Israel

people here are probably less so, seeing it as one capitalist state among many. many leftists put a nationalist analysis before class analysis, and so rush to support 'oppressed nations' against 'the west' regardless of the fact these nations include millionaire bosses alongside workers, and that bosses and workers of different nationalities have more common interests with others in their class internationally than they do with each other intranationally. but like i say that kind of leftism tends to get short shrift on these boards.

James - perhaps you should look here - http://libcom.org/forums/world-general - have a read of some of the threads on israel/palestine then maybe come back with a different question

I think you will find most people disagree with the idea of all nation-states.

I live in Israel. I'm not much into hating countries. As for the ruling elite, I have my personal grievances with the local bosses, but they are not ideologically inferior to any of the others, including those of the Palestinian Authority, the US, North Korea, etc. I oppose much of what Israel does, and I have taken part in actions to "resist" them, though I have to be honest that, looking back, most of what I've done hasn't been as effective as I would want it to be, and the best I've done involved ameliorating an inherently fucked up reality (see my old post about the olive harvest), which can only truly be resolved in a revolutionary manner.

Israel has many things wrong with it: mandatory military service, an established state religion and the Occupation are the ones somewhat more specific to Israel; the rest, including deteriorating worker's conditions, racism (including racial stratification in the job market), sexism, queerphobia, hypocrisy and alienation are common to most "developed" nations.

Most Israelis do not really understand the horrors of the occupation for Palestinians. I know I didn't. A lot of the information wasn't available to me, and what I had I just dismissed because it was from "suspect sources" (that is, sources which do not fit within the hegemonic Zionist ideology). This dissonance between what Israelis know and what outsiders know becomes an alienating rift, and I suppose that many leftists just demonise Israelis because of it. Most of them, though, have probably never met an Israeli, and are fed by the media, which have a penchant for showing Israelies to be homogeneous and therefore utterly good or evil, depending on the bias of the reporter. For example, none of the mainstream English-speaking news sources (ie CNN, BBC, etc.) bothered reporting on the widespread protests against the latest lebanese War, none of them are seriously covering any of the struggles inside Israel (except for those which affect international business, such as the various dockworkers` strikes at Israeli ports), so that non-Zionist Israelis appear as isolated unrecognized prophets, with no context. There's a small but well-organized local anti-Zionist community, consisting of quite a few Jews (not just Palestinian-Israelis) inside of Israel, but hardly anyone outside of it (or, indeed, inside of it) is aware of this.

I'm actually trying to conceive of a material-historical theory for why Israel is such a lightning-rod for anti-imperialist angst. More details to follow. I'm reading Abraham Leon's The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, and the historical parallels I'm coming up with are very illuminating.

Hi James

I'm not an anarchist, but a left-communist.

Nonetheless I'd agree with JosephK when he says Israel is "one capitalist state among many".

For us all nation states are capitalist. Even those with total state control of the economy, e.g. Stalinist Russia, etc. are fundamentally capitalist because they exhibit the core characteristics of capitalism: wage labour, production of commodities, exploitation of the working class, etc.

In addition, all nation states are compelled by the reality of capitalism to try to assert themselves on the world stage. The only difference is their capacity to do so. Israel may be in a position to largely dominate Palestine but calling for Palestinian independence is to call for the independence of the Palestinian bourgeoisie to exploit workers in Palestine. In that sense, the only difference between say Hamas and the Israeli Defence Force is a matter of scale, and both are enemies of the working class.

personally, not really. i mean i don't really think there can be a 'world peace' in a capitalist world, because quite apart from conflict between nation-states which seems endemic to a nation-state system there is structural conflict between capital and workers which is irreducible so long as capitalism exists - as the old slogan goes, 'no war between nations, no peace between classes.'

galloway's views are typical leftist 'anti-imperialism,' and are best understood as the views of someone who has a vested interest in emphasising cross-class nationalist struggles over working class struggles, precisely because he (like all leninists, trotskyists and their ilk) wants to harness workers struggle to propel him into power, i.e. he wants to be a more powerful member of the ruling class rather than abolish classes.

