Today, Wednesday 20 June, a conference of the public sector union Unison voted by a majority of around three to one to support a boycott of Israel. Click here for a report from the debate. The following open letter makes the case against this and all such boycotts.
It is directed at motion 54: in fact motion 53 was debated, but the political essence was no different.
Conference Resolution 54: An Open Letter to a member of Unison
From Alison Brown, Ed Whitby, Jean Lane, Kate Ahrens, Mike Fenwick, and Nick Holden. For more on this issue, see the "Solidarity yes, boycott no" website.
Dear friend,
The brutal Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to simmer. That, unless there is a settlement, it will boil-over again into widespread bloodshed, is as certain as anything in politics is. Against this background, Resolution 54 to Unison Conference proposes that Unison support a boycott of Israel.
Resolution 54 is a lamentably dishonest and evasive piece of work. But if our union conference is going to debate it, then Resolution 54 must be taken seriously and the issues raised in its proposal discussed on their merits. That is why we, Unison members, address this Open Letter to you.
Like most decent people, you are unhappy about the Middle East, about the destructive instability and the seemingly endless carnage. You think the policy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, a Palestinian State alongside Israel, a sovereign, independent Palestinian state in contiguous territory, is both a good idea and a crying necessity. You detest the continued frustration of the desire of the Palestinian people for that State.
Like us, you are disappointed that the "road map" for Middle East peace, which the European Union, the UN, the USA and Russia sponsored four years ago, has not led to progress towards a Palestinian State.
You were horrified at the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, which was one consequence of the failure of the US to promote the Roadmap. You, like Solidarity and Workers' Liberty, opposed that war.
Boycott?
A case could be made for boycotting Israel as a means of putting on it extra pressure to reach a "two-states" settlement with the Palestinians.
At its most effective, such a boycott would put small additional pressure on Israel. The movement to boycott South Africa was launched after the Sharpeville massacre in February 1960 and continued for more than three decades, with only the most marginal effect on South Africa. Apartheid did not begin to crumble until the new black-majority trade unions and the populations of the townships rose up. The South African example testifies to the marginality of boycott tactics.
Against all such boycotts there is the central argument that boycotts of whole nations and their institutions are the crudest of political weapons. They hit opponents of the government being boycotted, those who share the viewpoint of the boycotters, as well as supporters of what the boycotters object to.
That objection had less weight for South Africa because there the majority of the country's population supported the boycott, and everyone saw it as aimed at the overthrow of white-minority rule rather than at the crushing of the whole country. Even for South Africa, though, there were downsides. For a number of years the boycott was used to condemn direct links between British unions and the new black-majority trade unions in South Africa.
Boycotts are called "boycotts" after the name of the target of a boycott placed on an Irish land agent by his neighbours, in the 1880s. The policy was first called "shunning". A boycott of Israel institutions would organise an international movement to shun not only Israeli chauvinists, but also all those in Israel who support two states, or who would if they could see a way to achieve two states that would also bring them freedom from homicide-bomb and other forms of attack.
A boycott would inevitably contribute to a siege mentality in Israel, and thus put additional difficulties in the way of Israelis - Jews and Arabs - working for a two-states settlement. It would strengthen the hard core Israeli chauvinists.
It is impossible to measure which would be greater, the pressure for a settlement which an international movement of shunning would put on the Israeli establishment, or the political strengthening of intransigence which it would bring in the Israeli population.
However, the main group promoting this resolution, the SWP are people who reject a "two states" settlement. They are not interested in such calculations. What do you think they are - soggy liberals and do-gooders? Their concern is to strike a strong r-r-revolutionary stance, not to help the Palestinians.
Where boycott leads
The case of Miriam Shlesinger shows what the boycott could lead to. She and another Israeli academic, Gideon Toury, were removed from the editorial board of an international journal of translation studies by the editor, the British academic Mona Baker, for being Israeli. Yet Shlesinger is a former chair of the Israeli section of Amnesty International, a group which spends most of its time denouncing Israeli government mistreatment of Palestinians.
And, as Shlesinger herself commented: "I understand why it [her left-wing political stand] is mentioned, because it makes the boycott seem more absurd when the 'good guys' are included in the 'bad guys' category, but really it's irrelevant. Ever since third grade, I thought collective punishment was immoral and this is essentially that."
But something other than calculations about the impact a boycott might have in Israel, is involved here. It is, in our view, the decisive argument against a boycott.
In Britain, Europe, America, etc., a boycott-Israel movement would, inexorably, become an anti-Jewish movement, directed perhaps first against Israelis, but then against those closely linked to Israelis, i.e. British, European, or American Jews.
That would do greatly more damage than any good it might conceivably do for the Palestinians. Experience has already proved that.
Many members of Unison will recall the movement in the colleges in the 1970s and 80s to "no-platform" "Zionists".
Its premise was that Jewish nationalism is "racist", but that Arab, Palestinian (or any other) nationalism is not. Israel did not have the right to exist. Its assertion of national identity was not something positive to itself, but only something negative about Arabs, i.e. "racist".
That campaign led in a number of colleges to bans (or attempts at bans) on Jewish student societies, and to the harassment and hounding of young Jews. It was a disgraceful as well as a very unpleasant experience.
In a boycott-Israel movement, the targets would inevitably come to be (or also be) the hard-core "Zionists" in Britain and elsewhere. That is, Jews.
Jews are the easily definable "Zionists" in our midst. Jews who may be critical of Israeli governments, who may want a two-states settlement, but who, quite rightly, will fight all variants of "Destroy-Israel" politics, including the cleverly spun ones like the call for a "Secular Democratic State", and will understandably resist a boycott of Israel.
They, and their enterprises and institutions, will inevitably become the targets of a Boycott Israel movement. Even if the SWPers who promote boycott do not want that, once it got under way, a boycott would not be in their control.
(And that they do not want that can not now be taken as self-evident. These are the British allies of the Muslim Brotherhood! Who knows what people as politically disorientated as they so plainly now are, will do next? Who knows what their Jihadist allies will impose on them?)
The boycott-Israel movement would in practice, whatever anyone might intend, quickly turn into an anti-Jewish movement.
That would certainly do more damage than any possible good a boycott would do for the cause of establishing a Palestinian state (the cause which, remember, the SWP promoters of the motion anyway do not share.)
Resolution 54's arguments
Let us look in more detail at how the resolution motivates a boycott, and what the resolution's main promoters, the SWP, say.
You will have noted that the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian general election pushed back further the possibility of a settlement.
You will know that a large part of the Hamas vote is believed to have been a vote against the widespread corruption in Palestinian governing circles, for the more conventionally honest Hamas and for the welfare provision which Hamas makes for some of the Palestinian needy. Nevertheless, in voting for Hamas, the electorate gave a majority to a clerical-fascist organisation, which rejects a two-states solution to the conflict - a sovereign Palestinian state side by side with Israel.
You will know that Hamas differs from the secular Palestine Liberation Organisation, which came out for a two-states arrangement twenty years ago, in 1988, in that it rejects such a settlement and continues to deny Israel's right to exist. It openly proclaims its objective to be the conquest and destruction of Israel.
In our view, two states, a sovereign Palestine besides a sovereign Israel, is the only just settlement. It is the only settlement that caters, as far as is possible, for the legitimate rights, fears, and concerns of both Jews and Arabs.
It is also the only practical, the only attainable, settlement.
All the alternative "solutions" — a "secular democratic state" for instance — imply the conquest and forcible dismantling of Israel. The "secular democratic state" formula means, to its Arab and would-be-left proponents, an Arab state in which Jews would have religious rights, but would have all their national rights, including the right to a state of their own, stripped from them.
That would be impossible to achieve without the conquest, massacre or displacement of millions of Israeli Jews, people born in Israel, most of them the children of parents, or grandparents, or great grandparents, born there.
No less than the old Arab and Islamic goal of destroying "the Zionist entity", "Secular democratic state" lies at the other side of the conquest and destruction of Israel. The carnage on both sides that that would involve, scarcely bears thinking about. Such a conquest of Israel by the surrounding Arab states, even were it possible, would not, could not, lead to equality for such Jews as were left, in a common state with the Palestinians.
