Israel: how to lose friends and alienate people
Posted on Monday 29 December, 2008
Filed Under International
ISRAEL is not behaving like a civilised nation; that inevitably raises the question of whether it should be treated as one. Even its strongest supporters must be finding it difficult to mount a positive case.
The third day of the bombardment of Gaza has taken the death toll to over 300, including four young sisters killed when a bomb aimed at a nearby mosque missed its target. Some 1,400 have been injured. Even as I write, warships are reportedly bombarding the strip’s rudimentary port facilities. Welcome to Operation Cast Lead.
There have been debates in many British trade unions – including my own, the National Union of Journalists – centred on demands for a labour movement boycott of the state of Israel. I now suspect that I have lacked clarity on this issue. Sadly, prevarication is no longer tenable.
Opponents of such a move have typically argued that the country should not be ‘uniquely demonised’, and indeed, it should not be uniquely demonised. But minus any religious overtones and rhetorical flamboyance, demonise is in this context is simply a more elaborate synonym for condemn, and Israel’s action certain does deserve condemnation.
What are the viable comparators here? Tolstoy famously notes that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and likewise each odious administration finds its own specialities in human rights abuses.
Burma, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China, Zimbabwe; all manage to be unequivocally execrable in one degree or another, irrespective of the way some on the left try to grade them into ‘pro-imperialist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ regimes. But it’s not our job to play favourites. Let us demonise the lot of them.
Perhaps we can best compare what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip right now with Russia’s treatment of Chechnya. But nobody is pretending that Russia is a liberal democracy. The irony is, history shows that brutal repression is never a solution. The tactic simply doesn’t work, as Tel Aviv will find out to its cost.
I wish I could be outside the Israeli embassy in London at this afternoon’s protest, although unfortunately other commitments preclude that. In the meantime, if the issue of labour movement sanctions comes up inside the NUJ once more, I shall reluctantly be forced to back the call.
Yes, I am fully aware that that will align me with political elements I don’t really find savoury, but I cannot see what other choice there is; while I used to be on the middle ground in this debate, Israel has demolished that space, just as surely as it has levelled Gaza’s interior ministry.
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89 Responses to “Israel: how to lose friends and alienate people”
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Via Lenin’s Tomb:
Boycott Israeli universities: disgrace, shame, new antisemitism, crypto-fascist, etc.
Bomb Palestinian university: a regrettable necessity in the war against totalitarianism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7802515.stm
I’m not a supporter of a boycott of Israel, for the same reasons as Janine. I think Histadrut should lead antiwar action, as calling a general strike.
I have a post on this subject at my blog. It is not a contradiction, to oppose Israel’s bombing defenseless people, and opposing Hamas. Both Hamas and Fatah, would have Palestine be a haven for cheap labor, a neoliberal paradise.
TN,
Of course a-s has changed through the ages. Thats the point I am making. The second point I make is that current a-s has similarities with older manifestations. That doesnt mean its the same, it means it is not totally different. I would expect some historical continuity wouldnt you?
The reasons why people hold a racist view is important and shapes the arguement against their racism. But this is not the whole story. There is an antisemitic discourse which people can and do latch onto and bend to their own conditions and purposes. To say it again – this changes over time and place – but the discourse has a traceable continuity. It is not reinvented from nothing in different times and places.
This has nothing to do with an ‘essense of race’. Its to do with ideas of racism.
Shabba Goy
yes, you got me the bang to rights, I am constantly opposing boycotts of states worse than Israel and chuckling as those notoriously precise Hamas rockets hit kindergartens. I had never really thought about it but I guess I must be one of those left wing anti-semites. But I suppose if I really wanted to stir up anti-semitism I would go around telling people that the ongoing carnage in Gaza is an example of “the Jews defending themselves”.
Why don’t you piss off back to Harry’s Place where this kind of juvenilia is treated seriously?
