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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Comments
89 Responses to “Israel: how to lose friends and alienate people”
Im with you on this one Dave.
Supporters of the South African apartheid regime would often say. ‘why pick on SA, call for sanctions and not do the same about Zaire or other nearby oppressive regimes’ (of the time). Supporters of Israel say pretty much the same now.
There’s a grain of truth in the comment but it was designed to support the unsupportable – apartheid SA or apartheid Israel.
My view was that there was a campaign to defeat apartheid in SA. It had a wide level of support.
Although socialists had many criticisms to make of such – boycotts are not enough but also are a start- there was a prospect of a better life for all resulting from the replacement of apartheid state and likewise there would be with the replacement of the Jewish state by a secular one.
So I support all campaigns against the racist state and would also do so in other campaigns against other nearby oppressive regimes – they are not counterposed.
Boycott Iseal, or don’t buy Yid as it is more widely known, is a dead end. The first such campaign comes from the racist Saudi initiated move (not remote from its World anti-Communist Alliance). I first came across this when I was teaching EFL in the eighties to an Algerian woman who was working for the Saudi Embassy in Paris. She informed me that she wouldn’t buy at Marks and Sparks (just over the road from our offices in Rue Lafayette)because it was ‘un truc juif’ (no nuances about Zionism there!).
Is this the kind of person you want to associate with Dave?
Don’t Buy Yid? Buy me a Beagal!
Coatsey
All the difference in the world between ‘don’t buy Yid’ and targeted trade union sanctions, no?
Put a sock in it Coatesy. If you are going to sound off on politics you have a moral and political obligation to be serious and to base your positions on political facts and historical analysis not on impressionistic drivel and half-baked and irrelevant recollections of what some Algerian woman in Paris told you 20 years ago. You’re beginning to sound like a cartoon taxi-driver, or a sort of Zionist Alf Garnett.
And it is simply a lie to say that the boycott campaign is ‘more widely known’ as ‘dont buy Yid’ – an offensive phrase you have made up yourself to smear principled supporters of Palestine. I challenge you to find a single example of its use by anyone anywhere, other than by you in your increasingly eccentric contributions to other people’s blogs.
If you had ever done any serious historical reading on the subject you would know that the original boycott was that called by the Zionist movement in order to create a segregated and seperate Jewish economy in Palestine. The Histadrut, the racist Zionist ‘Trade Union’ was formed to compel Jewish employers to sack Arab workers and employ only Jews. When taxed with this at international trade union conferences, Histadrut leaders such as Ben Gurion and Arlosoroff justified themselves by reference to the colour bar imposed by the racist white trade unions in South Africa.
You can find the sordid details in ‘Comrades and Enemies
Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948 by Zachary Lockman, which details how this Zionist policy smashed up any chances of Jewish-Arab worker unity in Palestine [see http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft6b69p0hf;brand=eschol for details and extracts].
In addition Zionist organisations boycotted Arab labour and produce by acquiring land for exclusively Jewish use, on terms which forbad the tenants from employing any but Jewish labour. This concept was modelled on and expressly copied from the methods used by the Prussian and Imperial German state to ‘germanise’ Polish land in the Prussian part of post-partition Poland [see for example The returns of Zionism: Myth Politics and Scholarship in Israel by Gabriel Piterberg Verso 2008].
Under the slogan ‘Jewish land, Jewish labour, Jewish produce’, a boycott of Arab farm produce was also enforced by Zionist gangs who ran rampage through markets in Jewish areas overturning stalls and smashing produce of Arab farmers. The Palestinian Arabs launched a boycott of Palestinian Jewish produce in response to this and under popular pressure the Arab states adopted it before and after 1948 [while of course being happy to do profitable deals under the counter].
Of course as any Zionist will tell you, without this triple boycott a seperate Jewish economy in Palestine could never have been created. So don’t mouth off on matters on which you are ignorant, and where you end up recycling the tropes of Zionist propaganda – especially when bombs are falling on the people of Gaza.
Oh G-d almighty, how many times do I have to tell you?
Factcheck, Shmosler, factcheck.
It was NOT Dostoyevsky who observed that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way but Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina.
Why, why, why make it so obvious that you haven’t read any of the major works of Russian literature in your life, eh?
