Robert Kurz: The War Against the Jews
Jan 13 2009 20:29
#2
Joseph K. wrote:
seems a pretty mental opening, i really can't see how the Gaza situation has made things more threatening militarily for Israel?
I'm not sure. Many Anti-Zionists think Israel might be on the decline. Of course, that might just be soothing self-deception:
Counterpunch wrote:
In our latest newsletter we print a long interview with Hamas’ leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshal, conducted by CounterPuncher Alya Rea, myself and others, including former US Senator James Abourezk. Meshal made a case for Israel’s decline in military effectiveness:Meshal: Since 1948, if we want to draw a curve of Israel’s progress, do you think that this curve is still heading up, or maybe is at a plateau, or is heading down? I believe that the curve is now in descent. And today, the military might of Israel is not capable of concluding matters to Israel’s satisfaction. Since 1948, you may notice that Israel has defeated 7 armies. In ’56 they defeated Egypt. In ’67 they defeated 3 countries: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. In ’73, the war was somewhat equal in both sides between Egypt and Israel, if not for Nixon’s airlift to Israel’s forces at that time, the map of the world would be different. In ’82 Israel defeated the PLO in Beirut.
But since ’82, 26 years ago, Israelis has not won any war. They did not defeat the Palestinian resistance, and they did not defeat the Lebanese resistance. Since that time, Israel has not expanded but has contracted. They have withdrawn from southern Lebanon and from Gaza. These are indicators that the future is not favorable to Israel. Then today Israel, with all its military capabilities – conventional and unconventional – are not enough to guarantee Israel’s security. Today, with all these capabilities, they can’t stop a simple rocket from being launched from Gaza.
Hence the big question is, can military might ensure security? Hence, we may say that when Israel refuse the Arab and the Palestinian offer, a state of Palestine on the border of 1967, Israel is losing a big opportunity. Some years down the road, a new Palestinian generation, new Arab generations, may not accept those conditions, because the balance of power may not be in Israel’s favor.
Again, maybe this is purely bluster and chest-thumping, for all I know.
Joseph. K wrote:
belittling the disproportion of causalties
900 dead in 18 days is horrible, but it's nowhere near the act of "genocide" that Anti-Zionists claim it is. On a single day on 11.September.2001, 3,000 people, three times as many, died from a terror attack. Was that "genocide" too?
Joseph K. wrote:
even israeli generals recognise the military elimination of hamas/hezbollah is not feasible, so apologetics for israeli war crimes in the name of 'self-defence' is as much a crock of shite as leftist anti-zionism.
Kurz isn't saying anything about the feasibility of the endeavor.
Jan 13 2009 20:39
#3
Angelus Novus wrote:
I'm not sure. Many Anti-Zionists think Israel might be on the decline. Of course, that might just be soothing self-deception:
Almost undoubtedly it is.
Angelus Novus wrote:
900 dead in 18 days is horrible, but it's nowhere near the act of "genocide" that Anti-Zionists claim it is.
No, but it goes somewhere towards explaining 'Why the global public is turning against Israel during the economic crisis' to quote the title of the article.
Angelus Novus wrote:
Kurz isn't saying anything about the feasibility of the endeavor.
No, but he supports the idea of 'the elimination of Hamas and Hezbollah' by the Israeli state. For communists, supporting one bourgeois faction is no better or worse than supporting another. I don't really see any difference between this, and those who call for the jews to be driven into the sea.
Devrim
Jan 13 2009 20:44
#4
Angelus Novus wrote:
Again, maybe this is purely bluster and chest-thumping, for all I know.
i think so (much like the ICC's chicken licken antics). israel isn't under serious military threat at present. its nuclear arsenal deters rival states, and non-state groups aren't mustering much, not even the once-regular suicide bombings.
Angelus Novus wrote:
900 dead in 18 days is horrible, but it's nowhere near the act of "genocide" that Anti-Zionists claim it is. On a single day on 11.September.2001, 3,000 people, three times as many, died from a terror attack. Was that "genocide" too?
of course not. to be fair to the leftists, the 'holocaust' claim comes from the widespread misquoting in the bourgeois press of the israeli minister who threatened a 'catastrophe [shoah] for hamas' which was mistranslated as 'holocaust [hashoah] for hamas' which became 'holocaust for gaza.' now you can ask why leftists suddenly dropped their usually well-worn critique of the bourgeois press in this instance, but they weren't making it up.
similarly, under the Convention on Genocide, israeli policy arguably consitututes genocide (although i think this is hysterical exageration):
Quote:
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:* (a) Killing members of the group;
* (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
particularly the conditions of occupation/blockade, for many years explicitly to prevent the realisation of palestinian nationhood, could be said to fall under (b) or (c), although like i say i think this is exaggerated, it does differentiate Israeli attacks from 9-11.
