For the Palestinians? The Israelis? The only way to be for the Palestinians, or the Israelis, is to be for two states!
We are against academic and other boycotts against Israel. Such boycotts will inevitably claw in and target Jewish communities outside Israel, and thereby do more harm — and not only to Jews — than any possible good, any possible help that they could give to the Palestinians.
Boycott is a crude, indiscriminate weapon that will hit Israel-Jewish advocates of a just two-states solution— and that has been and is a powerful current in Israel — as well as the chauvinists. It is a weak and ineffective weapon too. The boycott of South Africa, over 30 years after the Sharpeville massacre of February 1960, brought minimal results. The fall of apartheid came not from that boycott but from the struggles within South Africa itself.
But we understand and share the feelings of many of the trade unionists who voted for a boycott.
We agree with what they are trying to do — exert pressure on Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. The case for any activity that will, or simply that may, help the Palestinians, is as powerful as the situation of the Palestinians is nightmarishly terrible.
And it is not getting better. The Palestinians live under the brutal military-colonial rule of the Israeli state. We are within a few days of the 39th anniversary of that occupation.
The limited self-rule, the Palestinian quasi-state, that evolved after the Oslo accords of 1993 and effectively ended with Israeli re-occupation seven years later, was only a break in the four-decades pattern of hostile Israeli colonial rule: ruthless and frequently savage occupation, which uses Israel’s military superiority and modern military technology to lash out recklessly and often disproportionately in response to Palestinian action against the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories or against Israeli civilians.
The Palestinians have spent four decades in captivity to a state which has fostered colonisation, in large parts of the Occupied Territories, intended to be permanent and irreversible.
All explanation of the tragedy of the last decades in terms of Palestinian and Arab and political-Islamic intransigence and “unreasonableness” have to be scaled and measured against that all-defining fact: the Israeli military bestrides Palestine and Palestinian society, with the power to crush any part of it which it chooses to crush.
There is a big distinction between Israel’s reckless killings in pursuit of the organisers of Hamas’s suicide-bomb campaign, and the deliberate and intended slaughter of civilians by suicide bombs. But even that has to be put in the context of the enormous preponderance of Israel’s military power over the whole of Palestinian society and the degree of medium and long-term control of the overall shape of Israeli-Palestinian relations which that gives to Israel.
Israel has had and has used the power of a giant playing with a doll’s house which can be upended at will. That power has not been used, as it should have been, to shape a fair and politically viable settlement with the Palestinians, but to try to crush them.
The Palestinians are being battered and smashed, treated with reckless violence of different sorts and victimised by relentless, irresponsible, and predatory power (predatory in terms of seizing, colonising, and eventually planning to annex territory occupied in 1967).
International opposition by Western governments to Israeli activity in the Palestinian territories has sometimes been vocal, but so far never effective. The failure of the “road map” so far (if saying it like that is not foolishly optimistic) is the latest terrible example of Israel’s ability to ignore “international opinion” with complete impunity.
Another example, irresponsible, short-sighted, and narrow-sighted, is looming ahead: a unilateral Israeli decision to “finalise” its border with the Palestinians — relinquishing some territory and uprooting a few Israeli Jewish settlements while annexing the large swathes of Palestinian territory on which the most important settlements exist, and chopping up and surrounding the land ceded to the Palestinians with Israeli-controlled areas.
If it is true, as far as it goes, that Israeli currently has no possible Palestinian government partner in reaching an agreed decision on the border between Israel and Palestine, that too can’t be assessed outside the reckless and hostile exercise of preponderant Israeli power, over many years, against the Palestinians.
It is a fact that Israel encouraged the emergence of Hamas, thereby hoping to divide and politically cripple the Palestinians, keeping them at the mercy of Israel.
The seemingly most likely Israeli-defined borders will leave to the Palestinians not a contiguous territory in the West Bank capable of being, or evolving into, a proper independent Palestinian state, but truncated territories. It is no exaggeration to say that what will be left for the Palestinians, in quasi-independent bits of territory under effective Israeli control, will be akin to the bantustans of apartheid South Africa.
The very possibility of a just or at least a workable settlement between Israel and the Palestinians may be about to disappear from history — and with it, the possibility of anything like the “normalisation” of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and the Arab states, for generations to come.
The possibility of effective international pressure on Israel to compel a just, or at any rate liveable, settlement with the Palestinians seems more remote than it did when the “road map” emerged in April 2003 — and was then allowed to die, or go as near to dying as makes no little difference.
From this situation, this history, and this terrible prospect facing the Palestinian people, comes the NATFHE conference vote for an academic boycott of Israel.
None of the qualifications and caveats — and we are about to list them — can offset the fundamental fact that the Palestinians are at the mercy of Israeli power, that they have been and are now being battered by it, and that the Palestinians have not been able to look for rescue or help to the great Western powers.
The fundamental qualification is that the Israeli state’s great power compared to the stateless Palestinians has not been the only element in the picture. Not only Israeli chauvinists work, and have worked, against an Israeli-Palestinian mutual accommodation. The Israelis have faced powerful enemies whose stated goal has been the destruction of Israel.
Israel has emerged as what it is by a long interaction with the Arab world in which the Arab states, and virtually all Arab political groupings in all the Arab states, have until recently taken as their stated objective wiping Israel off the map, destroying the Israeli-Jewish nation, and killing, driving out, or subjugating the Israeli Jews.
Before 1948 Arab forces made war on the Jewish national minority in Palestine, the pre-Israeli community there. Under Arab pressure, on the eve of the Holocaust and while it was going on, Britain barred the door to almost all of Europe’s Jews seeking to escape persecution unto death by joining the Jewish national minority in Palestine.
The declaration of Israel — set up by authority of the United Nations — in May 1948 was met immediately by invasion by the armies of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria, and by military contingents from other Arab states. Their objective, declared openly by the Egyptians, was to “drive the Jews into the sea”.
That was more than over-exuberant Arab grandiloquence: they would have done it if they could.
In 1948 the Israelis, far from having obvious military superiority, faced an international arms embargo as well as relatively well-equipped Arab armies led by experienced (many of them British) officers.
It was in the course of this war that three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs — who, naturally, sided with the Arab invaders — were driven out or fled from the Jewish territory.
Half a million Jews were driven out or fled from the Arab states to Israel in the years after 1948. The refusal of any Arab state to recognise or make peace (other than an armistice) with Israel lasted for decades, and with most Arab states lasts still, over half a century later. The refusal of the Arab states to which they fled to allow the Palestinian refugees to work and integrate is the prime reason why so many refugees and their descendants remain unsettled.
A Palestinian state, side by side with Israel, was stipulated in the 1947 UN partition plan. It disappeared in the course of Israel’s war of independence, but not primarily to the benefit of Israel. Jordan and Egypt annexed most of the territory of the abortive Palestinian state.
Israel conquered that territory and reunited all of pre-1948 Palestine under its own rule (the dominant features of which rule, in the Palestinian territories, we have described above) in the June 1967 “Six Days War”, but the situation that sparked war (in which Israel struck first, destroying the Arab air forces on the ground) was created not by Israel but by Egypt and Syria.
After that war Israel indicated a willingness to trade territory for peace — withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza in return for recognition of Israel by the Arab states and “normalisation” of relations. Whether that offer was sincere or not was not put to the test by the Arabs.
The Arab states — and the PLO, then under Egyptian hegemony — went on talking about “driving the Jews into the sea”.
Of course there were people in Israel eager to take the chance to permanently expand the territory of their state. A tragic tacit “alliance” between the Israeli and the Arab chauvinists and intransigents not only has dominated the last 40 years but also continues now.
Again and again, atrocities by one side have been matched by the other in the continuous tit-for-tat alternation that has led to the terrible situation the Palestinians now face.
The 1967 war and the occupation — and a further war in November 1973, when the Arab states took Israel by surprise and won initial victories — triggered shifts to the right within Israeli society. Those intent on annexing as much as possible of the pre-1967 Palestinian territory have been greatly strengthened, and over time have determined Israeli policy.