Whether or not in an ideal world, and if we had the power of gods, we might choose to rearrange things so that Jews and Arabs would live peacefully in one "secular democratic state" in the territory of pre-1948 Palestine — that is of no consequence now. It is utopian nonsense. Hypocritical nonsense.
It is only a cleverly-"spun" euphemism for the conquest of Israel. It is what Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Ahmed Shukairi, used to express bluntly and honestly in the slogan: "Drive the Jews into the sea!"
It is both unacceptable in principle, and, for now and foreseeably, simply unattainable.
For a certainty, an independent Palestinian state is the best the Palestinians can, conceivably, win now or in the calculable future. "Militant" or "anti-imperialist" or Islamist-jihadist talk about anything else simply ignores the interests of the Palestinian people.
Mystic religious fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah who talk of destroying Israel, of course, are not concerned with progress for the Palestinians into a livable two-states relationship with their neighbouring state. They serve "Islam": they are only concerned with fighting holy wars against the infidel.
We repeat: those on the Arab side who reject a two-states arrangement and set as their goal the destruction of Israel are the enemies of the Palestinians as well as of the Israeli Jewish people.
And Israel? Israel should be condemned for not using its present great strength to secure or impose a just settlement, and for the reckless brutality with which it uses its military machine against the Palestinians.
The US should be condemned for not insisting that Israel accept, immediately, the Palestinians' right to an independent state, in deeds as well as in words, and honestly work to help set it up; Britain, for too passively going along with the USA.
Unstated assumptions
Resolution 54 for Unison conference, "Sanctions Against Israel", is a different dish of couscous altogether. Its unstated starting point is support for those in the Middle East - most importantly here, Hamas and Hezbollah - who reject a two-states solution and advocate the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Islamic Arab state.
The resolution's authors try to exploit the just and widespread sympathy with the Palestinians, while rejecting the only policy that can serve the Palestinians, the policy of the PLO - a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Their proposal that Unison should back a boycott and sanctions against Israel, and the way they advocate it, shows that plainly.
For instance, they list among the chief faults of Israel its response to the electoral victory of Hamas. Israel "withheld tax revenues from the Palestine Authority and refused dialogue with the elected Authority following the democratic elections of January 2006".
In all this, there are two things that need to be separated from each other. Firstly, do we think it is good that Israel refuses dialogue, or withholds tax revenues? For ourselves, no, we don’t. And, secondy, do we think that Israel has no right in principle to do such things in response to Hamas's election victory?
The point of view of the authors of the resolution for conference is not that it was not good that Israel did what it did; it is that Israel does not have the right to do such things. Israel, they believe, does not have the right to defend itself, on any level, with any weapons.
Think about that. Hamas proclaims in its programme that Israel must be destroyed. And Israel is obliged to forget about that just because a democratic majority of the Palestinians voted for Hamas? Doesn't have the right to do anything else?
Yet, coming under massive international pressure, the most Hamas would shift on this keystone idea was to say that it accepts Israel, de facto, "for now". Until, perhaps as the government of an independent Palestinian state, it feels strong enough, or can mobilise strong enough allies, to do something about destroying Israel.
Hamas has been the main organisation engaged in the homicide-bombings against Israeli civilians since 2001. We condemn Israel for the reckless seeming indifference to civilian casualties with which it conducts its military operations against Hamas and Hezbollah; but there is an enormous difference between that reprehensible behaviour and the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians, young people in a Tel Aviv night club for instance.
Can the fact that Hamas won a majority in Palestinian elections deny to Israel the right to treat Hamas with hostility, and to put whatever pressure it can on the Palestinians to repudiate Hamas?
Can a majority in a Palestinian election for an Islamist clerical-fascist movement override the right of Israel to defend itself against those committed to its destruction?
The idea that it can leads straight to the only logical basis on which it can be made to stand up: that Israel does not have the right to defend itself, or even to exist. The point of view of the originators of Resolution 54
All "rights" here are assumed to belong to the Palestinians, or whatever powerful allies they might find to carry through the destruction of Israel.
That is indeed the position of the main political force behind the conference resolution - SWP/Respect, which openly allies with MAB, the British offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the founder of the SWP, the late Tony Cliff, himself once rightly defined as "clerical-fascist", and with the clerical-fascist "resistance" in Iraq.
Support the Palestinians - or treat them as pawns?
The authors of the resolution attempt to use justified and necessary sympathy with the Palestinians, and justified anger with Israel, to line up people like you behind policies which reflect, and are designed to serve, their basic position (repeat: unstated in the resolution) that Israel must be destroyed and all two-states arrangements rejected.
Their "sympathy" with the Palestinians does not extend to supporting the PLO's historic advocacy of "two states", of the solution which every reasonable person knows to be the only settlement that will serve the Palestinians.
If for the Islamist-jihadists of Hamas and Hezbollah the Palestinian people are mere bomb-fodder in an Islamic Holy War, what are they for the British pseudo-left allies of the jihadists, the people who promote Resolution 54? They are pawns in a great progressive "anti-imperialist" struggle (one that exists mainly in their heads).
The same underlying politics in the resolution are made clear also in its contradictory attitude to the Israeli trade union federation, the Histadrut, on one side and on the other, to the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (which, incidentally, supports a Two States position).
Histadrut's opposition to a boycott of Israel is dismissed: they didn't oppose the Lebanon war, did they? The Palestine Federation's support for a boycott is cited as a strong recommendation for the policy.
The gross double standards could hardly be more plainly displayed. Instead of a socialist policy, a class policy, here - Israeli and Palestinian working-class and trade-union unity on the political basis of mutual recognition of the rights of the two nations, Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish - instead of a policy that would allow the two working classes, long chronically divided by Israeli and Arab chauvinism, to unite for a mutually-advantageous political objective (two states) - instead of that, the resolution proposes that Unison members listen to one side only, the Palestinian.
And listen selectively. We repeat: the Palestinian unions support not the policy of Hamas and the SWP for the destruction of Israel, but the PLO policy of "two states".
(And incidentally, those who call on Unison conference to condemn the Histradrut for not opposing the Lebanon war, not calling for a ceasefire - the SWP/Respect - did not themselves call for a ceasefire. They called for the victory of Hezbollah. They marched through the streets of London carrying placards proclaiming: "We are all Hezbollah now".)
The double standards are there too in the description of the 2006 war. We, and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, condemned the Israeli government for launching all-out war. We protested and agitated against it. The authors of the resolution, however, in their one-sided presentation, "forget" that the war was triggered by Hezbollah rockets and guerrilla raids into Israel.
For all these reasons, we urge Unison members to reject this irresponsible motion, and the politics of those who promote it.
The only way forward - for the Palestinians, more than anyone else - is two states.
Two states for two peoples!
Yours,
Alison Brown (Yorkshire Ambulance Branch)
Ed Whitby (Newcastle Local Government Branch)
Jean Lane (Tower Hamlets Local Government Branch)
Kate Ahrens (Leicestershire Health Branch)
Mike Fenwick (Airedale Health Branch)
Nick Holden (Leicestershire Health Branch and Health SGE)
All signatories in a personal capacity.
Comments
Reactionary on Both Sides
The demand for a secular state in Israel with a full right of return, and the demand for a Two State solution are both reactionary for the reasons I have outlined here.
The first effectively requires Israel to abolish itself and to place itself at the hands of Islamic reactionaries. It could only be brought about by a genocidal war against Israel. The second cannot be brought about by the working class, and so it is consequently a bourgeois programme.
As Lenin argued socialists have no duty to support self-determination in such circumstances. We are for the greatest unity between workers and neither of the above solutions would generate it. We have a duty to support the right of nations to seek self-determination, but we have no duty ourselves to endorse such a call where it conflicts with the needs of building unity between workers of different nations.
We have a duty to argue for equality for Palestinians, for full democratic rights etc. both inside Israel and in the Occupied territories. The fact is that in essence a single state already exists in that area it is the state of Israel within which the Palestinians do not get the rights of citizens in any other bouregois democratic state. Already some palestinians are calling for the return of israel in Gaza as an alternative to the chaos of the Hamas/Fatah Civil war. The Occupied territories are entirely dependent on the Israeli state for many things as was proved by the withdrawal by Israel of its services in tax collecting etc.