And so it finally comes out. Daddy Stovepipe thinks the actions of Jews stirs up anitsemitism,
‘But I suppose if I really wanted to stir up anti-semitism I would go around telling people that the ongoing carnage in Gaza is an example of “the Jews defending themselves”.’
Sort yourself out – or to follow your lead -piss off back to the bnp. They agree with you – Jews ask for it.
Surely the reason behind anti-semitism in Germany in the 30′s (or anywhere) and the Middle East in the present day is the same? Look for the context. A ruling class seeks to divert attention from its own failings and corruption by picking on a small group seen as more successful. If the Palestinians weren’t blaming the Israelis for their lack of food, water, modern education, jobsd etc they might start to question where teh money is going. It’s called ‘divide and rule’ and is the oldest trick in the governing book.
actually the BNP agree with you, and are strongly supportive of Israel. I suppose all that searching for ancient tropes has cut you off a bit from developments in the real world. Certainly the argument of people like yourself that Israel and its actions represent “the Jews” stir up anti-semitism, although fortunately only a tiny minority of people are stupid enought to swallow this. And incidentally isn’t it your argument that those who campaign for a boycott, many of whom are Jewish, are stirring up anti-semitism through their actions?
Alan -
No, there is not a continuous racist discourse which changes – because those changes would have to be rooted in some core essence which doesn’t change. Otherwise, you would be all over the place.
Or maybe you agree with Slavoj Zizek when he says that anti-Semitism has mutated into Islamophobia… I’d be interested to see how you clunk your way out of that one without asserting some essence of anti-Semitism.
DS
Leftists have a duty to be mindful of a-s and think ahead to the consequences of their proposals. The consequences of a boycott camapign would be to futher exclude Jews and increase hostility to Jews who identify as Z – which is the vast majority.
Even if I did think that Israeli foreign policy was supported by all Zionists (which I dont) that would not be a justification for campaigns designed to exclude Jews or Zionists. Perhaps you disagree.
For god’s sake TN.
Would you be happier if I said there is a new a-s which is different to older a-s except that it has much in common. Perhaps there is so much in common that it is not new at all but a little bit changed.
I wonder if you are trying to insist that today is not yesterday and by so doing forgetting that yesterday is a forrunner of today.
Do you really think a-s is reinvented, from scratch every now and again with no reference to the past?
I am glad that none of you have come up with the slightest rational argument for ‘boycott Israel’, or as it widely known, Don’t Buy Yid.
The facts are clear: the boycott was initiated many years back by the Saudis and anti-Communist filth. That’s regardless of the more recent campaign: backed by people such as Tony Greenstein (need I say more). Or is this untypical of the kind of people you are associating with Stephen Marks:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.html
I notice that a large number of people are now claiming intimate knowledge of Israel and Jewish History, and the more obscure divisions between the Bund and various Zionist factions. Soit.
I simply know that this campaign to Boycott Isreal stinks to high heaven.
PS I have my own blog Stevan (which gets around 300 hits a day), something you don’t seem capable of doing.
I see. So Jews can stir up anti-semitism among people who would otherwise live blameless lives, but only when they condemn Israel. If on the other hand they exult in the slaughter in Gaza and proclaim it to represent “the Jews defending themselves” this does not cause anti-semitism at all and only a fascist could claim otherwise. Well, good luck with that trope.
Alan -
I believe that capitalism always needs a Villainous Figure who embodies a threat to capitalist economy. In the past, this role was assigned not onlt to the fictitious Jewish Plotter, but also the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jew who accumulates capital thus rendering it unproductive. Today, this same role is assigned to the figure of the fundamentalist Muslim, with Islam characterised as the only religion which cannot adapt to capitalist globalisation. To me, the fact that these two racist figures (the money-hungry Jew and the barbaric Muslim fundamentalist) perform the same function in capitalism tells me that they are much more likely to represent a continuous phenomenon which has changed slightly over time, than randomly pointing to instances of anti-Semitism in history and claiming that these are all a part of the same discourse.