The recent election by the Palestinians of a Hamas government is the latest tragic lurch into intractability in the long and terrible interaction of the chauvinists on both sides.
In 1988 the PLO formally abandoned the goal of destroying Israel, recognised Israel, and declared itself for a two-states settlement. Hamas, a religio-political movement, the political equivalent of the small constituency of Israeli religious chauvinists (one of whom assassinated the Israeli prime minister who signed the 1993 Oslo Agreement), is now the government of the Palestinians. It does not recognise Israel; it is at best willing to give it tacit recognition like the post-1948 armistices between Israel and the Arab states.
To argue that Israeli does not have the right to respond to the election of a Hamas government would be ridiculous. The argument from the “sacred national egotism” of the Palestinians that they have a right to elect any government they like carries the corollary that Israel too has the right to act according to the dictates of its own “sacred national egotism”.
But, repeat: none of that can offset the fact of the overwhelming power which Israel has, compared to the Palestinians — power which puts the Palestinians decisively under the control of Israel, and allows Israel to shape the situation.
On the boycott, here is a further consideration in Britain — and in other countries, though perhaps less so — the political nature of those organisations which are most prominent in advocating it.
Most of them do not advocate two states. They bitterly oppose any “recognition” of Israel. They want the destruction of Israel.
We have the extraordinary situation that the biggest organisation on the left, the SWP, which has distant roots in Trotskyism, supports the policy of Hamas and other Islamic fundamentalists and Arab or Islamic chauvinists. These strange, strange people, who are getting stranger, rejoice at the electoral victory of Hamas! They are for “militancy” — and never mind the politics, or the likely political consequences.
Like the most blinkered Israeli chauvinists, they rejoice in the loss of prospects for a reasonable “compromise” two-states settlement! They, and much of the “hard”, “revolutionary”, “Trotskyist” left, support boycott not as a blow to force a settlement, but as a blow against Israel’s existence.
By no means all who favour boycott share the position of those adoptive Islamic and Arab chauvinists. Nonetheless, they and their ally, the Muslim Association of Britain, British offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, set the tone and the pace.
They counterpose to “two states” slogans like “Freedom for Palestine” which are seemingly more “revolutionary” and imply the destruction of Israel (which “Palestine” is understood to include) but remain undefined and unspecific so as to avoid alienating those who do not want to destroy Israel and do not reject “two states”.
If these people — these strange “sharia socialists”, “Quran-communists”, reactionary revolutionists, and “anti-imperialist” advocates of the destruction of a nation — think their policies can help the Palestinians, then they are politically stupid.
In truth they are not much concerned with the Palestinians. They do not want the situation resolved in the best way possible for the Palestinians.
Some of them see Palestine as a mere detail in a campaign for the spread, consolidation, and “restoration” of Islam. For others it is an engine of agitation against “imperialism” — by which they mean secular advanced capitalism. Some of the socialist allies of the political Islamists fantasise that the reactionary “anti-imperialism” being fostered will eventually, somehow, someday, come to be the “socialist revolution”.
The only way to be “for the Palestinians” — and those socialists who are not for the Palestinians are in their own way as far from the true spirit of working-class internationalism as are the “sharia socialists” — is to be for the two-states settlement.
In British politics now, the cause of the Palestinians is predominantly no more than grist to the mill of those who demonise Israel. So far, the advocates of a democratic two-states settlement have not been strong enough to redefine the issues.
Events in Israel-Palestine make it urgent to disentangle the Palestinian cause from the politics of the kitsch left and of the reactionary political Islamists with which that “left” is now shamefully entwined. It is time for those who are for the Palestinians, for an independent Palestinian state in adequate contiguous territory, but also recognise the right of the Israeli Jews to have their own state, to organise.
The AWL set up, four years ago, a “Committee for Two States”, but not enough activists have rallied to it to give it more than a flickering life. Today we make a new appeal: join us in generating a real campaign. Read the Committee’s statement at www.links-not-boycott.org.uk and give it your support.
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The dreams about one democratic state
Neve can you show one democratic state in the region, except the State of Israel?
What kind of example for democracy show now Palestinians?
Enough to watch Palestinian TV on Fridays to hear bloodthirsty sermons about the need to kill Jews who hide behind stones etc. And you believe, that Hamas is not worse than IRA? Did IRA propagate the annihilation of Protestants?
If we watch the newsreels in the EU we see how Palestinians kill Palestinians, we see a society in complete anarchy. Are there any workers, who want to live in such a society? I remember once having seen on TV a demonstration of more than 1000 inhabitants from Gaza who were telling how good it was – despite all the difficulties – when they could work in Israel.
Was it good for the Palestinians under the leadership of Hadj Amin el Husseini – who was a collaborator of National-Socialist Germany – to reject the partition of Palestine in 1947?
Can you really blame for all the misery of Palestinians only Israel and “Imperialism”.
Where the Palestinian Arab communists wrong in 1947 to advocate two states, one for the Jews and the other for the Arabs?
So lets return to the facts of life.
The example of Iraq where Muslim is butchering Muslim, of Darfur/Sudan where Muslim is butchering Muslim is present and there is no chance, that anybody sane in his head in Israel be he a Jew or an Arab would want to live in such a state
Democracy? We deliver!
Im starting to think that people really are reasoning in racist terms on this website...
Every night i dream of a world that would be filled with beautiful democracies as the one that Israel is supposed to be. What a nice place the world would be.
What do you mean by democracy??? Racist laws? Colonization? Military control of a population? Murder of civilians??
Or do you mean voting? You know people vote in Iran. You know people vote in Lebanon.
You know people vote in the Western world and i still wouldnt call that a democratic process, not when immigrants cannot vote, not when small parties cannot acces the elections unless they have a specific number of supports by elected people, not when peoples opinions are being built by the media which are owned by the barons of industry who happen to be friends with the politicians, not when the politicians are only defending their own class and the system that oppresses the masses.
Oh but you're so happy to talk about democracy and claim that Israel is the only one in the Middle East. A Jewish democratic state, that sounds so nice. Except that as Avraham Burg, a former member of the knesset, says, it cannot work and its dynamite :
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868385.html
Muslims butchering muslims evrywhere. Yeah you're right, its a genetic thing. Muslims are bloodthirsty savages, they cannot live in peace or democracy, Israel is not a racist country, and your comments are not racist.
Ooohh Palestinians show a bad example to the world?
They are being occupied, Israel and the US are arming one side against the other, they are being humiliated and bombed and they should care about the example they show to the world?? Where do you live? Are you with us on this planet? What are you talking about? Try and make sense. Hello.
Does the fact that the mufti collaborated with the nazis make zionism a good cause and justify Israel's policy today?
What about the links between th zionists and the nazis then?
Whats your point there anyway?
Do you know that islam is not the only religion in the 'region'? Do you know that religion has little to do with whats happening in Darfur? WHat do you think the role of the USA in iraq is? Help the muslim communities to get along? What were the christian european countries doing about 60 yeras ago? Were they living in peace and harmony? Or were they raging a world war while being brutal colonizing countries? What are they doing now? Who is delivering 'democracy' with cluster bombs?
Ohh and poor workers would not want to live in Palestine because its 'such a society', in complete anarchy?
What do you know about anarchy? What does your concern and talk about the working class mean in the light of your ignorance, contempt and racist comments??
And youre saying 'lets return to facts of life'!!
I dont believe this.
Its got to be a joke.
calm down franz
You accuse me of ignorance and racism. Such sweeping judgments without any proof say more about you. So I recommend calming down and not being so emotional.
Israel is a capitalist democracy. It has many shortcomings, but it is a better place to live and work in than in any country of the region. I wrote that workers in the Gaza strip long for the times when they could work in Israel. Is that a lie? Do Gaza workers prefer the present situation, where they have to feed their big families from handouts?
You franz may prefer the democracy of the Palestinians, where Hamas people kill Fatah people (17were killed since yesterday) and vice versa. You may prefer the democracy of Syria and Egypt where presidents are elected with around 99%.
