Israel

Let's be clear about the word "fascist" which seems to be being banded around iindiscriminately in these pages.Fascism refers to a speciific movement at a specific time in european history- amovement arising outside of the state which which ends up running the state repressing the working class on behalf of the panicked bourgoisie.In my view it should not be used to decribe any authoritarian regime that you don't like very much.Although Israel may be racist xenophobic and exclusive it is surely not classicaly "Fascist". Idon't know if this helps very much or even if I am falling into the trap of dogmatism and pedantry, you may see the whole middle east thing as being a response to working class stuggle(dare I point out that threr was alarge public-sector strike in Israel just before the most recent war?)but surely that response has not taken the form of a fascist coup. It doesn't matter whether your'e a left communist or an anarchist just ask what wer'e fighting for!

Let's be clear about the word "fascist" which seems to be being banded around iindiscriminately in these pages.Fascism refers to a speciific movement at a specific time in european history- amovement arising outside of the state which which ends up running the state repressing the working class on behalf of the panicked bourgoisie.In my view it should not be used to decribe any authoritarian regime that you don't like very much.Although Israel may be racist xenophobic and exclusive it is surely not classicaly "Fascist". Idon't know if this helps very much or even if I am falling into the trap of dogmatism and pedantry, you may see the whole middle east thing as being a response to working class stuggle(dare I point out that threr was alarge public-sector strike in Israel just before the most recent war?)but surely that response has not taken the form of a fascist coup. It doesn't matter whether your'e a left communist or an anarchist just ask what wer'e fighting for!

I think TOJ's use of the word 'significant' was ill-advised. Furthermore his later point was correct, it doesn't mater who is indigenous, that is pretty much irrelevant.

I think your comparison is disingenuous, just because I don't think national liberation is a way forward doesn't mean that I don't think oppression on the basis of nationality should continue. I would support anti-racism but not black nationalism (for example) because one leads in the right direction (equality and ultimately communism) and one simply leads to a slightly different form of capitalism.

I'm not sure what is unfortunate about referring to 1967, although at this point I was speaking i general terms.

Is this admitting that nationalism iswrong but then ignoring that fact and going along with it anyway?
I'm not sure if you finished your sentence there. Nationalism is one of the ideologies that has been used to divide us and make us kill each other, if we are to have a better society then we have to fight this. We cannot use it as a starting point because it is directly opposed to what we stand for.

The point is that if Jews are attacked because of the deaths in Israel it is because of arab nationalism or muslim brotherhood or whatever ideology is at work. And these ideologies run in contrast to the actual best interests of muslims in Europe.

The question of who is indigenous is very important, because it had the Palestinians not been overwhelmingly the indigenous group, the history of Palestine in the last ~140 years could be seen as a struggle between two settler movements. The indigenuity (sp?) of the Palestinians is also important for understanding what their social system looked like (especially class-wise) before the advent of Zionism and the Brittish Mandate and how class antagonisms had evolved - or failed to evolve - compared to other societies, especially in Europe which is usually the 'reference model' for Marxists and Anarchists. There is also a lot of cultural importance to the question of which group is indigenous which I won't go into.

Black nationalism in the US is not quite, but almost entirely, unlike nationalism of colonized peoples like in Palestine. Could you explain what kind of parallel of 'anti-racism struggle' would you support in the context of Palestine and other colonialist scenarios?

Ah, most of Palestine was occupied by force in 1948. A few percent of it were bought in mostly-crooked land deals before that. The resolution of the 'Palestinian question' must consider the entire Zionist project (even if you support a two-state or partition solution); a lot of people seem to think everything done before 1967 is a-ok and need not be discussed in the context of nationalist/colonialist aggression.

Well, part of the colonialist ideology, which the colonized are supposed to adopt at least in practice, is a "we're all one big happy family" element - "you don't need to organize for yourselves, if you just don't stir up trouble our goverment will be good for you too" etc. You can also get this vibe from just about every statement made by US politicians about peripheral countries under their influence. In that context, nationalism is being used to divide the Palestinians from the Israeli Jews and motivate struggle, violent and otherwise, against them as a colonialist movement. Do we have to fight this? I don't know, I'm not sure - but I'm pretty sure it's not in the sense that you suggest. Also, subsequent historical phases in different parts of the world were often characterized by confliting, opposed social-economic orders and their accompanying ideologies. So the position, that a transition from an occupied colony into a 'sovereign' Capitalist nation-state can serve as a starting point for an anti-Capitalist revolution, is not a ridiculous position. It is the position of many Marxists and left-nationalists (some even think they can skip Capitalism altogether). It's not _my_ position, but I think you're oversimplifying things by dismissing it with a supposed statement-of-fact to the contrary.

As for the sentence you [ b ]'ed, what I mean is that I think you can't treat the course that social movements take as though it was a move in a chess game made by a player weighing the current board position. Very few Palestinians can be said to have made the _choice_ between nationalism and Anarchism ("should we try to form a non-state social system in Palestine? Is this viable? What are the pros/cons" etc). So saying "I support struggle of type X, not type Y" is in itself not very meaningful - it's not an option up for public debate right now (unfortunately). The situation is that there's only type Y struggle happening, and the question is what do we do about it, how can we (and whether we should) affect changes in it (e.g. towards type X), etc.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/29/hebron-israel-soldiers-dance-palestinians-gangnam-style

The IDF wasn't happy about this fraternisation nor, I imagine, was the Palestinian Authority.

Israel is the last colonial state. It was created by erupean jewish armed colonialist in the end of 40s when anty-colonialist strugle was uprising. So that was against popular anty-colonial trend wich was supported by europian and american lefts.

But there was an intresting fact. Not all of the lefts condemned Israel in that time even inspite of the genocide of palestinian arabes ("Nakba") who was killed or deported fron the Palestine (about 5 000 were killed and 800 000 deported) by zionists. Israel was ruled by the social-democrats and about 10% of israely jews lived in kibbuzes (communes) when the arabes were ruled by conservative religious leaders. Besides, part of the pro-Soviet lefts supported Israel for a while on the grounds that the Soviet Union supported it, while England was on the side of the arab countries.

The situation changed dramatically in the 50-70s.

I will publish small text about that.

That's ace! Thanks for linking to that.

Meerov21 wrote:

Please don't.

I published short history of Lefts attitude to Israel :
"Why people on the far-left are very anti Israel?"
http://www.libcom.org/forums/history/why-people-far-left-are-very-anti-israel-07092013