the "specialfication" of the israeli/palestinian conflict among the left and society

[MarxArchist]

You hear from the left constantly of how Israel is crushing Palestine, some may even use the term "genocide." This is just the overwrought, overly impassioned rhetoric which many of them are specialists at. Of course, many despicable crimes are being committed against the Palestinians by the Israeli state, but it can't really be described as a genocide scenario where the Israelis are systematically emptying apartment blocks, lining the residents up against the wall, shooting them and dumping them in mass graves (what actual ethnic cleansing would look like)

Air strikes are much safer for Israeli soldiers. Drone strikes are even safer. Like shooting fish in a barrel from an air conditioned room. Literally.

[Sasha]

Psycho, not sure what country you're in but if what is happening to Palestinians was happening in your country what would you do?

i'm dutch from jewish descent, i refused a possible Israeli citizenship because of the occupation (and the military service that would entail off course) and also refuse to visit the country (not that i would be allowed to enter anymore probably) for that reason. I am involved in various groups very critical of (current) Zionism, i have various friends in AATW and raise money and awareness for them. I'm also involved with groups with contact in Kurdistan, syria, lebanon and northern-africa.
And the dutch state did what happens now to the Palestinians and a lot worse, we raped, maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, 150.000 as recently as 1945-1949 and exploited massive parts of the world as colonies at times. And our complicity/collaboration in the holocaust is staggering.
Yet no'one, not even the Indonesians, blames me for what happened there just as i dont blame all Germans or Dutch for the extermination of my family.

[Sasha]

Are they not Jewish?

most of them, but "jewish" is a dificult thing to define, its it an etnicity, a religion, a culture? a bit of all or something completely different in this context? and many israeli are secular, in fact one of the worst extreme-right zionist parties (the one of Lieberman) is mostly secular and draws its base support from recent Russian immigrants who sometimes even faked their only very distant jewish past to get out of Russia (there was even a blood&honour neo-nazi group in tel-aviv), some are christian, a lot muslim (and not all "arab" israeli are muslim, and of those that are by far not all feel Palestinian etc etc).
and then there is widespread despicable inter-jewish racism within israeli society; azkhenazi shit on Sephardi, Sephardi shit on berber jews, everbody shit on the Beta Israel (ethopian jews). secular shit on orthodox, orthodox shit on liberal, and most setlers are a whole other cup of tea (jewish evangelicals? jewish supremacists?)
Some ultra-orthodox jews in israel virulently oppose Zionism while some of the worst Zionists are US originated evangelical christians who believe that the existence of Israel will lead to the rapture and the end of times (in which their beloved israeli jews that do not convert in time will of course all be damned to eternal suffering in hell... with friends like those...)

so i use "jewish" and "arab" israeli to, for the sake of argument, group two groups who are far from homogeneous and really shouldn't be grouped at all even more so as it runs counter to the argument i actually want to make.

[Red Commissar]

I have come across right-wing lit that questions why Palestinians get so much attention while "more deserving" ethnic minorities like Basques or Kurds get the shaft

This has been an interesting phenomenon, they have been trying to appropriate these causes to point out "hypocrisy" or be judgmental on left politics or what ever is supposidely a cause celibre in our circles.

I know from experience Republican politicians travelled heavily in (Iraqi) Kurdish communities trying to get votes since they typically lived in heavily democratic districts, often appealing to their frustration that they are not given media attention or strawmaning opponents of the Iraq war as saddam lovers. Their major political groups also went along with it and were instructing them to vote for Bush back in 2004.

A youth in their community, who unfortunately works with Democrats, was frustrated a lot of the older members of their community switched to voting Republican after 2003 solely on the Iraq War issue (they were, by contrast, voting solidly Democratic in the 70s, 80s, and 90s before then), even while they would turn around and draft laws targetting their immigrant communities and social program cuts. He even added some of their older members developed an odd hero worship of Bush, referring to him as 'Kak Bush', literally means Cousin Bush but it's a term of endearment. Again most of this was through self-victimization on perceived marganization by the political parties. I tried to explain to him of course the Democrats probably wouldn't have done much different with respect to deportation and targeting their communities but he phased it out of course.