Do try if you are able, not to put things into my mouth, which I have not said, not written. I did not say anything about genetics. So do not project your ideology on me.
But Muslims are dominant in the Middle East. And the example, how minorities (be they Muslim like the Kurds or Christian like the Copts) are treated, is before the eyes of Israelis.
And if you watch on Palestinian TV how on Friday a preacher in the mosque is quoting Koran or Hadith and preaching to kill JEWS who hide behind a stone and a tree, you can see that religion plays a role.
It is now 2 years that Israel has left the Gaza strip. So do not blame exclusively Israel and the whole world, for the state the Palestinian society is in. Do not try to tell us, that Palestinians are only victims, that their politicians are not responsible for the state, their society is in it.
I did not justify occupation and believe that it would have been better, if a compromise had been possible. But lets remember, when Israel offered right after the June or 6day war such a compromise in Khartoum the Arab league rejected it with NO PEACE, NO NEGOTIATIONS with Israel. The fact that the Nazi collaborator Hadj Amin el Husseini is until today honoured by many Palestinians does not justify any violation of Human Rights by Israel.
However the uprising of Warsaw ghetto was led by a leftwing Zionist and Zionists participated in the resistance against Nazis in Europe and even in Tunisia, read Albert Memmi’s book about subject matter. Also about 30.000 Jews from Palestine joined the British Army to fight Nazism during WW 2.
You refuse to recognise the fact, that Islamists who are responsible for the killing of about 200.000 – 300.000 people in Darfur and for more than 2 million refugees rule Sudan. Can you deny this? Is this Zionist propaganda?
So my advice to you franz is, calm down, try to see things not black and white, but matter of fact. If you believe that I am an ignorant racist, prove your statement.
mirror image
Hey,
First of all, Neve, if you're still around, thanks a lot for all your posts which i find are a nice breath of fresh air on this website.
Arthur, to reply to a few of your points while i have a bit of time : I am not denying that there is antisemitism among the left. I suppose there is all kinds of antisemites, just as there is all kinds of leftists. There are for example zionist leftists and i dont sympathize with them just as i dont sympathize with the antisemitic ones.
I still dont see the point of suspecting somebody to be antisemitic the way you did, because theyre 'picking on' Israel, or because they believe in a secular democratic state.
If we leave aside the fact that the word itself could be discussed (as the word islamophobic could be discussed too, i believe a unitarian fight against racism might be more efficient than fragmented fights against specific types of racisms), you must be aware that this notion of antisemitism has been appropriated and is being instrumentalized by pro-zionists and that theyre using it to discredit anyone fighting zionism. It doesnt mean that you cant use it anymore, but you should therefore use the term with care and not without consideration. The word will end up losing its meaning otherwise. You probably thought it was fair to have suspicions when you expressed some, well i thought it wasnt, its a question of degree i suppose.
A general impression i have from reading on this website (correct me if im wrong) is that people are often arguing as if speaking to an SWP member every time they address this issue (or others like iraq for instance). You seem to accuse the swp of being idiot anti-imperialists, and maybe even antisemitics, if not directly at least through their politics of supporting islamists and other 'clerical-fascists'. Fine. But i dont really care about the swp politics. Im personally not an swp member. Address the issues for what they are not according to what the SWP position on them is, it doesnt make sense.
As much as it is fair to be specific on some points and in the way you express your politics, the eternal and internal fights of some leftist groups are vain and pointless and can get you off the main point.
Basically, i have the impression that you are defining some of your politics according to theirs, in opposition to theirs, and to be honest im not sure its such a constructive position in the end. And i wonder if somes of the debates, or the way you debate about some of the issues are not biased because of that.
To come back to Israel, again, if you care to look, i think theres many reasons to 'pick on' them.
What about the innumerable UN resolutions demanding their withdrawal from the Occupied territories that they have ignored?
What about the atrocious Apartheid wall that they are building to expand their territory, further fragment Palestinian territory, and make life impossible for palestinians?
What about the houses demolitions and evictions of their inhabitants, during one of which Rachel Corrie was crushed by a bulldozer?
What about the olive trees being unrooted, preventing Palestinians of one of their main economic resources?
What about the discrimination laws and the discriminatory urban planning practices?
What about the military checkpoints?
What about the torture to which 85% of Palestinians interrogated by Israels security services were subjected to?
What about the number of civilians, many of which children, killed by indiscriminate shellings and bombings, and blamed on the very civilians who were accused of serving as human shields?
What about the fact that despite all this theyre so keen on depicting themselves as being about the only democratic state in the middle east?
What about the fact that theyre about the last settler state in the world?
Shall i carry on?
So, ok, other countries also have appaling records in terms of human rights, etc... But considering the extent, the severity and the length of these records and the fact that there is not much opposition to all of this among the international community, i think theres a case for israel to be 'picked on'.
Nobody is isolating or focusing on them but themselves.
Zionism isnt just your typical bourgeois nationalism, it is a violent, brutal, racist, aggressive, expansionist, imperialist, colonialist ideology that is based on a lie, the negation of a people in a few words : 'a people without a land for a land without people'.
Recently in Haaretz, a former member of the knesset has been interviewed after he published a book entitled Defeating Hitler. He gives his views on zionism, on the fact that it has its roots in antisemitism. He explains why he thinks a jewish democratic state is a self-contradiction and is something explosive. He also explains how the right wing in Israel has built a sense of paranoia and plays with it to define Israels aggressive politics. Its a bit off the subject here, but its interesting, you should read it.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868385.html
As far as the boycott is concerned i dont think i addressed the issue, but anyway it is quite obvious that the boycott is mainly aimed at putting pressure on the Israeli government and that it is not picking on specific people or categories of people. The academic boycott is an institutional boycott its not aimed at individuals. And it is not contradictory to any other form of action. It can be done along with engaging in discussions with people in Israel. It should be done along with supporting Palestinian grassroots organizations and with developing partnerships and showing solidarity with whatever form the resistance to the occupation is taking, in Palestine, or Israel.
Why should it be one or the other? You know it doesnt have to be like that, so why present it this way?
Also you say that workers involved in education are in most cases some of the most ardent advocates of support for the democratic rights of Palestinians. Well, out of 5000 senior academic staff, less than 100 have adopted a critical position on Israel's restrictions on Palestinian education.
Anyway, boycott is one means to try and change things amongst many, which happens to be supported by the majority of the people in Palestine and by a great number of organisations from across Palestinian civil society (including a lot of unions and secular forces).
Your obsession with trying to obstruct the movement and with discrediting their advocates as enemies of the palestinian people (when its not as anti-semites) doesnt make sense.
Honestly, the majority of articles i have read on this website about Israel/Palestine was a different version of how evil and stupid the pro-boycotters are or about how a one-state solution actually means another genocide of the jewish people.
What is this all about?
Is it me or is it a weird position to be in, close to a reactionary right-wing take on things, thats not helping the palestinian cause at all??
Maybe i havent come across the other articles due to bad luck or something, but the first thing we see on the israel/palestine debate page is your funny logo about the boycott.
I tend to think that if you had spent as much time helping the palestinian people or trying to understand the situation there rather than making sure not a single israeli worker's feelings gets hurt, you might have come up with a solution to the crisis by now...
Ok my times up for now. I may (or may not) carry on about the fact that i find weird that it seems you'd rather support all Israeli workers and the zionist left as a whole rather than a single palestinian resisting the occupation who would not be a working class person in the strict sense of the term, especially if they're a muslim too.
If this is a just a wrong impression i have let me know, that will spare me some unnecessary writing.
And as for calling hamas 'clerical fascists' and giving support to them, i posted some comments already here and there about how this whole position is, i find, based on ignorance of what they are and represent. So i wont repeat myself, but again, i think its important not to impose an external 'western' view on the situation there. Dont try and make these movements fit every detail of your ideal of what a revolutionary movement should be. Its not the point. All revolutionary movements have their own specificities and are built in accordance to the environment they arise in.