Angelus Novus wrote:
Kurz isn't saying anything about the feasibility of the endeavor.
in the context of an israeli military assault on a densely populated open prison, an assault that is supposedly aimed at breaking hamas, Kurz comes out and supports this objective and defends the operation as "self defence." this is apologetics. you'd have no problem recognising this if it were leftists rationalising the intifada, suicide bombings and all as "self defence" and saying that 'the elimination of the Israeli state is an elementary condition not only for a precarious capitalist peace in Palestine, but also for an improvement in the social conditions.'
Jan 13 2009 20:57
#5
Yeah, translating and posting it shouldn't imply 100% endorsement (though I do agree with Kurz's attitude towards global public opinion).
When Robert Kurz -- who five years ago wrote a book-length polemic against the Anti-Germans -- comes out rather pro-Israel in a column published in a major Brazilian daily newspaper, it's kinda newsworthy, no?
Jan 13 2009 21:00
#6
Angelus Novus wrote:
Yeah, translating and posting it shouldn't imply 100% endorsement
sure
Angelus Novus wrote:
When Robert Kurz -- who five years ago wrote a book-length polemic against the Anti-Germans -- comes out rather pro-Israel in a column published in a major Brazilian daily newspaper, it's kinda newsworthy, no?
i know nothing about kurz - other than this article - or his criticisms of anti-deutsch, so i dunno. just saying what i see.
Jan 13 2009 21:05
#7
He's kinda the Moishe Postone of Germany, basically the other half of Principia Dialectica's influence. Only imagine Postone wrote books that actually get talked about in mainstream bourgeois newspapers, and imagine Postone actually had some kind of influence in the 1990s on the extra-parliamentary left.
Jan 13 2009 21:12
#8
i can't say i'm now more inclined to investigate him further, but thanks for the bio 
Jan 13 2009 21:15
#9
Quote:
In fact, Hamas – just like the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006 – has taken the civilian population hostage, while it converts Mosques into weapons caches and allows its cadres to open fire from schools and hospitals. Global opinion overlooks this, since it has already recognized Hamas as a “force for order” within the social crisis. For this reason, capitalist pragmatism, reaching as far as the liberal bourgeois press, is increasingly turning against Israel’s self-defense.
Israel has taken the civillian population hostage by hemming them into a parcel of land that cannot really support them and blockading it. Hamas merely profit from the situation. I find it bizarre that he's using the 'rules of war' to argue his case, the rules tend to be broken as and when it is needed/possible. I don't think that the people who would recognise Hamas as a 'fore for order' are the same people that would be supporting the group from the sidelines (or at least not in western media). The argument for self-defence is not a very good one, Israel is not seriously threatened by missile attacks. As mentioned above they provide an excuse for periodic attacks to make sure a dangerous power structure will not emerge and to destroy infrastructure. As was mentioned during the recent invasion of Lebanon, the aim was to clear the southern part of the country as best possible (even only temporarily) and to destroy 20 years of rebuilding.
Quote:
Islamic war against the Jews is being accepted
He recognises that there are lots of factors other than religion and then comes out with this. I'm sure anti-semitism is rife in the area and I'd be shocked if it wasn't increasing but that would be difficult to seperate from the actions of Israel. Due to the fact that Israel is the only jewish state this increases the identification of the one with the other.
I wonder if he'd talk about the Irish war against the British, that was also triggered by declining military power 
Jan 14 2009 05:25
#10
It's pretty funny how you get so agitated whenever anyone talks about the national rights of Palestine, yet you let pass without comment the statement that the attack on Gaza is a war of "self-defense" (I suppose the invasion of Afghanistan was also a war of self-defense.). As if that weren't completely tied to the concept of just wars between nation-states!
Kurz writes about social forms! He must have something to say! 
Jan 14 2009 02:24
#11
Angelus Novus wrote:
900 dead in 18 days is horrible, but it's nowhere near the act of "genocide" that Anti-Zionists claim it is. On a single day on 11.September.2001, 3,000 people, three times as many, died from a terror attack. Was that "genocide" too?
