the abandonment of the principle of the class struggle! Bolshevism preached revolutionary defeatism in the imperialist war. Now, the war in Spain and the Sino-Japanese War are both imperialist wars. "Our position on the war in China is the same. The only salvation of the workers and peasants of China is to struggle independently against the two armies, against the Chinese army in the same manner as against the Japanese army." These four lines, taken from an Eiffelite document of September 10, 1937, suffice entirely for us to say: we are concerned here with either real traitors or complete imbeciles. But imbecility, raised to this degree, is equal to treason.

We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy . . . at all events, Catholic reactionaries. When Abdel-Krim rose up against France, the democrats and Social Democrats spoke with hate of the struggle of a "savage tyrant" against the "democracy." The party of Leon Blum supported this point of view. But we, Marxists and Bolsheviks, considered the struggle of the Riffians against imperialist domination as a progressive war.l77 Lenin wrote hundreds of pages demonstrating the primary necessity of distinguishing between imperialist nations and the colonial and semicolonial nations which comprise the great majority of humanity. To speak of "revolutionary defeatism" in general, without distinguishing between exploiter and exploited countries, is to make a miserable caricature of Bolshevism and to put that caricature at the service of the imperialists." (On the Sino-Japanese War)

One last thing, on the Israeli CWI section. First of all, there is not, nor has there been, to the best of my knowledge, a single Palestinian member of Maavak Sozyalisti. If there has been, he has never been in a demonstration. Either way, the Israeli CWI section is, like all sections of that international, highly opportunist, and carries a highly economistic tone. Their position is a socialist confederation, which is a fancy way to say two separate states; when they hand out leaflets in Arabic (a rarity indeed) they are completely different from their Hebrew ones. To demonstrate their chauvinism, in one article they wrote about the struggles of the people of Jaffa against the destruction of their homes. Too bad the article does not once refer to those people as “Arabs” or “Palestinians” - presumably the militant anti-racists do not want Zionist workers to know that they associate with Arabs.

Edit: When I posted this yesterday, someone claimed that this last bit was 'sectarian.' Well, a sectarian is a person who refuses to work in the mass movement (trade unions, anti-war movements, etc.) on a principled instead of a tactical basis. A person who criticizes others on the left is not. The fact that we have a civilized and fruitful discussion on a web forum should not create the illusion in our minds that there is a left 'family.' In the end we are political rivals, and we not only can but must criticize each other. He who refuses to criticize others and expects them not to criticize him merely exposes his insecurity about his own politics and his expectation that centrist groups will cover each others backs in the face of criticism from revolutionaries. This is the political basis for the unprincipled blocs manifested in the various Socialist Alliances and multi-tendency parties (i.e. CBGB) of the world left.

[Charliesoo]

I am in the minority here.

I believe in some ways it was justified. Not for recent occurances though. Call it historical nostalgia. Yes, that was thousands of years ago and the people who suffered from the events of the uprisings in 70 A.D. are long dead. But that event and the subsequent diaspora basically sum up why I feel the creation of the state of Israel is justified.

[Led Zeppelin]

I am in the minority here.

I believe in some ways it was justified. Not for recent occurances though. Call it historical nostalgia. Yes, that was thousands of years ago and the people who suffered from the events of the uprisings in 70 A.D. are long dead. But that event and the subsequent diaspora basically sum up why I feel the creation of the state of Israel is justified.

Then you are not a Marxist, that's an absurd reason to support that.

Yehuda Stern, that was a pretty good first post, it's just a shame that you had to inject a dose of baseless sectarianism in at the end, but I guess that's what all members of sects have to do; they need to justify their existence somehow.

[zelda]

I wouldn't and won't answer this poll or any polls. Tricky, almost sneaky, and a trap.

[Charliesoo]

Then you are not a Marxist, that's an absurd reason to support that.

Yehuda Stern, that was a pretty good first post, it's just a shame that you had to inject a dose of baseless sectarianism in at the end, but I guess that's what all members of sects have to do; they need to justify their existence somehow.

I am the first to admit attrocities that are being committed by the state of Israel. Such as the establishment of Jewish colonies in the West Bank in an attempt to cede more territory into their realm. I am not saying that the state of Israel is in any way "innocent". Vast atrocities have been committed by that government against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have a right to be angry and to demand their land back from the foreigners that have established Israel. I am very angry that Israel blockades the Palestinians and forces them into arid regions. Much as the United States and Australia have done with their own indigenious people.

[Yehuda Stern]

Led Zeppelin: Yeah, I've read your little protest before and have replied to it in the edit. No one is impressed by the Grantite newspeak about 'sects' and 'sectarians.' The fact is, your Israeli section is 100% Jewish chauvinist, and I'm willing to prove it any time.

Two Zionists have written after my post in this thread. One refuses to answer on the basis that the poll is a 'trap' - how so? Baseless statements cannot mask the fact that those who refuse to voice an opposition to Zionism are in the end Zionists themselves.

The other Zionist is not a Zionist in any abstract or indirect way - he is a Zionist because he supports Israel for exactly the same reasons stated by the Zionist movement - because of the Jews' exodus (which never happened outside the Bible) and their past in this land. Such people cannot be won over to an anti-Zionist viewpoint by political arguments. They are completely and decidedly on the other side of the class line.

[Charliesoo]

which never happened outside the Bible

I am not religious and was unaware of that. I was under the belief that it was verified by sources outside of the Bible. If what you stated is true then I am mistaken.

[Red Romeo]

It is my opinion that the establishment of the state of Israel was justified although the methods used in said establishment were not. If there would have been a willigness of the Palestinian people to accept the jewish immigrants or at the very least compensation for their land I would have no problem with the existence of the state of Israel.

[Yehuda Stern]

I am not religious and was unaware of that. I was under the belief that it was verified by sources outside of the Bible. If what you stated is true then I am mistaken.

Well, you are. Basically, the only things we can verify from the Old Testament is that the cities mentioned in the Bible did exist, but did not belong to a single state: Yehuda and Israel were probably either quite loose federations of city states or just separate altogether (this explains the constant strife and rampant idol worship mentioned often in the Bible).

Also, an Israeli peace activist called Shlomo Sand published a book titled "Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?" (When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) His theory, while remaining in the bourgeois-Zionist sphere of thought, is that there was never a deportation of the Jews, and on the contrary - the majority of ancient Jews assimilated successfully into the communities of the Levant and were quite influential in them.

Even if the Jews' deportation did happen, by the way, the modern Jews mostly have nothing to do with them - the European Jews are mostly the descendants of the Khazars, the Eastern European Turkic people whose ruling class converted to Judaism in eighth or ninth century. The Jews of Yemen, for example, are known to be converted Muslims.

Finally, allow me to tell you that if you aren't religious, I for one could not tell. Why would a non-religious person support a state like Israel based only on the belief that they are the continuation of some ancient Semitic race mentioned in the Bible? That makes absolutely no sense.


If there would have been a willigness of the Palestinian people to accept the jewish immigrants or at the very least compensation for their land I would have no problem with the existence of the state of Israel.

Could the Palestinians accept the Zionist theft of their lands without struggle? Is the duty of revolutionaries to encourage third world peoples to accept the colonization of their countries? Could there have a non-violent way to establish Israel in the face of this inevitable mass opposition? Of course not.

"Or at the very least compensation for their land" is really precious. You sound like a Meretznik (Zionist social democrat). Do the Zionists, in your opinion, have the right to decide for the Palestinians whether or not they get their land or compensation?

Even if everything else I said didn't matter or was untrue, and Israel could have been set up peacefully, without the nakba happening, how could you support the existence of an imperialist, capitalist state?

[Wanted Man]

It is my opinion that the establishment of the state of Israel was justified although the methods used in said establishment were not. If there would have been a willigness of the Palestinian people to accept the jewish immigrants or at the very least compensation for their land I would have no problem with the existence of the state of Israel.
I think that's a terrible argument: "It's the Palestinians' fault because they didn't want to compromise." Are you American? Let's use the USA as an example: what if another country asked you for a "compromise" of giving away all the big economically strong cities on the east coast? It'd be a "fair" division, as you'd still have the west coast... Of course, you refuse, so they invade you and win. Every economical centre gets ethnically cleansed, and the remaining Americans all have to live together in Utah, while an apartheid system is instituted in the rest of the country.

Now, living in Utah sucks, and the rest of the US was basically stolen from you, so you start fighting back. But you only have rockets, while they have the most modern bombers. So they bomb the hell out of Salt Lake City, and claim that they have to do it because you are a "coward" and "hiding among your own civilians". Meanwhile, they try to build settlements in the best areas, driving all the Americans away. Oh, and they also build a wall, just to be safe. You elect politicians with an extreme agenda, but who have sworn to fight the occupation. So they bomb you some more as "reprisals".

You've had enough, and you flee to Europe or Canada. And guess what you get there? Snooty "leftists" telling you that it's your own fault for refusing the fair compromise! :ohmy:

[Led Zeppelin]

Led Zeppelin: Yeah, I've read your little protest before and have replied to it in the edit. No one is impressed by the Grantite newspeak about 'sects' and 'sectarians.' The fact is, your Israeli section is 100% Jewish chauvinist, and I'm willing to prove it any time.

I didn't realize Jewish chauvinists wrote on their organization's website that they seek a single state solution with full equality for both Palestinians and Jews.

It's funny that you call me a "Grantite", because it shows that you actually know nothing of the CWI's history. For your information the "Grantites" are the IMT, the section which split from the CWI about two decades ago.

You are a member of the Israeli section of the SWP, correct? So then you "unconditionally support Hezbollah and Hamas", correct?

To criticize other organizations while holding such a contemptible position yourself is rather petty, don't you think?

