Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitic?

what Stinas, the thoroughgoing defender of 'revolutionary defeatism' against all imperialist war, is surely saying in his criticism of the 'left' is that it supported the military destruction of Israel in an imperialist war against the surrounding Arab states.

That's "surely" what you want him to say, surely not what he said. And it's not even close to the real context-- as it's quite possible to oppose the legitimacy of the state of Israel without supporting the surrounding Arabic governments.

Look, there's no problem in recognizing the integrity and insight of a steadfast revolutionist while at the same time identifying his/her mistakes.

Likening the opposition to the formation of Israel to "completing Hitler's work" is performing the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism so essential to pro-Israel ideologues.

Schmoopie

Sure, it's a mine field, never mind the idea of using the 'J' word so often on an anarchist communist forum and potentially sounding like the fash.

Fair play factvalue. I feel at ease now to get it off my chest:
Jew Arab Jew Jew Jew Jew Arab Arab Arab Jew....
Long live the civil war of the proletariat against the BOURGEOISIE!

Surely we wanted that to end, though?

Might as well keep on going with saying the word 'Jew' instead of this.

It's also less civil, which is a plus.

Can’t those on the left who call for the destruction of Israel, that is to say the achieve-ment of the work of Hitler

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.

Zeronowhere #303
‘Quote:
Can’t those on the left who call for the destruction of Israel, that is to say the achieve-ment of the work of Hitler

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.’

This is very ambiguous. I feel it was a great pity he or his party achieved anything.

Artesian wrote: "it's quite possible to oppose the legitimacy of the state of Israel without supporting the surrounding Arabic governments".

But the question is this: if the state of Israel is not "legitimate", does it mean that the Assad regime in Syria (which has been slaughtering its own population for five years now), or the Iraqi state (first set up by British and French imperialism, and then re-fashioned by American imperialism after 2003), or the 'Islamic' regimes of Saudi or Iran are in some ways 'legitimate'; or does each one of them need a kind of democratic revolution as a first step towards normalising the class struggle?

Some (bourgeois) leftists have argued for a democratic revolution in Iran and Saudi for example. And many more, starting from the notion of the special illegitimacy of the Israeli state, have supported the military campaigns of the Arab regimes against Israel, supposedly because these regimes are seen as having some kind of legitimacy. I am not saying that Artesian supports any of these policies, but - as variants of the dominant ideology - they are much more prevalent than the position of the very small minority which stands for genuine internationalism. And it seems to me that the whole argument about the legitimacy of this or that state opens the door to the nationalist and pro-war ideology of the capitalist left.

Auld-bod

Zeronowhere #303
‘Quote:
Can’t those on the left who call for the destruction of Israel, that is to say the achieve-ment of the work of Hitler

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.’

This is very ambiguous. I feel it was a great pity he or his party achieved anything.

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

That's what made his statement ambiguous.

Alf

Artesian wrote: "it's quite possible to oppose the legitimacy of the state of Israel without supporting the surrounding Arabic governments".

But the question is this: if the state of Israel is not "legitimate", does it mean that the Assad regime in Syria (which has been slaughtering its own population for five years now), or the Iraqi state (first set up by British and French imperialism, and then re-fashioned by American imperialism after 2003), or the 'Islamic' regimes of Saudi or Iran are in some ways 'legitimate'; or does each one of them need a kind of democratic revolution as a first step towards normalising the class struggle?

Some (bourgeois) leftists have argued for a democratic revolution in Iran and Saudi for example. And many more, starting from the notion of the special illegitimacy of the Israeli state, have supported the military campaigns of the Arab regimes against Israel, supposedly because these regimes are seen as having some kind of legitimacy. I am not saying that Artesian supports any of these policies, but - as variants of the dominant ideology - they are much more prevalent than the position of the very small minority which stands for genuine internationalism. And it seems to me that the whole argument about the legitimacy of this or that state opens the door to the nationalist and pro-war ideology of the capitalist left.

Alf, you've become a master at saying "I am not saying that.." as a way to say what you pretend to not be saying. Better for all if you would just actually say what it is you think you are saying, or what you think I am saying. When I get to someone who says "I am not saying..." makes me wonder why he or she is saying it at all. At best it's a waste of time; at worst dishonest.

I've stated clearly, in other threads, locations, venues, that there is no such thing, no such possibility of a "democratic revolution." (Actually, I'd be willing to take it further, and say that there has never been any such thing as a "democratic revolution).

I've stated quite clearly that I don't support any Arab states in anything such states do, no more than I would support the US in anything, and I mean anything, it does. I've stated quite clearly that there are no prospects for "imagining" a fraternization of peoples without a workers' social revolution that overthrows the regimes, economies, class structure of Israel and the surrounding states. I've stated quite clearly that one can oppose the legitimacy of Israel without endorsing the policies or actions of the surrounding states. And clearly one can do precisely that, as one could oppose the legitimacy of the apartheid state in South Africa without supporting the governments of Angola, or Mozambique, or the ANC itself.