Furthermore, it seems to me that if one holds fast to the idea of a phantom-like anti-Semitism which sometimes sleeps, which sometimes awakens and which can thrive in all sorts of mentalities, from Nazis to the far left, then that’s going to blind you to seeing how capitalism is using Islamophobic sentiment in the same way that it once used anti-Semitic sentiment. But do tell me, Alan, do you think that anti-Semitism can mutate to become Islamophobia? And, if not, why not?
TN
The extermination of the Jews in Europe took place within my parents’ life time. Less than 20 years before I was born, the Nazis embarked on the ‘final solution’. This is not some ancient prejudice floating in a Platonic heaven. It is entirely plausible that unexamined aspects of it can resurface, if they went away, after such a short time, without referring to ‘essences’ or any other abstract concept – and resurface with disastrous consequences.
Of course most advocates of the boycott are not anti-semites in the sense of hating Jews. But it is deeply alarming how insensitive many of them are to the implications of some of their arguments, and even more so, to the fact that the same ‘tropes’ are employed by outright fascists and, eg, the Saudi government. This is not a healthy state of affairs.
Sorry, apparently we were posting simultaneously. This argument seems to me the worst of all, in discussing anti-semitism – that there is another prejudice which is stronger, more prevalent, etc. Why on earth should it follow that because Muslims are the main target of racism that anti-semtism does not also exist?
Or are you seriously suggesting that *only* Islamophobia now exists, and old-fashioned racism against people of African descent, say, has evaporated (it being based on slavery and what have you, which have dissolved completely as capitalism no longer needs it…)?
Andrew: Stephen Marks is 100 per cent correct. Your protests against the power of his response to your ignorant use of “Don’t buy Yid” only mean you dig yourself deeper into a hole where you should not want to be. If you want to counter the arguements of Stephen and the many others active in Jews for Justice for Palestinians – first try and find out – and then understand – at least as much as they do about Israeli policy and the situation for the Palestinians on the ground. The stand they are taking for elementary human and democratic rights and values and the courage they are showing in standing up to the Israeli state/military machine is one of the few inspiring features of this black New Year.
Spot on Dave.
Happy New Year
Ed -
Individuals hold racist beliefs for all sorts of weird reasons. For instance, if I was raped by a Jewish man, I might (if I were not already a committed anti-racist) develop anti-Semitic beliefs. Now, of course, these beliefs might be informed by an anti-Semitic discourse. That I do not deny. But the original sentiment, the drive to become anti-Semitic in this hypothetical case has its origins in the specific experience of rape. However, perhaps you should read the detail of what has been posted here more closely, for what Alan is claiming is as follows:
“It is a boycott that will breed and feed a-s, not necessarily the other way round. Although a boycott does also restate antisemitic tropes of old. I do not necesarily accuse boycotters of a-s, just of playing with fire.”
My point is that the “fire” is within the individual – for some reason, they become a racist and THEN draw upon and contribute to racist discourses. I mean, are you going to deny that all through Alan’s contributions, the metaphor of Platonism is completely obvious to see: a fire waits to rise up, a sleeping anti-Semitism awakens etc etc. This is mystical gibberish and has no place in serious left-wing discussion.
Although I welcome Dave Osler’s general approach in this article, I find the note of surprise that Israel does not behave like a civilised nation hard to understand.
It is true that its PR department has been having to work harder and harder in recent years, but it was founded amid massive ethnic cleansing, it took part in the failed colonial adventure of Suez, it has routinely flouted international law, its role in the Sabra and Chatila massacre in 1982 resembled that of the German troops invading the USSR who preferred to let their East European auxiliaries do their killing rather than do it themselves, it has massively killed Palestinians again and again, and now this.
There has often been a complete failure on the part of media and opinion formers to examine the Palestinian case, but that hardly meant Israel was “civilised” – far from it.
Is Toodle Noodle a ‘native’ English speaker from a culturally British background? S/he doesn’t seem to have grasped the mataphor ‘playing with fire’, believing it to be a Platonic representation. i don’t think so.