As for the definition of sectarianism; You are wrong. It means putting the interest of your own little sect above the interest of the working-class movement, and that doesn't just include "unions, anti-war movements etc." but also other revolutionary leftist organizations.

But that is beside the point, I never called you a sectarian for merely criticizing other organizations, that's your job, how else could you justify the existence of your sect? I criticized you for baselessly criticizing other organizations, which is exactly what you did.

You see, for all the "proof" that you can dig up I can dig up an equal amount from the CWI's section there about your sect, you know what the difference is between me and you?

I don't believe most of either of them.

[Yehuda Stern]

There's a saying in Hebrew, siyag lekhokhma - shtika, which means basically that it is wise to not speak of something you know nothing about. Your claim that you know better than me about Maavak Soziyalisti's politics is ludicrous seeing as you don't read Hebrew. I do, and I have in my possession pamphlets they have distributed at demonstrations. Your outright lying merely shows that you are somewhat hysterical at running out of argument outside the Grantite sectarian newspeak.

And yes, I am calling you a Grantite. I know very well what the CWI is and what the IMT is, having been a member of the latter. Both share the same reformist politics, with small, shallow differences, due to a somewhat different base in the petty-bourgeoisie.

And no, I am not a member of the SWP, and this is why I say you are lying - I clearly stated in my earlier post that our theory of state capitalism is unlike that of the Cliffites. In fact we have no organizational or historical links to them and have only had a short contact with them after being expelled from the IMT for defending the Palestinians against Israel. Some of us have always opposed this contact as well, and all of us agreed shortly after it started that the SWP is a national-reformist group.

Like I said before, Grantite newspeak on sectarianism does not impress me. I do not 'dig up' evidence - I find it on the website of your Jewish chauvinist comrades. That their English website is perhaps more 'liberal' is no coincidence - it's classic Zionist mentality. Haaretz English is also far more liberal than the Hebrew print edition.

By the way:


I didn't realize Jewish chauvinists wrote on their organization's website that they seek a single state solution with full equality for both Palestinians and Jews.They do not. Maybe on their English website. Their position, when they speak Hebrew, is a socialist confederation of Israel and Palestine, which is just a new twist on the two state solution.

[Led Zeppelin]

Like I said before, Grantite newspeak on sectarianism does not impress me. I do not 'dig up' evidence - I find it on the website of your Jewish chauvinist comrades. That their English website is perhaps more 'liberal' is no coincidence - it's classic Zionist mentality. Haaretz English is also far more liberal than the Hebrew print edition.

By the way:

They do not. Maybe on their English website. Their position, when they speak Hebrew, is a socialist confederation of Israel and Palestine, which is just a new twist on the two state solution.

Ok then go on, translate some pieces from the Jewish version of their website proving that they are "Jewish Chauvinists" and provide links.

Also, how exactly is a socialist confederation the same as a "two state solution" within the context of capitalism?

Are you serious or are you just joking here? I can't tell the difference.

[Yehuda Stern]

Are you serious or are you just joking here? I can't tell the difference.

On this I can help you - when someone is joking, he is usually smiling or laughing. If not he is probably serious. I cannot, for the life of me, though, explain to you why supporting the existence of two separate states is no different than a two-state position, or why supporting the existence of Israel isn't Jewish chauvinism, if is isn't clear to you by now. Try some grammar or a dictionary.

[Leo]

Yahuda Stern; I won't claim to know much about how it is in Israel, but I have to admit that I can't help thinking that although you are very close, I sort of get the feeling that Israelis are really isolated from the situation and the society in Gaza and West Bank.

You are talking about the Palestinians in the exact same way leftists from West are talking about the "little brown people" who should be "supported at all costs" since their societies have no classes, since workers there have no class interests, since they are not "high" and "developed" enough. I think your comments in one of your earlier posts makes this clear enough:


In the third world, notably in Palestine and Lebanon, we believe revolutionaries should form a military front with bourgeois forces when they are in a conflict with imperialism. Imperialism is the main enemy of mankind, not reactionary third-world ideologies such as Islamic fundamentalism and bourgeois nationalism. Every defeat for imperialism is a victory for the working class.

This is nothing but a disgustingly arrogant and patronizing attitude towards revolutionaries and workers of the "little brown lands". Calling for the workers and revolutionaries to unite with nationalist or even democratic bourgeois forces is calling for them to be slaughtered in the hands of those forces. Besides, imperialism is a world system and all those nationalist bourgeois movements are, and have always been parts of imperialist blocks, owe their existence to imperialist powers, and have imperialist interests which they pursue, albeit on a smaller scale. Supporting them is not an opposition to imperialism: it is supporting imperialism itself.

The only revolutionary position, to be held by all revolutionaries regardless of whether they are from the "Third World" or the "First World" is the uncompromising fraternalization, unity and common struggle of the entire working class in the entire world in order to destroy all states of the bourgeoisie and overthrow the capitalist ruling class. In Israel, the only revolutionary position is one that would call for the fraternalization of Palestinian and Jewish workers with each other, with the rest of the Arab, Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, Azeri, Armenian etc. workers in the region, and with the workers of the whole world, against all local, regional and global capitalist-imperialist powers. All other attitudes betray internationalism.

On a sidepoint:


We take a state capitalist view of the USSR, but unlike the Cliffites (the British SWP) we hold that the law of value wasn't brought into Russia from the outside by imperialist pressures, but was caused by the fact that the USSR was a transitional state until the late 30s and an imperialist state from then onwards.

This is interesting: what is your position on WW2?

[Led Zeppelin]

On this I can help you - when someone is joking, he is usually smiling or laughing. If not he is probably serious.

I'm sorry, I thought you understood the concept of internet discussion forums, it seems I was overestimating your intelligence.


I cannot, for the life of me, though, explain to you why supporting the existence of two separate states is no different than a two-state position, or why supporting the existence of Israel isn't Jewish chauvinism, if is isn't clear to you by now.

So pathetic word play is all you can resort to when you can't even back up your absurd accusations like I asked you to?

Interesting, so I was right in thinking that you are nothing but a petty sectarian making baseless accusations against the rival organizations to your sect without being able to back them up.

I didn't realize that Israel and Palestine are "socialist states", and I didn't realize that they were a "socialist confederation", perhaps you know this better than me because you actually live in that area, but somehow I doubt that the rest of the world missed the worker's revolution in those countries.

I think it is more likely that you have no idea what the hell you are talking about and are purposefully misrepresenting a phrase used by a rival group to your sect to justify the existence of your sect.

Here is the actual position of the CWI section there, and unlike you can I back up my claims with evidence:



We have consistently explained that the Palestinian masses and the Israeli Jewish working class would never achieve genuine stability and prosperity as a result of the capitalist peace process which Oslo represented. We argue for the overthrow of Israeli capitalism and the Arab elites in the Middle East through a revolutionary struggle by the working class and oppressed masses of the region. We campaign for such a movement to be committed to the objective of a socialist Palestine and a socialist Israel as part of a voluntary socialist confederation of the Middle East - a voluntary association of different socialist states where all the rights of ethnic, national, and religious minorities would be guaranteed.
Link (http://socialistworld.net/area/israel.html)

Get out your dictionary, learn some grammar, and get to work on what I just quoted from their own organization.

To all the members who already know their ABC's, the organization supports the revolutionary struggle of the Palestinian and Israeli working-classes for the establishment of socialist states, and at the same time would support a voluntary socialist confederation between the two socialist states.

This is all outside the context of capitalism. In his hysterical attempt to slander his rival organization Yehuda Stern has clearly shown his dishonesty when he tried to portray it as if they were somehow referring to the two-state solution within the context of the current capitalist system.

Try to focus on anti-Zionism from now on, you have embarrassed yourself enough when it comes to party politics.

By the way, how many members does your group have? I don't necessarily support the CWI section in Israel, despite the conclusions you have drawn because I simply mentioned them.

I am pretty sure that they are just as sectarian as your sect is, so on that basis I don't support neither of your organizations, but if in practice you do better and more activity than them, and agitate for a single socialist state (or a confederation of two socialist states), my position towards your sect won't be any different from my position towards the other sects in that area who refuse to work together based on misrepresentations of each others views.

[Invader Zim]

On this I can help you - when someone is joking, he is usually smiling or laughing. If not he is probably serious.While not wanting to interrupt (actually, thats a lie, I do want to interrupt it) your amusing 'tête-à-tête' with Led Zeppelin, on a side note, I think that it is worth pointing out that sarcasm and humour are often difficult to detect on a text based medium such as this forum.

Also while it is highly hypocritical for me to say this, having been involved in numerous long-winded and childish tête-à-têtes of my own, but perhaps it is time for both you and LZ to grow up and return to debating at a higher level and cease being antagonistic?

[Yehuda Stern]

Leo, read back carefully: we have never argued for anything other than a socialist revolution of the workers of the Middle East, in which, we believe, some significant minority of Jewish workers will also take part. We have never argued for unity with the nationalists or for complete support or even conditional support to their parties (unless you take as evidence Led Zeppelin's lie). We have only argued that if, say, Iran is attacked by imperialism, revolutionary proletarians should fight in the Iranian military, all the while propagandizing for a socialist revolution against the reign of the mullahs. This is the classical position of Marxism - as a left communist I suspect you are anti-Trotskyist, so Trotsky should be no authority to you. Still, he describes Marx's and Engels' positions accurately:


We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy . . . at all events, Catholic reactionaries.There is an article by Trotsky titled Learn to Think, which you can find on the Marxist Internet Archives. I suggest you take up the advice both in the title and in the article itself to heart.