UNity between Palestinian and Israeli workers could be built on the immediate issue of democratic rights for Palestinians inside Israel and the occupied territories. If in the course of that joint struggle the Palestinians develop the ability to create and run their own state, and vote to separate in a free vote then it may be at that point that socialists could support such a solution.
Arthur Bough
Plus
One the question of what Hamas' programme actually is. It's true that they occasionally seem to make cryptic statements about accepting a Palestinian state within the '67 borders; but these are balanced out by other statements demanding their official programme of the whole of Palestine. Particularly given that their official programmatic stance, never altered, is for the destruction of Israel and an Islamic state in the whole of Palestine, don't you think it's reasonable to conclude that the cryptic hints in the other direction are just a public relations exercise?
Sacha
I'm sorry - I missed a crucial section of your argument
Comrade, I apologise, I've just reread your posting and found I missed a big and, in terms of our argument, crucial section; don't know how this happened.
> As far as Hamas is concerned, no one is defending or applauding their charter which as you pointed out contains some strong anti-jewish paranoia.
Doesn't this put it rather mildly? Does it, in fact, contain virulent, Nazi-style anti-semitism?
> Having said that it could also be helpful to put things into context a bit, and you could have quoted other excerpts from the charter like chapter 31, more rarely commented upon, which says :
Article 31: "The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts. Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions — Islam, Christianity and Judaism — to coexist in peace and quiet with each other."
What kind of "humanistic" vision is it where followers of two other religions have to exist as second-class citizens (presumably some version of the medieval status of dhimmi or protected non-Muslim paying a poll tax is what Hamas draws its inspiration from) by virtue of "Islamic tolerance", "under the wing of Islam"? What about followers of other religions? What about non-Muslims? What about gay people, women and others who don't want to conform to any kind of sort of religious law?
> But once again, im not defending the original Hamas charter. What i am saying, really, is that about anybody who has just a tiny bit of intellectual honesty and decency would never reduce the organisation to 3 chapters of a charter that was written in 1988 and from which the organisation has been moving away for quite some time already.
Anyone with a tiny bit of intellectual coherence would acknowledge that, whatever tactical and even political shifts it makes, a movement whose founding charter quotes the protocols of the Elders of Zion and advocates the creation of a theocratic state is not going to cease being reactionary.
> The fact that they decided to run for elections although they did not consider themselves as a party at first and did not regard elections as a solution to end the occupation goes to prove that they are shifting from the original charter.
What does the fact that they run in elections prove? So do the BNP and many other utterly reactionary far right organisations.
> Also, three important documents have been published in the last few years, both before and after they got elected. The electoral platform, a draft program for a coalition government, and the cabinet platform. All these documents clearly indicate that the party has shifted its position towards one that is a lot less focused on religion, that regards armed resistance as one way amongst others to resist and as being mainly of importance for the history of the resistance, and that is more favourably inclined towards a two-state solution.
I will go away and read these, as well as the article you indicate. Even in the most radical case, however, I don't see that it changes the basic political character of Hamas. Moreover, I'm yet to be convinced that there acceptance of Israel is anything other than temporary and tactical gambit.
> You can complain about the resistance in Palestine being radical and islamic, but if past leaders and governments in Israel had supported or accepted to negotiate, or only tried to come to a resolution of the conflict when a more secular and moderate resistance (such as the Fatah and PLO) was dominating, the situation would not be the one it is now.
Well, as a revolutionary socialist, I obviously don't mind movements being "radical" - my objections is when they're radical in a reactionary direction. And of course it's true that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has opened the door to Hamas. In fact, in the early period, the Israeli government actively supported Hamas in order to undermine the PLO! What has this got to do with anything in dispute here?
Sacha
Les damnes de la terre
Hi Sacha,
Thanks for your response, which comes as a contrast to some of the previous posts and some of the dismissive and unargumented opinions published here, to which i reacted.
Ok, looks like i jumped to conclusions assuming you were supportive of the PLO policies, or Fatah, and i got carried away.
You made it clear that what you support is their idea of two independent states existing side by side.
As far as this issue is concerned, i take your points, i agree with some of what you're saying but i still believe that a one-state solution is preferable. I also think it is not contradictory with the idea of a democratic change coming from the workers and other popular forces.
I actually believe all these forces should be united together over any border, over any nationalist religious or ethnic lines.
Why advocate for a solution based on such values that we dont share or think should not be relevant?
Why not focus on unity and diversity?
Contrary to what you think i believe we have now reached that point where it is impossible for a two-state solution to be viable. If you only have a look at the route of the apartheid wall, you will see that the wall is not only used to try and steal more land by including the main, recent settlements into Israel territory, but that it has also separated Palestinian people from their families, families from their lands, students from their schools, patients from hospitals, etc...: it has created enclaves of land that are not viable on their own. Basically, it has fragmented even more than it was the Palestinian territory.
Just look at the length of the wall compared to that of the green line. The green line is about 350kms long, the wall more than 700kms.
Things are so intertwined now that i believe the best solution is one democratic secular state rather than two religious-based states existing side by side.
And of course this is not about destroying israel. And i find it sad that people defending the idea of a one-state solution are designated on this website as being anti-jewish, the enemies of the Palestinian people, or basically as advocating for a turn around which would end up in a muslim state in which jewish people would have no rights. I find it sad that some of the arguments made here are based on lies. Do we really need to resort to such techniques to try and make a case?
I think not.
This was my main reason to react to the original article. Then it went worse with David Hirsh only adding his own propaganda but thats another story.
You can ask me how a one state solution is possible without dismantling Israel, but you would also have to explain how a two-state solution would manage to reverse what has been happening for the last four decades, ie the annexation of land, the establishment of settlements, the chopping up of the West Bank, etc... Can the whole matrix of control thas was imposed by Israel be reversed that easily? What about the facilities that have been demolished (access to water, etc... ; what compensations for this?)? And what about the facilities that have been built on Palestinian land but that Palestinians are not allowed to use (roads, etc...)??
What im saying really is that the problem should not be an ideological one, but just the question of what is realistically the best solution for people on the ground. And as much as a one state solution is hard to think of, a two-state solution is difficult to imagine too given the current situation.
Taking into consideration this situation as i briefly described it, one view of things is that what exists now is, in effect, one state, Israel, in which about half the population, Palestinians, have second-class rights or no rights at all.
Therefore i believe that a just solution lies, through a system of just compensations, in a single democratic state, in which everyone should and would be available to get hold of land, legally - obviously not by force or theft - and live wherever they want on the whole territory.
This solution would make territorial conquest irrelevant, and would break the link between ethnicity and sovereignty or geography.
And if the exact details of the solution still need to be defined (the same applies to a two-state solution), there are countries in Europe or elsewhere in which different ethnic groups live together and from which, to some extent, inspiration could be drawn.
As the situation worsens and so-called negotiations over two states existing side by side prove to be a dead-end, this is a solution which is becoming more popular, notably amongst Palestinians. I believe the popular movement that is behind it is as worthy of our support as any other.
Sorry i may not be addressing all the precise points you raised, im just giving an account of what i think, trying and hoping to make myself clearer and to answer your questions at the same time.
As far Hamas is concerned, I agree they are a reactionary organization but i doubt they are truly representative of what the Palestinian people want, think or aspire to. And i believe that it is rather down to you to explain why you think they are fascistic than to me to try and demonstrate they are not. I never said we should support their policies as a whole, i was just saying that the quick dismissal of the organization as a fascistic one, without argumentation provided is rather short-sighted. Plus they were assimilated to hizbullah under this same label, and that is another display of ignorance, basically implying that all muslim organizations fighting zionism are all the same and are fascistic in essence. Im sure youll agree that any argumentation based on this is likely not to hold much water, to say the least...
To come back to Hamas as much as i welcome any constructive criticism of it, i dont think we should completely dismiss them. Because it would be turning our back on the majority of the Palestinian people that have voted for them and which have done so not for what they advocate in their charter but because they represent resistance, not for their religious ideals but because they are a hope for a solution to the crisis.