Listen: Get the details right and the theoretical clarity will take care of itself. Don’t try to run before you can walk etc.
And oh my G-d, what – what! – I ask you, is this monstrosity? Third par, final sentence:
“Sadly, prevarication is no longer untenable.”
Uh?
Thanks, Cde SE. Bang to rights on both counts.
More to the point is Andrew Coates the type of person someone would want to associate with?
Hopefully not.
In the past 48 hours Israel has bombed (i) a mosque (ii) a university (iii) a TV station.
I’m afraid the job of those who seek to persuade young men it’s smart to blow themselves up on the London underground just got a whole lot easier.
Sorry Dave, I think the Israelis are defending theselves against Hamas agresion in the only way open to them.
Ah, I feel sorry for you. It must be terrible.
Andrew Coates – buy your own bloody beagle.
1,000 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv against the bombings in a protest organised by Gush Shalom. Half a dozen Israeli teenagers – the Shministim – are serving jail sentences for refusing to serve in the Israeli army. Actions like this are part of the way forward, and inevitably, a boycott of all things Israeli would cut us off from them.
The answer is not to reluctantly boycott, but to enthusiastically step up solidarity. RMT took this view at its AGM this year, and I think it has a better, more constructive policy than other unions which voted for a passive boycott.
And that’s aside from the ‘unsavoury elements’ involved in boycotting which Dave acknowledges.
My heart is with Dave, but my mind is with Janine.
Dave; will you be calling for Egypt to open it’s border with Gaza to allow the people to escape into Egypt? Or calling on Egypt to supply humanitarian aid to the Palestinians? Just asking like.
Sue R said:
“Dave; will you be calling for Egypt to open it’s border with Gaza to allow the people to escape into Egypt? Or calling on Egypt to supply humanitarian aid to the Palestinians? Just asking like.”
What’s that about?
Do you have to have the correct line about Egypt before you can protest against the actions of the Israeli state?
(As it is, Sue R, ‘allow(ing) the people to escape into Egypt’ is simply bizarre. What kind of ‘solution’ is that?
Be serious.
Lobby is correct in his comment “Do you have to have the correct line about Egypt before you can protest against the actions of the Israeli state”.
In fact you can replace the word ‘Egypt’ with anything. I doubtless would stand alongside various ‘unsavoury elements’ in such a boycott – such as reform Zionists e.g those who want an apartheid Jewish state (but a bit nicer) but you don’t need to split on such an issue in your solidarity now.
I would also stand alongside the very brave demonstrators in Tel Aviv and the Shministim. It’s a fallacy to say a boycott would cut us off from them; principled whites were active against the apartheid regime in SA and although I am sure a sizeable majority of Israeli Jews wouldn’t be convinced that a secular state would be best for all now, minds change; in the same way I would imagine a substantial (a majority?) of SA whites have now changed their views in relation to apartheid.
It is correct that Lefts fight against Israeli brutality in this way; it would be nice to think that workers action brought down the apartheid campaign but I’m sure the economic boycott did this.
There is a credible chance of building a campaign to try similar with Israel and so we should support this; if a similar credible campaign comes along to boycott, so as to overthrow and replace with democracies; the Egyptian, Syrian or Saudi absolute monarchies (for what is what they are) I would support those as well.
Dave,
when that motion comes up at the next NUJ chapel meeting could you add this:
“the Chapel notes:
1) that Hamas took violent control of Gaza, throwing its opponents off of buildings, etc
2) that Hamas founding documents are explicitly racist
3) that since taking power Hamas has spent donated monies on armaments and weapons
4) that in the past 6 month Hamas expertise has not improved the lot of Palestinians one iota
5) that Hamas’s achievement in the past six months has been to engineer rockets with a longer destructive range
6) that Hamas used scabs during a recent teachers strike
7) that Hamas has attacked trade unionists on many occasions
that Hamas enforces its rule on Gaza by violence (see C4 documentary)
9) that by any objective measure Hamas are a right-wing theocratic militia
etc”
Amend amendment thus
replace ‘Hamas’ with ‘Zionist state’ throughout.
and in
1) replace “throwing its opponents off of buildings” with “machine gunning them”.