Led Zeppelin: Learning to think would be a good advice for you as well. I did not say that Israel is socialist but that this group's position is for a socialist confederation, and I have said that this position is nothing but a rephrasing of the two state solution. It is a chauvinist position, designed to still the fears of Zionists that they will have to live in the same state as "the Arabs." (as have been made clear to me by a member of Maavak) That you cannot answer this clear and obvious fact is all the more accentuated by your growing hysteria and use of your mentors' gibberish on 'sects.' I do not have to answer your garbage, 'comrade.' You have lied about my positions three times already without apologizing or explaining yourself. It is useless to debate with liars, even more so with hysterical ones.

Finally, Leo, my position on WW2 is better discussed privately or in a different thread. In short, we believe that the USSR was already imperialist on the eve of that war and should not have been supported. Trotsky's proletarian military policy could apply to the USSR as well. That Trotsky made a mistake in the analysis of the USSR is obvious, but he was a revolutionary. It is the fault of his epigones that they did not correct his errors during the war and have caused the disorientation and collapse of the world Marxist movement.

It's Yehuda, by the way. With an 'e'.

Edit: Invader Zim, I have no problem with intelligent debate, but such debates tend to become impossible when the other person lies about your positions (for example, claiming that I'm an SWPer and that I give unconditional support to Hamas, which is also a good way to get me thrown in jail) and rambles on about your 'sectarianism' without answering arguments.

[Devrim]

Yehuda, I think that you have mistaken me for another member of our organisation (the reason is probably because we have the same symbol). The comments you are addressing are Leo's not mine.

Devrim

[Yehuda Stern]

I apologize, this has been fixed.

[Invader Zim]

Edit: Invader Zim, I have no problem with intelligent debate, but such debates tend to become impossible when the other person lies about your positions (for example, claiming that I'm an SWPer and that I give unconditional support to Hamas, which is also a good way to get me thrown in jail) and rambles on about your 'sectarianism' without answering arguments.

Perhaps so, but that does not stop you from being able to take the higher ground, and showing everybody else through your own posting style that you are better than that kind of thing. Not only will it likely lead to the other person altering their style (people tend to respond in kind), but it also gives the impression that you are more mature than your opponents, which creates the impression that the same can be said of your argument.

[Led Zeppelin]

We have only argued that if, say, Iran is attacked by imperialism, revolutionary proletarians should fight in the Iranian military

Wow, that is disgusting.

Did the Bolsheviks join the military to fight in the war? No, they said that proletarians should not disobey orders because that would only result in them being shot.

At the same they, the revolutionary proletarian were fighting to turn the World War into a Civil War!

But when it comes to the revolutionary proletarians in Iran suddenly the matter is entirely different; they must join the Iranian military and die for a state which oppresses and terrorizes them.

Do you think that Trotsky would have called on the "revolutionary proletarians" in Pinochet's Chile to join the military and "fight imperialism" if they were attacked by an outside force?


I did not say that Israel is socialist but that this group's position is for a socialist confederation, and I have said that this position is nothing but a rephrasing of the two state solution.

Yes, it is a rephrasing of the two state solution, why? Because it refers to an entirely different context.

The two state solution refers to the current two states as they exist, a socialist confederation refers to...two socialist states which may exist in the future.

There is no third option here.


It is a chauvinist position, designed to still the fears of Zionists that they will have to live in the same state as "the Arabs." (as have been made clear to me by a member of Maavak) That you cannot answer this clear and obvious fact is all the more accentuated by your growing hysteria and use of your mentors' gibberish on 'sects.' I do not have to answer your garbage, 'comrade.' You have lied about my positions three times already without apologizing or explaining yourself. It is useless to debate with liars, even more so with hysterical ones.

First of all, I'm not going to take the word of a person who has made baseless accusation about a rival organization to his own sect, so that personal anecdote of yours is meaningless.

Secondly, saying that a socialist confederation is "chauvinist" means that you either do not know the meaning of that word, or are purposefully misrepresenting the views of the other organization and base your use of that term on a false premise. The latter is the case here.

Thirdly, I have not lied about any of your positions, I caught you lying about another organization and you're still doing it.

There's a big difference there, "comrade".


Invader Zim, I have no problem with intelligent debate, but such debates tend to become impossible when the other person lies about your positions (for example, claiming that I'm an SWPer and that I give unconditional support to Hamas, which is also a good way to get me thrown in jail) and rambles on about your 'sectarianism' without answering arguments.

You said yourself you were aligned to the SWP, I took you by your word, something which I probably should not have done.

You then explained that you weren't, and since I can't read your mind (not that I have any desire to do so), it was necessary for you to do so before that issue could be clarified, which it now is.

As for me "rambling on about your sectarianism", it is a fact that you have made baseless accusations against another organization, and when asked to provide evidence for it you resorted to word play and personal anecdotes.

So either prove your claims about that organization with actual evidence or stop whining when you are called out on it.

[Devrim]

We have only argued that if, say, Iran is attacked by imperialism, revolutionary proletarians should fight in the Iranian militaryWow, that is disgusting.

Did the Bolsheviks join the military to fight in the war? No, they said that proletarians should not disobey orders because that would only result in them being shot.

I don't see how Yehuda's position is so different from this one:


I do not support any policy of the Islamic Republic, however if Iran is invaded I would oppose the invasion and support the right of Iran to defend itself.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

I don't see how Yehuda's position is so different from this one:

I was obviously referring to the current state-machinery of Iran, while the revolutionary proletarians should be in opposition to both and put forward their own revolutionary line, see my position in the thread here: Link (http://www.revleft.com/vb/debate-led-zeppelin-t82132/index.html)

I posted the same in the thread you got that quote from, so you clearly knew my position on the matter before you posted that, you just wanted to make yourself seem relevant.

Nice try though.

[Devrim]

The position is the same. National defence if Iran is attacked.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

The position is the same. National defence if Iran is attacked.

No it's not the same, do you even understand the historical Marxist position on the matter or is revolutionary "purity" blinding you to history?

Did the Bolsheviks ever call on the soldiers at the front to disobey orders?

No.

Did they call for the war to be turned into a civil war?

Yes.

If Iran is attacked the standing army will retaliate and defend itself again the US forces, whether you and your little left-communist sect of 4 members in Turkey like it or not.

We support that action by the Iranian state because it is useful to the working-class movement, the alternative would be slaughter of the working-class.

You know what isn't useful to the working-class movement in Iran? The revolutionary proletarians joining the military to die for a state they are supposed to be fighting.

If you don't see the difference in the two positions you are politically useless.

[Leo]

It's Yehuda, by the way. With an 'e'.

Apologies. So, ok Yehuda;


Leo, read back carefully: we have never argued for anything other than a socialist revolution of the workers of the Middle East, in which, we believe, some significant minority of Jewish workers will also take part.I am sure you sincerely believe in this. However I also think that you fail to see that other arguements, related with the direct practice, are not in line with what you are saying here.


We have never argued for unity with the nationalists or for complete support or even conditional support to their parties I take it that you did, both in your initial post and also in your latest post as well:


In the third world, notably in Palestine and Lebanon, we believe revolutionaries should form a military front with bourgeois forces when they are in a conflict with imperialism.
We have only argued that if, say, Iran is attacked by imperialism, revolutionary proletarians should fight in the Iranian militaryThis is the practice of uniting with bourgeois forces, this is the slogan calling for the slaughter of revolutionaries and workers in the hands of the bourgeois, and for them to die for the interests of imperialists.

Calling for workers and revolutionaries to support national capital is the negation of calling for them to unite and overthrow all factions of the bourgeoisie.

So the bottom of this is the following: this mentality might see "revolutionary defeatism" fit for "advanced nations", such as the Israeli state or in the West, because of the guilt felt by liberal guts because of the horrible things committed by the rulers there, yet when it comes to the "little brown people" in the "lower-oppressed nations", their "duty" is to support their bourgeoisie to fight against the so evil ruling class of the advanced countries, since they obviously don't have class interests against their own rulers.


This is the classical position of MarxismNot since World War 1.


as a left communist I suspect you are anti-TrotskyistI am, of course. Although I do see Trotsky as a revolutionary militant, although a very, very opportunist and a sectarian one, and one who had his moments but who has acted against the interests of the working class numerous times also.


so Trotsky should be no authority to you.Thoughts of no individual can be any authority on a militant: everything should be questioned, everything should be doubted.


We do not and never have put all wars on the same plane. Marx and Engels supported the revolutionary struggle of the Irish against Great Britain, of the Poles against the tsar, even though in these two nationalist wars the leaders were, for the most part, members of the bourgeoisie and even at times of the feudal aristocracy . . . at all events, Catholic reactionaries.Things change. Capitalism was still a system that was spreading on the world and thus that was developing the productive forces massively by doing so. Under these circumstances, some marxists did support some national independence movements which were in reality against older modes of production and were to develop the productive forces. Their support of those movements was not done for the sake of "anti-imperialism", if nothing because imperialism didn't exist then. The American North was, for example, supported against the American South, or the USA again was supported against Mexico. Those are hardly "oppressed nations". All those support given to those wars, whether rightly or wrongly, was done to support the development of productive forces.

Now as imperialism is the world epoch of imperialist wars and proletarian revolutions and signifies the end in the expansion of the capitalism mode of production and thus the development of productive forces are no more, Marx's position has got absolutely nothing to do with the support given to "anti-imperialist" movements today. Nor does it justify anything on this question. The origins of your positions lie in the mistaken positions of the Communist International which were far, far better than your positions, yet very disastrous nevertheless for the working class, unfortunately.


There is an article by Trotsky titled Learn to Think, which you can find on the Marxist Internet Archives. I suggest you take up the advice both in the title and in the article itself to heart.Oh, if using petty insults is gonna make you feel like big boy, then go ahead lad.


Finally, Leo, my position on WW2 is better discussed privately or in a different thread. In short, we believe that the USSR was already imperialist on the eve of that war and should not have been supported.That is my position exactly, very interesting. Can you send me a PM explaining your position?