However, ignoring the specific configuration of apartheid or Zionism, denying that there is anything unique to the apartheid or Zionist projects is just plain stupid, as well as being ahistorical. You might as well, in fact you are arguing, that there is no need to address the specifics of racism, of dispossession, of expulsion, of discrimination because such an address distracts from the "general" "overall" struggle against capitalism, when in fact the opposite is the case-- it is only through the confrontation with the specific expressions of capitalism can the overall system of exploitation be destroyed.

What you offer is an abstraction that is blind to the concrete. Do Jews have the "right" to exist? Certainly. That's not the issue. Do Jews have a "right" to an exclusive state? That question cannot be answered by answering "all states are bad. all states are oppressive. all states are manifestations of capitalism." What's lost in that non-answer are the specific terms of oppression, of capitalism, compressed into and manifested by the perpetuation of Israel.

You have an apartheid state constructed and perpetuated by and through the specific dispossession of a specific population; the specific attacks and assaults on a specific populations. There is no way to separate Israel's existence from these precise conditions. The question is not one of "rights." It is a question of power, of property, of institutions.

Zeronowhere

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.

Complete total anti-revolutionary, anti-working class, racist, bullshit.

factvalue

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

That's what made his statement ambiguous.

to be ambiguous there would need to be another obvious reading

Yes, I agree in future not to say that I'm not saying. What I am saying is that the far left - Trotskyism, Maoism, etc - is counter-revolutionary, pro-war, and has no answer to the anti-semitism of the national states they support. This is a thread about the influence of anti-semitism on the anti-Zionism of the left, after all, not about Artesian's positions. But I would like to know more about where you stand on these political currents.

I don't think that problems of racism, oppression and dispossession should be ignored. The problem is that we are faced with a very extensive political apparatus whose function is to frame these problems in falsely radical, bourgeois terms, and thus prevent them from being addressed from a proletarian standpoint. And that again is the role of the left.

Zeronowhere's statement about Hitler is gob-smacking: I think he needs to explain what he means, but he will still need to retract it.

S. Artesian

Zeronowhere

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.

Complete total anti-revolutionary, anti-working class, racist, bullshit.

Alright, but what does the 'S' stand for?

Zeronowhere

Can’t those on the left who call for the destruction of Israel, that is to say the achieve-ment of the work of Hitler

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.

You'd better explain yourself.

Zeronowhere

S. Artesian

Zeronowhere

If only Hitler had actually achieved this.

Complete total anti-revolutionary, anti-working class, racist, bullshit.

Alright, but what does the 'S' stand for?

S. = Styrofoam

S.Artesian

Well let's do more than hope that the nature of this struggle is not-containable within the framework of UN resolutions. We are talking about class struggle, aren't we? Is there a realistic alternative to a worker-led social revolution that dismantles the Israeli military force, and the military forces of the Arab states? I don't think so.

I think we can agree that the ultimate goal is the evaporation of the UN via the destruction of the capitalist state form. But in the immediate present, on the subject of getting your fingers dirty with the details on the ground, and taking into account what Alf says here

Alf

I don't think that problems of racism, oppression and dispossession should be ignored. The problem is that we are faced with a very extensive political apparatus whose function is to frame these problems in falsely radical, bourgeois terms, and thus prevent them from being addressed from a proletarian standpoint. And that again is the role of the left.

would it really take us tactically closer to our shared objectives or enable the extraction of the maximum possible justice for those most directly involved to completely ignore the current balance of forces and public opinion and issue proclamations which are practically of no more efficacy than the mantras of an other-worldly cult? What is the point of rigidly advocating a goal which has exactly zero possibility of being achieved and in my opinion will be counterproductive, allowing Israel the pretext to continue 'experimenting' in its arms/mercenary expertise advertising labs in Gaza and Lebanon?

Alf, taking account of the asymmetry of the Israel-Palestine 'conflict', do you have any practical proposals which could be implemented immediately to improve the situation as it stands?

radicalgraffiti

factvalue

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

That's what made his statement ambiguous.

to be ambiguous there would need to be another obvious reading

Another obvious meaning would be that Zeronowhere was issuing one of those confused outbursts - of the kind that Galloway emits e.g. about an Israeli-free Bradford - possibly fuelled by anger, possibly a brain fart, expressing a general desire for the dismantling of an explicitly racist religious state in the middle east. But it's also quite possible that it's an outright expression of nazi sympathies, ZN can speak for themselves.

factvalue

ZN can speak for themselves.

Indeed.

Zeronowhere: In consideration of being a long-registered account you're not being instabanned. Now explain yourself.

factvalue

radicalgraffiti

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

That's what made his statement ambiguous.

For an outburst, it was quite brief. In general, Hitler presumably did not take aim at an invasive state formed by Western capital through the displacement of the Arabs. This would, at the least, be anachronistic, and quite impressive a feat. Doing so would be highly admirable at that time.

People deeming causes guilty for a vague association with the Nazis doing so, for whatever reason, is a case where dissociation from the Nazis is not necessary, because it would imply taking their association literally.

My sympathies as they may be with NSDAP are not really the question. That said, they did have some interest in mysticism, as well as Indian movements to get rid of the recent British colonialists - was this truly racism against whites? -, so in some sense it's perhaps possible that they did actually fight Israel in the near-future. In this they have superceded the wildest dreams of some 'ordinarily' socialist sci-fi authors.