In any new society, usually born from chaos, the strong tend to exploit the weak unless there is a specific working-class ideology and solidarity to stop it - so an independent Palestine may well be what you say, but it equally might not. You seem to suggest that they might as well abandon the fight for independence and instead work for working-class rights within the framework of occupation. What is your assertion that Hamas is "bourgeoisie" based on? What would distinguish a 'working class' Palestine movement - solidarity with Israel?

Workers should certainly abandon the fight for independence. It's a struggle that has absolutely nothing to do with them. Firstly, because "independence" is a myth anyway. The Palestinian state is too small to survive on its own and could only exist - just as Israel does - under the protection of a larger imperialist power. Even for the bourgeoisie there, independence is an illusion. Secondly, because the establishment of a new capitalist state (one based on wage labour, commodity production, stratification, etc.) is absolutely no benefit for the working class who, in order to advance its own class interests has to destroy all nation states, wage labour, commodity production, etc.

The pursuit of "workers rights" is also fruitless. The proletariat is an outlaw class because even the smallest pursuit of its class interests clash immediately with those of the bourgeoisie. Workers need to develop an independent struggle on an international scale, both in terms of immediate defence of their working conditions but also, ultimately, to launch a revolutionary struggle against all nation states.

Solidarity with the working class in Israel, yes. Not solidarity with Israel. There is a rather significant difference. In practice, this would mean fraternising across borders, developing common demands, solidarity strikes linking up with workers in other countries as well. And ultimately attacking all states and abolishing all national borders.

The assertion that Hamas is bourgeois seems fairly self-evident to me. They are, after all, participating in a capitalist government, receive funding from other capitalist states (Iran, Syria, and were in fact initially funded by Mossad), call for the establishment of a national state (Palestine); in other words they defend bourgeois ideology at every level.

I hate Israelis who gave my finance a hard time growing up. Put one brother in prison and beat the other one up. Shot at her for daring to try to go to work by avoiding checkpoints during the second intifafa, etc.

I like Israelis who come into the occupied Palestinian territories and spend time with Palestinians in solidarity against their own government.

I think the reason people rail against Israel is that it's a colonialist state, in the apartheid-era South Africa mode. I'm not saying it's the same. By now, in many ways it's worse. Zionist was never a national liberation movement in my opinion -- it is and always was a colonialist movement. Maybe its two sides of the same coin, but still.

Anyways, as noted above -- class solidarity and all that. When most Israelis can shake of their racist mindset and start thinking of Palestinians as human beings, then maybe it will be possible.

Mostly agree, but just to be precise (puts Middle East politics anorak on) - it wasn't Mossad who did that since they are the overseas agency. The domestic one is the Shabak (or Shin Bet). But I think that the funding of the Muslim Brotherhood before it became Hamas was not even done in secret -- if memory serves the Civil Administration just did it openly. Built Mosques, Islamic universities etc. Right up until the first intifada according to Ze'ev Schiff.

Are you people familiar with the fact that Jewish communists agitated among the Wehrmacht during the Nazi occupations? For example, they published an underground paper in occupied France called Arbeiter und Soldat that was directed specifically at the working-class German soldiers. A Palestinian organization which did that would definitely kick ass, too bad there never was one. Hell, even the Israeli anti-Zionists hardly bother to agitate among soldiers except for telling them to become superior human beings by refusing to serve, and looking down at them while they're at it, and even that's mostly during demonstrations and confrontations, not in any truly engaging way.

Didn't know that. Very cool.

Yea And yes

that's awesome

I think this thread is either a wind up or the guy is an idiot, as he isn't reading the answers posted. It's also possible he's researching an essay.

Interesting topic.

I went to the demo yesterday in bilin and there were like 50english people.

Some were singing against the Border Police..........1.2.3.4. occupation no more, 5.6.7.8...israel is a fascist state.