About Anti-Zionism
It is astonishing to read from British people denial of Anti-Semitism in the UK An
All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism in the UK showed that this is a serious problem. One is the Israel bashing of parts of the radical left. Some of these flows from a virulent, completely disproportionate criticism of the Jewish state. Of course not all the attacks should be considered anti-Semitic or illegitimate. But even in some of the mainstream media, what passes as “criticism” frequently leaves the bounds of considered debate and indulges in flagrant double standards and the implicit denial of Israel’s right to defend itself. The Jenin affair was one of the more telling symptoms of Israel-bashing in UK media. Many British journalists hailed the grossly inflated claims of 3,000 Palestinian dead after Israel’s assault on the refugee camp in April 2002 as proof of a major atrocity, without any attempt at serious verification. A.N. Wilson, a leading columnist of the London Evening Standard, informed readers that “we are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up for genocide”.
We can also see, that the radical forms of anti-Zionism in recent years display definite analogies to classic European antisemitism. One of the more obvious similarities has been the call for a scientific, cultural and economic boycott of Israel that arouses grim associations and memories among Jews of the Nazi boycott that began in 1933.
An example is the systematic manner in which Israel has been harassed at the UN, where the Arab states have for decades pursued a policy of isolating the Jewish state and turning it into a pariah. In public forums as well as in much of Western media, Zionism and the Jewish people have been pilloried in ways that are virtually identical to the methods arguments, and techniques of racist antisemitism.
Anti-Zionism is not only the historic successor of earlier forms of antisemitism. Today, it is the lowest common denominator and bridge between parts of radical left, extreme Right and the militant Muslims; between the elites (including the media) and the masses; between the churches and the mosques. It has become once again become a pseudo-redemptive ideology actively mobilized by the Iranian ayatollahs, by a motley band of global jihadists, by the Palestinian Hamas, the HizbAllah and legions of “useful idiots” in the West who can always be relied upon to get it wrong
Let's not forget....
...that the actual boycott being waged at the moment is by Israel and the "world community" against the Palestinian Authority and its population. Because Palestinians had the temerity to vote for Hamas.
Noted Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has recently pointed out that the boycott only becomes an "illegitimate tactic" when it is used against Israel, not when it is used by or in support of Israel.
I find it hard to get exercised over the severing of a few academic links when Israel is actively crushing the Palestinian economy.
Neve - I would point out that Noam Chomsky is a prominent supporter of 2-states, even if only on pragmatic grounds. So are the overwhelming majority of Palestinians (and Israelis). Not that that's a definitive reason for supporting the policy, but it must carry significant weight.
Similarly, Arthur, what the UK SWP thinks is hardly the issue. If Palestinian workers' organisations are calling for a boycott then we should take that call very seriously in my view.
cbright should only Palestinian Union be asked?
How about asking Israeli Unions and Israeli academics too?
And can anyone explain why no boycott is declared against the peoples republic China. Cbina has occupied Tibet. There are no free Unions in China. The working conditions are terrible. I have been in China to a manufacture of porcelain, working conditions there were terrible. In Europe such a place would be closed at once by govt.
you can advocate whatever you'd like omar...
as a jewish person living in yafa, i think my responsibility is to fight the racist and apartheid nature of the israeli state and i urge international solidarity with progressive voices all over the world to boycott israeli products and institutions... doesn't preclude anyone from taking up other causes (as most groups that support the boycott do)
Regarding China....
...the South African apartheid regime could and did use the same argument.
I certainly wouldn't on principle oppose a boycott of China over particular issues (the Tibet situation is more complicated than a simple occupation I think) except that it's rather less likely to have any effect, particularly since China is not a democracy.
Of course people here can and do demonstrate against Chinese government policy when they get the opportunity. (And this doesn't tend to get portrayed as anti-Chinese racism).
Regarding asking Israeli academics and unions, a radical minority there probably do support the boycott campaign. But in general it's the people who are actually being oppressed whose voices we should listen to first, I think.
Gush Shalom's Uri Avnery on Z-Net
The Dirty Word
by Uri Avnery
July 04, 2007
THERE NEVER was a darker Middle East summit meeting. The darkest there can be.
The four leaders at Sharm al-Sheik did not sit together at an intimate round table. Each one sat alone behind a huge table of his own. That ensured a striking separation between them. The four long tables hardly touched. Each one of the leaders, with his assistants behind him, sat like a solitary island in a vast sea.
All four - Hosni Mubarak, King Abdallah of Jordan, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas - bore a severe countenance. Throughout the official part of the conference, not a single smile could be seen.
One after the other, the four delivered their monologues. An exercise in shallow hypocrisy, in empty deceit. Not one of the four raised himself above the murky puddle of sanctimonious phrases.
A short monologue from Mubarak. A short monologue from Abdallah. A medium-length monologue from Abbas. An interminably long monologue from Olmert - a typical Israeli speech, overbearing, educating the whole world, sermonizing and dripping with morality. Held, of course, in Hebrew, with the obvious aim of appealing to the home public.
The speech included all the required phrases - Our soul longs for peace, The vision of two states, We do not want to rule over another people, For the good of coming generations, bla-bla-bla. All in standard colonial style: Olmert even talked about "Judea and Samaria", using the official terminology of the occupation.
But in order to "strengthen" Abbas, Olmert addressed him as "President" and not as "Chairman", which has been the de rigueur title used by all Israeli representatives since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. (The wise men of Oslo circumvented this difficulty by referring - in all three languages - to the head of the Authority by the Arab title of Ra'is, which can mean both president and chairman.
And the word that did not appear throughout this long monologue?
"Occupation".
OCCUPATION? What occupation? Where occupation? Anybody seen any occupation?
The occupation was not on the agenda of this dark summit. Even in their wildest dreams, the Arab participants could not imagine anything more wonderful than "easing the restrictions". Making life a little bit less difficult for the suffering population. Giving back the Palestinian tax revenues. (That is to say, Israel may give back some of the money it has pocketed.) Moving some of the roadblocks that prevent people from going from one village to the next. (That has already been promised many times and will not happen this time either, because the army and the Shin Bet object. Olmert has already announced that it is impossible for "security reasons".)
With the air of a Sultan throwing coins to the paupers in the street, Olmert announced his intention of releasing some Fatah prisoners. 250 coins, 250 prisoners. That was the "generous gift" that was to make the Palestinians jump for joy, "strengthen" Abbas and awaken to new life the dry bones of his organization.
If Olmert had not been sitting so far away from Abbas, he could just as well have spat in his face.
First at all, the number is ridiculous. There are now about 10,000 (ten thousand) Palestinian "security" prisoners in Israeli prisons. Every night, about a dozen more are being taken from their homes. Since there is no more room in the prison facilities, the wardens will be pleased to get rid of some inmates. In previous gestures of this nature, the Israeli government has set free prisoners whose term was nearing the end anyhow, and car thieves.
Second, fraternization between Fatah and Hamas is well established in prison. The violent struggle in Gaza has not been projected into the prisons. The famous "prisoners' document", which laid the foundation for the (now defunct) Unity Government, was worked out jointly by Fatah and Hamas prisoners.
Olmert's announcement of his readiness to release Fatah - and only Fatah - prisoners is designed to sabotage this unity. It could stigmatize the Fatah people as collaborators, and Abbas as a leader who is concerned only with the members of his own organization, not giving a damn for the others.
SO WHAT did come out of this summit conference? Some say: zero plus, some say: zero minus. No wonder that the Arab participants looked so somber.
What was it good for? Abbas was in need of strengthening after losing the Gaza Strip. Olmert promised the Americans to strengthen him. But after the conference, Olmert could have used the phrase customarily uttered by Israeli leaders visiting bereaved families: "I came to strengthen, but it is I who have been strengthened."
The sole winner was Olmert. The conference has proved that Mubarak's and Abdallah's influence on Israel is nil, and that Abbas' position is even worse.
To eliminate any doubt about this, Olmert sent the army at once into the kasbah of Nablus, the heart of Abbas' virtual kingdom, in order to "arrest" the leaders of the military arm of Fatah. They put up determined resistance, wounding several soldiers. A lieutenant lost a hand and a leg. In another incursion, this time into Gaza, 13 Palestinians were killed, including a boy of 9. According to the official version, the aim was to throw the militants off balance so that they would feel hunted.