There is a also a social aspect to the party that cannot be completely denied. It has built schools and other facilities in order to help the Palestinian people. The movement is not a monolithic one. As i said in my previous post it has shifted its policy quite a lot since it started out. It has developed along many different lines (religious and reactionary unfortunately but also as a social-oriented resistance group), and there are different trends and divisions inside it.
A similar case could be that of the muslim brothers (of which hamas is an offspring) in Egypt. We saw in the recent massive strikes that hit the country that some members of the brotherhood have given their support to the people on strike, which they would not usually do before. There has been talks of the creation of a state-independent union, and there has been cooperations made with a trotskyist revolutionary organization to create an independent students union. It is far from being the main line of the party but it is still a part of it, a recent development of it.
Considering the brutal occupation taking place there (in Palestine i mean), a constructive position here could be to at least acknowledge this and discuss these issues rather than quickly dismiss them without any argumentation.
We should not impose our external western view of what we think these movements should be without giving them any credit when they deserve some. The situation is a peculiar one. We should not impose our judgement and solutions regardless of it.
This, of course, does not mean that we should not be allowed to criticize Hamas for what it is and what it does. We should do so, and we should also support independent secular democratic forces of resistance, but i also think that we should not turn our back on the Palestinian people by rejecting as a whole the party they chose to vote for, and that we should rather try and help them, in as much of a constructive way as is possible given the situation.
I wont address the case of hizbullah as it is yet another problem. They are quite different from Hamas, less reactionary and religious i believe (they dont advocate for a muslim republic for instance) and the situation in Lebanon is obviously very different from the one in Palestine.
I made my reply to David Hirsh as far as his cheap accusations of antisemitism are concerned.
To conclude, ill add that i didnt really say that you were taking all your positions from the whitehouse or the mainstream media or that what they were saying was necessarily wrong.
It is quite clear however that on these issues the political line of the white house is really biased and manipulative and dangerous. Their whole foreign policy is based on the rhetoric of terror, islamo-fascism, etc... and on supporting Israel as much as they possibly can. I wasnt making a general rule out of saying it was bad to repeat anything the neo-cons are saying. However, i still believe that when your line gets very close to theirs, you should maybe start and ask yourselves a few questions, or at least try and give arguments explaining why you are saying what you are saying (and which happens to be what they are saying too). But that was not done.
Instead, stupid comments such as the ones i pointed out were made, with the sort of justification and argumentation that has been developed by and promoted through neo-cons circles. When i read :
"For a certainty, an independent Palestinian state is the best the Palestinians can, conceivably, win now or in the calculable future. "Militant" or "anti-imperialist" or Islamist-jihadist talk about anything else simply ignores the interests of the Palestinian people. Mystic religious fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah who talk of destroying Israel, of course, are not concerned with progress for the Palestinians into a livable two-states relationship with their neighbouring state. They serve "Islam": they are only concerned with fighting holy wars against the infidel"
I am sorry but what i hear the voice of Olmert, Bush, or Blair here. No argumentation, confusion of different organizations, quick dismissal of muslim groups as fascistic, oversimplification of what they stand for, lies, insults, libeling, etc...
Only the language that is being used is dubious. 'they are only concerned with fighting holy wars againt the infidel'. I mean what is that? And what are they talking about?? Somebody open their eyes! Hello, theres a situation there! How can they think or pretend that the resistance is not concerned with the situation, with the occupation?!? Its beyond me, really.
Anyway. It is not so much, or not only, what you are saying as the argumentation used (or lack thereof) to justify what you are saying that we should not copy from the white house. Its rather the techniques they use (lies, libeling, the use of striking words, etc...) that i was referring to i think.
To use one of your examples : denouncing Saddam Hussein wasnt wrong, ok, but did they actually denounce him?? Or did they help to make him strong, did they arm him, did they shut their eyes on the kurdish genocide, and then later when they needed to get hold of the country's resources came up with any old lie to justify an invasion of the country??
So yeah, its maybe not so much what they are saying but, beyond the lies and make-belief, the arguments they are using, the way they are using them, the justification behind what they are saying and their actual motives that one should distance themselves from.
I think thats what i meant.
Roughly...
Agissez !
On this french site, there's an action proposed, it's written in english too :
http://grouik-grouik.blogspot.com/2007/06/mbc-contre-lucu-dhimmis-britanniques.html
va te cacher!
Interesting Igg... At least your website is openly racist and clearly targeting islam as the root of all evil. And you pathetic bunch are clearly French chauvinist defending your idea of a Western civilization.
Its refreshing to have people as plain dumb as that and so proud to be dumb that they feel the need to claim it and to run a crap-looking blog to tell the world about it.
Im just starting to worry about how much sympathy this website is getting from people with such political orientations.
the game is in!
Wow! Palestinians don't know how to run their own state? SHeesh! Now that's plain out racism 101. WHat the hell Arthur? BUt at least the AWL's true colours are showing. Already Palestinians want to again be part of Israel? Show me one person that said that? This is ridiculous and crass propaganda. So your proposal is that the Palestinians should shut-up, accept the tutelage of the Histadrut, who will teach them to create there own state, and maybe in a hundred years they can live side by side within the Zionist entity and abandon such 'nationalist' demands as existing as Palestinians. They should probably just call themselves 'Israeli-Arabs', right? This is muuuch better! Wow! No wonder NOT A SINGLE PALESTINIAN supports your deranged party platform...
Sacha... silly goose! :)
Sacha:
Is or is not the state of Israel premised on the destruction of Palestine? Did not the creation of Israel lead to the destruction of 450 Palestinian villages and the ethnic cleansing of 750-900,000 Palestinians?
So let's not talk about 'programmes' but the actual reality of whose implementing their genocidal programme. It is clear that it is Zionist racism that is doing so in an attempt at wipping out the Palestinian people as an entity with the right to self determination. But probably asking for self-determination, the right to life, the right to freedom of movement, etc. is too much for Arabs to ask, because as we all know and as the AWL likes to keep telling us, they are all just bloodthirsty savages....
GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!
Neve - A Jewish voice from Yafa, PAlestine
Learn To Read
Neve,
I don't know whether you have a problem with reading what people say, understanding it or whether you deliberately misrepresent what they have said. I did not say that Palestinians were incapable of running their own state. What I said was that in order for the demand for self-determination to be progressive it is necessary for their to be some national force around which the nation can unite. That force is clearly missing as far as the Palestinians are concerned, as the current Civil War demonstrates.
On a recent BBC interview in GAZA a Palestinian interpreter interpreted the words there and then of some of the palestinians who said that incredible as it may seem the unthinkable was being said by ordinary Palestinians in the communities being affected by the Civil War, that the chaos had become so bad that they thought that it would be prefereable for the Israelis to return. It is certainly a fact that faced with the clerical-fascist politics and actions of HAMAS many gay Palestinians have fled into Israel.
I don't knwo where I even mentioned HISTADRUT for you to make the comments you attribute to me there. As I have repeatedly said that I am in favour of a joint struggle between Palestinian and Jewish workers for full democratic rights for Palestinians I have even less understanding of how you can claim that I simpoly want Palestinaisn to just shut up. But then your whole approach seems to be to just inisnuate ridiculous positions to people whatever they have said.
Actually, I support the position of Lenin that DID have little time for small nations because in the grand schem of things they are reactionary, and counterproductive to the socialist project of uniting the working class. I am, however, in favour of supporting the right to self-determination where that is justified and forms part of a progressive struggle. Your problem seems to be that you are in favour of self-dertmiantion for Palestinains but not for Jews.
Arthur Bough
No Its Not
Is the state of Israel premised on the destruction of Palestine. No its not, its premised on the fact that it exists, and has existed for 60 years.
Is it premised on the destruction of the rest of Palestine, clearly not. BUt socialists should oppose the further settlement of the West Bank, the Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the oppression of Palestinians inside and out of Israel. But the basis of that opposition has to be via the building of unity between Palestinian and Jewish workers. Such unity is udnermined by the proposal for a boycott, and comepletely undermined by calls for the destruction of Israel.