TN
I can’t and don’t wish to speak for Alan. But there is no Platonism implied by suggesting anti-semitism is still a danger, regardless of whether capitalism ‘needs’ it in the way it did in the 1930s.
The fire that is being played with is that – whatever the subjective intentions of those on the left – overtly anti-semitic ideology certainly *does* exist, for instance in fascist movements, who are growing or might grow, and if the left can’t recognise the anti-semitism it, the left, will be unable to fight it – fascism – or fight it adequately.
In the Middle East there is a related concern. Anti-semitism, often on a European-fascist model, is an aspect of much Islamist ideology. A democratic and socialist movement needs to be able to recognise it and oppose it.
At first I laughed at your contribution there but actually, Sue, your quip is really quite pathetic. It was the metaphor of returning – whether that be fire, life or consciousness – which I was drawing attention to, and how it mirrors Plato’s theory of Recollection.
I am loathe to engage people like you – people who make poorly thought-through quips in an attempt to make other people look stupid. And when a subject as serious as racism is being discussed too.
Ed -
The institutional elements (i.e. certain right-wing newspapers) who made a contribution to anti-Semitism in the 1930s are the same ones who are making a contribution to Islamophobia today.
And, no, the fire is not the Fascist movements. Such movements require subjective raw material to feed off – whether that be political disappointment, economic crisis, the need for a surrogate father-figure or even the trauma of rape. It’s traumas such as these which the capitalist state apparatus (including those right-wing newspapers) seeks to draw a profit from.
Yes David Osler, great post and you are right! Sanctions of the right kind will go along way to bringing the Rogue State to heel.
But TN, both these points are irrelevant.
That the Daily Mail, or whoever, is more concerned with Muslims (and others, surely – ‘bogus asylum seekers’ and whatnot) today has no bearing on whether anti-semitism exists.
And of course fascist movements need other factors than the existence of anti-semitism to grow. Who has said or would say otherwise? But fascist(ic) movements certainly do use anti-semitism, perhaps a little less obviously these days in Britain – but if you look further afield, eg, Russia, it is very much alive and well.
And so arguments which overlap, shall we say, with anti-semitic ones certainly are fire that it’s dangerous to play with.
Tootlebye: It’s many years since I read Plato’s ‘Meno’, but I think you are confusing it with the parable of the Cave, found in ‘The Republic’.
Tn
You are wrong to say that people ‘become racist then draw on upon the racist discourse’. Its not likley to be such a linear development.
We are talking here about political movements. This discussion is not about motive or personal instincts. Left anti-semitism is a political phenomina that is a result of misguided ideas – its not about individuals looking to vent their spleen and settling upon (for instance) a boycott to express their inner hatreds.
I would guess that most left-antisemites do not want to be hostile to Jews and are shocked to have their ideas bracketed as a-s.
Part of the explanation for the re-growth of left-antisemitism is an ignorance of the history of a-s, which is why its important to make the point that some aspects of left a-s closely resemble arguments that were prevelant many years ago.
Dave,
it is worthwhile remember at what has happened in the union where the most vigorous anti-Israel pro-boycott campaign took place, UCU
now many of your readers will be old trade unionists and have a love of all things connected to unions, but the net affect of the campaign in UCU has NOT been to strengthen the Union, or do any thing meaningful to assist the Palestinians
rather the net affect has been that many Jews have increasingly felt uncomfortable in UCU and left, resigning their membership of UCU
so the only success of the UCU pro-boycott has been to increase the chances of UCU becoming the first Jew-Free trade union in the 21st century
not much to boast about, particularly if you’re keen on trade unions
Ed you wrote:
“That the Daily Mail, or whoever, is more concerned with Muslims (and others, surely – ‘bogus asylum seekers’ and whatnot) today has no bearing on whether anti-semitism exists.”
So what happened to the idea (promoted by Alan) that anti-Semitism can change over time? Why can it not change into Islamophobia IF it performs the same function (i.e. stigmatise an ethnic group on their alleged threat to the current political and economic system)?