If this is not occupation, what is it? But God forbid that anyone mention this word in diplomatic discourse - the ten letters that have turned into an obscenity. A ten-letter word that has become taboo in polite society.
THE DISAPPEARANCE of the occupation as a subject for discussion is the real message of the conference. All the arrangements and ceremonies were designed to create the false impression that Olmert and Abbas were the heads of two states conducting negotiations on the basis of equality - rather than the leader of an occupying power and a representative of the occupied population.
That is true for all the discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this stage: the world has become so used to the occupation that its very existence has ceased to be a subject for discussion.
That is also evident in the daily reporting on the conflict in the Israeli and foreign media. They report on what's happening - the Gaza take-over by Hamas, the actions of the Israeli army, the problems of Abbas, the decisions of the Israeli government - without the context of the occupation. As if the occupation, with all its killing, destroying, depriving and dispossessing, were a natural phenomenon like the light of the sun during the day or the twinkling of the stars at night.
There are many subjects that are being discussed, such as: whether to ease the situation of the Palestinians or to increase their misery, whether to allow Abbas' policemen to move freely with their weapons in the West Bank towns to try and eliminate the militias that fight against Israel, whether to enlarge the settlements or not. But all these discussions are based on the unquestioned assumption that the occupation is there forever.
All the talk about "strengthening" is conducted in this context: Abbas and his people are supposed to function as an administration under occupation. According to Olmert's and Bush's perception, their job is to fulfill the orders of the occupation, in return for their own money and perhaps some small arms. Incidentally, that is very similar to the "autonomy" promised by Menachem Begin to the "Arab inhabitants of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District". Olmert is quite ready to talk about the "Two-State Solution" - much talk, with a lot of bloated words and pathos - while doing everything possible in practice to prevent this "vision" from being realized before the coming of the Messiah.
INTO THIS reality Tony Blair is now stepping.
He is being sent by the Quartet - something that does not really exist, a diplomatic fiction of four that are one.
Europe does not exist as far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned, except as a financial instrument of the White House. When the President of the USA wants it, Europe sends alms to the Palestinians (and arms to Israel). When the President of the USA wants to starve the Palestinians, Europe imposes a blockade on them.
The UN has long ago become an instrument of the US Department of State, especially in the Middle East. When the American drill sergeant shouts, the UN jumps to attention or stands at ease.
Russia dreams of regaining the status of a Great Power. As in the days of the Czars and Stalin, it thinks in terms of "spheres of influence". The Middle East is an American sphere of influence. Therefore, Russia will not interfere, except by mouthing high-sounding phrases.
The Quartet is simply an American front organization. And Tony Blair is sent to Palestine as a special envoy of President Bush. The master sends his poodle.
What for? If Bush really wanted to realize his "Vision" of two states, he wouldn't need Blair. He could do it all alone in a matter of weeks. Even poor Condoleezza could do it, instead of babbling about preparing final-status plans and pigeon holing them, if only she were backed by the determined will of the President.
So what is Blair's appointment for? Is it only to give some status to a redundant international star? To give a consolation prize to somebody who loyally lied and cheated for Bush before and during the Iraq war?
Yes, of course. But his main task is to draw out developments and gain time, to postpone everything, to foster make-belief activity, to provide the Palestinians and the world media with an illusion of progress.
Blair will come, meet, make declarations, ooze charm from every pore, generate headlines, fly, come back, make more announcements, meet again with kings, presidents and prime ministers. A long tail of news-thirsty journalists will follow him everywhere, generate media noise, write, tape and take pictures, as if he were a male Paris Hilton.
Meanwhile Palestinians and Israelis will keep dying, the wall will be finished, more land will be expropriated, settlements will be enlarged, targeted "terrorists" will be killed, the blockade on Gaza will be tightened, and all the hundred and one daily activities of the occupation will go on, the occupation that dares not speak its name.
The declared task of Blair, too, is to "strengthen Abbas". Woe to the task. Woe to Blair. Woe in particular to Abbas.
The socialism of fools
Those people who single out Israel are racist.
Anti-Jews cry "Israel-critic" in order to silence criticism of anti-semitism.
All human history = occupations and ethnic cleansing
Singling out Israel antizionist-lobby want to deflect attention from unjustice and atrocities in other countries.
What did the map of Russia look like in 1100-s ? Just two cities - Novgorod and Kyev.
Today Russia is the world’s largest country. What happened ? Russian Cossacks occupied and brutally ethnic-cleansed Siberia.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia
But on the other side, Russia was founded by Swedish Viking chieftain Rurik.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik
Russia under Swedish occupation ?
Lol.
What Is Opposed and What Is Supported
Frantz,
It is not the fact that someone supports a democratic secular state that I was criticising. It is the denial of the right of the existing state of Israel to exist simply on the bais of an objection to the history of how that state came into existence.
There is certainly a large element of criticising the SWP position, and a look at some of the previous threads here about the activities of the SWP I think justify the accusation of Left anti-semitism. But it is also clear that there is a general trend within the left, and radical movements which is characterised by idiot anti-imperialism which simply starts ffrom the position of my enemy's enemy is my friend i.e. whoever is fighting imperialism, or in this case what is taken to be imperialism's proxy, Israel should be supportefd whatever those forces actually stand for. That simply demonstrates both how corrupted socialist politics have become, what a huge job of education is required even within the socialist, let alone working class movement, and also a crushing defeatism, which has led to the attitude the workingc lass isn't/can't provide the solution so let's fight something, and let's side with somebody.
Well sometimes socialists have to decide that they have no dog in the fight.
You list a number of criticism of Israel and say isn't this reason to pick on them. Yes absolutely, and you will get no argument form me or the AWL that all the reaxctionary politics of the Israeli state should be opposed. But why does that require that we deny the validity, the right to exist of the state of Israel? It doesn't it requires that we oppose the Isaeli state, not demand its demolition. It requires that we support the demand for the fullest democratic rights of Palestinians, a fight which can be realistically fought here and now, and which could form the basis for unifying Palestinian and Jewish workers and thereby building an alternative both to the Israeli state, and to the reactionary clerical-fascists.
As far as the boycott is concerned I have to say that I think your position is naive. You cannot boycott academic institutions without boycotting the individuals that work in them. All experience in this country is that what it will mean is a boycott of all Jewish people unless they openly and to the satisfaction of people like the SWP denounce Israel, and often even that won't be enough.
I don't know where I have suggested that Palestinians advocating the boycott are enemies of the Palestinian people. I certainly beleive that some of those organisation like HAMAS are certainly enemies of Palestinian socialists, and of the Palestinian labour Movement, as well as of secular and democratic forces within Palestine, but that is not conditional on their supporting the boycott or not, it is condiitonal solely on their politics.
As far as the one state solution meaning a genocidal war or not. Get real. The majority of Jews in Israel are not simply going to agree to the establishment of a single state, secular or otherwise at the present time. The only way such a state could be established is therefore by force against their will. Given the size and ability of the Israeli military machine that means a genocidal war, which all history suggests would result in the victory of the Israeli state, and probably to its expanding the territory udner its control. But even were that the case there is nothing progressive that could come out of such a war, nothing that socialists can support.
It is however, possible that on the basis of a struggle here and now for democratic rights for Palestinians inside Israel and the Occupied Territories unity between Jewish and Palestinian workers could be built. It is possible that such a struggle could increasre he strength of the Palestinian Labour Movement and socialist forces in particular, and would almost certainly be opposed not just by the Israeli state, but by HAMAS and probably by FATAH too. It is possible that if such a struggle were successful,a nd given the suficient development of the Palestinian Labour Movement that the force necessary for unifying the nation behind it would arise, leaving open the possibility of either a Two-States solution or depending upon the outcomes of the establishment of a Federal State within which both Palestinians and Jews could co-exist.