I can also give you a few interesting quotes by Trotsky on the war. As you possibly know, Natalia says the old man was about to take an internationalist position about the war, and some militants coming from Trotskyism did actually split and took an internationalist position about the war.

[Devrim]

If you don't see the difference in the two positions you are politically useless.

Well I obviously must be then as I have absolutely no idea what you are going on about.

Just on a few facts though:


whether you and your little left-communist sect of 4 members in Turkey like it or not.

We have more than four members. I have no idea where your figure comes from. The behaviour though comes straight from Stalinism.


Did the Bolsheviks ever call on the soldiers at the front to disobey orders?

No.

Er... actually they did.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Er... actually they did.

Nope, you just believe in a myth. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1953/defeat/intro.htm#s1)

[Yehuda Stern]

You said yourself you were aligned to the SWP

Where? Put up or shut up.



Do you think that Trotsky would have called on the "revolutionary proletarians" in Pinochet's Chile to join the military and "fight imperialism" if they were attacked by an outside force?

Yes, I do, and in Learn to Think he says that workers would also support the shipping of weapons by Mussolini's government to Algerians rebelling against bourgeois-democratic France. The military front is the classic Trotskyist position.

Leo, petty insults aren't my style. But it is obvious that you are not answering to my arguments but to some straw man you have set up. This straw man supports unity with the nationalists and is also a bit of a racist. You are the one who uses petty insults to try and present me as some elitist racist westerner, which must be pretty tough because it's not working.

Basically your problem, just like that of Maoists and most centrist groups, is your inability to tell the difference between an imperialist state and a non-imperialist state. In a war between an imperialist state a non-imperialist one, we support the non-imperialist side's victory, because every victory against imperialism helps strengthen the consciousness of the masses. Look at Gaza: Why is Hamas so afraid of arming the masses so they could defend themselves against Israeli imperialism? They know that the morning after the weapons could be used against them. That, and not any elitism, is what leads us to support this position.

You could at the very least apologize for your very stupid attempts to portray me as some sort of white nationalist.

[Leo]

Leo, petty insults aren't my style.Great, than please don't make them :)


But it is obvious that you are not answering to my arguments but to some straw man you have set up. This straw man supports unity with the nationalists and is also a bit of a racist. You are the one who uses petty insults to try and present me as some elitist racist westerner, which must be pretty tough because it's not working.I am sorry if it sounded personal, that was directed at you personally, I basically think that this is the mentality where the whole position you are defending feeds from in general in the West, I did not try to mean that this was the way you personally feel. I said in the beginning, I do not question the sincerity of what you say, not because I know you are sincere as I don't know you, but out of respect.

Apologies if it sounded personal, that was not my intention.

On the other hand, if someone is not responding to arguements, I'll say that's you; this was only one thing I wrote in the post, and you did not respond to anything else, while I try to cover everything you say as much as I can.


Basically your problem, just like that of Maoists and most centrist groups, is your inability to tell the difference between an imperialist state and a non-imperialist state.Well, no, hardly. My "problem" according to you is that I think all bourgeois states and even organizations are imperialist, regardless of whether they are massive powers or that they pursue their interests on a small scale. I see imperialism as a world epoch, from which no nation can escape. This position originates from Rosa Luxemburg's position.

The "problem" between Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists etc. is a problem of deciding which states are imperialist and which states are not.

I see a big difference.


In a war between an imperialist state a non-imperialist one, we support the non-imperialist side's victoryAnd I think you do this at the expanse of the sacrifice of the class interests and lives of workers in the supposedly "non-imperialist" states.

I see this as you supporting the smaller imperialist power against the bigger one.


because every victory against imperialism helps strengthen the consciousness of the masses. Look at Gaza: Why is Hamas so afraid of arming the masses so they could defend themselves against Israeli imperialism? They know that the morning after the weapons could be used against them.It is interesting that you gave the Palestinian example. I don't think Hamas is afraid to give guns to the masses, they have already armed lots of people. On the other hand, their principle concern today is clearly their struggle with Fatah rather than that with Israel. Of course both Hamas and Fatah are pawns of different imperialist powers, but they have their own local imperialist interests also.

All this sectarian fighting in the region caused the Palestinian working class to be the most defeated working class in the region; the one who is lined up behind different factions of the bourgeoisie and the one that is tearing apart each other guts the most.

Hamas and Fatah and all other bourgeois forces are indeed afraid of the working class: and what they fear is the working class to unite against them. Dragging the workers in a sectarian conflict against each other is a good way to prevent this, and dragging them in a national conflict against another nation-state is another. "Anti-imperialist" struggles never helped the consciousness of the proletarait but it helped them get slaughtered by and lined up behind the national bourgeoisie.

[Led Zeppelin]

Where? Put up or shut up.

That's ironic coming from the person who keeps making the most absurd accusations without backing them up with evidence.

How about you put up or shut up before asking others to do the same?


Yes, I do

No wonder you need to make up crap to attack others, your own positions are so reactionary that to play on the offense all the time is the only way you can give an impression of defending them.

Did everyone read this? He just said that if a foreign army invaded a fascist state, proletarian revolutionaries should join the army and defend it.

I'm sorry I took you seriously.

[Yehuda Stern]

Please, Grantite, you're making a mockery of yourself with your hysteric shouting and finger pointing. I would defend any third world country against any imperialist country, no matter which side was democratic or fascist. So would Trotsky:


I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!

Please, I will take others' advice and take the higher ground. I will not join your "I know you are, but what am I" games.

[Led Zeppelin]

So would Trotsky:

We know that you are a reactionary, but don't try to slander Trotsky with the same reactionary nonsense by taking quotes out of their historical context!

Perhaps you missed this part of the quote which you yourself posted:


If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.

He was speaking of a specific historical condition, one which did not exist in the example I cited in Chile, one which says nothing about "proletarian revolutionaries joining the army to defend the state", and one which is totally alien from your reactionary idiotic position of "defend the bourgeois state".

You said that "revolutionary proletarians", i.e., communists, should join the army and fight, instead of having them agitate for revolution, something which Trotsky advanced at all times. Ironically Trotsky was speaking in the same terms as I was when I said that the Iranian state would be justified in defending itself.

Of course it would be idiotic for proletarian revolutionaries to join that fight, their task is to fight both sides, their task is to raise the consciousness of the working-class and, on the tide of that possibe "victory" to which Trotsky refers, lead a revolution.

You did not only rip that quote out of its historic context, you also ripped it out of the context of the very same article you took it from.

In that article he says, before saying what you quoted:



What is the way out, you ask? Personally, I do not doubt for a moment that a new war will provoke an international revolution against the rule of the rapacious capitalist cliques over humanity. In wartime all differences between imperialist “democracy” and fascism will disappear. In all countries a merciless military dictatorship will reign. The German workers and peasants will perish just like the French and English. The modern means of destruction are so monstrous that humanity will probably not be able to endure war even a few months. Despair, indignation, hatred will push the masses of all warring countries into an uprising with weapons in hand. Victory of the world proletariat will put an end to war and will also solve the Spanish problem as well as all the current problems of Europe and other parts of the world.

So he is saying that "democracy" would not exist in the case of a war, so when he was referring to "democratic Great Britain" and he put the word "democratic" in quotation marks, he did so because he understood that it would be no democracy at all.

And no, Trotsky did not believe that there was no difference between bourgeois-democracy and fascism, because "the workers can the tell the difference, how can't we?"

Now stop trying to project your own inadequacies as a "revolutionary" to others like Trotsky, it's not going to work.

So I suggest you indeed do what you said you would do; stop playing games.

EDIT: Also, ironically, ooooh so ironically, you just basically said that you would support Hezbollah and Hamas against Israeli imperialism, as I said earlier.

Thanks for verifying that.

[Leo]

I would defend any third world country against any imperialist country, no matter which side was democratic or fascist.

So when the workers of the "poor" and "unfortunate" third world country are on strike, whose side will you be on?

When you support "a third world country", this puts you in a position where you oppose the working class of that country.

[Leo]

If Iran is attacked the standing army will retaliate and defend itself again the US forces


We support that action by the Iranian state because it is useful to the working-class movement, the alternative would be slaughter of the working-class.

So you think that the working-class will not be slaughtered when both sides are slaughtering each other?

Also, you know that our position will not be one saying "hail the US army" or saying something like "the Iranian army should disband in favor of the invasion" but one saying all soldiers and workers should fraternalize and turn the imperialist war into civil war.

Also, I am amazed by the fact that you don't see a contradiction between statements such as the above and this:


Of course it would be idiotic for proletarian revolutionaries to join that fight, their task is to fight both sides, their task is to raise the consciousness of the working-class

We'll probably continue this one in the debate anyway.

[zelda]

Oops! I almost screwed up on this one by voting yes.:crying:

[Led Zeppelin]

So you think that the working-class will not be slaughtered when both sides are slaughtering each other?

Are the "revolutionary guards" known as the Pastars part of the working-class? Is the standing army part of the working-class?

I wouldn't think so.

[Leo]

Are the "revolutionary guards" known as the Pastars part of the working-class? Is the standing army part of the working-class?

I wouldn't think so.

But of course they are, who on earth does all the fighting if not the most desperate workers?

[Led Zeppelin]

But of course they are, who on earth does all the fighting if not the most desperate workers?

Dude, the Pastars are given privileges over the workers, are paid directly by the state to do nothing but oppress the workers, and exist solely as a private army for the Mullahs.

And the standing army, well the standing army is obviously not working-class.

I think you're talking about a conscripted army, not a standing army or the Pastars.

Yes, when there is a conscripted army doing the fighting it is a different matter, but then again, you can't really ask them to disobey orders in a non-revolutionary period can you? If you do you are asking them to get shot...this is why the Bolsheviks never did this but instead waited for the revolutionary movement itself to draw in the soldiers.