Edit: Replied before noting the previous post by a mod or whatever. Hitler might have been banned from this site, they would also eventually have been banned from reactionary fora, I don't take such a ban or threat to pertain much to anything distinguishing this forum from those.

What the fuck are you on about. You're literally typing up nonsense.

'Kin'ell. I'm gobsmacked.

You're supposed to wait until I say something about the sexualisation of under-age kids before really piling it on like that presumably intended.

Zeronowhere

factvalue

radicalgraffiti

i don't see any ambiguity, zeronowhere seems to be wishing the holocaust succeeded

That's what made his statement ambiguous.

For an outburst, it was quite brief. In general, Hitler presumably did not take aim at an invasive state formed by Western capital through the displacement of the Arabs. This would, at the least, be anachronistic, and quite impressive a feat. Doing so would be highly admirable at that time.

factvalue

Another obvious meaning would be that Zeronowhere was issuing one of those confused outbursts

Zeronowhere

People deeming causes guilty for a vague association with the Nazis doing so, for whatever reason, is a case where dissociation from the Nazis is not necessary, because it would imply taking their association literally.

I've got to say

factvalue

that Zeronowhere was issuing one of those confused outbursts

again here, not because of the clunky phraseology, I don't actually mind a sliver of mock-rococo with me baloney, but because there isn't anything vague about mentioning Hitler in the same breath as suggesting that it would have been great if he'd succeeded (at anything really).

Zeronowhere

My sympathies as they may be with NSDAP are not really the question.

I think they might be.

Zeronowhere

That said, they did have some interest in mysticism, as well as Indian movements to get rid of the recent British colonialists - was this truly racism against whites? -, so in some sense it's perhaps possible that they did actually fight Israel in the near-future. In this they have superceded the wildest dreams of some 'ordinarily' socialist sci-fi authors.

See above reference to 'confused' (however brief) outbursts.

Zeronowhere

Edit: Replied before noting the previous post by a mod or whatever. Hitler might have been banned from this site, they would also eventually have been banned from reactionary fora, I don't take such a ban or threat to pertain much to anything distinguishing this forum from those.

I think it's safe to say that Hitler would have been banned had he strayed on here. Have you been following this thread at all?

Admin: Zeronowhere has been banned.

What the fuck was all that about??? Couldn't work out if it was irony or proper fash stuff. That Zeronowhere was a long time poster as well but there was some nasty shit lurking underneath the surface.

He just kept on pushing it over the borderline.

I had to retread the posts as I couldn't believe the rubbish the nazi scum was writing

Anyway, there's not a single scrap of evidence to support the ludicrous claim that anti-Semitism poses a major threat in the Western world, so a large part of this thread has amounted to little more than people mistaking (bewilderingly ponderous) political posturing for political positions and I've totally lost interest. Good luck to you.

And yet even on a libertarian communist forum, on this very thread in fact, a poster expresses extreme antisemitic views....Perhaps the problem is deeper than factvalue thinks.

I was planning to respond to factvalue's question to me about 'immediate proposals' in the situation, and his argument (actually directed against Artesian I think) that calling for workers' revolution in the region is just a mantra. I am going away for a week or so but will give some thought to a response, even if he has stopped posting on the thread.

factvalue

Anyway, there's not a single scrap of evidence to support the ludicrous claim that anti-Semitism poses a major threat in the Western world

Funny, I don't know who on this thread has made that claim. In fact, it's exactly tangents made of straw like that which made me lose interest a while ago..

Alf

And yet even on a libertarian communist forum, on this very thread in fact, a poster expresses extreme antisemitic views....Perhaps the problem is deeper than factvalue thinks.

My thoughts exactly..

.. that's straightforward contradiction. Fair play comrade, it takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

I think if you think about it (and you might have to try particularly hard), saying something exists and is a problem is not the same as saying it "poses a major threat in the Western world"..

Alf writes that the problem is deeper than I think. Alright, now let me see, what do I think? Well, as stated in the post immediately before Alf's, I think it's not a major threat. Ok. What would be deeper than not a major threat? How about, a major threat? You then claim that Alf's thoughts are your thoughts exactly.

Stating that anti-Semitism doesn't pose a major threat is not identical with claiming that anyone else has said that it is. I was referring, as I have been for a while now, to the propaganda of entities such as the ADL. I think such propaganda influences discussions like these and opinions such as Alf's. It might have been more productive in this thread for you to have at least allowed for the possibility that others might have a position of their own, rather than continuing with the customary knuckle-headed posturing, as if such people hadn't had the good taste to realise that they were trespassing on your personal narrative territory.

I think there is an issue of discrimination of one form or another to be addressed. But I don't think this one is of the same dimensions as those other issues that I've raised as potentially better uses of people's time and energy, such as the Zionist propaganda behind the ludicrous claim of a worrying rise in anti-Semitism in the Western world.

Personally, I find it remarkable that those on Libcom are more worried about factvalue's assessment of the dangers of antisemitism than about the endorsement of UN resolution 242 as a long term, short term, interim means for resolving the conflict.