As for your last comments, let me say that I'm not a member of the AWL so take no responsibility for any logo or anything else. AS for not supporting Palestinians against oppression I have no idea how you can arrive at that conclusion. It doesn't take much of a search of the pages here to find calls for support for demonstrations against the Occupation and so on. The difference is both I and hte AWL want to build that support on a progressive basis around the unity of the working class, not on the reactionary basis of defending Palestinian rights at the expense of the Israeli working class. The best way to defend Palestinian rights is through unity with the Jewish working class.
Arthur Bough
No
The boycott actually isn't against the PA. The US has in fact been channelling funds through to the office of Abbas the PA President. It refuses to finance HAMAS. It is a funny kind of boycott anyway that amounts to deciding not to give handouts to your political opponents, to people who commit themselves to the destruction of one of your client states. We have every right to criticise US imperialism, but surely not for not being stupid.
Would you have complained about donor countries not financing NAZI Germany in the early 1930's simply because they objected to the politics of Hitler? Would you have said they should have respected the votes of those Germans that voted for Hitler? I am opposed to any boycott of the PA for the same reason I am opposed to the boycott of Israel, and you ought to consider how it is you can oppose one, and support the other. But, I oppose any boycott of the PA because it affects ordinary Palestinians, and makes building unity with them more difficult, not because I have some irrational fetish for votes cast in a bourgeois election, less still because of any sympathy for HAMAS. The same argument applies as to why socialists should oppose a boycott of Israel.
Whether the majority of Palestinians are calling for a boycott or not is not the basis on which socialists should determine their position. The position of the SWP is not at all irrlevant as far as socialists in Britain are concerned, because it is that rather than what Palestinians think, or how they view the boycott being implemented which will be more influential for how the boycott would in fact be implemented in Britain. Whatever, Palestinian views on that a few thousand miles away, the fact is that we know from experience that in practice here in Britain it would be interpreted and implemented in a way that would affect all Jews, and would simply be a reflection of left anti-semitism.
A similar thing was true of the boycott campaign against South Africa which was used by the CP to restrict links only to those that they decided it was safe to have.
Arthur Bough
its the apartheid nature of the state that is problematic
nowhere do the boycott motions say that the boycott should continue until the israeli state is dismantled. all that's being requested is that israel stop descriminating on the basis of citizenship laws, land/property laws and marriage laws, as well as end the colonization and occupation of arab lands (full military withdrawal from OPT and evacuation of settlements). and yes the right of return, which its not likely many will chose to do, unless the racist internal legal regime of israel is fixed...
nazi - palestinian comparisons = anti-arab racism
how are palestinians comprable to the nazis?
how is hamas comprable? did you not read ismail haniyeh's article in the guardian?
if anything the comparisons would run the other way... with israeli ministers opnely advocating transfer, ethnic cleansing and policies of mass-starvation
But Much of That Amounts to the Same Thing
Neve, much of what is demanded of the Israeli state to no longer be an "apartheid state" - which Clive Bradley has shown very well to be a false analogy - does amount to calling on the Israeli state to abolish itself. The way the demands are usually raised as the AWL has shown in various articles is deliberately vague and misleading, but anyone that looks more deeply into what the demands of the various organisations demanding a boycott actually are, can be under no illusion that what is being called for is a single state solution in the whole of historic Palestine, with a full right of return for all Palestinians. What that amounts to is that Israel cease being a homeland for Jews, and becomes a Palestinian state in which Jews would be a minority with no guarantee of rights. It is to replace the current oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state, with a likely much worse oppression of Jews. And realising that the majority of Jews in Israel will never accept it, which is why the only way it could ever be brought about is through a genocidal war against Israel.
Arthur Bough
Who Said That
Neve,
You have a nasty habit of completely distorting what people say. I NEVER compared Plaestinians with the Nazis! I said that the ending of western aid was NOT to Palestinians witnessed by the fact that the West had been channelling aid through Abbas - obviously for their own political purposes. The point, however, was to remind ourselves that what had been stopped was AID, and it had been stopped to institutions controlled by HAMAS. If there was any comparison with the NAZIs is was to HAMAS not to Palestinians. BUt in fact not even that comparison was made despite the fact that I would describe HAMAS as a clerical-fascist organisation similr to the clerical-fasicst organisations in Europe particularly those in Austria prior to WWII. The reference was in fact to make the point that whatever else the US could be criticised for - and there are many things - it is ridiculous to criticse them for cutting off aid to HAMAS, in the same way it would have been ridiculous to criticise western governments for cutting off aid to Nazi Germany.
As for articles written by HAMAS leaders in the liberal press in Britain come on, have some political nouse. I'm sure Himmler could have written some soothing words for the British press about how they were really wanting only to look after the best interests of Jews. Throughout while they were sending Jews to the Gas Chambers they kept up the pretence to their own population even that they were all just being sent off to other parts of Europe.
Arthur Bough
Arthur...
...the boycott has been very much against the PA and it includes tax money paid by Palestinians but administered by Israel which should pay the salaries of PA workers. I think looking at what is happening on the ground rather than drawing irrelevant parallels with Nazism would be best.
Obviously a boycott campaign is not an effective economic weapon against a country like Israel, but what it does do is to flag up people's concern about what that country's establishment is doing. That is something that will be heard inside the country and make people there think twice (even if they try and rationalise it as antisemitism).
While Hamas are politically horrible, the reasons for their election are complex and have to do with reaction to 60 years of oppression. Comparing the situation with Germany in the 30's is meaningless unless your only point of reference is 'they hate Jews'.
Boycotts and Comparisons
1. I think the current restoration of financial inks to the PA in the West Bank demonstrate the "boycott" was against HAMAS. That Israel has to collect taxes and pay salaries on behalf of Palestinians I think says something also about the likelihood of there ever being a viable independent Palestinian state.
2. The comparison with the Nazis. I only made the comparison in this regard. The point had been made that well HAMAS are reactionary, but the Palestinians have suffered a great deal. You make a similar pouint again above. That the Palestinians have suffered is not in doubt. As socialists we have to find the best route of ending that suffering. Ending that suffering at no point runs through giving any kind of support to HAMAS, whose politics can only intensify it further, any more than the suffering of Germans after WWI could be relieved by support for the Nazis, or the fact of that suffering was any reason for socialists to give support or excuse the politics of the Nazis.
3. The boycott of Israel simply does not adress any of the politics needed to provide a solution in Israel/Palestine. I fails to give any practical solution here and now for the Palestinians, and cuts against the potential for building class unity across borders. It demonises and collectively punishes all Jews in Israel or elsewhere, and thereby inebvitably feeds the rampant anti-semitism not just of the Middle East, but of Britain too.
Arthur Bough
good to see you also :)
great post franz! as someone who's met with members of hamas, pflp, fateh, etc. its clear that the committed grassroots activists in all these parties are of one mind and are very supportive of working with progressive jewish organizations that take a clear and principled stand against zionist racism. these are really solid people involved on the ground with their communities. the current situation is really tragic, but i trust in the palestinian people and the palestinian grassroots...
all this awl, ivory tower drivel doesn't change the basic facts of how people live and support each other adn the inspiring day-to-day solidarity that exists here. for progressive people living in israel or the occupied territories the boycott campaign is a breath of fresh air and hope... we know we're not alone in our struggle, and the solidarity from our south african, british, canadian, arab, etc. comrades is heartwarming...
Missing Facts
1 After Palestine was liberated from Turkish occupation it was controlled by the UK until 1948, plenty of time to oragnise a democratic elections.
2 The fear of Jewish domination was the principal cause of an Arab revolt 1936-1939.
3 The arabs opposed the division of Palestine becuase it patently unfair. The original 1947 partition plan gave the Arabs 43 percent of the land and the Jews 57 percent. Moreover, at the time, Jews made up less than one-third of the population of Palestine.
4 Palestinian Arab refugees insist that they were driven out of their homeland by Jewish terrorists and regular Jewish military forces. The UN stated that Palestinian Arab refugees have a right to return to their homes.
Therefore?