[Yehuda Stern]

So he is saying that "democracy" would not exist in the case of a war, so when he was referring to "democratic Great Britain" and he put the word "democratic" in quotation marks, he did so because he understood that it would be no democracy at all.

Actually, I was referring to this:


Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists.

BTW, is bourgeois democracy a real democracy in peace time? I wonder.


So when the workers of the "poor" and "unfortunate" third world country are on strike, whose side will you be on?

When you support "a third world country", this puts you in a position where you oppose the working class of that country.

I have never referred to the third world as "unfortunate" or "poor." Those are your words, comrade. When the proletariat of any country strikes, of course, unless it is a racist strike to keep out minority workers from joining unions and so on, such as those that took place in the US, or South Africa and Israel at times, we support that strike.

You try to sound ultra-revolutionary with your positions on a war between an imperialist and a non-imperialist country, but all you succeed in doing is in showing how much your attitude is a product of imperialist pressure to not defend the third world against attacks. I have already shown in my example - and this is also true regarding Hizb Allah and many other cases - that the bourgeoisie a third world country is afraid of fighting imperialism because of the way this could arouse the masses and lead to its own overthrow. This is the basis for permanent revolution. No fancy sloganizing can hide the fact that your position plays into the hands of the reactionary nationalists and fundamentalists, and ultimately into the hands of imperialism.

[black magick hustla]

You try to sound ultra-revolutionary with your positions on a war between an imperialist and a non-imperialist country, but all you succeed in doing is in showing how much your attitude is a product of imperialist pressure to not defend the third world against attacks. I have already shown in my example - and this is also true regarding Hizb Allah and many other cases - that the bourgeoisie a third world country is afraid of fighting imperialism because of the way this could arouse the masses and lead to its own overthrow. This is the basis for permanent revolution. No fancy sloganizing can hide the fact that your position plays into the hands of the reactionary nationalists and fundamentalists, and ultimately into the hands of imperialism.

The bourgeosie is not "afraid" of fighting imperialism because the bourgeosie is not a monolithic entity, and there are different factions of the bourgeosie with different interests. C'mon, even the maoists get that.

Anyway your position has been disproven by history again and again. Unless you can prove somehow that in all of Africa were the anti-imperialist movements took hold, the bourgeosie had been overthrown. To be honest, I think they generally end with communists up against the wall.

I think proletarian internationalism is one of the highest, if not the highest communist principle. Workers have no country, and this includes third world workers.

[black magick hustla]

And the standing army, well the standing army is obviously not working-class.

The standing army in many countries is not conscripted, and indeed, the most desperate workers generally join its ranks. I doubt that economically comfortable people join the mexican army ....


The proletariat is not proletariat because of its particular job, but because it lacks any means of production - thus it gets thrown around in different wage jobs. Hence why the lumpen is the lumpenproletariat, because they are just a layer of the proletariat - albeit the latter's lifestyle is confined to the margins of capitalism.

Obviously it is difficult to disobey or desert, but if I think most soldiers would desert if they could when confronting a super power. I don't think left communists support "suicide", rather, we support soldiers to save their lives if they can, and by doing that, they also help sabotaging the capitalist machinery.

[Led Zeppelin]

The standing army in many countries is not conscripted, and indeed, the most desperate workers generally join its ranks. I doubt that economically comfortable people join the mexican army ....

The proletariat is not proletariat because of its particular job, but because it lacks any means of production - thus it gets thrown around in different wage jobs.

Sorry but I don't think you understand what the term proletariat means:



The following features of Marx’s definition of the proletariat should be noted:
(1) proletariat is synonymous with “modern working class”
(2) proletarians have no means of support other than selling their labour power
(3) their position makes them dependent upon capital
(4) it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat
(4) proletarians sell themselves as opposed to selling products like the petty-bourgeoisie (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm#petty-bourgeois) and capitalists
(5) they sell themselves “piecemeal” as opposed to slaves who may be sold as a whole and become the property of someone else
(6) although the term “labourers” carries the connotation of manual labour, elsewhere Marx makes it clear that the labourer with the head is as much a proletarian as the labourer with the hand, and finally
(7) the proletariat is a class (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class).
Link (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#proletariat)

Standing armies are professional volunteer armies, conscriped armies are the opposite of standing armies.

I'm not sure what you mean by standing armies sometimes being conscripted, that's a contradiction.

[black magick hustla]

Sorry but I don't think you understand what the term proletariat means:


Link (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#proletariat)

Standing armies are professional volunteer armies, they are not proletarians, in fact they are by and large the most reactionary section of the population.

Conscripted armies don't "expand capital". Does that mean that the workers thrown into conscripted armies stop being workers when they hold their guns?

The webpage doesn't opens for me for some reason.

Janitors, Healthcare workers, Government workers, don't expand capital. Shall I continue?

[Led Zeppelin]

Conscripted armies don't "expand capital".

Does that mean that the workers thrown into conscripted armies stop being workers when they hold their guns?

No, but the difference is that the worker is, as you rightly said, thrown into the army, surely you understand the difference between such workers and people who voluntarily join the army and choose that as a profession?


The webpage doesn't opens for me for some reason.

Try this: Link (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#proletariat)

[black magick hustla]

No, but the difference is that the worker is, as you rightly said, thrown into the army, surely you understand the difference between such workers and people who voluntarily join the army and choose that as a profession?

Now we are going down a slippery slope, aren't we? You originally said that soldiers aren't workers because they "dont expand capital", which is not really true by the way, because capital cannot exist without a standing army. Now you are saying that the conscription army is proletarian just because the workers happened to be thrown into it.

Most people who voluntarily join the army aren't economically comfortable, because the army pays like shit anyway. People in the army are people who come from poor backgrounds and who would probably choose other profession if they had better opportunities.

I don't think the army is more reactionary than the police - especially in the third world. The people in the army join to "defend their country", their family, their land, etc while the police directly defends concepts like private property, breaks strikes, etc.

[Devrim]

Nope, you just believe in a myth. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1953/defeat/intro.htm#s1)

So are you denying now that the Bolshevik party called for soldiers for fraternise with the enemy?

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Now we are going down a slippery slope, aren't we? You originally said that soldiers aren't workers because they "dont expand capital", which is not really true by the way, because capital cannot exist without a standing army. Now you are saying that the conscription army is proletarian just because the workers happened to be thrown into it.

There's no slippery slope at all.

A person who has been a worker for all their life but is conscripted, i.e., forced to join the army, doesn't have his or her consciousness or social being (conscription is only temporary) changed overnight because of that.

No one claimed otherwise.


Most people who voluntarily join the army aren't economically comfortable, because the army pays like shit anyway. People in the army are people who come from poor backgrounds and who would probably choose other profession if they had better opportunities.

I don't think the army is more reactionary than the police - especially in the third world. The people in the army join to "defend their country", their family, their land, etc while the police directly defends concepts like private property, breaks strikes, etc.

That differs from nation to nation.

In Iran this is clearly not the case with the Pastars, who are a private army of the Mullahs, are better paid than average workers, are given privileges which workers don't get etc.


So are you denying now that the Bolshevik party called for soldiers for fraternise with the enemy?

Hold on.

[Q]

The fact is, your Israeli section is 100% Jewish chauvinist, and I'm willing to prove it any time.
In your own poetic words: put up or shut up and I rather suggest you don't embarras yourself anymore by the trolling you put up here.

[Yehuda Stern]

Q-collective, I have cited your section's positions on the national question and on the state as being pro-Zionist already. Either answer that or at least stop writing your nonsense. No one is fooled into believing that you are actually capable of answering me in that way. Besides, the misadventures of the CWI in Israel is something that should be discussed in another thread, which I invite you to open and challenge me to debate in.

[Leo]

You try to sound ultra-revolutionary with your positions on a war between an imperialist and a non-imperialist country, but all you succeed in doing is in showing how much your attitude is a product of imperialist pressure to not defend the third world against attacks.:lol:Oh yes, I really do have a thing against defending my own ruling class against anything.


I have already shown in my example - and this is also true regarding Hizb Allah and many other cases - that the bourgeoisie a third world country is afraid of fighting imperialism because of the way this could arouse the masses and lead to its own overthrow.No it is not, your example wasn't about Hezbollah but about Hamas and it was easily disproved. You have merely shown how little you know about the third world.


You try to sound ultra-revolutionaryAll I try to do is to take the interests of my class as my priority.

You are clearly on the side on the bourgeoisie and against the interests of the working class in the Third World. This is a reactionary positions which does nothing but cheerleading for imperialism.

[Devrim]

Are the "revolutionary guards" known as the Pastars part of the working-class? Is the standing army part of the working-class?


And the standing army, well the standing army is obviously not working-class.

I think you're talking about a conscripted army, not a standing army or the Pastars.

On the point of the revolutionary guards (which is general transliterated as 'Pasdaran', or 'Pásdárán' in English) I think you may well be right. They do seem to operate as much as a Police force. However, that doesn't mean that in times of war significant sectors of it might not desert.

On the point of the 'standing army', I think that you don't understand what the term means. There is no contradiction in the sentence 'Iran has a standing army of 350,000 (220,000 conscripts and 130,000 professionals)'. A standing army means a permanent army. The vast majority of it can be conscripted. The opposite would be 'reservists', not conscripts.

Also, have you decided whether the Bolshevik party called for fraternization yet, or not yet?

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

On the point of the revolutionary guards (which is general transliterated as 'Pasdaran', or 'Pásdárán' in English)

In Farsi they are called "Pastars", I don't really care how it is translated into English.


On the point of the 'standing army', I think that you don't understand what the term means. There is no contradiction in the sentence 'Iran has a standing army of 350,000 (220,000 conscripts and 130,000 professionals)'. A standing army means a permanent army. The vast majority of it can be conscripted. The opposite would be 'reservists', not conscripts.