4) replace “not improved” with “seriously degraded” and also add “overseen capitalist exploitation of the Jewish population.”
5) add “and other military advances”.
6) delete “during a recent teachers strike”
7) add “and act as capitalists do against militant trade unionists.”
replace “(see C4 documentary)” with “numerous news reports since 1948″.
9) replace ‘militia’ with ‘state’
Also add points 10) – 999). Numerous criticisms of the Zionist state; its chauvinist basis; its murderous aggression against Arabs from Lebanon to Cairo; its abuses against anti Zionist Jews and call for its elimination and replacement with a democratic and secular state for all -to be advised.
Nothing, of course, wrong with your post Modernity other than, also of course, that it enables you to take cheap potshots at other lefties while squirming out of taking a position on the Israeli government’s recent crimes. About which you think what exactly? That “true leftists” should “understand” them perhaps?
Modernity: Nobody here is oblivious to the fact Hamas is reactionary and Islamist. Its missiles hit the poor and working class of Israel.
At the same time Israel is not going after Hamas, it’s going against the Palestinian working class.
Zionists need Hamas to have an excuse for attacks.
1. SPP – Why is your amendment ‘replace / delete and insert’? Why not ‘add’? Do you not think it is possible to criticise both the Israeli state and Hamas?! Oh, and what’s your problem with the word ‘Israel’? What’s with ‘the Zionist state’? Is there any other state you refuse to call by its name?
2. On South Africa, you write: “it would be nice to think that workers action brought down the apartheid campaign but I’m sure the economic boycott did this.”
I think you are just historically wrong here. The boycott began in the early 60s, but had very little effect. The turning point in the fight to defeat Apartheid was in the 70s and 80s with the growth of black-majority trade unions and the uprising of black people in townships such as Soweto.
There are also other differences between the situations in Israel and South Africa whch make the boycott equation inappropriate.
Hi Dave
What do you make of the fact that organisations of Israeli and Palestinian workers – such as the Workers’ Advice Centre – do not want a boycott? They want solidarity.
Janine, what exactly is your problem with the boycott ?
You say that “it would cut us from them”; what an incredibly inane thing to say.
If you were genuinely trying to bring an end to the apartheid policies of the Zionist state you would take a position that you didn’t think a boycott was the most effective way of doing it but you wouldn’t oppose it in the way you do.
What’s your real agenda and that of the organisation you are a member of.
Why are you so vociferously opposed to the boycott call ?
It puts you on exactly the same side as the Zionists who know that if the boycott gains mass traction it could be the tipping point that sees the Zionist state become a world pariah in exactly the same way that South Africa did.
I have to say Janine that your position of supposed opposition to the Zionist state should not be taken at face value given that you are a member of an organisation that has a proven track record of extreme hostility to the cause of the Palestinians and their supporters around the world.
Ah, someone else whose keyboard somehow won’t type ‘Israel’ and instead insists on ‘the Zionist state’. Could someone please explain to me (a) why?, and (b) is there any other country in the world whose name you can not bear to mention?
Eddie, I have no hidden or ‘real’ agenda that I do not argue publicly. I oppose the call for a boycott because (a) it is passive and cuts against what is really important – solidarity; and (b) it will be used in an antisemitic way even though that is not the intention of many people who back the boycott.
It is not “incredibly inane” to argue that the boycott damages solidarity – it is demonstrable by concrete examples. When the ‘cultural boycott’ of Israel first started, among the first films boycotted were some which were explicitly against the occupation – boycotted because they were made by Israelis.
My view on the boycott no more puts me on “exactly the same side as the Zionists” than your support for the boycott puts you on exactly the same side as Hamas. And that’s aside from the fact that “the Zionists” are not a homogenous block, and many ‘Zionists’ oppose the actions of the Israeli state.
No amount of hysteria, denunciation, innuendo about supposed hidden agendas, or outright crap about the AWL’s supposed “extreme hostility to the cause of the Palestinians” will help you to ‘win’ this argument, Eddie.
I don’t see why a boycott should be counterposed to solidarity.
When I first got into politics in the early 1980s, there was no contradiction between the consumer boycott of South Africa and the positive work of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and other efforts, such as support for black unions.
And it’s taken me a while to get here, but morally I now view Israel as equivalent to South Africa in the bad old days.