Arthur Bough
self-determination
small nations? little time for them? that's pretty sick my friend...
your modus operandi seems to be to quote lenin to deny palestinian rights...
and if you can't see the difference between a movement for self-determination and a settler-colonial ideology/movement that hijacks a religion to appropriate other lands and that continues to colonize mercilessly, then there's really nothing else to say..
what makes palestinians 'smaller' than jewish people? they're about the same amount population wise... or does darker skin immediately reduce people in your eyes?
boycott call... 171 palestinian organizations
again... there's quite a bit of unity... this boycott call has the widest ranging support among palestinian and jewish progressives... its THE unity document of the majority of progressive people who live in the land between the mediteranean and the river jordan, whatever you with to call it. we support equality for all, not apartheid fantasies. a two-state solution without the right of return is meaningless for most palestinians...
NO Argument Use a Smear
Neve, yet again you misrepresent what I have said, and lacking an argument resort to a smear. Lenin does say many times that the interests of small nations cannot weigh as heavily with socialists as the interests of larger nations. He says that small states are an obstacle to the kind of development the working class needs, and so on. That is not necessarily a reason to oppose self-determination, but in order for the demand to be progressive it is necessary to demonstrate that the demand is achievable by reference to the objective reality not least of all the existence of some social force i.e. class capable of organising the rest of the nation behind it.
What I see in many sections of the leadership of the Palestinian people, and those that support them is less a demand for self-determination for Palestinians, and more a simple hatred and call for the destruction of Israel. The current schism within the Palestinian community demonstrtaes the lack of the necessary social force to organise a Palestinian state. That is nothing to do with the intellectual or other capacity of Palestinians to do so, your reference to colour of skin etc. I find rather deplorable, it is a statement of the objective reality that Palestinians find themselves in as a result of the process of history. It is in many ways no more than saying as often has to be said that workers cannot win a particular strike because the balance of forces are against them.
Arthur Bough
All Reactionary
But a call for a boycott is not about building unity between Jewish, Arab and palestinian workers for a lasting democratic solution it cuts against that. Linking that boycott as you have done several times to the idea that the "Apartheid" nature of Israel has to be ended, means in effect calling for the abolition of Israel because it is a demand for the whole territory to be turned into a single Palestinian state within which Jews would be a minority. It is to replace the current oppression of palestinians with a far worse oppression of Jews, which is why they won't accept it, and why it could only be brought about by a genociald war.
I do not favour a two-state solution ebcuase I beleive it is reactionary and utopian. I beleive it is necessary to fight here and now for Palestinian rights within the state they have been living for the last 40 years i.e. the Israeli state. I beleive that only the working class is capable of waging such a struggle to win those democratic rights. I agree that the question of the refugees has to be addressed, but it is clear that within the current polity of the region no right of return is going to be agreed by Israeli Jews, and it is utopian to keep demanding it. The question has to be settled in the short term via compensation, and by other methods. Longer term if the unity of the working class brings the achuievement of democratic rights for Palestinians then the polity of the regoin will be dramatically altered, and other options become more realistic whether that is a separate Palestinian state, a federal state on the whole territory etc.
But it is pointless trying to address those issues now under the currents set of objective circumstances.
Arthur Bough
Eyes wide shut
This is such poor rethoric and analysis...
Fine, you support the PLO politics. Except, the current situation is partly due to the unability of PLO to change things (due to their record i mean; Hamas is also to blame and has done a lot wrong since they got elected, even though everyone has made their job especially difficult...). Ok, admittedly, Israel is mostly to blame for this, for they never tried to get close to a resolution of the conflict despite the many concessions granted by Arafat. However, as you pointed out, it is no coincidence that the Palestinians have voted the PLO out. By supporting the PLO now, you are supporting the US policies. Abbas is nothing but the puppet of the American interests in the Middle East. He is only the voice of his master. The US are creating instability and division in Palestine by funding and supporting Abbas, against Hamas.
Only recently, a spokesperson for the PLO has given their support to the Lebanese army and to Hariri Inc.'s militias to enter the refugee camps in North Lebanon. Despite the fact that a law was passed and forbids that. Despite the fact that the camps are being shelled undiscriminately and that many palestinians have been killed or forced to leave. Great support to the Palestinians, and the Palestinian cause...
Anyway.
The two-state solution is obviously not tho only viable solution as you claim. It does not imply the dismantling of the Israeli state as you falsely claim. It proposes to establish a secular state (also, not an arab state either as you falsely claim again) where arabs, muslims and jews would have the same rights. That is, quite the contrary to what the Jewish state of Israel is now, constantly denying right to its non-Jewish citizens.
See the case of Azmi Bishara for instance : http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bishara3may03,0,2351340.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail>
This solution is both practical and utopian.
Practical because by carrying on expanding its settlements in Palestine and fragmenting the country with the apartheid wall, the Israel government has made a two-state solution based on the green line quite difficult. Their constant refusal to grant refugees the right to return as even the UN has stated it also makes the one-state solution more realistic, to some extent.
It is also quite utopian indeed because it requires a radically different way of apprehending things, because it seems impossible to get most of the protagonists to agree on such a solution, and because the two sides seem irreconcilable at the moment. However, it is not because something does not seem within our reach that we should not try and fight for it. And as Edward said has argued, it may well be a utopian ideal which lacks the Palestinian cause. As it happened in South Africa, such an ideal could help to rally most people to the cause.
The one-state solution is a just cause and to pretend that at its heart lies the project of the destruction of Israel is either a very short-sighted view of things or simply basic propaganda.
If you look in the long term too, a Jewish state surrounded by arab states does not seem viable. This is also why the one secular democratic state solution is preferable.
Your false and biased analysis of reality, as well as your rejection of all utopian ideals is sad to witness.
It is because of such short-sighted views, because people blame their ideological positions on practicality or realism that such just causes are not making any progress.
You should think again, stop claiming your every word is the only truth that was ever said and try to turn your certainties ("For a certainty, an independent Palestinian state is the best the Palestinians can conceivably win now or in the calculable future) into critical positions.
I am also quite baffled at quick and inconsistent summaries of some movements and the situation in the Middle East :
"Mystic religious fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah who talk of destroying Israel..."
Such a ridiculous and pathetic thing to write... You should try and get an idea of what is going on and what such movements actually mean to the people there and what they are fighting for other than from the mainstream media or directly from the White House. Your analysis of the situation might benefit from it you know. Honestly.
Your position is at best orientalist, at worst in direct line with that of the US/UK/Israel politics.
Of course if you could prove that the current policies of Hamas and Hizbullah are to destroy Israel and to replace it by an Islamic state, it would be different. But, and you probably know it, it is simply not true.
Such basic lies to justify your ideology are again sad to witness.
Ok. Im not going to make further comments at the moment, it would take us too far and it may not be worth it. Also, I have not read the second half of the article about the boycott, but to tell you the truth id rather not at the minute.
My question is, to what extent the AWL agree with this short-sighted biased view of things?
That one thinks a two-state solution is preferable to a one-state solution, i can totally understand and i am willing to discuss it.
But to advocate for a two-state solution on such poor analysis, with such certainties based on lies and ignorance, and with the will to discredit whoever thinks slightly differently is a different kettle of fish and would not seem very clever to me.
mystic religious fascists?
Franz. Of course Hamas & Hizbollah are mystic, religious and fascistic. You write as though this comes as a surprise to you?
Have you read the Hamas charter? http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=214
The founding document of Hamas repeats the protocols of the Elders of Zion, which as you may or may not know, Franz, is a forgery. It became a cental element of Nazi propaganda.
If Hizbollah are not fascistic, why do you think they enjoy goose-stepping up and down giving the Hitler salute?
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/hezbollah%20salutes%204.JPG
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/hezbollah%20salute.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lebanese_Hezbollah_recruts_being_sworn_in.jpg
Did the Hitler salute become an anti-imperialist greeting while I was asleep Franz? Or perhaps, Franz, it is a traditional Lebanese sign of peace and freedom? No, I don't think so. You might feign outrage at the comparison of Hizbollah to a fascist movement, but Hizbollah themselves are obviously trying to encourage it.
Both Hamas and Hizbollah also enjoy the hitler rhetoric. You see, Franz, no matter how much you might get excited by their "radicalism" - these are organizations that don't like Jews. Get it? They want to kill Jews. And it's not a secret. That is what they say and that is what they do. Or perhaps you think it is some kind of elaborate double bluff?