I was referring to the professional soldiers, as I said: "surely you understand the difference between such workers and people who voluntarily join the army and choose that as a profession?"

The standing army refers to professional soldiers:



Main Entry: standing army Function: noun
: a permanent army of paid soldiers



Also, have you decided whether the Bolshevik party called for fraternization yet, or not yet?

The reason I told you to hold on is because your question was posed wrongly, the question was never to "tell individual soldiers what to do", the question was what the vanguard should do, which political line it would bring forward etc.

That is what I was referring to when I said: "Did the Bolsheviks ever call on the soldiers at the front to disobey orders? No."



With the outbreak of the war in August 1914 the first question which arose was this: Should the socialists of imperialist countries assume the “defense of the fatherland”? The issue was not whether or not individual socialists should fulfill the obligations of soldiers – there was no other alternative; desertion is not a revolutionary policy. The issue was: Should socialist parties support the war politically? vote for the war budget? renounce the struggle against the government and agitate for the “defense of the fatherland”? Lenins answer was: No! the party must not do so, it has no right to do so, not because war is involved but because this is a reactionary war, because this is a dogfight between the slave owners for the redivision of the world.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/02/lenin.htm)

[Devrim]

OK, so you have absolutely no answer to any of the questions but posturing.

Did the Bolsheviks call for fraternisation.

Well yes, of course they did.

Is a conscript army permanent.

Well yes, of course it can be.

Can people be confused about words that they are not used to?

Well yes of course they can be.

(The Farsi is not 'Pastars'. In Farsi, like Kurdish, you don't make a plural by putting an 's' on the end of the word. It is '-an'.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

OK, so you have absolutely no answer to any of the questions but posturing.

If you were blind or illiterate, sure.


Did the Bolsheviks call for fraternisation.

Well yes, of course they did.

Did the Bolsheviks call on individual soldiers to desert.

Well no, of course they didn't, because they weren't politically useless and alienated from the working-class like you.


Is a conscript army permanent.

Well yes, of course it can be.

Is a standing army in times of peace (and in some cases also in times of war) made up of professional soldiers?

Well yes, of course it is, if you understand the meaning of the term "standing army":


A standing army is an army (http://www.answers.com/topic/army) composed of full time professional soldiers (http://www.answers.com/topic/soldier) who 'stand over', in other words, who do not disband during times of peace. They differ from army reserves (http://www.answers.com/topic/military-reserve-force) and conscripts who are activated only during such times as war (http://www.answers.com/topic/war-edwin-starr-song) or natural disasters (http://www.answers.com/topic/natural-disaster).

I understand why you won't concede on this simple terminological fact though; your ego is simply too huge to ever admit a mistake.


Can people be confused about words that they are not used to?

Well yes of course they can be.

(The Farsi is not 'Pastars'. In Farsi, like Kurdish, you don't make a plural by putting an 's' on the end of the word. It is '-an'.

I see you were trying to be witty here, too bad that you completely failed.

Actually the plural is "Pastara" in Farsi, without the 'n' added, so when you are referring to "those Pastars" (in English you do add the 's' in plural, and I was referring to the plural in English obviously), in Farsi you would say "Oen Pastara".

Sorry, I have been speaking Farsi since before you assembled that little sect of yours.

Also, I still find it rather amusing how you keep engaging me on this issue when you clearly said that you have no interest in doing so: Link (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158444&postcount=35)

Having some problems with self-control? Or are you a masochist who enjoys being humiliated?

[Invader Zim]

Is a standing army in times of peace (and in some cases also in times of war) made up of professional soldiers?Not necessarily, you had National Service for years after ww2. Right-wingers also continually blabber on about the need to re-instate the draft. There are also armies across the globe not engaged in a war, or who have not been engaged in a war, and had military service. Finland's armed service, for example, has universal male conscription. And they aren't like the national guard or the TA.

I must confess to not knowing anything about the subject, I only know that because one of the bands I listen to lost a member because he had to go off and do his service, or something along those lines.

[Led Zeppelin]

Not necessarily, you had National Service for years after ww2. Right-wingers also continually blabber on about the need to re-instate the draft. There are also armies across the globe not engaged in a war, or who have not been engaged in a war, and had military service. Finland's armed service, for example, has universal male conscription. And they aren't like the national guard or the TA.

I must confess to not knowing anything about the subject, I only know that because one of the bands I listen to lost a member because he had to go off and do his service, or something along those lines.

Zim, I know that.

The Iranian army also has universal male conscription, requiring every person from the age of 18 to go through basic military training for about 5 or 6 months I believe.

But they are not part of the standing army, i.e., "the permament army composed of paid full time professional soldiers (http://www.answers.com/topic/soldier)." because after their training is completed they're free to do whatever they want, they aren't "professional full-time soldiers".

That is the definition of the standing army found in the dictionary, and it was to that definition I was referring to.

Of course a drafted or conscripted army is an entirely different matter, but that is exactly why those definitions are different from the definition of the term "standing army", which is:


A standing army is an army (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.answers.com/topic/army) composed of full time professional soldiers (http://www.answers.com/topic/soldier) who 'stand over', in other words, who do not disband during times of peace. They differ from army reserves (http://www.answers.com/topic/military-reserve-force) and conscripts who are activated only during such times as war (http://www.answers.com/topic/war-edwin-starr-song) or natural disasters (http://www.answers.com/topic/natural-disaster).

Devrim knows this but he just won't concede that fact because he was so excited about catching me in a mistake, a mistake which only exists in his head.

[Invader Zim]

Does that then imply that those regulars in the Finnish army and not in the reserves, called up through the draft, are not in a standing army. I am afraid, the distinction doesn't seem all that massive to me; but like I said, I don't know enough to pass any kind of informed comment.

[Led Zeppelin]

Does that then imply that those regulars in the Finnish army and not in the reserves, called up through the draft, are not in a standing army.

How are they regulars if they're not in the standing army? Are they paid full-time professional soldiers or do they have other jobs?


I am afraid, the distinction doesn't seem all that massive to me; but like I said, I don't know enough to pass any kind of informed comment.

The distinction isn't that big at all, I was specifically referring to professional soldiers, and used the term "standing army" to define them, Devrim then came in with a contradictory statement:


On the point of the 'standing army', I think that you don't understand what the term means. There is no contradiction in the sentence 'Iran has a standing army of 350,000 (220,000 conscripts and 130,000 professionals)'. A standing army means a permanent army. The vast majority of it can be conscripted.

A standing army means a permanent army... "but the vast majority of it can be conscripted", meaning that they are not part of that permanent army which is composed of paid, full-time professional soldiers.

He contradicted himself there in order to catch me in a mistake, I pointed out that there was no mistake and that he contradicted himself because the definition of a standing army is that of a paid, full-time professional force, he doesn't like it and won't let go of it because he's got too big of an ego.

In times of normalcy (no war or natural disaster etc.) conscripts aren't in the army and they aren't paid by it, they have other jobs, i.e., they aren't in the permanent army made up of paid, full-time professional soldiers known as the standing army:


con·script (khttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/obreve.gifnhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifskrhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ibreve.gifpthttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif)
n. One compulsorily enrolled for service, especially in the armed forces; a draftee.

adj. Enrolled compulsorily; drafted.

[Invader Zim]

Are they paid full-time professional soldiers or do they have other jobs?To be honest, I have no idea. However, I would assume (and that is all it is, an assumption) that they do not. I do however know that they are paid.

[Led Zeppelin]

To be honest, I have no idea. However, I would assume (and that is all it is, an assumption) that they do not. I do however know that they are paid.

That would be weird, they'd be getting paid to do basically nothing then...

In Iran the ones called up for military training don't get paid, they just get fed through their training period and that's it.

After the training period is over they become conscripts, though of course they have to find other jobs, so they're not part of the standing army and they never were, because they weren't paid, full-time professional soldiers.

[Invader Zim]

I will bow to your obviously superior knowledge of the topic, in the case of Iran and modern conscription in general. However reading up on Finnish national service, they do get paid, but it seems a truly awful amount, 4 Euros a day.

[Led Zeppelin]

However reading up on Finnish national service, they do get paid, but it seems a truly awful amount, 4 Euros a day.

Are you sure you're referring to regulars? I think you're thinking of conscipts who have to go through a period of required military service?

Because if it's the latter, they're not considered part of the standing army since they're not paid full-time professionals.

If you are referring to the former, that would be pretty cool because you would be getting paid doing nothing. :p

[Devrim]

LZ, you seem to get very excited.

On my points

1) You didn't really contend the first. After calling it a myth. I said the Bolsheviks called on soldiers to disobey orders. You said it was a myth. However, they did call for fraternization. Then you started going on about how they didn't call for individual soldiers to desert. Something which had no connection to the point.

2) Conscript soldiers are actually full time, and (often very badly) paid. At least in most countries they are paid. I am unsure about Iran, but I would suspect they are given some 'token' wage at least. It could though be an exception.

Webster's gives this:


Main Entry: standing army Function:noun Date:1603 : a permanent army of paid soldiers



As I said it denotes the opposite of a reserve army, and in fact was in use about 200 years before the word 'conscription' was even introduced.

3) On the Farsi transliteration check a search engine:

Yahoo gives this for 'Pásdárán'
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-msgr&p=P%C3%A1sd%C3%A1r%C3%A1n&ei=UTF-8
And this for your 'Pastara' http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-msgr&p=Pastara&ei=UTF-8
First entry a perfume add, and no mention of the Revolutionary Guards on the first page.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

1) You didn't really contend the first. After calling it a myth. I said the Bolsheviks called on soldiers to disobey orders. You said it was a myth. However, they did call for fraternization. Then you started going on about how they didn't call for individual soldiers to desert. Something which had no connection to the point.