It depends what your immediate goals are. In setting such goals I think the most important questions are: What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we intend to accomplish it? My answer is, and in this I entirely agree with Finkelstein, that the immediate objective is to achieve the maximum possible in terms of justice, given the current and foreseeable balance of political forces (the political horizon of progressive public opinion). The means is as always creating a mass movement that can exert pressure on the dominant political forces in the first instance, without losing sight of ultimate goals but as a tactic for furthering them. If you bear these parameters in mind, it's quite obvious that dismantling/abolishing states in the immediate present is not a political position but political posturing.

S. Artesian

Personally, I find it remarkable that those on Libcom are more worried about factvalue's assessment of the dangers of antisemitism than about the endorsement of UN resolution 242 as a long term, short term, interim means for resolving the conflict.

I didn't realise anyone on Libcom had actually endorsed UN resolution 242. However, factvalue has talked shite on numerous occasions in this thread.

factvalue

It depends what your immediate goals are. In setting such goals I think the most important questions are: What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we intend to accomplish it? My answer is, and in this I entirely agree with Finkelstein, that the immediate objective is to achieve the maximum possible in terms of justice, given the current and foreseeable balance of political forces (the political horizon of progressive public opinion). The means is as always creating a mass movement that can exert pressure on the dominant political forces in the first instance, without losing sight of ultimate goals but as a tactic for furthering them. If you bear these parameters in mind, it's quite obvious that dismantling/abolishing states in the immediate present is not a political position but political posturing.

This isn't a question of separating an "immediate goal" from an "ultimate goal;" it's a question of how a class movement builds itself, develops its class consciousness distinct from and in opposition to various bourgeois palliatives which are far more "unrealistic" than those steps that must be taken to build the class movement.

Swearing allegiance, or advocating a solution along the lines of 242 gets us exactly where we are today...nowhere; with Israel essentially having a free hand to do whatever it likes, and the opposition "kettled" in occupied or unoccupied territories, administered by those who dream of nothing so much as being the Palestinian Chiang Kai-Shek and find their own little Taiwans.

There is absolutely no possibility of creating a mass movement that "exerts pressure on the dominant political forces" by constraining itself within the boundaries, literal, physical, and methaphoric of 242 or any other piece of bourgeois wishful bureaucratic thinking.

Christ on a crutch the history of every "liberation movement" from the MNR in Bolivia in 1954 to the ANC in 1994 (and prior, and beyond) proves that.

The point being we don't simply say "Dismantle the state(s)." or "All Power to the Palestinian soviets" when there are no soviets around, and no movement that has developed the basis for a dual power-- but we do want to find programs, demands, organizations, and even slogans, that contain the seeds of that dual power, of that class organization, and that can only be done by not endorsing "provisional regimes"-- whether those provisions be UN resolutions, leaving power firmly in the hands of the bourgeoisie and their wannabees, in organizations like Hamas and/or the PLA, or in parliaments, general assemblies, etc. etc.

Moreover, how is it possible to even countenance support for a UN resolution, when that resolution is the product of an organization that occupies country after country to secure the rule of capital? Haiti, anyone?

It depends what your immediate goals are. In setting such goals I think the most important questions are: What are we trying to accomplish, and how do we intend to accomplish it?

Our role as communists/anarchists is not to broker a peace between competing factions of the bourgeoisie. Our role is steadfastly to delineate between the force for revolution (in this instance the insurgent Palestinian working class) and the force of reaction (the Israeli State and Palestinian nationalist aspiration for a state).

The means is as always creating a mass movement that can exert pressure on the dominant political forces in the first instance, without losing sight of ultimate goals but as a tactic for furthering them.

Why the need to create a mass movement? A mass movement already exists: the insurgent Palestinian working class.

S. Artesian

This isn't a question of separating an "immediate goal" from an "ultimate goal;" it's a question of how a class movement builds itself, develops its class consciousness distinct from and in opposition to various bourgeois palliatives which are far more "unrealistic" than those steps that must be taken to build the class movement.

Swearing allegiance, or advocating a solution along the lines of 242 gets us exactly where we are today...nowhere; with Israel essentially having a free hand to do whatever it likes, and the opposition "kettled" in occupied or unoccupied territories, administered by those who dream of nothing so much as being the Palestinian Chiang Kai-Shek and find their own little Taiwans.

I think we're mostly arguing past the other, me about the tactical insanity and immorality of demanding the impossible while a massacre continues and you in mistaking me for the UN ambassador to libcom. Forget 242, it's just something to focus on, perhaps begin instead with ending the blockade or demolishing the wall? Now that the likes of the Saudis have their own problems to deal with and have abandoned them, and now that they have seen the realities of the Palestinian Authority and Hammas up close, although their morale is battered and, unlike the South Africans, they're unlikely to get a hand from the Cuban army, with world opinion more overwhelmingly on their side now than ever before, perhaps the Palestinians have a chance to build a movement.