But where are these anti-Semitic arguments which can “overlap” with other arguments? A materialist account of social processes should hold that – and please read this bit carefully – there are no arguments apart from their articulation by individuals. There are no anti-Semitic arguments, up there in the clouds, passively waiting to be plucked out the sky and articulated through mouths here on Earth. Instead, there is a political class which manipulates people’s traumas and fears for their own benefit.
In fact, what you are arguing for is a paranoid-conservative political subject who refuses to engage in activity for fear that she might trigger some deeply-buried ancient prejudice which lies unconscious within her. And all this is meant to be taken on trust, with people like yourself and Alan being the ones we are to trust when you tell us that we are at risk of triggering this phenomena.
It’s at this point in the discussion that Alan says something extremely interesting: “We are talking here about political movements. This discussion is not about motive or personal instincts.” So this is a racism for which the individual “left anti-Semite” doesn’t even have to apologize for or take personal responsibility for – just as long as she drops the boycott idea. Maybe if you call people anti-Semites for long enough, you may just make them paranoid enough to consider the possibility – and then you offer them a clean route out by saying: ‘oh, we won’t blame you or ask you to take personal responsibility for your racism’. Just who are you trying to kid with this BS?
On this theme, Alan you also wrote:
“I would guess that most left-antisemites do not want to be hostile to Jews and are shocked to have their ideas bracketed as a-s.”
Well, as long as there are people such as myself around to point out that people like you who do label these people anti-Semites are usually guilty of mystical thinking, then hopefully they’ll be a little less bothered.
TN
You seem to be on some philosophical hobbyhorse here. I suppose it’s true that arguments are always articulated by individuals. But if lots of individuals articulate the same argument it is not unreasonable to refer to ‘the argument’ as something which exists in itself. Marxism, say, exists as a body of thought and argument not reducible to any particular individual articulating it.
What this has to do with anything is unclear. There are tropes of anti-semitism, including notions of conspiracy, Jews being behind all things evil, and many others, which are themes of the propaganda of various right wing movements in the past and still today. If the left echoes these themes, it’s in trouble. That’s the argument, sorry the argument this individual and many others are articulating.
I suppose anti-semitism might mutate into Islamophobia hypothetically, but it seems extremely odd to claim that this is because of its function for capitalism. The T doesn’t stand for Talcott, does it?
“Anti-semitism, often on a European-fascist model, is an aspect of much Islamist ideology. A democratic and socialist movement needs to be able to recognise it and oppose it.”
Assuming for the sake of argument that the first claim is true, the democratic and socialist movements in the Middle East do oppose anti-semitism within the resistance movement. However, they do so in a context of opposing and fighting against the racist Israeli state, rather than making excuses for its crimes. In this way they stand a chance in hell of being listened to by the victims of the bombs and fighter jets of the self-styled “Jewish state”.
Israel depends on “might is right”, as surely as any fascist regime ever did.
There is a touch of desperation to media attempts to portray the glorified fireworks shot by Hamas (like fireworks, occasionally lethal) as a major threat to an Israel armed to the teeth with tanks, bombers, artillery, missiles and even nuclear weapons (an imbalance clearly reflected in the casualty tolls). There seems to be an assumption that people who live in “Western” countries are morons. However, a population doped up on Islamophobia, “war on terror” and Big Brother (both the TV show and the Echelon-style surveillance and CCTV that lies just below the surface of our “freedoms”) may well be morons. Let us hope not.
This “don’t buy yid” slogan is so widely used that if you google it, every single occurence of it was spoken by me.
This is because I am in a small minority: I habitually refer to our Jewish brethren as ‘yids’.
Aren’t I a clever boy?
Coates: no, you’re a pro-imperialist islamophobic prick.
A few questions:
‘ISRAEL is not behaving like a civilised nation’, If so, what does a ‘civilised nation’ do when under rocket attack aimed at maximising civilian casualties?