Well, I have no problem using the word ‘Israel’ – because if we are going to have to dismantle something, then we are going to have to give it a name. And, yes, Israel will someday have to be dismantled.
Of course, the only agent who could possibly dismantle Israel would be a United States of Europe (along with an alliance with Iran). At the end of the day, this is a European-created mess, and Europe should clean it up. And, yes, absolutely this puts Europe on a collision course with the USA. But, in truth, even the pro-Israel lobby in the States couldn’t persuade the rest of the US political class to go to war with Europe. They would have to back down and leave things to the Israelis – who, of course, may opt for total nuclear self-annihiliation, because there’s no accounting for reason when you’re dealing with religious fanatics.
Dave,
For me it isnt so much about whether or not Israel ‘deserves’ boycotting, it more to do with the type of movement a boycott campaign will build.
Imagine yourself as the international campaigns secretary of your union branch charged with organising the boycott, a task you set about with zeal. How long will it be before you put out leaflets that call for boycotting businesses that trade or otherwise positively relate to Israel? How many of them will be Jewish?
Which members of your branch will be under suspicion for breaking the boycott? And who will leave the union as a result? It will be the Jews on both counts.
How many recipients of your leafelts will carefully maintain your distinction between Jew and Zionist (not that such a distinction holds up to much scrutiny anyway)?. Not many.
The political programme of antisemitism is essentially to exclude Jews. Boycotts are now and have been part of a wider drive to marginalise Jews. And that is exactly the bite of the boycott. Its why so many people – both pro and anti are so animated. It is intolerable to one side and delicious to the other. To the anti-boycotters it is both an insult and a threat. For some of the pro-boycotters it is joyful adolescent-like rebellion – anti-hegemonic if you want to make more of it; for others it is a respectable way to remind Jews that they deserve to be marginalised.
I dont doubt for one second that Dave does not want to wind up Jews nor does he want to encourage left-antisemitism – or any other kind. The trouble is that no matter how careful he is in making his pro-boycott arguements he is not in control of the effects he produces.
Best he does something else – Janine has ideas.
@Janine. Please stop jumping to conclusions without suport.
I have no problem at all with saying the word Israel. Israel, Israel, Israel. Israel is the name of the state. Northern Ireland exists (although I prefer to say, depending on context, the North of Ireland).
Also I didn’t do the amendments as ‘add’ because I was purely turning round what Modernity said (he made no mention of Israel). I would agree with quite few of the criticisms of Modernity about Hamas, although wouldn’t with others.
You also write – “The boycott began in the early 60s, but had very little effect. The turning point in the fight to defeat Apartheid was in the 70s and 80s with the growth of black-majority trade unions and the uprising of black people in townships such as Soweto.”
I disagree – the boycott started very small scale and I recall in the 80s, the NUS would campaign against Barclays for not disinvesting; by the end of Apartheid (by 94) I’m pretty sure they, or if not them, most businesses, had disinvested.
I think it is a myth that Soweto etc overturned apartheid (the big uprising was in 76!). I don’t doubt the continuing brave resistance in Soweto and elsewhere and am sure it contributed but I think it was not resistance (and it would have been a lot better if it had) but international capitalism that overthrew apartheid.
So to call boycotts “passive and cuts against what is really important – solidarity;” is completely wrong. It is certainly not the best way; workers action is but do you think the Burmese government (and capitalists there) don’t care about its business and tourist revenues lost through boycott?
I would stand next to the AWL if it started a campaign to overthrow the ME monarchies. It is to your shame that you will not do the same against, a similar evil, the Zionist regime.
And all this anti Israel boycott = anti Semitism stuff is hogwash. Ever hear an anti apartheid protestor railing against the Perfidious Boer or similar?
For solidarity and boycott.
Just to add some complexity to Alan Laurence’s rather bungled point about boycotts and anti-Semitism, I do not support the boycott either. The target of the South African boycott was the government in power there, not the South African state as such. Although a boycott of Israeli goods may have some impact at the level of internal Israeli politics, it would have absolutely no impact on the Israeli state as such. And, furthermore, the strategy of a boycott keeps the delusion alive that somehow there may be a peaceful solution to the problem – and that is simply adolescent idealistic gibberish.