Unfortunately the brutalised, militarised population of Israel has shown itself time and again to be 90-95% behind every massacre carried out by the IDF, mainly because most of them have by now personally engaged in them and become inured. Mainstream television in Israel shows Israeli children writing their names on bombs to be dropped on Palestinian children, this in a nuclear country with the sixth most powerful army in the world, which dropped 20,000 tons of explosive (versus 40) during the 2014 'operation', protected by the US which has made it abundantly clear that any power – dual-, Iran or otherwise - which threatens Israel will be sent back to the stone age, a country whose embassies since the second intifada have been directly instructed to ratchet up accusations of antisemitism in order to cause as much trouble as possible for everyone from fucking Jeremy Corbyn and his crew to the BDS movement (which is legally banned in France and de facto here) never mind that Muslims and not Jews are being targeted for attack on all sides. So where do they start?

it's just something to focus on, perhaps begin instead with ending the blockade or demolishing the wall?

Much, much better. An actual "place" to start.

Perhaps, it may be useful to transpose this discussion to the UK. If we treat Harlesden as Gaza City and the province of Ulster as the West Bank.

Is anti-Britishism anti-Chritian?

Serge Forward

However, factvalue has talked shite on numerous occasions in this thread.

My original reply to this was [Admin: SEXIST INSULT AND RESPONSE DELETED]. What was 'libcom's' reason for removing this tiny piece of harmless banter in an otherwise heavy and turgid thread? What are you allowing yourselves to become?

Admin: post containing nothing but a sexist insult has been unpublished in accordance with Libcom.org posting guidelines. A post quoting the sexist post was also deleted. Users are reminded that oppressive language is not allowed on libcom.

If you want to discuss the decision, please start a thread in the feedback forum, do not further derail this discussion. Further discussion of admin decisions will be unpublished.

Admin: off-topic posts unpublished.

factvalue, I wouldn't take too much notice of reactionary trolls (ie the administrators).

I'm sorry that I accused you of anti-Semitism and I forgive you for trolling through all of my posts on this topic and pulling out the most innocuous one and quoting it out of context on another thread.

I think the reason why you have been sanctioned here is because you dared to enter into a debate which was not universally welcome.

Schmoopie

factvalue, I wouldn't take too much notice of reactionary trolls (ie the administrators).

I'm sorry that I accused you of anti-Semitism and I forgive you for trolling through all of my posts on this topic and pulling out the most innocuous one and quoting it out of context on another thread.

I think the reason why you have been sanctioned here is because you dared to enter into a debate which was not universally welcome.

I think you're right. It's a very loaded subject. I can't remember the quotation you mention but if I offended you I apologise. Thing is, comrades should be allowed to have arguments over issues, particularly if the fundamentals are generally agreed on, it's not a love-in at some hippy ashram and nobody's perfect, even though there are quite a few bullshitters on here who'd like you to think they are.

Right now I wish it was a love in at an ashram with non stop chillum passing from left to right but you are right that is not what this space is for. I think you deserve to have the last word on this thread having put in the most work. Why not give a summary of your perspective?

Is anti-Britishism anti-Chritian?

I definitely think I am a little anti-Goyish; it's not so much that I am against the Goyim but at times the Goyim seem so vehemently anti anyone outside of their private sphere. Let me explain.

I went out for a long walk today with my 3 year old daughter and the two little terriers, Maisy and Brutus. Towards the end of our two hour sojourn around the big plantation, otherwise known as the "English countryside", we suddenly had two large German shepherds bounding menacingly towards us. I knew their target was little Brutus (Maisy had slipped past them and run for cover) although it could equally have been the little girl, Posie. Fearing for threat to life, as the two strange dogs passed me by I kicked out at them without contact and shouted in an attempt to scare them from their deadly course as I perceived it. The two dogs winced a little but carried on past me. Then, to my surprise, the burley Goy comes up to me and says, "Why did you attack my dogs?" I was like, "What?"

Sometimes the Goyim appear as a species apart.

How could you be certain that:

1. The shepherds were intent on attacking?
2. If you were certain, why not just pick up your little terrier in your arms (presuming your daughter was walking, or in a stroller)? Or pick up your daughter, and place Brutus between your feet?
3. The shepherds' owner wasn't Jewish?
4. Even if not Jewish, he was representative of the entire category "not-Jewish"?
5. The shepherds weren't on their way to synagogue?

Did you know exactly what the dog's owner's religious background was by sight alone?
And if anyone kicks my dogs I would fucking cut them.

Fleur

Did you know exactly what the dog's owner's religious background was by sight alone?
And if anyone kicks my dogs I would fucking cut them.

I think, Fleur, but not certain that old Schmoop is, how you say, "taking the piss"?? "Having us on"??

Did you know exactly what the dog's owner's religious background was by sight alone?

I didn't allude to the stranger's religion, I said he was a gentile – not of my common stock. Perhaps I am guilty of racial stereotyping but the German shepherds and the machismo to me just cried "GOY".

And if anyone kicks my dogs I would fucking cut them.

As I said earlier I kicked out at the dogs as a means of making them aware of my presence. Kicking the dogs would have been futile, so intent they were on petting little Brutus (as it transpires).

I hope that at some point in the future the weird Yid (myself) and the strange Goy (the other) can be best of friends and that our dogs will be free to run up and down in play.

Silly me, I thought "gentile" meant "not Jewish" and I thought Jewish meant of the Jewish religion.

Learn something new everyday

I think, Fleur, but not certain that old Schmoop is, how you say, "taking the piss"?? "Having us on"??