I think just looking at numbers of corpses is misleading. The rationale for the 'genocide' description is that the blocade and the destruction of infrastructure (schools, mosques, roads, houses, etc. - which wasn't done in New York) and the thousands and thousands of refugees (again different from New York) represent an attempt to remove the possibility of a society existing in the Gaza strip. Also there are allegations, I don't know if they're true, that Israel would like to form a sort of buffer zone around the edge of Gaza that rockets couldn't be launched from, which would involve expelling the civilian population from there and wholesale moving it. Add in the persistent concern on the Israeli right about 'demographics', i.e. are there too many arabs for Israel to remain 'Jewish', the basic aim of Israel as a place where Jews live and the other population must cease to live there, and you seem to have some case for saying that the intention is to displace, fragment, or destroy the population itself, to change the demographic facts - which is something close to genocide.
Jan 14 2009 06:48
#12
I do think it is notworthy that Kurz is slipping up a bit.
I think the two main questions are whether anybody really believes in the retaliation defense and why anybody would think killing civilians is in any way justified.
Further there may be some interesting points to consider, but Kurz uses the assumption that the Islamic war against Jews which is being somehow "ignored" - as if it isn't an element of the mainstream media. Why he chooses to see it in this way is beyond me. I would have guessed it's the influence of the anti-Germans.
But I think the question of whitewashing Hamas is interesting.
Jan 14 2009 08:09
#13
Kurz wrote this piece for a Brazilian daily newspaper, BTW. I'm curious as to what sort of reception it received.
Jan 14 2009 08:38
#14
Angelus Novus wrote:
Yeah, translating and posting it shouldn't imply 100% endorsement (though I do agree with Kurz's attitude towards global public opinion).
I think that there is a difference to posting a link to something with some comment, and actually making the effort to translate it. I would say it implies some endorsement to what is essentially pro-Israeli war propaganda.
Angelus Novus wrote:
When Robert Kurz -- who five years ago wrote a book-length polemic against the Anti-Germans -- comes out rather pro-Israel in a column published in a major Brazilian daily newspaper, it's kinda newsworthy, no?
Well no, it isn't. It may have resonance in Germany, but not internationally where the 'anti-Germans' are just seen as an oddball German national movement.
Angelus Novus wrote:
Kurz wrote this piece for a Brazilian daily newspaper, BTW. I'm curious as to what sort of reception it received.
Probably the same as any other pro-Israeli propaganda. I doubt that the national media in Brazil has a heightened awareness of oddball nationalist politics in Germany either.
Devrim
Jan 14 2009 09:09
#15
Devrim wrote:
I think that there is a difference to posting a link to something with some comment, and actually making the effort to translate it. I would say it implies some endorsement to what is essentially pro-Israeli war propaganda.
"Implies" huh? How sleazy. I've translated stuff from the Stalinist daily junge Welt as well. Agreement isn't a criterion for translating something; it just has to be interesting.
If I read only authors that I agree with, I'm not sure if I'd have anything at all to read.
Jan 14 2009 10:56
#16
Angelus Novus wrote:
"Implies" huh? How sleazy. I've translated stuff from the Stalinist daily junge Welt as well. Agreement isn't a criterion for translating something; it just has to be interesting.
It is not sleazy at all. I will state it clearly if you want. I don't believe that you would have posted up such blatant pro-Palestinian propaganda. In fact if somebody else had done it, you would have been denouncing them for 'anti-Semitism', or demonising Israel and making it a special case.
In fact the person making Israel a special case on here is you. None of the other regular posters on this board would think it acceptable to be pushing pro-State propaganda especially at a time when the state concerned is massacring people.
Nor do I think that pro-Israel propaganda is particularly interesting. You can read it in national dailies in any country.
Angelus Novus wrote:
If I read only authors that I agree with, I'm not sure if I'd have anything at all to read.
I would say reading is different from translating and disseminating. I suppose that would be a sleazy thing to say too.
Devrim
Jan 14 2009 11:04
#17
Angelus Novus wrote:
He's kinda the Moishe Postone of Germany
God help him. Also Angelus, it does seem that you are lining up behind Israel rather than refusing to support either faction.