I thought they were totally wrong saying Israel is a fascist state. I thought this was wrong because even if you believe israel is a fascist state it is no more fascist than UK, USA, France.......etc. I mean if one looks at the Amnesty Internatioal report one can see what States/Governments are capable of.

that strikes me as pretty odd, considering that, as you mentioned, there's mandatory military service for pretty much every Israeli when the get to such-and-such age (forget which age it was, precisely). you'd think the attitude towards common soldiers in Israel would be different, compared to, say, how it is in north america, since there is some choice in joining the military over here (even if there are usually strong economic reasons which incline mostly working class folk to join).

before, you listed mandatory military service as being one of the bad things about Israel... while, i do agree to some degree - still, you have to consider this: When the prole of Israel starts to become more conscious, and finds itself facing the authorities... at least YOUR proletariat will actually know how to fight! plus, there'd have to be more ties between the rebellious proletarian forces, and the people in the military at the time (there'd have to be a fair bit of overlap, in fact) - meaning, greater ability to subvert the directives of the authorities. out in north america, or a good amount of europe... and many other parts of the world, the working class just wont have such advantages on its side.

I think that the last war in Lebanon has shown exactly what kind of fighting IDF combat training prepares you for: enforcement of the occupation on mostly unarmed civilians. It does not prepare you for fighting against an organized military force such as Hezbollah or, say, the Israeli SWAT team. Only a minority of IDF troops get combat training, and only a minority of those undergo the specialized training that may still be able to allow them to stand their ground against the more advanced measures of a modern establishment.

As for those who do go into special ops, there is a clear attachment to the ruling class among them: most of them come from a relatively well-off background, the kind of background that gets you a full high-school diploma and the kind of social skills that go with special ops work; furthermore, special ops training usually gets you upper-echelon positions more easily in the Israeli private sector, as well as pushing you to promotion within the military.

The military makes very sure that different units, companies, battalions, etc. in the military are constantly in competition. I even managed to see that in person during my one month of basic training, back before I was exempt. The only kind of tie that is really established is a reinforcement of that same old class-collaboration tie of nationalism.

I think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. At least one prominent example:: during the dockworker's strike in the 1950's, prominent dockworkers were simply taken into reserve duty in order to break the strike.

Yeah, I actually sang that litany myself back until a few months ago, before I started coming to my senses. What can I say, I was overwhelmed by a foreign activist culture.

Anyway, I agree, it's stupid and shows the usual symptom of word inflation. Then again, demos are usually pretty stupid, too.

There's a very simple quote function that allows you to cite other people's messages. I advise you that you use that to show exactly where anyone has said that Israel is fascist. I, for one, failed to find anyone in this conversation who claims to hold this position.

Israel is an established nation-state. Palestine is a potential future state, currently a set of territories under military and civilian occupation by Israel. If a Palestinian state is established over these territories, it will probably suffer the same ills of all modern states, with its ruling class having the severe disadvantage of being forced to operate within a partitioned state, one part of which is completely land-locked, with very little industry or independent infrastructure. This disadvantage will probably trickle down to the populace (rather, the populace will suffer the brunt of it).

On a more personal note, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, that you are genuinely curious, but right now it seems that you are only skimming through other people's posts rather than actually engaging in conversation. That is extremely impolite and senseless; if this proves to be the correct view, you will probably be ignored after a while, at least by me.

Well, the difference would be that Israel is currently occupying Palestine, wouldn't it? Apart from that, I think most people on here would argue that they are two bourgeois states which are both enemies of the working class.

Also, most of the posters here have stressed that they don't demonize Israel, and don't think it's a fascist state. No offense, but your questions sounds like you either haven't made too much of an effort to read through what people have posted here, or you are trying to provoke people.

Of course, if you want to find with some leftists who actually do demonize Israel, you can always try revleft.com. You will probably have more luck there.

Yeah...because there was no liberation involved in escaping a continent that had cooperated in the SS' massacre of six million Jews. Purely a colonialist land grab right, who could disagree.

In theory Zionism predates the Holocaust, so as terrible as it was, it can’t be used as a Mount Sinai incident that changed everything. In practice, Zionism has been imperialist, so it can’t be portrayed as legitimate national liberation, at least not always. Of course, the old argument is that a wrong in one part of the world can’t right a wrong in a different part of the world. The answer to the original question is that the Left isn't generally "very anti-Israel", that media paints it as such, but a still better question is why the Right is very pro-Israel.