Not easy to tell.

I wish people would train their dogs.

I wish people would train their dogs.

Agreed and doubly so for terriers. Other than the last few months I've had terriers of one kind or another my whole life and you have to make sure they'll come to you immediately when you're outside because they're smart, determined and reluctant to back down. 9 times out of 10 it's the terrier who starts the trouble. You need to be able to stop it. If you can't control your dogs, don't have them.

The only time I've been attacked by a dog was one when I was fourteen and this UDA dickhead round our way made his German Shepherd jump up on me as I was walking past them. Luckily I was already aware that he didn't like me, mainly since he'd tried to pick fights with me several times for no apparent reason, and so I anticipated it. I head butted the fucker really viciously as it tried to bite me on the mouth and then threw it by the back legs into the middle of the road where a car hit it. I then turned on him, but he was too shocked to really put up much of a fight. Belfast in the 70s, what a beautiful little place to grow up.

If a dog attacked one of my children it would end up in bin bags in multiple locations all over the Earth's crust.

I wish people would train their dogs.

It would have been the sensible thing for me to do.

I thought Jewish meant of the Jewish religion.

Not really. If I remember correctly, in this thread, Jef has told us he is Jewish but I am pretty certain that by that he does not mean that he observes rabbinical laws. It means that we are Jewish by descent (descended from Jacob/Israel). All of my mother's family are Jewish yet none of us, with the exception of a born-again Christian cousin, has any religion to speak of.

Artesian: a while back you wrote:

Silly me, I thought "gentile" meant "not Jewish" and I thought Jewish meant of the Jewish religion.
Learn something new everyday

Can you elaborate on this, in case I have misunderstood it? Particularly the idea that being Jewish means being “of the Jewish religion”.

Alf

Artesian: a while back you wrote:

Silly me, I thought "gentile" meant "not Jewish" and I thought Jewish meant of the Jewish religion.
Learn something new everyday

Can you elaborate on this, in case I have misunderstood it? Particularly the idea that being Jewish means being “of the Jewish religion”.

I've always assumed that when somebody refers to himself/herself or some one else as being "Jewish," that the term Jewish referred to the Jewish religion.

I mean, it's a religion, no? The so-called "cultural" markers of being "Jewish" don't really "travel well." There are Chinese Jews, Asian Jews, African Jews, Caribbean Jews, Cuban Jews, Turkish Jews, Persian Jews, Syrian Jews, etc. etc.

I don't think there are "Jewish" atheists-- Marx was not "Jewish." Neither was Trotsky or Luxemburg.

Am I Jewish? No. Were my parents? Yes. Is my sister? Oy, don't even ask.

Can anyone else elaborate on what other take "Jewish" to mean?

But within the marxist tradition, there is the idea that the Jews cannot be understood only as a religious denomination - notably Avram Leon's theory of the 'people class', which examines the specific economic role of the Jews in ancient, feudal and capitalist societies. Official Judaism has argued that the Jews' stubborn adherence to the faith of their forefathers has enabled them to survive despite history; Marx answered that the Jews have survived not despite history, but because of history, and gave us a few pointers to how we might approach this problem, which Leon took up again in the 1930s. And Hitler added a further dimension: we will exterminate you not merely because of your religious beliefs, but because of your history (or as the Nazis put it, your racial history).

So I don't think the Jewish problem can be solved in the way you suggest.

I find that in America, being Jewish is often perceived like S. Artesian said, through the terms of religion. It's different in Europe, particularly Eastern one, since

1) The Ashkenazi Jews, the ones Eastern Europeans were familiar with, shared quite a lot of cultural traits, including the Yiddish language. The only other Jewish group in the broad region were the very small and unorthodox Karaites.
2) Soviet policy on nationalities "forcefully recognized" Jews as an ethnicity (see the infamous "fifth graph" in Soviet passports, the one that required you to list your ethnicity. "Jewish" was one of recognized opinions. People could only pick the ethnicity of their parents - they could choose one or the other in case the parents had different ethnicities). This led to the notion of Jew-as-an-ethnicity to be widespread among Jews and non-Jews alike even with the abandonment of Yiddish and other traditional customs. Had S. Artesian been born in the USSR, he'd likely have "Jew" written in his "ethnicity" passport column.
3) Influence of Zionist ideology, although due to factors 1) and 2) it didn't need to spend much time or effort on this matter at all.
4) Some influence of far-right antisemitic concepts... don't think this alone was particularly distinctive in this matter, either.

Today many people in countries like Russia would place "Jew" in the same group as "Russian", "Ukrainian", or "Pole". Phrases like "I had a Jewish mother and a Russian father" are common (and, unless the person saying this is young, would accurately reflect what's written in their birth certificate).

Alf

But within the marxist tradition, there is the idea that the Jews cannot be understood only as a religious denomination - notably Avram Leon's theory of the 'people class', which examines the specific economic role of the Jews in ancient, feudal and capitalist societies. Official Judaism has argued that the Jews' stubborn adherence to the faith of their forefathers has enabled them to survive despite history; Marx answered that the Jews have survived not despite history, but because of history, and gave us a few pointers to how we might approach this problem, which Leon took up again in the 1930s. And Hitler added a further dimension: we will exterminate you not merely because of your religious beliefs, but because of your history (or as the Nazis put it, your racial history).