All of the facts you cite may well be true. But I don't see how any of them help us in resolving the situation in the Middle East as it actually exists, except in the most general sense that the more we understand the history of the region, the more likely we are to be able to come up with a solution which is sensitive to the needs and desires of the people involved, should we choose to do so. Are you saying though, that because the Jews made up less than one-third of the population of Palestine in 1947 they don't in fact have the right to a state now, sixty years later? Or that because Palestinian Arabs insist that they were driven out of their homeland by Jewish terrorists they have the right to do the same to Israelis now? Or that because there were no elections prior to 1948 the Israelis forfeit their democratic rights for future generations?
Your missing facts are missing something - they don't have any impact on the fundamental question: how can the situation in the middle east be resolved so as to allow a 'normalisation' of politics, such that the working class in the region, both Israeli and Palestinian, can unite itself in a struggle against capitalism rather than remain divided on ethnic, national or religious lines? I cannot see a way for this to happen except by a solution to the national question which recognises national rights for both Palestinians and Israelis. Can you?
Resolving todays situation
Todays situation in the middle east is a legacy of imperialism after the fall of the Turkish empire in the middle east. It is only with a complete consideration of history can peace be realised. Fairness and democracy are essential ingredients to a peacefull outcome, this means that the unfair and imperialist treatment of Palestinians between the wars, the patently unfair partition proposal should be recognised. Most jews moved to Palastine after 1900 to avoid the horrors of anti-semitism in Europe especially Germany, I say they should be allowed to stay in their homes, but they must be prepared to live in peace their arab neigbours.
The problem is
probably most of the Jews in Israel want to do so, but they are surrounded by Arab nationalist and worse states that want to exterminate them, that routinely present them in their media, including children's TV as rats and dogs.
It is first necessary to build unity between Jewish and Arab, particularly palestinian workers on the basis of the Right of Israel to exist, and a fight by the workers of both natoins for the maximum possible democratic rights for Palestinians inside and out of Israel.
Arthur Bough
Israel Right to exist
Israel only can exist because the indigenous patestinian arabs where ethnically cleansed, I see no right for it to exist.
Yes many arab countries do the things you say, but listen to the Israeli settlers in Hebron who are just as bad.
Perhaps Britain or France Too Then
Roman Britain from which today's Britain is descended only existed because the Ancient Britons had likewise been driven out, and later the Normans drove out and ethnically cleansed a lot of Saxons. So should Britain not exist as a Nation then.
Normandy in France. Gets its name from Norsmen, because it was settled by such Norsmen from Scandinavia, who likewise ethnically cleansed the original inhabitants of that region. Indeed, similar histories can be found throughout France, and other parts of Europe. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, most of South and Central America only exist because of the extermination and ethnic cleansing of their aboriginal populations was conducted by European settlers. Should all these states curl up and die too.
Yet you don't call for that. Why then do you make a special exception for Israel????
Arthur Bough
An old chessnut
Why bring up those old chessnut why blame Israel when lots of other terrible things have happened? These arguments have nothing to do with the rights and wrongs of the Israeli occupation or the right of return of refugees.
Yes They Do
Yes they do. You don't call for those other wrongs to be corrected, so why do you then focus only on Israel, perhaps because they are Jews?
Any sensible person, let alone a Marxist has to deal with reality as it exists not as we would like it to have been. The reality si that the state of Israel is a fact, live with it. It has been a fact for 60 years. The only way it is going to stop being a fact is if some genocidal war is waged against it, byt generally speaking very reactionary regimes. Besides the fact that such a war would likely result in a victory for Israel, the more important fact is that tens perhaps hundreds of thousands of Arab and Jewish workers would die in such a war for a purpose which no decent socialist could support.
The only basis for a progressive soluiton in the Middle east rests with the development of unity and solidaity amongst the working class of the region. That unity will not be built on the basis of threats against Israeli workers, and it will not be built by reactionary Islamic forces hostile to the labour Movement. Israeli workers should advocate and fight for the greatest possible demcoratic rights for palestinians inside Israel and in the Occupied territories, including the right to argue for self-determination in their own state. Palestinian socialists should try to build such unity between the two groups of workers in opposition to the reactionary Islamists and bouregois nationalists in their own communities, and in my opinion should oppose the demands of those forces for a separate state, and other such measures which would act to divide the working class, and instead focus on demanding real democratic rights here and now within the existing structures.
Arthur Bough
boring
Gosh. That same old rhetoric... Anyone criticizing the Israeli government and zionism is an anti-semite... Yeah we know, we all eat jews for breakfast.
Good point, im impressed...
Do we call you islamophobic when you rant on about islamic forces being reactionary (when its not fascistic), or hostile to the labour movement? Most are, ok, but the situation is slightly more complex if you care to look. Look at what happened in Egypt for instance. In Lebanon, arent Hizbullah and the LCP part of a same coalition opposing Hariri's forces?
Take a look and cut the crap.
Where Did I say That
As far as I can see I said no such thing. Where did I speak of criticisng the Israeli state? What I said was a form of anti-semitism was treating Israel as a state differently to every other bourgeois state. What is a form of anti-semitism is failing to make any distinction between that state, and the Israeli working class - in fact for most of the adherents of this position Jews anywhere in the world, who are held responsible for the actions of the state.
You will find numerous criticisms here of the Israeli state, and the oppression of the Palestinians, along with calls for defence of the rights of Palestinians aginst that opression. The difference between that and the position of the people I am citicisng is that for me and for the AWL the basis of ending that oppression is a reliance on building working class unity between Palestinian and Jewish workers, whereas for those motivated by what appears to be simply an uncontrollable hatred for Israel, the answer is to support absolutely anyomne no matter how reactionary that is prepared to have a go at that state, irrespective of the consequences for Israeli and Arab workers.
AS for the criticism of some of those forces that such people look to, well I don't know how any reasonable person can describe them as anything other than fascistic. To call something by its proper name is one of the first duties of every socialist. The fact that some "socialists" are prepared to abandon that duty in order to blind themselves to the nature of the people they have jumped into bed with merely says something about their "socialism."
Arthur Bough
No They Don't
I choose my own path in life, what I choose to focus on is my choice. Because I focus on the trouble in the middle-east rather Bosnia, Chechnya, Tibet etc is not relevent to the rights and wrongs of the occupation and the refugee problem.
Israeli workers do not support the democratic rights of Arabs in the occupied terrotories and the refugees. That is why they vote for governments that continue the occupation.
Nonsense
This is nonsense start to finish. Okay you choose to focus on the fact that in your opinion the state of Israel is not a "valid" state because it came into existence by taking over land settled by other people. Let us set aside then the fact that the same can be said for most other states in the world,and that if we adopted your methodolgy we would have to call for all those other states to be abolished, or for their former inhabitants to wage a war against them in order to return. Let us set aside the question as to what motives you have for choosing this one particular state for special treatment.
Let us instead focus on the implications of what you say. The first question is, is it sensible, does it achieve anyhting progressive to just hold a grudge about an accomplished fact (the state of israel), just because you have a problem with the method of its formation? Isn't the real task of socialists to deal with the world as it IS, and to work for progressive solutions within that context?
How is anything you say, progressive, how is it anything other than a desire for revenge, and retribution, for what you see as some past wrong? We are not moralists trying to right past wrongs. Out task is to build an international working class movement, capable of fighting for socialism. That requires building solidarity amongst workers of different nations, not dividing those workers by alliances with reactionary and alien class forces.
You say that Israelie workers do not support Palestinian workers, actually there are many instances of where they do, but in any case this is besides the point. The job of socialists is to try to create the conditions to work within the Labour Movemements of both peoples towards that end. The fact that a lot of Nottinghamshire miners did not support the 1984 strike didn't cause socialists to write of all Nottinghamshire miners let alone the whole Notts working class! Our task was to try to prevent that situation arising again by raising the class consciousness of those workers.
You don't create the conditions for such unity when Israeli workers are daily under threat of being killed by a suicide bomber, or a rocket attack. You don't create the conditions for unity when Israeli tanks or planes shell Gaza. But the point is for socialists to point out that that is the actions of people (Government or reactionary islamists) not the actions of workers. The way to build unity is for israeli socialists to condemn and mobilise the working class to condemn the reactionary actions of the government, and for Palestinian socialists to do the same in respect of Hamas and the other clerical-fascist forces.