Jan 14 2009 11:14
#18
Devrim wrote:
In fact if somebody else had done it, you would have been denouncing them for 'anti-Semitism', or demonising Israel and making it a special case.
You really are just thick, aren't you? Again, there's only one single instance of me referring to somebody here as anti-semitic, and that was the guy who cheered on Aryanization.
Devrim wrote:
I would say reading is different from translating and disseminating.
Since you obviously need remedial assistance with your reading skills, let me help you:
Angelus Novus wrote:
I've translated stuff from the Stalinist daily junge Welt as well. Agreement isn't a criterion for translating something; it just has to be interesting.
Jan 14 2009 11:18
#19
Angelus Novus wrote:
You really are just thick, aren't you?
Throwing personal abuse at people doesn't make their points any less valid.
Devrim
Jan 14 2009 11:21
#20
Devrim wrote:
Throwing personal abuse at people doesn't make their points any less valid.
There's no personal abuse, just an objective observation: you have severe reading comprehension problems. That indicates that you simply aren't very bright.
Jan 14 2009 11:25
#21
Devrim's spot on regarding Angelus, he posts up pro israeli shite justifying it's present barbaric activites in Gaza, infact he even went to the bother of translating it and yet he started a hysterical thread accussing the libcom admins of condoning anti semitism because they happened to miss a sentence in something posted up by someone else.
His claim that it's simply interesting doesn't wash with me for the simple fact that the western media isn't exactly short of Israeli apologists making such one sided arguments that rest on an assumption that the security of Israel overrides the security and lives of all arabs who are routinely dehumanised as an irrational Other out to threaten western civilisation of which Israel is a beacon.
If I was going to translate something so disgusting and racist as that article I'd make sure and put a fuck off big disclaimer with it outlining that I thought it was full of shit and specifically where and why it was.
admin, removed revolisms
Jan 14 2009 11:29
#22
revol68 wrote:
infact he even went to the bother of translating it
Oh dear, I translated something!
Quote:
His claim that it's simply interesting doesn't wash with me for the simple fact that the western media isn't exactly short of Israeli apologists
Not from communists, and not from communists with the public presence of Robert Kurz.
admin - removed personal insults
Jan 14 2009 11:33
#23
The fact you can describe Kurz as a communist says it all.
And actually if I wanted to listen to suppoused communists making reactionary right wing arguments more in line with Neo Con politics I'd get some articles from the ex RCP/Living Marxism muppets.
I think I might post up some stuff from them denying climate change, afterall it's not like you often get 'communists' making such claims.
Jan 14 2009 11:38
#24
revol68 wrote:
The fact you can describe Kurz as a communist says it all.
You might be in a position to judge Kurz's status as a communist if you had actually read anything by him other than the short article I translated.
Quote:
And actually if I wanted to listen to suppoused communists making reactionary right wing arguments more in line with Neo Con politics I'd get some articles from the ex RCP/Living Marxism muppets.
Here's the difference: RCP/LM have been saying that stuff for years. Dog bites man.
Robert Kurz was referring to Israel apologists a couple of years ago as a "pestilence". Now he writes this. Man bites dog.
And I already stated where I agreed with Kurz: in his assessment of global public opinion. To then demand that I confess to some further alleged sympathy is "when did you stop beating your wife?" reasoning.
Jan 14 2009 11:46
#25
You think global public opinion is cause of the shite outlined by Kurz, isn't it much more likely to be the fact that most people aren't fucking blind and can see the savagery the IDF is inflicting on a populace they have hemmed into a large open air prison. Furthermore most people aren't so retarded as Kurz to believe that the IDF is simply responded to Hamas rocket attacks nor for that matter do most of those that believe such fairytales imagine the response is proportionate.
Infact I'd also suggest that those leftists cheering on the cunts in Hamas aren't motivated by anti semitism but a misplaced desire to cheer on the "underdog".
Jan 14 2009 11:52
#26
revol68 wrote:
You think global public opinion is cause of the shite outlined by Kurz, isn't it much more likely to be the fact that most people aren't fucking blind and can see the savagery the IDF is inflicting on a populace they have hemmed into a large open air prison.
This brings us back to the same old argument: so why Israel? With the multiple barbarous acts of savagery happening in the world -- and there really are lots and lots of examples to choose from -- what is it about this particular conflict that inspires so much earnest support for the "underdog" from leftists who wouldn't lift a finger to organize a demo to protest, say, France's role in stoking up the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s?
