Antisemitism Expulsion

Hamas subscribes to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hezbollah has indeed talked about throwing the Jews into the sea. The entire left, not just the Labour party but 'revolutionary' groups like the SWP, also offer critical support to these gangs, who like the other branches of Islamism are openly racist, pogromist, and indeed genocidal.
Support for a boycott of Israel is racist - in so far as all forms of nationalist ideology contain a powerful dose of racism - because it makes a special case about the evilness of the State of Israel, which is only a particular form of state brutality in the region and the world. Israel is no more or no less indefensible than any other capitalist (and thus imperialist) state.

The left of capital is saturated with anti-Semitism, fundamentally because it cannot see capital for what it is - a social relation - and is thus, no less than the right, drawn towards personalising the system.

Maclane Horton

1. Do Hamas and/or Hezbollah advocate the expulsion of Jews from Palestine?

2. Does that make them racist?

3. Does support for the boycott of Israel count as racism?

4. Does a return to the 1967 boundaries make Israel indefensible?

1. Yes

2. Yes. (Aside from the fact they don't limit themselves to jews on expropriated land, they also regularly, as Alf has said, are racist towards jews in general.

3. Yes and No. To be honest a lot of it strikes me as misguided, but there is a lot of socialism of the fool, as well as belief in anti-imperialism etc.

4. In what terms? Militarily Israel is safe as the Americans wouldn't let it fall and it's own military has repeatedly beaten the surrounding nations. Jordan's an ally, Syria has it's own problems and Egypt is not far off an ally in spite of the rhetoric and lebanon is not capable by itself. Theoretically if the surrounding nations were well-armed and trained then they should be able to defeat Israel, but as Israel has nukes and has been fairly open about it's 'wild dog' policy it might not be a good idea. At the very least Israel would nuke the capitals of the nations attacking. I reckon they'd try to blow the Suez Canal as well and any big capitals in range as a general fuck you, but who knows.

I have repeatedly arguing that pointing out that Israel is a racist nation is not anti-semitic and even acting against it isn't a problem. However the left tends to then side with the 'oppressed' and winds up in bed with a lot of anti-semites .Just as the Holocaust didn't turn all jews into good people the terrible treatement of palestinians hasn't done a better job. Only religious types believe in purification through suffering.

The problem with siding with 'oppressed peoples' is that you often end up supporting one natonalism against another.

Maclane Horton

2. Anti-Jewish sentiment, far from diminishing, will increase with the enthusiasm for the new state.
3. The government of Palestine will not rein in the murder squads that slip across the border to kill Israeli Jews nor will it stop the militias that shell Israeli targets (much more of which will be within range.)
4. Indeed their activity will probably be encouraged.
5. The government of Israel will take action.
6. Action will mean a large scale invasion.
7. But Palestine is now a United Nations member.
8. The invasion will be declared an act of war.
9. There will be worldwide support for Palestine.
10. The USA will find it diplomatic to take up a neutral position
11. Back to jeff costello's wild dog nuke scenario

This seems extremely dubious to me. We've seen countless anti-colonial movements triumph over the last half century or so and their victories have hardly led to the sort of scenario envisioned here--the closest parallel is probably the South African case, and claims that an end to apartheid and the establishment of an ANC government would lead to some heightened violence against whites obviously haven't panned out. This is further reinforced by what looks like a general desire among the other governments in the Middle East to normalize relations with the Israeli government (with which many already share a tacit alliance in being US clients) indicated by the Arab Peace Initiative etc. so long it can be sold to the populace as not a total abandonment of the Palestinian national struggle. I question the "worldwide support for Palestine" in any very substantive sense in this doomsday scenario, which currently doesn't seem to much exist beyond more or less symbolic moves likes UN resolutions and official statements.

Of course, anarchists shouldn't be in the business of cheerleading the formation of new states and I don't see any reason to think that a Palestinian government would be any more benevolent than any of the other post-colonial governments we've seen.

It's perhaps worth noting that Hamas, a vile and anti-Semitic organization with both despicable positions and practical tactics, has stated it would accept the PLO's agreements with the Israeli government. I don't think this makes it any less vile, but it does undermine the seriousness of any supposed plans to expel the Jewish population of the region.

In regard to the last question posed in the initial post, it seems self-contradictory that the 1967 borders could be apparently defended for the first couple decades of the State of Israel's existence yet still be characterized as indefensible.

1. Yes.
2. No, that doesn't. It might suggest that anti-Semitism might arise there, but then it would. Israel could hardly be said to mind, as it does try to associate itself with Judaism quite explicitly, and hence Judaism with its actions and so on, which might have lead (inexplicably to them) to anger against - Judaism.
3. No. Wasn't there a discussion of this elsewhere? Israel is many things other than a Jewish state, and if people's anti-Semitism merely encompasses Judaism as it was expressed by the Israeli state then it was unlikely to be a problem.
4. That depended on who was defending Israel. Of course, opposition to Israel more recently also implied opposition to America, etc., and a fight against them was also a fight against most of the central powers of world capitalism. As such, as with Arafat, it often tended to attempt to appear very mild in order to maintain a place within this. Obviously, when these powers took a certain stand, even earlier on, it was fairly hard for states to stand up against such when their position in world capitalism advised that they surrender, and as such unless they were going to stand against this or prepared to do so, they would be in jeopardy, as was the case.