Calling on individual soldiers to disobey orders has no connection to calling on soldiers to disobey orders?

Learn some linguistics.


2) Conscript soldiers are actually full time, and (often very badly) paid. At least in most countries they are paid. I am unsure about Iran, but I would suspect they are given some 'token' wage at least. It could though be an exception.

Webster's gives this:

As I said it denotes the opposite of a reserve army, and in fact was in use about 200 years before the word 'conscription' was even introduced.

Conscipt soldiers aren't permanently full-time, paid professional soldiers, they're only "full-time" for their required time in service which consists of basic training, which lasts for a few months up to a year at the most.

So no, they are not part of the standing army, since they're not permanently in the army, which is the definition of the term standing army, a definition which you yourself just posted.

Learn the basic definition of the term.


3) On the Farsi transliteration check a search engine:

Yahoo gives this for 'Pásdárán'
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-msgr&p=P%C3%A1sd%C3%A1r%C3%A1n&ei=UTF-8
And this for your 'Pastara' http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-msgr&p=Pastara&ei=UTF-8
First entry a perfume add, and no mention of the Revolutionary Guards on the first page.

Don't be obtuse Devrim, I never said that the word was "Pastars" or "Pastara" in the English alphabet, I was referring to the Farsi use of the term, which is in Farsi "Pastara" as opposed to your "Pasdaran" crap. I know this not through some yahoo or google search like you but because I've actually heard it being used by people who speak Farsi in Iran.

The fact that you won't even admit to being wrong on this issue despite the fact that you don't even know Farsi proves enough about how petty you really are.

Learn some Farsi.

[Trystan]

I voted "Yes". Israel has as much right to exist as Palestine, or any other country. Not that I care for nationalism, but self-determination in itself is not something which I oppose .

[Yehuda Stern]

Well, then please explain why Israel has the right to exist. Is it not a colonialist state, created by expelling a whole people from its land? Is it not ruled by a racist regime that fights every day for its goal of "a maximum of Jews on a maximum of land, a minimum of Arabs on a minimum of land?" If no, explain why. If yes, why do you still support its right to exist?

[manic expression]

I voted "Yes". Israel has as much right to exist as Palestine, or any other country. Not that I care for nationalism, but self-determination in itself is not something which I oppose .

So expansionism is "self-determination"? At the heart of Zionism lies the idea of an ethnically pure homeland. That, in itself, is reactionary and in direct opposition to the rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine and Lebanon and beyond. Make no mistake, Isreal is not an exercise in self-determination, it is the active denial of self-determination.

[manic expression]

Israel's racist policies, they should be opposed on every level.

Agreed.


The issue of soverignty is a much more complex question with an even more complex answer; indeed an answer which I personally cannot provide. To be perfectly honest, if I knew how to solve the problem of Israe prior to socialist revolution, I wouldn't be sat here complaining to you that 60 years on the problem of Israel is an increasingly difficult nut to crack. On the one hand you can argue that we should call for the state to be abolished and replaced with a Palestinian state; however this would go directly against the wishes of the majority who now live there.If you include the occupied territories, the population question becomes much different. Furthermore, if you include refugees forcibly removed from their lands by the Irgun and other Zionist thugs in 1948, it becomes even more anti-Zionist.


As many of them, millions in fact, were born in the region and it is indeed likely that their parents were born in the region it is somewhat unfair to punish them, by disenfranchisement, for follies committed before they were concieved or their parents were concieved.

Many Israelis born in Israel are voting with their feet. Nevertheless, Jewish Israelis would not be disenfranchised, just as the Afrikaner community has not been disenfranchised. Can Israel be abolished? Yes. Does this mean the Jewish community needs to leave? No. Two different things IMO.


Yet on the other hand it is utterly unjust that the Palestinian people should be stripped of soverignty. So I am afraid to say, short of a socialist solution, I have no answers and think that anyone who claims they do is woefully shortsighted; and that is my whole point.I basically agree here as well.


National liberation vs civil rights. Though the latter is a part of the former in the case of Palestine.The anti-apartheid struggle was a struggle of national liberation, calling it merely a fight for civil rights is misleading. Furthermore, if you look at the population patterns of South Africa, they are not unlike the present developments in Israel and Palestine; racial segregation is more and more difficult to enforce given demographics.


I think there is plenty of evidence, if one is to look at some of the more prominent nationalist Palestinian groups, that if they were to have a major contribution in the operation of the state it would be distinctly unfavourable to the now majority population living there.You mean they wouldn't get all that free land in the West Bank? Yeah, it's tough but it's also necessary for peace and progress. If Israelis want peace, they're going to have to account for crimes done generations ago. Will this disenfranchise them? No, but it will mean many will have to give up privileges.


Probably not, it is usually foolish to talk in absolutes when discussing history. But I would certainly argue that the Norman invasion is a key factor.Just a question: the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and "Black '49" (1849) is routinely cited in Irish politics. Is this valid? If so, how is this any less legitimate than the citation of al-Nakba of 1948?

[progressive_lefty]

The state of Israel cannot be justified, based on the founding of which it was established, 'colonisation', as opposed to the soppy story Joan Peters tried to fabricate. But in saying that, I support the left in Israel in its efforts towards a one or two state solution that removes the evils the Palestinians have faced for decades.
I think the nation of Israel will have to accept that the racist policies that didn't work in South Africa, are not working in Israel either. Remembering that, discrimination is not just a problem amongst non-Jewish populations in Israel, but for many sub-Jewish groups that are banned from attending certain schools or living in particular locations.

[Colonello Buendia]

the simple fact of the matter is that Israel was created on the pretext of an anti semitic declaration drafted so as to get the jews out of Britain. the reason that post war many jews headed for the land promised to them by Balfour was because they were refused asylum in many European countries. people will argue that the poor settlers were quickly attacked by 3 Arab nations and were justified in fighting back, I disagree, the Arabs were simply anti semitic but the jews had no right to be there. the attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the subsequent destruction of palestinian land and homes removed even the smallest grain of justification the settlers had. the solution to the question would be in my opinion an entirely secular state in which isreali and Palestinian co-operate and live together enjoying the entire country. before that happens however all Isrealis and Palestinians who have commited atrocities and killed innocents should be tried, the wall should be brought down, the Isreali army liquidated and Jerusalem be declared a free city, the Isrealis should also withdraw to the pre 1967 borders and remove the settlements before that.

[Red Anarchist of Love]

in the new covement jesus, renewed an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth to become love your enimies, turn the other cheek. the murder used to steal the land can never be justified

[Labor Shall Rule]

Leo:

While you parade your rigid, ultra-left dogmatism around, you come off as the 'most principled' one, yet the global South's working class has continued to forget your official 'Marxist' proclamations and join nationalist or 'Stalinist' parties. Instead of asking 'why' and trying to historically analyze how these third world movements triumphed over 'socialist' or 'worker' movements (in numeric size and popularity), you sum it all down to 'class collaborationism', and that's it.

In Palestine, it has been made a prison - all of them could die tomorrow and Israeli profits would still be fairly high - and actually, it'd give them more land to Jewishize with settlers. It's neither a 'colony' or a 'semi-colony' in reality - but a 'annexed' people under direct rule (like an old imperial-power of antiquity). Their economy is (more or less) based on it's prison-state qualities - Palestinian labor largely being consumed for Palestinian subsistence.

I don't see that many Palestinian Marxists, trade unions, and popular organizations (as sad as that is), and if there a few, should they walk around, and shout through the refugee camps that chasing the settlers out, reclaiming their villages, and getting rid of checkpoints is a 'nationalist' demand, and that they should instead create an Arab socialist republic?

[Unicorn]

Well, then please explain why Israel has the right to exist. Is it not a colonialist state, created by expelling a whole people from its land? Is it not ruled by a racist regime that fights every day for its goal of "a maximum of Jews on a maximum of land, a minimum of Arabs on a minimum of land?"
Israelis don't generally believe in the existence of separate Jewish and Arab races. They don't exist in reality or even as social constructs. It is thus inappropriate to say that Israel is a "racist" country. It is not colonialist either because the term colonialism is normally used with reference to discontiguous European overseas empires rather than contiguous land-based empires, European or otherwise.

Israel is a multinational state in which the Arab national minority (or Muslim religious minority) is not equal. It can be compared to Austria-Hungary of the early 20th century.

[Yehuda Stern]

Israelis don't generally believe in the existence of separate Jewish and Arab races.

Strike one...


It is not colonialist either because the term colonialism is normally used with reference to discontiguous European overseas empires rather than contiguous land-based empires, European or otherwise.

Strike two...


Israel is a multinational state in which the Arab national minority (or Muslim religious minority) is not equal. It can be compared to Austria-Hungary of the early 20th century. http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/quote.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1187671)

Strike three, you're out!

Israelis do believe, first of all, that Arabs and Jews are races, and that the Jews are superior, while the Arabs are, imagine that, inferior. I do not, as an internationalist, believe in the existence of 'races' within humanity, but this racist conception expresses itself in Israel in every possible way. So as social constructs, those 'races' have a powerful and real material existence. Israel, therefore, is a racist state, as claimed.

Secondly, your definition of colonialism is shallow and very convenient. Were the whites in South Africa not a colonialist society? They were a colony which took a land from its native people, resting on the bayonets of Western imperialism. The Israeli Jews are no different.

So, third, no, Israel is not like Austro-Hungary. That is a loaded comparison. The Austro-Hungarians were not colonialists. Oppression in Austro-Hungary was national, not racial. And not every person whose grandfather was Austro-Hungarian could simply become a citizen of the country. Austro-Hungaria did not define itself as the state of some world people, but of Austro-Hungarians. Austro-Hungaria did not have to fight an ethnic war to dispossess natives for land to set up a racist state upon. Need I go on?