Jan 14 2009 12:04
#27
Angelus Novus wrote:
revol68 wrote:
You think global public opinion is cause of the shite outlined by Kurz, isn't it much more likely to be the fact that most people aren't fucking blind and can see the savagery the IDF is inflicting on a populace they have hemmed into a large open air prison.This brings us back to the same old argument: so why Israel? With the multiple barbarous acts of savagery happening in the world -- and there really are lots and lots of examples to choose from -- what is it about this particular conflict that inspires so much earnest support for the "underdog" from leftists who wouldn't lift a finger to organize a demo to protest, say, France's role in stoking up the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s?
The fact it is sen as a western nation perhaps, the fact that the Palestine/Israel question kicked off under the British Empires watch (and the british/anglos have always been far more guilt ridden about their empires than the French), not to mention the fact the conflict is constantly in the news or do you think that's because the western media are anti semitic?
I mean many many leftists had a real hard on for the Irish national question despite the fact far, far, far worse things were happening around the world, was this because of some deep seated anti britishness? Or more a romantic desire to allign with the percieved under dog, as well as a knee jerk anti imperialism.
Comparing the situation to the French role in Rwanda is just silly, you might have had a point if the French military were actually leading the massacres and dropping laser guied bombs on villages whilst talking shite about the purity of the republics arms or some other shite.
Jan 14 2009 12:05
#28
revol68 wrote:
The fact it is sen as a western nation perhaps
This is my problem with both the Anti-Imperialists and Anti-Germans.
Both see Israel as a beachhead of "imperialism" or "western civilization" (respectively) and refuse to treat it as an immanent component of the Middle East.
Quote:
the fact that the Palestine/Israel question kicked off under the British Empires watch (and the british/anglos have always been far more guilt ridden about their empires than the French)
And this Anglo guilt explains why Italian no globals are such flag-waving goofballs?
Quote:
not to mention the fact the conflict is constantly in the news or do you think that's because the western media are anti semitic?
Did you catch that cartoon in El Pais that made use of the "Jews as chosen people" trope?
Quote:
I mean many many leftists had a real hard on for the Irish national question despite the fact far, far, far worse things were happening around the world, was this because of some deep seated anti britishness? Or more a romantic desire to allign with the percieved under dog, as well as a knee jerk anti imperialism.
The latter. Ireland was seen as a small part of a global anti-imperialist struggle. But that was the fucking 1970s. The "anti-imperialist camp" doesn't exist anymore, the developmental state is dead.
Jan 14 2009 12:08
#29
Angelus Novus wrote:
http://communism.blogsport.de/2009/01/13/robert-kurz-the-war-against-the-jews/
Jan 14 2009 12:30
#30
Angelus you seem to mistake the theories you read in books for reality. Yes, the anti imperialist camp collapsed with the Soviet Union but the ideology of anti imperialism certainly didn't just disappear.
Furthermore many of those wanking off to the Irish question were far from left wing o, a great deal of Irish Americans who cheerled the IRA would be shocked to learn they were part of the anti imperialist camp.
The fact is that Israel is seen as a western state, as such it is generally treated to favourable media coverage and is seen as an ally of the western powers. Leftists living in these western powers generally suffer from white/western/middle class guilt and as such are often tend to fetishise/romanticise/excuse non whites/westerners/the working class. Of course there is an undercurrent of white/western supremacy in this tendency, as the Other is denied real subjectivity being seen as merely reactive to western original sin and/or infantilised as noble savages.
There are a whole host of other factors and reason that all make much more sense than wanky suggestions of anti semitism.
seems a pretty mental opening, i really can't see how the Gaza situation has made things more threatening militarily for Israel?
describing israel's clearly pre-meditated actions as simply a "counter-attack" is deeply ideological, and every bit the mirror image of the leftists claiming hamas are just reacting to israel. again, belittling the disproportion of causalties (something in the region of two orders of magnitude for civilians - i'm pretty sure this isn't "islamic propaganda" any more than israeli casualties are "jewish propaganda") is as much apologia for israel as leftists are for 'the resistance.'
again, every bit the mirror image of 'from the river to the sea' anti-zionism. even israeli generals recognise the military elimination of hamas/hezbollah is not feasible, so apologetics for israeli war crimes in the name of 'self-defence' is as much a crock of shite as leftist anti-zionism.