Okay, so we shouldn’t be calling Israel the Zionist state (and heaven forbid the Jewish state even though that’s what it is) but those who call for a boycott of Israel are immediately labelled anti-Semitic (see Alan Lawrence above).
This is how the Zionist propaganda machine works, the anti Semitic smears immediately deployed whenever the actions of Israel are challenged.
Dave makes the point above, why should the boycott be counterposed to solidarity work ?
That’s a question that Janine studiously avoids, preferring to accuse those who ask questions of her and her organisation of being hysterical.
Janine, why are you and the AWL so aggressive in your opposition to the boycott ?
The AWL has 1 active member in Scotland and he spends his entire time making the most rediculous smears against the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, based around, you guessed it, accusations of anti Semitism.
One of the problems of the boycott debate is that it gets very bogged down in “to boycott or not to boycott’, accusations of antisemitism by intent or by outcome, loyalty tests on people who may not differ in goals but don’t necessarily think boycotts are the best strategy…
Any interventions we do from here in relation to Israel/Palestine need to unite progressive forces and divide the opponents of peace with justice. Unfortunately some of the boycott demands have already proven over the last couple of years to have achieved the opposite.
Several years ago activists pushing the boycottt strategy restricted themselves to a boycott of trade and leisure tourism – quite simple and straightforward and providing an effective means through which ordinary people/trade unionists could contribute in a non-violent way to protest against Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and denial of their rights. This more limited/simple boycott approach did not preclude maximum solidarity with Israelis struggling for change within – which remains very important, especially with the Palestinian movement so weakened and divided.
so we can use limited boycotts to offer a means for people to involve themselves in practical solidarity but let’s not forget that it is governments not consumers whom we really need to put pressure on and make demands on – so use some boycotts as a tactic but don’t make it the central strategy or we’ll just end up weakening and dividing ourselves.
What are the demands we want to make of our government, and the European parliament, and institutions such as the BBC at the moment?
PS: Modernity, Obviously you have no time for Hamas per se but I’m sure you know that Israel’s blockade policy in the last two years has been directed against all the inhabitants of Gaza rather than merely those who have gained political control. I’ve always assumed from your contributions here and on other blogs that you recognise that the Palestinians are human being entitled to the same rights an dignity as Israelis, so I’m assuming the last line of your “motion” was accidentally deleted “10. that none of the above justifies the murderous bombardment resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians including many civilians in the last few days.” Am I right?
Eddie: “why should the boycott be counterposed to solidarity work ? That’s a question that Janine studiously avoids”
Huh? I answered it with a concrete example in my last comment. Learn to recognise the difference between “studiously avoids the question” and “disagress with Eddie”.
Dave – Maybe my memory is failing me, but I seem to remember in the 1980s that the mainstream anti-Apartheid movement told its supporters NOT to make links with SA trade unions, but to channel all solidarity work through the ANC.
Further on the comparisons with the boycott of South Africa, SPP says “Ever hear an anti apartheid protestor railing against the Perfidious Boer or similar?” – and in doing so, makes a very good point. One of the differences between the calls for boycotts of Israel and South Africa is that in the case of South Africa there was not an existing, long-standing prejudice and oppression around the world against white South Africans. ie. There was no equivalent of anti-semitism; no grounds to fear mobilising racism.
Eddie – I obviously didnt make myself clear. 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.
Alan Lawrence – exactly what sort of metaphysics is it in which “antisemitic tropes of old” can suddenly reappear in people who, currently, hold no anti-Semitic prejudices? I’ll tell you what kind of metaphysics: mysticism. You are implying that there is some sort of collective unconscious which influences people – and all that is deeply anti-Marxist, indeed anti-Left because it distracts (indeed, brings to a dead halt) any serious sociological and historical analysis of racism.
I hesitate to engage you, Alan, because maybe you are a serious religous person who holds legitimate and well-read mystical beliefs, but you cannot expect people to agree with you if, at the same time, you are implicitly asking them to buy into this sort of mysticism.
TN.
So, you don’t think there are ideas on offer that people accept without having thought them through?
You dont think ideas once considered dead can come back into widespread use?