In any case, Israel is a state founded upon taking land away from Muslims, even more so at this point, and in that sense fearing any strikes against Israel because it might lead to 'anti-Semitism' would merely be a question of tacit anti-Islamic tendencies. If a racially identified religion was taking away land from another, and did not particularly care about it in favour of its own religion and race, then the racial element is obviously not on one side. If a state is demonised by most others, appropriated, and denied its status as such, you could perhaps allow for racism and such arising within it, and in general that it needed to keep the struggle personal in some ways, without requiring that they be the SWP instead, and of course race was never the central social conflict, or autonomous, anyway - as indeed anti-anti-Semitism's biggest and ugliest monument, Israel, may attest. In any case, most opposition to Israel concerned its actions - as a blatant manifestation of a trend not elsewhere as prominent in world capital, as also its status as in conflict while being supported by most of the major nations, but of course it might surprise some that a slogan is not at the same time its elaboration -, and was not necessarily any more anti-Semitic than these actions were intrinsically Jewish, having no other substance which would make it anti-Semitic than opposing Judaism - which is fine, as Judaism is of course problematic - or Jews. Could opposition to Israel lead to opposition to other major states? Obviously, they supported it and are at the least being found problematic in the process. As conflicts go, it's quite weighted. Need it imply that? Not necessarily, but it often did, presumably if it offended some tangential 'struggle' then that would be enough to negate its concrete stance relating to such nations, presumably.

The two-state solution might not be favoured, as it's essentially subordinating Palestine to the good-will of the Western powers and accepting their favouring of Israel, and hence would easily just collapse back into a similar scenario, but with a more tame Palestinian force. Because by that point they would be necessarily opposed - Palestine's assertion would be directed against Israel, and so on - this would therefore be a bit of a sterile 'solution' to such a scenario. The sides were not, of course, equivalent either, and should not practically speaking be treated as such.

Only religious types believe in purification through suffering.

Marxists believe something similar, in some way, but of course not that suffering needs to lead to purification, just that it is a part of their view of such.

The SPGB blog has posted this

http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/04/socialism-v-zionism.html

A hotchpotch of various comments made in our journal over the years about Zionism. A paragraph does broadly accepts Livingstone's position that Zionism needed anti-Semitism to grow and actively courted anti-Semites to further its aims.

We still see this happening with various Jewish groups purposefully exaggerating anti-Semitism incidents and Netanyahu urging French Jews to emigrate to Israel. I believe similar fear-mongering took place in the past in North Africa to entice Jewish communities not under any threat to leave for Israel.

Maclane Horton

The Guardian editorial says

“The post-1967 occupation needs to be condemned, and it is not in and of itself illegitimate even to question the original creation of Israel. It is, however, never legitimate to discuss the conflict without taking seriously the rights and claims of the people on the Israeli as well as the Palestinian side.”

The Morning Star headline says

“Labour must beware a witch-hunt aimed at undermining its leader and outlawing justified condemnation of the racist Israeli regime.”

Stephen Pollard writing in the London Times says

“

If groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah were committed to the extinction of all Jews, that could be overlooked and they could be hailed as friends because they were anti-imperialist.”

My hesitant and naive questions:

1. Do Hamas and/or Hezbollah advocate the expulsion of Jews from Palestine?

2. Does that make them racist?

3. Does support for the boycott of Israel count as racism?

4. Does a return to the 1967 boundaries make Israel indefensible?

1. Yes
2.Yes
3. Not necessarily
4. No

I am very wary of trying to unpick the problems of capitalism/imperialism, as if these were solvable without revolutionary change taking place. It is tempting to divide disputes into bad and even worse.

Reading an Israeli author some time ago, he put it like this, I’m paraphrasing, ‘One night I was standing guard as a member of the defence forces when it occurred to me if I was a Palestinian I’d be out there in the dark hoping to pick me off. However I’m a Jew and I’ve no-where else to go.’

The middle-east appears to be a stew of imperialism, racism, and religious bigotry. To the question - ‘Is Israel defensible?’ I’d reply NO state is defensible.

Maclane Horton

My hesitant and naive questions:

1. Do Hamas and/or Hezbollah advocate the expulsion of Jews from Palestine?

2. Does that make them racist?

3. Does support for the boycott of Israel count as racism?

4. Does a return to the 1967 boundaries make Israel indefensible?

1. Yes, though Hamas has also said its willing to agree with PLO agreements with Israel, so like most political movements they're flexible/pragmatic/opportunistic. Also its important to bear in mind the reality versus the rhetoric, neither Hamas or Hezbollah are physically capable of carrying out these threats. On the contrary both have far embittered enemies closer to home.

2. Yes but even if these two groups didn't have these views they'd still be pretty racist being nationalist movements.

3. No, boycotting Israel because you have a specially strong dislike of the Jews would be bigoted. Like most things involving Jewish people they will attract anti-semites. It is an interesting question why the BDS campaign has grown more public then any of the other movements. Personally I think the main reason why the Israel/Palestine conflict has gotten to be so prolific is because the actions of the Israeli state like Apartheid South Africa are very public.

Whereas most of the other really brutal regimes manage to fly under the radar.

4. That depends on how it were to be done, personally I find it rather odd that 1967 has become the focus of the "solutions" to the conflict, why not any of the other flashpoint years? Auld raises a good point in that any state in any form isn't really a good thing, but I believe your asking whether or not it would be militarily defensible.

And the answer is depends, can Ulster remain defensible if the UK gave the counties with a Catholic majority to the Republic. or would that lead to its total unravelling? We can guess but we don't know how it would play out if it ever did.

I personally don't see any reason why the Israeli state couldn't give up some land, its done it in the past the Sinai, most of the Golan heights etc, without collapsing in on itself.

Personally I've always found national maximalism to be highly dubious since virtually every nation has lost some province or island and still keeps going. Look at Serbia every time the Greater Serbia types become influential Serbia loses territory, quite a lot in fact, and yet the existence of a rump Serbia is never really doubted.