Well, then that's yet another part of the "marxist tradition" that I don't line up with. "People class"? What is the specific role attributable to all Jews as a people class in ancient, feudal capitalist society; and that means more than just European ancient, feudal, capitalist society?

Jews in 1905 Chicago, China, the Ottoman Empire shared what common role, economic function with Jews in Zitomer in the Ukraine? What common economic function did those Jews share not just with the Jews in Zitomer, but also with the Jews who owned textile mills in Poland?

And using the example of Hitler is pretty problematic, at least to me. Does anyone seriously think Hitler exterminated Jews because of some shared, common, specific economic function?

Racial history??? What is that? Since race is a social, unscientific construct, and history is the product of class struggle, of the social organization of labor, how on earth do we get Marxists stating that "racial history" has the slightest shred of validity in the "marxist tradition"???? Boggles the mind, really.

So I don't think the Jewish problem can be solved in the way you suggest.

Good, because a) I'm not suggesting a "solution" b) I don't think there is a need for a "solution" c) and because I don't think there's even a problem.

If "Jewishness" represents a "problem" for historical materialism, as opposed to antisemitism representing part of the larger problem of discrimination, bigotry, etc.-- then historical materialism is, you should pardon the express, fucked. And I don't give a rat's ass, very much, for the "marxist tradition," but I do care a whole lot about historical materialism and the concrete critique of capital.

I don't see why historical materialism would be fucked if it accepted that the last word "on the Jewish Question" has not yet been said, that there are real theoretical problems to look into here. I also think that historical materialism is not the same as a kind of reductionism to economic roles, an approach which Leon (who I think is certainly worth reading) does to some extent fall into in his book The Jewish question, a marxist interpretation. The same can be said about Bordiga, who, in Auschwitz the great alibi, also tends towards the idea that "Hitler exterminated the Jews because of some shared, common, specific economic function". To argue that the Nazis massacred the Jews because of their history and not just because of their religious beliefs, means integrating the directly economic aspect of the question with other dimensions, anthropological, ideological, psychological, ethical...none of which means abandoning the method of historical materialism.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/leon/index.htm

libcom.org/files/Amadeo%20Bordiga%20Auschwitz.pdf

Alf

I don't see why historical materialism would be fucked if it accepted that the last word "on the Jewish Question" has not yet been said, that there are real theoretical problems to look into here. I also think that historical materialism is not the same as a kind of reductionism to economic roles, an approach which Leon (who I think is certainly worth reading) does to some extent fall into in his book The Jewish question, a marxist interpretation. The same can be said about Bordiga, who, in Auschwitz the great alibi, also tends towards the idea that "Hitler exterminated the Jews because of some shared, common, specific economic function". To argue that the Nazis massacred the Jews because of their history and not just because of their religious beliefs, means integrating the directly economic aspect of the question with other dimensions, anthropological, ideological, psychological, ethical...none of which means abandoning the method of historical materialism.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/leon/index.htm

libcom.org/files/Amadeo%20Bordiga%20Auschwitz.pdf

You didn't answer the questions, Alf. What is the economic role the people/class of Jews have shared in ancient, feudal, capitalist societies. What economic function did the young Jewish women who perished in Triangle Shirtwaist Fire share with Jewish textile mill owners. What was the shared economic function of Jews, existing beyond modes of production, that Hitler sought to eradicate.

BTW-- that's why historical materialism would be fucked-- because people would be using it to avoid answering specific questions; to propose "solutions" to problems that aren't.

We talk a lot about "insensitivity" used in expressions-- for example the insensitivity in chanting "We are all Hamas." I have to say, whenever I hear somebody talking about "solutions" to people as if the people are a problem, a question, I'm inclined point them in a different direction-- away from me, because the very structure of such a discussion is, IMO, madness.

Solutions to the "black question," anybody? The "immigrant question," anybody? The "women problem" someone? I think the only question or problem here is why somebody would choose to pose issues of history, class, and labor as if the people involved were themselves the question, or the problem.

So please, Alf, answer my questions. Yours really aren't relevant. You can ask someone else, of course, someone more in tune with the "marxist tradition" as you see it. Just not me, I'm not apparently, of that tradition, which is fine with me.

You didn't answer the questions, Alf. What is the economic role the people/class of Jews have shared in ancient, feudal, capitalist societies. What economic function did the young Jewish women who perished in Triangle Shirtwaist Fire share with Jewish textile mill owners. What was the shared economic function of Jews, existing beyond modes of production, that Hitler sought to eradicate.

To be fair to Alf here, it doesn't matter that there is no shared economic role of the Jewish people, only that there is perceived one that is believed as if it is true. And the perceived role of Jews is finance capital (likely due to some Jewish communities accepting the role of tax collectors and money lenders in return for protection during medieval Europe). Kurz and Postone, for example, have made decent arguments to that regard and can at least explain the anti-Semitic trope of the money-hungry/loving/worshipping Jew. Just see the recent tweet Trump made about Clinton.

Whether Hitler and the Nazis believed in the Jews = finance capital = world domination, I don't know.