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Surley most of us here would be opposed to any religious state being formed, regardelss of the crimes Israel has committed and the Palestinian inhabitants of the British mandate of Palestine.

[Yehuda Stern]

As a Marxist I don't define states on the basis of ideology. I oppose the setting up of a bourgeois state. However, I do support the Palestinians' right for self-determination, and I support the setting up of a Palestinian state in this land. Such a state could only come about through a workers' revolution. If a bourgeois state is created, it can only be because the revolution has been derailed from a socialist direction by unfavorable conditions.

[progressive_lefty]

the simple fact of the matter is that Israel was created on the pretext of an anti semitic declaration drafted so as to get the Jews out of Britain. the reason that post war many Jews headed for the land promised to them by Balfour was because they were refused asylum in many European countries. people will argue that the poor settlers were quickly attacked by 3 Arab nations and were justified in fighting back, I disagree, the Arabs were simply anti semitic but the Jews had no right to be there. the attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the subsequent destruction of Palestinian land and homes removed even the smallest grain of justification the settlers had. the solution to the question would be in my opinion an entirely secular state in which Israeli and Palestinian co-operate and live together enjoying the entire country. before that happens however all Israelis and Palestinians who have committed atrocities and killed innocents should be tried, the wall should be brought down, the Israeli army liquidated and Jerusalem be declared a free city, the Israelis should also withdraw to the pre 1967 borders and remove the settlements before that.

Putting aside the history for the moment, that meaning I neither agree or disagree with your post, if we talk about here and now, the situation in Israel and Palestine could be described as pretty 'clear cut'.

- Israel occupies Gaza and West Bank
- Israel has a growing population in the Occupied Territories through the construction of 'Jewish-only' Illegal Settlements, now numbering into the hundreds of thousands
- Arabs in Israel face large discrimination
- separate laws apply to Jews living on the settlements, and Arabs are not allowed to use the infrastructure built in relation to the settlements (eg. roads)
- the crimes of extremist settlers against Palestinians, are routinely ignored by the IDF
- the human rights record of Israel is shocking, and is confirmed by Betselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty..
- for every innocent Israeli that dies, 3 innocent Palestinians will die
- Israel controls the borders of Palestine, and has many difficult checkpoints where Palestinians must wait for hours to pass through
- Israel's policy of housing demolitions brings it into conflict with the Geneva Convention, and has led to the loss of homes for thousands of Palestinian families

Thats what I have made of the conflict.
I am open to corrections if I have made any mistakes. I haven't included any sources, but if you wish to see them, ask for them and I will post them.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

TO add to the list maybe the routine illegal attacks on ambulances as well as dellaying their emergancy journeys at check-points; all considered as war crimes in the eyes of international law.

Oh, and Israeli expansion policies has been condemed by the UN yet Israel still receive more aid than any country in the region.

And there is the routine stealing of Palestinian recources sucha s water which is used for the settlers whilst a few hundred meters away Palestinians die because of lack of water after their homes were destroyed.

[Unicorn]

I will bow to your obviously superior knowledge of the topic, in the case of Iran and modern conscription in general. However reading up on Finnish national service, they do get paid, but it seems a truly awful amount, 4 Euros a day.
I served 12 months and got 3,60 € during the first six months, 5,75 € between the seventh and ninth months and 8,25 € during the last three months. There was three hours of free time each day.

[progressive_lefty]

Putting aside the history for the moment, that meaning I neither agree or disagree with your post, if we talk about here and now, the situation in Israel and Palestine could be described as pretty 'clear cut'.

- Israel occupies Gaza and West Bank
- Israel has a growing population in the Occupied Territories through the construction of 'Jewish-only' Illegal Settlements, now numbering into the hundreds of thousands
- Arabs in Israel face large discrimination
- separate laws apply to Jews living on the settlements, and Arabs are not allowed to use the infrastructure built in relation to the settlements (eg. roads)
- the crimes of extremist settlers against Palestinians, are routinely ignored by the IDF
- the human rights record of Israel is shocking, and is confirmed by Betselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty..
- for every innocent Israeli that dies, 3 innocent Palestinians will die
- Israel controls the borders of Palestine, and has many difficult checkpoints where Palestinians must wait for hours to pass through
- Israel's policy of housing demolitions brings it into conflict with the Geneva Convention, and has led to the loss of homes for thousands of Palestinian families

Thats what I have made of the conflict.
I am open to corrections if I have made any mistakes. I haven't included any sources, but if you wish to see them, ask for them and I will post them.

No one has any problems with my post?

[Aurelia]

Apart from the occupation of Palestine I don't really see how Israel is that much of a special case, Zionism is just the Jewish version of bourgeois nationalism.

[Yehuda Stern]

Everything you said is correct, as far as I understand it. I would imagine we would disagree more on the conclusions than on the facts.

[kingbee]

I believe it was, purely in the way that the Jews had suffered for years as a minority group throughout Europe from time immemorial. To give them a state was to give them security. However, the way it was established wasn't at all. You can't push out people from a land that they have lived in for years, claiming 'we were there first' (I'm sure there were people there before the Jews).

A couple of my Jewish friends say they should have taken Uganda or Madagascar while they had the chance, but I'm sure the religious fanatics might have had something to say about that.

[Trystan]

So expansionism is "self-determination"? At the heart of Zionism lies the idea of an ethnically pure homeland. That, in itself, is reactionary and in direct opposition to the rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine and Lebanon and beyond. Make no mistake, Isreal is not an exercise in self-determination, it is the active denial of self-determination.

The question was: Do you believe the establishment of Israel was in any way valid?

I'm not a supporter of Zionism, or not modern Zionism anyway. I think that the Jewish people needed a homeland after the holocaust. In relation to the foundation of Israel per se that is self-determination. I do not approve of the methods used, the expulsions etc. Your claim that at the heart of Zionism is "the idea of an ethnically pure homeland" is disputable by the way. Prior to Israel's foundation, Jews (Zionists) and Palestinians lived side by side without too much trouble.

[Yehuda Stern]

I believe it was, purely in the way that the Jews had suffered for years as a minority group throughout Europe from time immemorial.


I think that the Jewish people needed a homeland after the holocaust.

But Jews are not and never have been a people. Why do they 'need' a separate state? Do you believe, like the Zionists and the anti-Semites, that the holocaust happened because Jews lived among gentiles, or that is happened because of the rottenness of imperialism?


A couple of my Jewish friends say they should have taken Uganda or Madagascar while they had the chance, but I'm sure the religious fanatics might have had something to say about that.

You don't really care, I suppose, about what the people of Uganda or Madagascar themselves would have to say about it?


Your claim that at the heart of Zionism is "the idea of an ethnically pure homeland" is disputable by the way. Prior to Israel's foundation, Jews (Zionists) and Palestinians lived side by side without too much trouble.

Hilarious. Jews did live with Arabs without trouble - but Zionists made trouble for Arabs from day one. It's preposterous, given the terrorist activities of the Zionists and especially the Histadrut against Palestinians, farmers, workers, and merchants alike, to say that the Zionists (not the Jews - those are two very different things) lvied peacefully with the Palestinians.

[kingbee]

But Jews are not and never have been a people. Why do they 'need' a separate state? Do you believe, like the Zionists and the anti-Semites, that the holocaust happened because Jews lived among gentiles, or that is happened because of the rottenness of imperialism

I believe they needed a seperate state after much of Europe tried to wipe them out. I imagine then, as at the start of the war, there was much anti-Semitism around. Can you imagine as a Jew trying to reintegrate into societies that tried to wipe them out? Of course, it's not a justification for any of the crimes that Israel has carried out against the Palestinians and most of their neighbours there. But I believe it is a justification for getting your own state.

And I would say the Jews are as much a people as, say, the Dutch. No, they are not a race but they can be persecuted nevertheless.

And no, I don't believe it was mixed living or imperialism which was the cause of the Holocaust.


You don't really care, I suppose, about what the people of Uganda or Madagascar themselves would have to say about it?


Chill out. Did I actually say that I thought it was a good idea?

[Yehuda Stern]

I believe they needed a seperate state after much of Europe tried to wipe them out. I imagine then, as at the start of the war, there was much anti-Semitism around. Can you imagine as a Jew trying to reintegrate into societies that tried to wipe them out?

I can give you a long list of left-wing Jews who stayed in Europe after surviving the holocaust. The problem for most Jews was that the old, intensely anti-Zionist, religious leadership of the Eastern European Jews was mostly wiped out, and they were left with nothing to guide to remain firm anti-Zionists. Jews not only were not a nation, but though of the Zionist myth that they are to be heretical.


Chill out. Did I actually say that I thought it was a good idea?

No, but you never said that you thought it was a bad idea either.

[kingbee]

Jews not only were not a nation, but though of the Zionist myth that they are to be heretical.

Sorry, I don't understand this. Can you explain?


No, but you never said that you thought it was a bad idea either.

Well I've never had to pass judgement on everyone I've ever quoted in a post before.

[Faction2008]

Against it.

[Yehuda Stern]

Sorry, I don't understand this. Can you explain?

Sorry, typos. Should be:

"Jews not only are not a nation, but most Jews before WWII believed the Zionist conception according to which Jews are a nation to be heretical."

[iXchel_Xicana]

Never, Israel's beginning has been too corrupt in modern times, check out how some Nazi's made secret deals with Zionists to sneak them out of Nazi occupied territory and establish an occupation in Palestine.. There were even plans to establish Israel in Argentina..

This is a hijacked story, brainwashing both Jewish and Arab struggling peoples for their own gain.. FREE PALESTINE.

keep in mind, both peoples suffer.. at the hands of the main occupiers.