Some of the more idiotic nationalist Kurds have weirdly developed sympathy for Israel, mostly being antagonistic towards Arabs. This nationalistic shitfeuding has pitted them against one another, with Kurds in Iraq and even Turkey and Iran being accused of being a "second Israel" for this relationship.

[goalkeeper]

there is a semi-sizeable kurdish community in london, when the activists got killed in paris there was a march of about 3,000 in stoke newington.

I think another comparison is when the sri lankan civil war was coming to an end and the government was cluster bombing the fuck out of the north and ramming everyone they found into concentration camps, there was a march of about 100,000 tamils through london but zero involvement from the left.

Perhaps this is an example of what I am talking about. I, a leftist in London, was completely ignorant of this demonstration. When Yvonne Ridley, Lowkey, and Galloway are speaking at some demo for Palestine somewhere in London, you can be sure I will know about it though.

Is this just a failing on my part or did the left (or perhaps we should say non-Kurdish left) in general ignore it?

[~Spectre]

The conflict gets more attention because:

1) There are powerful capitalist states with an interest in stoking it. Where as normally most of the world's powerful states don't really care about any particular group of victims, there are rich oil states (and in turn their Russian or Chinese benefactors), that raise the issue routinely at international forums, and help fund networks.

2) There are a lot of wealthy Palestinians in Jordan and the United States, at least in comparison to other groups. There don't seem to be too many well-connected and rich Australian Aborigines, at least not around the powerful American and European states. In areas where other groups wield some modicum of economic (and thus political) power, such as the Armenian community in California, the volume of criticism reflects it.

3) The Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears far more solvable. Without endorsing or condemning the arguments as to whether any proposed solutions are more than mere illusions, people at least perceive it to be much more fixable with the proper political movement. That's much less clear with other conflicts, therefore the stakes seem higher, and thus the debate is more acrimonious.

4) In America at least, it's far rarer for people to defend other similar cases. Sure you can find people that will always defend every bad act of any state, but in general, condemnation of Israeli policy, is far more controversial than equivalent criticisms of other states. As such, debates emerge. Resentment towards (particularly obnoxious) apologists builds. When you are forced to debate, as Mill argued, then you're forced to brush up on your own knowledge. When you are more knowledgeable in a certain area, you are probably more likely to then go on and engage in that area, further self-perpetuating the cycle.

In other words, leftists here speak less about other conflicts, because they know less about it, and they know less about it, because they don't really need to speak more often about it.

5) Tradition. The New Left college professors that still preach to a lot of the really shouty college leftists types, are still big on the conflict, for reasons having to do with a lot of baggage about "national-liberation" and Israel being one of the last on-going European settler projects, in the classic sense of the word. Presumably, when these people spend days fantasy about Che and Frantz Fanon, the idea of attacking the colonizer becomes appealing. It's a way to relive the nostalgic 60s.

6) Relevance to domestic politics. People focus on the actions of their own states, even when looking at the world through an internationalist lends. Israel receives unique levels of military support from the American government, and as such is part of general activism against U.S. foreign policy, in a way that Kurdistan hasn't been since the 90s.

[bricolage]

Perhaps this is an example of what I am talking about. I, a leftist in London, was completely ignorant of this demonstration. When Yvonne Ridley, Lowkey, and Galloway are speaking at some demo for Palestine somewhere in London, you can be sure I will know about it though.

Is this just a failing on my part or did the left (or perhaps we should say non-Kurdish left) in general ignore it?

the kurdish one was relatively small, of short notice and not in the centre of london.
I think the tamil example is more telling, it was well known and it was huge.

definitely the left ignored both.

[Le Socialiste]

You hear from the left constantly of how Israel is crushing Palestine, some may even use the term "genocide." This is just the overwrought, overly impassioned rhetoric which many of them are specialists at. Of course, many despicable crimes are being committed against the Palestinians by the Israeli state, but it can't really be described as a genocide scenario where the Israelis are systematically emptying apartment blocks, lining the residents up against the wall, shooting them and dumping them in mass graves (what actual ethnic cleansing would look like)

Ethnic cleansing doesn't have to be achieved via mass graves. There are other means of doing it (although the Israeli state certainly doesn't shy away from the occasional massacre of Palestinian citizens).