Nasrallah: "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."
You are aware also that the Iranian regime has been using Hizbollah to make its hits in both Europe and South America? Like this one, for example, the "anti-imperialist" bombing of a synagogue in Argentina, in which 85 people were killed.
Hamas charter:
From Article 7
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
From Article 13
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. …
From Article 22
For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. ...They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.
"Franz", I think you should be more careful about defending people who goose step up and down, who do the Nazi salute, whose movement is held together by Jew-hatred, who push the protocols, who blame the Jews for all the wars in the modern era, who deny the Holocaust and who want Israel to be a Jew-free zone. Franz, how did you find yourself in a position where through idiocy or complacency, you ended up doing this?
Sad, what happens to some people who start out being on the left.
On rhetoric and intellectual fraud
Mh. Ok.
I thought I would get a reply with a more elaborate, constructive and subtle view on the subject but obviously i was wrong.
David, you are uttering even more nonsense than there is in the original article yet you are writing in an even more haughty and despising manner, with even more arrogance, confidence and certainty.
I dont know if i should laugh or cry at your post. I dont know if im amused or despaired.
'Sad, what happens to some people who start out being on the left.', you said.
So what does it mean? I have been officially excluded from the left by..., er...you? Oh. I see. When you have time you'll explain to me why i should simply care.
Thanks...
So basically, you have a couple of pictures without indication of the context or what they mean, a quote about which you were not bothered to mention any source, an old document which does not mean much in regard to anyone is decently trying to analyze the current situation in the Middle-East, and you think you have a case? And you think you can sum up two quite different organisations and a situation based on a conflict that has decades of history by saying : these people are all mystic religious fascists.
Sad what happens to the brain of some people who grant themselves the right to exclude others from the left.
I wont mention this whole 'nazi salute' thing again, some comrades have tried to tell you a bit about it and its meaning already. Thanks, that saves me some time.
Simply, David, talking about surprises, does it come as a surprise to you that under an occupation and in the face of many gratuitous killings and bombings, a resistance would arise, military groups would set up and organize??
Then, does it really come as a surprise to you that a military resistance group may use a military salute?
Also, you probably know that the swastika was not a nazi symbol in the first place. Would you say to Hindus today that they are all nazis? Would you, David?
What you say about these pictures is a mere demonstration of this old situationist saying : 'existing images only prove existing lies' (my bad translation of a Guy Debord quote).
As far as Nasrallah is concerned, it is funny that you mention forgery, while being happy to quote words from him that he...never said.
What was the source of your quote, when and where did he say that again? Oooohhhh, you dont mention any of that. Your research did not go as far as that... Yeah, who needs to back up what they are saying with facts when they are simply calling people fascists or antisemites? What a waste of time that would be...
But dont worry, if you want to know where the quote comes from, i will tell you, so you can use it for future reference.
It comes from a book by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, entitled "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion". The book is a scholarly work which is supposed to be sympathetic to the Shi'ite party.
I am now quoting from a website which explains about that quote (see the reference just below) :
'The source of the quotation is cited in footnote 20 of Chapter 8 of Saad-Ghorayeb's book: an interview, not with Nasrallah, but with a Hizbullah member of the Lebanese Parliament, Mohammed Fnaysh, conducted by the author on 15 August 1997.
Saad-Ghorayeb informs me that the footnote is a mistake, although she is certain there is a valid source for the statement. However, when at my request she examined her PhD dissertation, from which the book originated, she discovered the same mistaken citation...'
So we've learned a lot here. We know where the quote comes from, we know it was never said by Nasrallah anyway, and we know it is a mistaken citation that originates from a wrong footnote in a PhD dissertation.
So we pretty much know that you are talking nonsense.
But thats not all. We also know that this 'quote', as so many other Nasrallah 'quotes' have been used by many people to discredit hizbullah and wrongly accuse them of antisemitism (your position is not very original im afraid).
Read from the website below, which is the one i just quoted from. You will learn about all these terrible anti-jewish 'quotes' made by Nasrallah, you will learn about intellectual fraud and manipulation (but maybe you know about that already), and you will also learn about Israel's support of the Christian Phalange, an extreme right-wing Lebanese group. But thats another issue altogeher i suppose. Or is it?
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/is-nasrallah-an-anti-semite/
I just wonder if you are really gullible or if you are only pretending to be. Do you usually buy propaganda that easily? I honestly think that people that are naive enough to believe that Nasrallah would say proudly and openly such stupid things do not know much about hizbullah or whats going on there, and are not even trying. Or maybe they are just pretending they dont know much. I dont know where you stand. But I know that whether you mean it or not, you are contributing to spreading such propaganda yourself.
And I think that basically, you should be careful to what you say.
As far as Hamas is concerned, no one is defending or applauding their charter which as you pointed out contains some strong anti-jewish paranoia.
Having said that it could also be helpful to put things into context a bit, and you could have quoted other excerpts from the charter like chapter 31, more rarely commented upon, which says :
Article 31: "The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts. Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions — Islam, Christianity and Judaism — to coexist in peace and quiet with each other."
But once again, im not defending the original Hamas charter. What i am saying, really, is that about anybody who has just a tiny bit of intellectual honesty and decency would never reduce the organisation to 3 chapters of a charter that was written in 1988 and from which the organisation has been moving away for quite some time already.
The fact that they decided to run for elections although they did not consider themselves as a party at first and did not regard elections as a solution to end the occupation goes to prove that they are shifting from the original charter.
Also, three important documents have been published in the last few years, both before and after they got elected. The electoral platform, a draft program for a coalition government, and the cabinet platform. All these documents clearly indicate that the party has shifted its position towards one that is a lot less focused on religion, that regards armed resistance as one way amongst others to resist and as being mainly of importance for the history of the resistance, and that is more favourably inclined towards a two-state solution.
All this and more can be read here :
http://www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/journals/printer.php?aid=7087
Since as early as 1995 also, Hamas has started to propose a truce to Israel, asking them to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. Of course as Israel refuse all negotiation apart from the ones with people they choose and which lead to what they want, these offers were never answered and the situation has been deteriorating.
You can complain about the resistance in Palestine being radical and islamic, but if past leaders and governments in Israel had supported or accepted to negotiate, or only tried to come to a resolution of the conflict when a more secular and moderate resistance (such as the Fatah and PLO) was dominating, the situation would not be the one it is now.
This is by no means an attempt to excuse some of the excesses of the armed resistance in Palestine, it is just an attempt at explaining why they happen.
An Israeli journalist recently said something like : 'They did not want the PLO they got Hamas. They dont want Hamas they'll get the Jihad. They wont want the Jihad they'll get Al-Qaeda'.
Anyway, this is not the point. The point was to say that none of what you say is based on facts, the truth, or even just an attempt to give an honest account of what these organisations are and what they mean for the people there, in relation to the situation today.
It does not take much investigation to try and talk or debate properly about these issues. Just a bit of intellectual honesty and some critical judgement. But it seems to much asking. You are much happier rambling on old clichéd views on so-called islamo-fascism, repeating the traditional neo-con propaganda that can be found everywhere in the mainstream press, and branding the word antisemitism without any consideration, thus risking to deprive the word of its meaning and impact.
This is sad.
This is what happens to people who give up critical thinking and whose sole function remains to serve an ideology.
If you find this satisfactory enough, after all this is your problem. That you are employed by a university despite an obvious lack of intellectual accuracy, objectivity and honesty, this is the problem of English institutions. This, does not come as so much of a surprise, actually.
What i dont understand is that a socialist group, which is supposed to have a critical take on these issues as on many others, seems affiliated with this kind of rhetoric and argumentation, and are producing documents which use them and, as far as i can tell anyway (but i may be wrong), display more evidence of a biased ideology than a desire for honest debate based on facts.
There is actually plenty of room for decent and much-needed criticism and debate on Hizbullah and Hamas : their relation with the workers, with other resistance groups or parties, the role of women within the organisations, their mild criticism of a capitalist economy, etc... These would be interesting places to investigate.
What we should do is criticize Hizbullah and Hamas for what they are, not for what they are not, or what some people claim they are.