You wonder how an individual with no a-s prejudice can adopt an a-s trope? There may be a thousand reasons – including the possibility that such a person is not aware of older forms of a-s and therefore does not recognise the racism.
The boycott campaign against Israel is a very good way to raise practical solidarity with the Palestinians and demonstrate our opposition to Zionism.
How successful it is remains moot. But judging by the vehemence with which the Zionists object to it, it would appear pretty successful.
Of course supporters of Zionism, like the AWL, want to make out that such a campaign is misguided or “anti-semitic”, but that’s because they are Zionists, they oppose self determination for Palestine and obviously want to mislead people about its nature.
Its absolutely to be expected that reactionaries will try to mislead people about the nature of progressive campaigns. They always have done, they always will do. What gives them such power in this instance, as that they have such widespread support in the bourgeois media.
The AWL’s existence as a nominally “left” or “socialist” group is particularly perfidious, in this instance, as we expect the TV and news to side with imperialism. The AWL’s criticis appears arises from inside our camp and is particularly damaging therefore. But that too is hardly anything new.
That’s not a reason to drop progressive campaigns like the boycott, but to clearly explain its rationale.
Alan,
When you write of people needing to “recognise forms”, do you realize that this is Platonic language? Is a form an essence in your universe? Because, if so, then you are subscribing to the very same Western metaphysical system which, in part, has philosophically justified racism (by claiming that there is an essence pertaining to each race).
Indeed, you are making your metaphysics – to borrow from Popper momentarily – unfalsifiable. You may warn me of the dangers of repeating the mistakes of anti-Semitism, but then when I point out that such a warning repeats the mistakes of Platonic mysticism, all you do is reassert that same metaphysical commitment to “forms”.
Actually, your response is quite revealing. At first I didn’t want to tackle you, as I too (for different reasons) am against the boycott. But assuming that you (unlike me) have no problem with the existence of a Jewish state, then I can sort of understand why. After all, my commitment to anti-racism emerges from my belief in an anti-essentialist metaphysics (in other words, racial differences are to be understood with reference to historical processes such as evolution and migration), whilst you obviously believe in pure racial “forms” which then become threatened by racism (hence the need for states which explicitly aim to protect a race).
But I warn you – if you want to hold onto an anti-essentialist view of race and yet still promote an anti-racist strategy which belongs to an essentialist metaphysics, then you are having your cake and eating it. And, actually, this is the bit which really does baffle me about Zionism – to what possible benefit?
Any chance Dave of joining us on the demonstration on saturday, 12.30 embankment I believe?
David Rosenberg wrote:
“I’ve always assumed from your contributions here and on other blogs that you recognise that the Palestinians are human being entitled to the same rights an dignity as Israelis, so I’m assuming the last line of your “motion” was accidentally deleted “10. that none of the above justifies the murderous bombardment resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians including many civilians in the last few days.” Am I right?”
yes, David, you are correct
I was trying to point out how otherwise intelligent people in the West often get sucked into supporting (and worse, excusing) the activities of right-wing militia simply because they are somehow seen as “anti-Israel”, how these self same people can’t apply their analytical skills to the Middle East, instead these conflicts are reduced to a 1920′s melodrama, with arch Villain (Israel) and Hero (anyone attacking them).
Stip away your protections and its not at all clear what point you are making.
What do you stuggle to understand or agree with?
A-s has changed across place and time. Some aspects of contemporary a-s hark back to the racisms that were prevelent yesterday.
A boycott campaign echoes and may give new life to these racisms.
I do not understand why this equals an essential view of race let alone allows you to assume I belive in ‘pure racial ‘forms”.
Alan -
An anti-essentialist approach to historical change views history as a sequence of discontinuities rather than continuities of essences. So the way to analyse two historical situations is not to ask: what ahistorical essence is being actualized in these two different situations? But, rather, to ask: what is different about these two situations?
But ask yourself: why am I wrong to point out that you are repeating a set of old (but certainly not dead) metaphysical prejudices, when you yourself warn others that they are repeating some sort of sleeping anti-Semitism? I mean, assuming that you don’t want to be viewed as a metaphysical essentialist, then how do you avoid the very thing which you warn others against?