If you are a socialist rather than some bitter, twisted person only interested in revenge then it is impossible to build the necessary working class unity for a progressive solution to the problems of the Middle east on the basis that you propose, a proposal which is thoroughly reactionary from start to finish.
Arthur Bough
More Chauvinism from the AWL
Judge people by their deeds not their empty words. The AWL pretend they are sympathetic to the Palestinians. But they oppose any action to support them and spread the chauvinist lie that supporters of the boycott are "Sharia Socialists."
Come to think of it, judge the AWL by their chauvinist words as well as their chauvinist deeds.
"oppose any action to support them"
Bill, I've seen AWL members and banners on demonstrations, pickets and the like in support of Palestinian rights and freedoms on many occasions. Can you give some evidence for your assertion that the AWL "oppose any action to support them", or is it just a lie?
It's certainly true that the AWL opposes boycotts of Israel - for the precise reason that such boycotts would not be "in support of the Palestinians", but instead, in support of continuing the current conflict for generations to come, in the view of the AWL. You can disagree with that, if you can come up with an argument to demonstrate how a boycott of Israeli universities (often amongst the more progressive elements of Israeli society) would help the Palestinians establish a state of their own, but not simply by lies.
“Sharia socialists” and "Qur'ān-communists”
How useful is it to say that supporters of the boycott are “sharia socialists” and “Qur'ān-communists”, as this article does?
Nick seems to feel that solidarity and dialogue are needed to help the Palestinians establish a state of their own, not simply lies. However, it seems imprecise to amalgamate the views of socialists and Muslims, and mistaken to suggest that a boycott flows from Muslim law or revelation. Isn't this sort of linking that the Communist parties often used to make their opponents collectively responsible for their differing viewpoints? I am thinking, for example, of the comments here http://tinyurl.com/2745gx
Anne.
Isolate Israel
The boycott will bring home to Israel that it is a pariah state only by ending the occupation and agreeing a just settlement to the refugee problem will the world community accept them.
No It Won't
No it won't. The people responsible for the Occupation - the Israeli Government already know they are a pariah state. The people who will be affected will be ordinary Israeli workers, and those Israeli socialists trying to build unity with Palestinians, who will find the opportunities for such links cut. It is a thoroughly reactionary and short sighted approach - and has nothing to do with the necessary socialist policy of building workers solidarity, it stands squarely on the ground of bourgeois nationalism, not socialist internationalism.
The likely effect is to make ordinary Israeli people feel even more embattled, and drive more of them into the hands of the reactionaries in their own community. It will undermine all those in the israeli Peace movement and socialist movement that have been fighting against the Government's policies.
It is hsortsighted too from the perpsective of the interests of palestinians, especially those in Gaza that faced with the chaos caused by the Civil War fought by the reactionaris of HAMAS and Fatah, largely as proxies for external powers (the US and its Sunni Arab allies on one side and Iran on the other), have been calling for the israelis to come back! Reactionary for all those thousands of palestinains that faced with the daily assaults and death threats from the Islamic reactionaries for being gay, or a woman not prpared to submit to their ridiculous religious code, have sought refuge in Israel.
Sharia socialists would be the correct term were it not to demean the socialist bit, by associating it with such people.
Arthur Bough
Nationalism
I agree judge AWL by its deeds, on what other issue does it support rampart nationalism.
Rampant Nationalism
The people supporting rampant nationalism are not the AWL but those that support the uber nationalism of people like HAMAS. The people supporting rampanyt nationalism are those that have lost the socialist plot, and put support for these ultra-reactionaries above support for workingc lass unity and solidarity. What is missing from anything they say is one little mention even of the workingc lass, or a fight for socialism, or even basic democratic rights for Plaestinians against the attacks of the reactionary clerical-national forces they have jumped into bed with.
Arthur Bough
what sort of criticism?
Sorry, Frantz, maybe I haven't read this debate properly, but who is it who's argued that "anyone criticizing the Israeli government and zionism is an anti-semite"? That certainly isn't the AWL's position.
It all depends how you criticise a particular thing doesn't it? Some criticism of the Israeli government is anti-semitic; some is socialist, internationalist. Some criticism of Hezbollah, Hamas etc is anti-Arab, anti-Muslim; some is internationalist. I fail to see how you can claim that the AWL's criticism of Hezbollah is "Islamophobic", or that we fail to make (internationalist) criticism of the Israeli government.
Btw, why does the fact that the Lebanese Communist Party is lashed up with Hezbollah make them progressive? Hardly the first time a Stalinist Party has made a dodgy alliance! (Cf the French Stalinists offering in the late 1930s to make a popular front with "patriotic fascists"...)
Sacha Ismail
Suspicion
Hey Sacha,
I was just reacting to what Arthur said :
'You don't call for those other wrongs to be corrected, so why do you then focus only on Israel, perhaps because they are Jews?'
I dont see the point of that kind of argument. You could use it to imply that any support to the Palestinian people is anti-jewish.
We are dealing with a situation, with a land, with peoples, with an occupation.
I precisely said that no one pretended that you were being islamophobic, even though people from the AWL call Hizbullah and Hamas fascistic, not giving much argument and without making any distinction between the two organizations. Asking you why you focus on them, if its because they are muslims would be cheap and silly. I believe the debate is about something else.
Yeah i suppose it depends on how you criticize a particular thing. Precisely, given what was said prior to the comment, i dont think there was any need for that comment.
For the rest, I agree with you, Hezbollah are probably a more progressive party than the LCP...
Good point, mate ;-)
Paranoia
Franz,
How you can conclude from my comment that it could be used to argue that any support for Palestinians is anti-semitic I have no idea. The whole point of my question was two-fold. Firstly, those that wish to argue against Israel, and effectively for the establishment of a Plaestinian state - though they usually disguise it by speaking of a secular state - apply different criteria to Israel as a state than they do to other bourgeois states. In the case of at least some of these proponents the basis of this argument - and they go beyond what the majority of palestinians themselves support - there is an underlying anti-semitism as the AWL have set out in a number of discussions on Left anti-semitism. This is not to suggest that such people are overt racists, it is to suggest that there is a deep flaw in their thinking and approach to this question.
Secondly, almost unlike any other instance that can be thought of there is a willingness to tar the whole of the Jewish population - both those living in Israel and those living outside - with the same brush as the actions and politics of the Israeli state. A good example of that was the comment above that Israeli workers are to blame because they keep voting in Zionist governments!!!!!
Unlike virtually every other instance, though there is an element of it within idiot anti-imperialism in general, there is a compelte disregard for any concept of the interests of the Israeli working class, or even the task of socialists in working towards the unity of that working class with the palestinain and Arab working classes as a means of moving towards a progressive solution to the situation.
Instead there seems a mindless willingness to throw support behind any old bunch of reactionaries provided that they are "Anti-Zionist", which in relaity turns out in every case to really mean anti-semitic.
I do not think it undreasonable to ask why it is that such people treat Israel, and Jewish workers differently than they treat every other bourgeois state, and every other working class.
How you can draw from this that there could be no support for palestinians without inviting the same criticism I have no idea. Well actually, I do have an idea. It is that you too are unable to make the distinction between the Israeli state, and the Israeli working class. I have no difficulty whatsoever, in criticisng the actions of the Israeli state, without holding the Israeli working class responsible for it. And on that basis I find it aborrhent that measures such as the boycott should be prposed by socialists, which will in practice work not against the Israeli state, but against Israeli workers in particular those involved in Education, who are in most cases some of the most ardent advocates of support for the democratic rights of Palestinians.
The job of socialists is to work towards greater solidarity between the workers of different nations, particularly in situation like this, for God's sake not to drive unneccessary wedges between them. The best way to defeat the Israeli state and its opression of the palestinains is to work with, and to support those Israeli workers that do argue for solidairity with their Palestinian comrades, that do oppose the Occupation, and that do argue for democratic rights for Pale