Ill add a final word on the cheap techniques you use to try and discredit people. Is libeling all you could find? Thats all too common and rather pathetic. Accusing people of being antisemites to try and close the debate is a well-known cowardly and foul technique that some people resort to as soon as someone does not agree with their ideologies.
It is a technique that people like the French writer Pierre-André Taguieff, who seems to collaborate to the website you're the editor of (Engage), are famous for resorting to.
You used it with me in a somewhat clever way, implying more than strongly that i was one of those lefties that suddenly became an antisemite, without actually writing the word. I notice that when it comes to manipulation you can be subtle after all...
But this is defintely the same technique, a sad and pathetic one, which, and this is even sadder, is all too often used by people who defend a racist, aggressive, deceitful and violent ideology.
Nothing to be proud of. Nothing to boast about as you did. Nothing we did to deserve such poor literature to read.
I hope people from the AWL realize this and are keen on distinguishing themselves from this.
Oh, and by the way, David, as you seem to like writing my name so much, its Frantz, not Franz. You know, as in Frantz Fanon, the French writer that wrote about anti-colonialism. I would have thought you knew about him, but maybe its not the sort of reference you would be interested in...
hahahaaha....
David! The Hamas Charter? Wow! Good translation from right-wing Zionist sources. Hmm... the charter was writen in the late 1980s with a completely different leadership. Here's what Hamas is saying now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2096360,00.html. This is their actual position, not what you would like to think. The more I find out about you AWL folks the more you're sounding like righ-wing appologists for Israeli apartheid. Why not support the democratic and secular forces in Palestine who are calling for a boycott? Or are they 'nationalists' and 'clerical-fascists' as well? The point is that the boycott call came from the secular Palestinian left. SO the question is: does the AWL support the secular Palestinian left?
The Roman salute predates Hitler
Dave,
Perhaps it's just me, but I think that what you wrote could make some people think that in your opinion the salute used widely across the Middle East is intended as a homage to Hitler. That is misleading, as it calling it the 'Hitler salute'. Of course, this general form of salute was not invented by, or for, Nazis. It's a widely used salute and, in fact, the original form of salute. In the UK, that is not widely known. Here, the Roman salute instantly and only suggests fascism. That is not the case everywhere else. Indeed, that salute was used by the US army for the half century before 1943, as you can read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
You can read even more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salute#Roman_salute
All the best,
Duncan.
What is your "here" Duncan?
"Here, the Roman salute instantly and only suggests fascism."
In the first picture I linked to above, Duncan, the houses in the background are in Israel.
You think Hizbollah doesn't know what a straight armed salute means to Jews?
You don't think their buddies in Tehran might have explained it to them after their little meeting there last year?
David... Lebanese history
I know the racists at AWL don't like to study history, but the fact is that the entire Lebanese army used this salute based on the Roman salute even before Israel came into existence. Most of the factions that emerged from the fragmenting Lebanese army in the Lebanese civil war - on all sides - used this salute. I can also show you images of Jewish religious extremist graffiti in Hebron that says 'Death to Arabs' or "Arabs to the Gas Chambers" ... The point of fact remains: 5-million Palestinians dispossessed of their homes and lands and locked out of their homeland; another 4.5 million living in open air prisons and facing a starvation / sanctions policy by the imperialists; 650,000 Palestinians passed through Israeli military prisons, 97% of which where tortured; 11,000 Palestinians currently being held; 400 children in prison; roughly 800 children killed; 530 checkpoitns; etc. etc. etc. This has been going on for 40 years...
Do you think this salute is new to the region?
Hi Dave,
Good to see you are keeping well.
You linked to a photo on this page as well:
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2004/12/20/hezbollah_salutes.php
...and that is in Baalbek, well north of Beruit. Since it's east of the Litani, perhaps some maps show it as being on the border with Israel?
Where was the other photo taken?
Dave, do you think that this salute is widely used across the middle east primarily as a way of expressing support for Hitler's genocide? Do you think that Hezbollah has started using this salute on the suggestion of the Iranians that it would signify that to Jews? This seems rather unsupported.
I see from the Harry's Place page linked above that the militia of Kataeb, Israel's former Phalangist allies, also used this salute. If this salute only signifies support for Hitler, why would the Israeli state have armed them through much of the civil war in Lebanon? Bachir Gemayel, the Kateb leader, well well know for wrking in alliance with the IDF.
dave, this salute has been widespread in the region since Roman times. Your are mistaken to suggest that it is a recent adoption, taken up on the suggestions of the Iranians in order to provoke Jews. It also seems mistaken to suggest that this is give principally in from of
All the best,
Duncan.
P.S. "Here" (for me at least) is Britain. I had thought that we were both based in London generally. Let's hope you're somewhere nicer, enjoying the summer.
Goose stepping up and down, doing the Hitler salute is just fine
I did not suggest that this salute is a recent adoption, nor that it was taught to Hizbollah by the Iranian regime. I suggested that it has a particular meaning since the Holocaust.
It is a myth to suggest that Nazism and the Holocaust were exclusively European affairs which did not impact on the Middle East, in which people in the Middle East were not involved. People in the Middle East understand the meaning of the Hitler salute as well as anybody else.
My point about the Iranian regime was that the Jihadists understand perfectly well the significance of the Holocaust and the symbolism of fascism. They are not ignorant and innocent children. They are intelligent and conscious political actors.
Your argument seems to be that it is entirely coincidental that
1) Hizbollah says it wants to kill all the Jews
2) Hizbollah kills Jews when it can
3) Hizbollah goose-steps up and down and teaches its recruits how to do the Hitler salute.
I don't buy it. If Hizbollah wanted to stop doing the Hitler salute, if it wanted to do some other kind of salute, then it would do so. If it wanted to brand itself differently, it would. It knows the meaning of what it does and it continues to do it. It might be "authentic in their culture" but we live in a globalized world. They should google "straight armed salute".
Perhaps you are suggesting that it is some kind of imperialist demand, that I, "as a white English Jew" am acting as an imperialist way by suggesting that people in the Middle East, people involved in a fight with Israel, should stop doing the Hitler salute?
Perhaps you think that it would be fine if I was Lebanese, to suggest that Hizbollah change their form of salute, but because I am not, then it is an example of orientalism?
I don't really want to go into the sewer of identify politics. I don't think this way of thinking has anything to do with our shared political heritage.
Of course it should go without saying that the Jihadists attitude to Jews and their continued use of the Hitler salute is only one element of their similarity to fascism. Also, there is the fact that they are mortally hostile to the labour movement, that they are mortally hostile to womens liberation and to lesbian and gay liberation, that they hate democracy, law, human rights, equality and liberty; that they aim to smash the state and rule without a state etc.
And yes, hi Duncan.
Hizbullah does not want to kill all Jews... stop making up!
Find me one speech where Nasrallah says he wants to kill all Jews? What are you talking about? This is crass right-wing Zionist propaganda. Hizbullah cadre have many many former communist party members (some say as high as 70%). There is not anti-semitic sentiment in Hizbullah. There is definately anti-Israel sentiment given its occupation of Lebanon (Hezbollah didn't exist before Israel occupied Lebanon)...
Let's get the causality straight here...
duncan church's profile in his own words
For anyone confused by the familairity between some of the people recently posting - it is because it involves some former members. Some of these have moved along way from our politics, while others still support our general ideas. For example Duncan now describes himself thus
I lead, and co-own, the only global consultancy company specialised in serving industry analyst relations managers. We are the only firm focussed on providing measurement, evaluation and training to help develop AR strategies. Our consultants across Europe, the USA and Asia/Pacific help vendors to better win more sales recommendations from analysts at firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Ovum and Yankee.
I have consulted on analyst relations to over 100 companies, including BT, Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Unisys. I created a 'club' of senior analyst relations managers at 30 global firms and developed it into what is now the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations.
One of my key goals is to innovate uses of business theories in the analyst relations field: I pioneered uses of non-linear modeling, balanced scorecards and brand equity measures. Many of these ideas come by linking with leading business thinkers and business schools. In addition to my MBA (LBS/Tuck) I have studied at Theseus (EDHEC), HHL (Leipzig), and at UCLA's Anderson school. I have led research projects with colleagues at INSEAD and Theseus.