Zionism existed as a coherent ideology long before the Nazis came to power. It was more complex back then than it is now, with some progressive strains and some foaming mouthed lunacy, but pretty much all of it was premised on a land grab that depended upon a racist and colonialist approach to the existing population. Besides which, Zionist collaboration with the Nazis and anti-semites is pretty well documented (the most famous book, Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators seems to be online in full here, but I'll confess I've only read other people using his material, it's not something I've looked into that deeply). Ruling classes and wannabe ruling classes everywhere collborated with the Nazis because it suited them, because they saw in the third reich opportunities for profit and for disciplining their own constituencies. The Zionists were no exception.

It got most of its start from the Russian pogroms of Jews at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, though. The Nazis weren't the only ones who ever killed Jews.

Arab nationalists also collaborated with the Nazis. Hell, everybody collaborated with everyone, that's how the bourgeoisie work, your friend today is your enemy tomorrow, the important point is to put down the proles whichever way you can.

Frankly, if you look at Zionism, its main idea was that the only way for Jews to survive was for their archaic ruling class to become bourgeois. Since this didn't work out all that well in Europe through regular means of assimilation (since capitalism acts to accentuate differences rather than mollify them, just ask African-Americans), they figured that setting up a new nation-state where they would be the ruling class would fit the bill, since these same differences could be used to increase their power, rather than marginalizing them.

And they were right, in a sense, though the special condition of Jews hasn't changed, since Israel was set up in a way that is different from most new nation-states (with the exception of, possibly, South Africa? I'm not sure...).

They now serve a special function, through the State of Israel, in world capitalism, just like Jews had a special function through their establishment as a class of tradesmen and usurers from late Antiquity and to the later Middle Ages.

In both cases Jews serve first as positive tools of the ruling class, and then as lightning-rods for the resentment against the ruling class from the oppressed.

I think the reason why so many people on the left dislike Israel/zionist policies is because israel is land that was stolen from the arabs in the region by white nationalists from europe(israelis) and this has been used for decades to oppress and kill the indigeonous arab population.Gee its so hard to grasp isn't it.

A significant amount of the Israelis are not from Europe, but are, in fact, from Arab countries.

A significant amount of the Arab population isn't indigenous, and came to the region as a result of the economic development brought about through Zionism.

A lot of Arabs have been killed by other regimes in the region - in fact, I think that most Arabs to have been killed in the Middle East since 1948 were not killed by Israelis. Just lately, scores of Arabs in Gaza were killed in internecine fighting, and I'm not even going to go into the Iraqi situation.

To give a more relevant example, the Palestinians themselves are just as oppressed, and their national aspirations are just as denied by the Hashemite kingdom as they are by Israel. Israel and Jordan can definitely be seen as the closest of allies in oppressing the indigenous population. Though officially only at peace since 1994, Israel and Jordan (then Transjordan) have been coordinating their policy quite amicably ever since 1948, when they made agreements as to how they may split up Palestine between them during the War of Independence/Nakba.

And yet you hardly see many leftists burning Jordanian flags. None do, that I recall.

Still, the simplistic view well articulated by Mr. McTussoch is quite self-explanatory, and pretains to most leftists.

So you are implying that I am an Hamas sympathizer?

Assuming that you are talking to me, I don't think that I was implying anything about you that you did not say yourself. Why do you ask?

No-one here has a problem with israel in particular, its a country like any other, it crushes strikes, hikes taxes, cuts services, has wars, builds chemical or nuclear weaponary, economically exploits neighbouring countries and/or migrant labour and so on, so does britain so does jordan so does germany so does ecuador or whatever, so does every state under the sun. Nobody here takes any joy in the confiicts in the middle east or picks one bunch of nationalist thugs over another or cheers on conscript soldiers or suicide bombers to die to make some other rich fucker even richer.

Anyways since our poster has nothing interesting to say on the matter but misquoting people i would suggest this gets binned, i reckon our james is a pretty dodgy type anyway, since i would wonder why he is trying and thankfully resoundedly failing to stir up anti-semetic comments.

treeofjudas,a misunderstaning,sorry.

yes I agree with cantdocartwheels.