Why does Hamas continued to use its 1988 manifesto as its operation doctrine which is an explicitly genocidal document?
If Israel are really determined to destroy the Palestinian working class, why have they been so remarkably incompetant at it?
Islamist a-s is an integral part of most Islamist movements, in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood. It adopted the metaphysical contours of the mythical deicidal world controlling Jew from the Ultra-nationalists of fin de siecle Europe and the inner war period. The Nazis took their a-s from a ongoing tradition, including Spengler, Ford, Chamberlain, the Protocols, social Darwinism and adapted forms of Christian A-s. The only caveat is that Islamists in the west substitute Zionist for jew.
In both cases the Jews was not some chimera created to serve Capitalism tm, but a existentual entity embodying threat, chaos and social disintegration. They believed in this fallacy because they are caught in a insolvable crisis of their ideology, identity and modernity.
What ever Jews do is besides the point, a-s is a mythical tradition that means the Jew is always blood-thirsty, sadistic, outside the bounds of humanity, self-regarding and aloof, planning and conspiring.
Hamas do what every Jew betwixt the sea and the river dead or as a passive quiet slowly eroding minority. That is the solution for them. It frees the Islamic Waqf from the affrontery of the Jewish state and regenerates the world with a powerful imperial theocratic state. The MB’s preceived greatest tragedy was the end of such an empire in 1924. That is what burns in their hearts, not the kids they send to blow up pizza restuarants or place in proximity to their rocket platforms. Hamas are possibly the least capable elite in a region where eleites are renowned for being leaders in stupidity and selfishness.
It break my heart to think over the panic, the misery, the pain and death that encompasses these systematic ‘incidents’, where men take life and power is bared. But I will not ignore the nature of Hamas, I will not ignore the fact that more Arabs have been killed by their own governments than by the ‘Zio-Nazis’ and with far less remorse and introspection than that ‘racist entity’. I am a Socialist so I think a liberal democracy is more ‘progressive’ than a theocratic regime via modern totalitarian means. That is the dialectic
No, no, no. Israel is not a liberal democracy. It is a military-industrial state with a veneer of electoral legitimacy, entirely dependant on US money and military know-how. This military state’s ideology is supported by the settler philosophy which sees Israelis as a culturally and ethnically superior race. These settlers have derailed and degraded any attempt at a peaceful settlement with the tacit knowledge of Israel’s right-wing governments. The settlers have a racially supremicist philosophy.
Dave should be flattered that his blog is so important to be targetted by the propaganda arm of the Israeli state! And they didn’t like his post this time … at all!
“Islamist a-s is an integral part of most Islamist movements, in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood. It adopted the metaphysical contours of the mythical deicidal world controlling Jew from the Ultra-nationalists of fin de siecle Europe and the inner war period.”
Well, at least you admit the weird metaphysics lurking behind such an analysis.
the situation in Israel is considerably more complex than inveterate Israel haters would have you believe, as Derek Wall describes:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3288
Don’t worry TN, don’t bother your pretty wee head about. For anybody else actually interested in the nature of a-s (Blatant plug coming), there is an essay I put up on my blog on just such a subject
‘It is a military-industrial state with a veneer of electoral legitimacy, entirely dependant on US money and military know-how’
As of 2007
GDP $185.8 billion
State expenditure $53.63 billion
Military expenditure 7.3% of GDP
US aid $120 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html#Econ
I wish i was being paid to protest anything, it would really help with the gas meter, I’m fucking freezing here. Can you actually imagine, whoever, that someone might have a different opinion without being in the pay of Mossad, can you…try…go on. Alas the great conspiracy have failed to pay up for my opining on a little blog….I just aren’t up to their high and demanding standards, i guess.
I do wonder how much Hamas spends on it’s military and where such funds might come from….Maybe the Worker’s paradise of the Islamic Republic of Iran, run by the Tudah I belive or the People Democratic Commune of Saudi Arabia, that secular and progressive power-house…Questions, questions