Of course, the only agent who could possibly dismantle Israel would be a United States of Europe (along with an alliance with Iran)
I’m not going to post on this topic or deposit any further comments anywhere else because everything that has been written so far conforms to the usual shite that is par for the course amongst the left these days. Except that. That really takes some beating. Exactly what kind of fucked up future do you imagine, Mr Toodle Noodle?
An anti-essentialist approach to historical change views history as a sequence of discontinuities rather than continuities of essences.
Does it – does it really? Happy New Year when it comes.
Dear oh dear. I don’t understand why anti-semites get so upset about being called anti-semitic.
Don’t whine about the label being applied to you if:
1. You support anti-semitic, racist, clerical fascist organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
2. If you call for a boycott of the Jewish state but don’t call for a boycott of regimes with far, far, worse records. Now why would that be?
3. If you chuckle to yourself when fascists fire rockets at Jewish kindergartens but rush off to protest when the Jews eventually defend themselves.
And Dave, the above was not directed at you, but you don’t need to feel obliged to fall into line with the standard far-left position.
There are plenty of people on the left who don’t cheerlead for the IDF, who are concerned about or criticial of Israel’s response to Hamas’s provocations but who do not call for a boycott of Israel.
I was trying to point out how otherwise intelligent people in the West often get sucked into supporting (and worse, excusing) the activities of right-wing militia simply because they are somehow seen as “anti-Israel”, how these self same people can’t apply their analytical skills to the Middle East, instead these conflicts are reduced to a 1920′s melodrama, with arch Villain (Israel) and Hero (anyone attacking them).
modernity – can you specify who exactly on this blog thread was “getting sucked in” in this way before you posted that?
TN seems to be arguing that what was once racist is no longer racist (which might be true in some circumstances). But I dont see how it helps here. A political movement to exclude Jews was antisemtic in its heyday and I cant for the life of me see why its no longer racist. Nor can I see what’s wrong with drawing attention to previous incarnations of a current idea.
Why don’t you, TN, just as an exercise – of course – talk about a-s and leave behind the recent-undergrad fairy lights.
Tell us:
a. why its illegitimate to make reference to previous incarnations/forms/expressions of a-s
b. what you think contemporary a-s is all about.
c. what it is that baffles you about zionism. I didnt understand where you were coming from. I worry that you are about to suggest that I think a-s is an unchangable.
Alan -
It is wrong to draw a line from previous historical formations of anti-Semitism to incidents of anti-Semitism today, as if there is somehow an essence of anti-Semitism which lies dormant. Let me give a very concrete example – the Nazi’s deliberately fabricated a Jewish Plot in order to pursue their political project, whilst today there are many people in the Arab world who are anti-Semitic because they have (wrongly) conflated Judaism with Zionism. Now are you seriously claiming that these are two historical manifestations of exactly the same essence of anti-Semitism?? I would put it to you that the two are totally incomparable – the causes are totally different. Only a mystical metaphysics of essences would hold otherwise.
And my point is that you are falling foul of this mysticism when you talk of giving “new life to these racisms”, as if these essences lie dormant waiting to be awakened. No thank you. I think serious Leftists prefer to study the historical and sociological genesis of phenomena rather than believe in phantoms.
One more thing – you indicate that you do believe anti-Semitism is changeable. This means that your beliefs are literally unfalsifiable, as you will always claim that ‘oh it is anti-Semitism – it’s just changed, that’s all’. Let me ask you: how far does something have to change before it is no longer what it once was? For instance, some sociologists have noted the tendency of some political cartoonists to use the same caricatured features in their depiction of Muslims as are often used in anti-Semitic cartoons (large nose, lips etc)… Are you going to tell me that THIS is what you mean when you admit that anti-Semitism can change? Actually, I think the research I’m talking about makes an interesting point but, ultimately, should be rejected for precisely the reason that I have articulated here: there is no essence of anti-Semitism which “evolves” through the generations. The fact that different people at different times hold racist beliefs about the same social groups but for different reasons suggests that your argument against the boycott contains a very real flaw.
Finally, you want me to restate what I find baffling about Zionism. For me, the way out of racism is to deny that there is such a thing as an essence of any race of people. So to uphold a state as being essentially Jewish in its constitution displays the very same logic which so many Zionists claim to be the victims of.