Could someone explain what
Could someone explain what that means.
A few answers, a few questions
> Fine, you support the PLO politics.
*No, we don't.* Fatah is a conservative and corrupt bourgeois nationalist organisation. Of course, as revolutionary socialists, we don't support their politics. The point is that we think that their attitude to the existence of Israel is generally more progressive than that of Hamas.
> Except, the current situation is partly due to the unability of PLO to change things
Yes, and due to their leadership's corruption, self-enrichment, lack of concern for the Palestinian masses etc. But isn't it a tragedy that rather than being mobilised in a progressive political movement this frustration has been channelled into the reactionary dead-end of Hamas?
> By supporting the PLO now, you are supporting the US policies.
Except that we're not supporting the PLO, as explained above.
> Abbas is nothing but the puppet of the American interests in the Middle East. He is only the voice of his master. The US are creating instability and division in Palestine by funding and supporting Abbas, against Hamas.
Why does it follow from that socialists should support Hamas? Not sure if that's what you're saying.
> Only recently, a spokesperson for the PLO has given their support to the Lebanese army and to Hariri Inc.'s militias to enter the refugee camps in North Lebanon.
Again: we don't support the PLO. Including the PLO's foreign policy, which has a long and appalling history, eg support for the Chinese regime's massacre in Tiananmen Square, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait etc.
> Despite the fact that a law was passed and forbids that. Despite the fact that the camps are being shelled undiscriminately and that many palestinians have been killed or forced to leave. Great support to the Palestinians, and the Palestinian cause...
Agree! But since we don't support the PLO...
> The two-state solution is obviously not tho only viable solution as you claim.
How could anything other than a two-state solution be immediately viable? Given the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, how could a single state of the whole of Palestine come about on any sort of democratic basis, short of a massive explosion of class struggle involving the workers and popular forces on both sides? Now, if such a thing very unexpectedly happened and unified Palestine, we wouldn't be wedded to a two-state solution: but the point is it's very unlikely given the current conflict. Two states - a real two states solution, with a Palestinian state with the same rights as Israel - is part of a programme that can help Palestinian and Israeli workers to unite. (There's an additional question about why we would want a unitary "Palestine" and not some broader regional structure involving rights for all national groups, but leave that aside for now.)
> It does not imply the dismantling of the Israeli state as you falsely claim.
Could you explain what you mean by this?
> It proposes to establish a secular state (also, not an arab state either as you falsely claim again) where arabs, muslims and jews would have the same rights.
Discussion of secular states blurs the issues. Of course, as communists, we want all states to be democratic and secular (and preferably workers' states). I want a democratic, secular, workers' Israel alongside a democratic, secular, workers' Palestine as part of a democratic, secular, socialist federation of the Middle East! Secularism and equality for all citizens is a separate question from the existence of a *binational* state, which is what I assume you actually mean.
> That is, quite the contrary to what the Jewish state of Israel is now, constantly denying right to its non-Jewish citizens.
Well, Israel is hardly a theocracy or particularly racist compared to ALL its neighbours, but yes, we agree with your critique of its discrimination. All states should be states of their citizens, not exclusivist, and secular, not religious. But the solution to the Israeli state's discriminatory features is not the abolition of Israel any more than the solution to the theocratic character of the Iranian state is the abolition of Iran.
> This solution is both practical and utopian.
Practical because by carrying on expanding its settlements in Palestine and fragmenting the country with the apartheid wall, the Israel government has made a two-state solution based on the green line quite difficult.
Sure: it might at some point become untenable to call for a two-state solution. We accept that, but we don't agree that this point has yet been reached. Moreover, even if it had been, it wouldn't follow that a single-state solution was an easily viable one.
> Their constant refusal to grant refugees the right to return as even the UN has stated it also makes the one-state solution more realistic, to some extent.
It is also quite utopian indeed because it requires a radically different way of apprehending things, because it seems impossible to get most of the protagonists to agree on such a solution, and because the two sides seem irreconcilable at the moment. However, it is not because something does not seem within our reach that we should not try and fight for it. And as Edward said has argued, it may well be a utopian ideal which lacks the Palestinian cause. As it happened in South Africa, such an ideal could help to rally most people to the cause.
Obviously, socialists don't reject anything distant on the grounds that it's "utopian", eg we don't regard workers' revolution as being utopian. The attempt to deny Israel self-determination and insist on a single-state solution is utopian is because it cuts against the logic of the class struggle, ie the need to unite Palestinian and Israeli workers on a basis which includes respect for each others' national rights.
Your analogy with South Africa falls down because South Africa was (basically, this or that side issue aside) a single nation with a white ruling caste/class ruling over a number of other racial groups including a black majority working class, whereas Israel and Palestine are (basically) two distinct nations with their own class structures. In SA, a single republic with equal rights for all citizens was the only principled demand socialists could make; there was, basically, no national question as such involved, but a question of racial oppression. In Palestine, by contrast, national oppression is central: we are for democratic states with equal rights for all citizens, but the real issue today is the right of the Palestinians to have any state at all.
> If you look in the long term too, a Jewish state surrounded by arab states does not seem viable. This is also why the one secular democratic state solution is preferable.
You seem to me to view things in idealist terms of how a "good plan" can be implemented to make things better: and forget that the only force which can reshape the Middle East on democratic lines is the working class. Israel and Palestine are two of very few countries in the region where the workers' movement has a really independent existence (there are others of course: Lebanon, to some extent Iraq). How does a solution which ignores the reality of what the majority of Israeli and Palestinian workers think going to help transform the situation?
"A Jewish state in a sea of Arab states" - but the question is more fundamentally about what sort of states as well as about their relationship to one another. Socialists should advocate a democratic, workers' federation of the Middle East - but that cannot be counterposed to the immediate demand for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
> "Mystic religious fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah who talk of destroying Israel..."
Such a ridiculous and pathetic thing to write... You should try and get an idea of what is going on and what such movements actually mean to the people there and what they are fighting for other than from the mainstream media or directly from the White House. Your analysis of the situation might benefit from it you know.
Could you explain what is wrong with this characterisation? "Fascists" may be a slightly loose use of language, but who can deny that Hamas and Hezbollah are fascistic? Or that they seek to destroy Israel?
What I find ludicrous is your strong implication that anyone who denounces these groups as reactionaries must be taking their position from the propaganda of the White House... on that basis, it would be illegitimate to criticise any anti-American dictatorship? Was denouncing Saddam Hussein's regime just White House propaganda, for instance? Was denouncing Stalin just Western Cold War propaganda?
I don't think being on the left means putting a plus, or keeping quiet, wherever our main ruling class enemies put a minus. We need our own independent view. If that sometimes means saying some of the same words as the ruling class in our own country, that's life. Your argument reminds me of those who argued that it was wrong to support the Polish workers' movement Solidarnosc because Thatcher and Reagan had also made (deeply hypocritical and two-faced) noises in its support.
It was/is possible to be against Stalinism and Western capitalism; against Saddam and Bush; and against the Israeli government's oppression and Hamas! There is a third camp (which is not "even-handed" in all situations, of course).
> Of course if you could prove that the current policies of Hamas and Hizbullah are to destroy Israel and to replace it by an Islamic state, it would be different. But, and you probably know it, it is simply not true.
I'm sorry, could you explain why it's not true? Are you claiming that Hamas, for instance, has changed its policy of a) seeking to destroy Israel and b) seeking to establish a theocratic state?
The only thing I've ever read with regards to the former is that in 2004 they stated they would open a truce in return for total Israeli withdrawal from the Territories, and accept an independent Palestinian state in those areas *as a step towards* the conquest and Islamisation of the whole of Palestine including the areas that are now Israel. And they set 2014 as their final date for this ultimate goal. Hardly a major change of policy, still less of politics! But perhaps you're thinking of something else?
Comradely,
Sacha Ismail
blah, blah, blah...
Hahaha... Fatah is conservative, bourgeois nationalist, but Gush Shalom and HIstadrut are progressive? Common! AWL you guys are being ridiculous!!!
Regards,
Neve, yafa palestine