To be fair to Alf here, it doesn't matter that there is no shared economic role of the Jewish people, only that there is perceived one that is believed as if it is true.

That's being more than fair, comrade. That's giving an answer for Alf to the question he did not ask, for one thing; and offering as "evidence" for his contention "that Jews form a people class" the very lack of evidence, the misperception of Jews as a "people class."

And I might add, one more example of either f**ked-up historical materialism, or f**king-up historical materialism.

We are looking for the shared economic role maintained by Jews as a people-class, common to Jews in ancient, feudal, capitalist times, not the deliberate misperceptions, distortions, etc. used to disguised competitive jealousies, theft, aggrandizement, extermination.

If there is no historical basis for a "timeless" universal, economic function of Jews, then there can be no basis for understanding Jewish-ness as anything other than a religion. Anti-Jewishness is a different matter, and can be explained by historical economic function anti-Jewishness serves-- preservation of the Church, of landed property, aggrandizement, theft, looting, a bit of the old primitive accumulation.

Khawaga is quite right to say that the perception of the role of the Jews is the issue here, rather than any real common interest. I am certainly not denying the reality of class divisions among Jews at any stage of history - which is one reason I think Leon's idea of a people-class is not really satisfactory. I would add however that the antisemitic 'trope' of Jews as the personification of finance capital does have material/historical roots in the role of usury imposed on Jews in Christian-feudal society. And the fact that only a minority of Jews in that society were engaged in money-lending (or banking) didn't prevent this perception being used to stir up pogroms against Jews in general.

And I might add, one more example of either f**ked-up historical materialism, or f**king-up historical materialism.

Not at all, and neither did I make the claim (it seems like the ICC believes that anything can be explain by that) It's got nothing to do with historical materialism at all; it's just bigotry. And like other forms of racism where e.g. black skin is made to signify more than white skin, Jews as an ethnic (or religious) group has come to signify more than other groups.

And I didn't offer anything up as "evidence" for Alf's assertion, merely that it is quite common, indeed an anti-semitic trope, of assigning Jews an exclusive economic function that somehow explains everything about their conduct and so on.

We are looking for the shared economic role maintained by Jews as a people-class, common to Jews in ancient, feudal, capitalist times, not the deliberate misperceptions, distortions, etc. used to disguised competitive jealousies, theft, aggrandizement, extermination.

But that's the point, no? That any supposed shared economic role maintained by Jews is a pure racist fantasy.

But that's the point, no? That any supposed shared economic role maintained by Jews is a pure racist fantasy.

I agree, but according to Alf, the "marxist tradition" :

there is the idea that the Jews cannot be understood only as a religious denomination - notably Avram Leon's theory of the 'people class', which examines the specific economic role of the Jews in ancient, feudal and capitalist societies.

You will recall that this began because I stated that "Jewish" pertains to those of the Jewish religion, that the religion is the common factor, not some shared ethnicity, not some shared "people class," not by some shared "specific economic role."

If there is no such specific economic role, then why is Alf talking about a "marxist tradition"?

If the fact is there is no shared economic function which somehow transcends modes of production and class, then references to the "Jewish question" are just reproducing the tropes of anti-semitism in another garb-- which by the way,we have to acknowledge is precisely what Marx's "On the Jewish Question" does. Truly a horrible exercise in ahistorical abstraction.

I'm not in "that tradition" apparently. And I do think the only commonality to being Jewish is the religion as in Liz Taylor, Jewish. Leon Trotsky, not Jewish.

I have to focus on other stuff so will have to take a break for a while and see whether this aspect of the discussion goes anywhere. Marx's On the Jewish Question certainly contains some anti-semitic tropes and should be a warning (like this thread has been in certain cases) that the the historical workers' movement (and not just the capitalist left) is not immune from the anti-semitic virus. And on the other side of the coin, Zionists and all kinds of Marx-haters have quoted from this text to prove that Marx anticipates Hitler in preparing for "a world without Jews" (the title of a book by Dagobert Runes which republishes Marx's essay) . But there's rather a lot more to Marx's text than concessions to anti-semitism, including a defence of the 'civil rights' of Jews in the context of a bourgeois revolution, against Bruno Bauer's evasions; the emergence of Marx's conception of alienation, and clear signs of his transition from radical democracy to communism. This view of Marx's essay is developed in the article linked below, which might be more critical of Leon and Bordiga (and of Marx, for that matter) if it was written today....
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/114_jewish_question.html

Alf

I have to focus on other stuff so will have to take a break for a while and see whether this aspect of the discussion goes anywhere. Marx's On the Jewish Question certainly contains some anti-semitic tropes and should be a warning (like this thread has been in certain cases) that the the historical workers' movement (and not just the capitalist left) is not immune from the anti-semitic virus. And on the other side of the coin, Zionists and all kinds of Marx-haters have quoted from this text to prove that Marx anticipates Hitler in preparing for "a world without Jews" (the title of a book by Dagobert Runes which republishes Marx's essay) . But there's rather a lot more to Marx's text than concessions to anti-semitism, including a defence of the 'civil rights' of Jews in the context of a bourgeois revolution, against Bruno Bauer's evasions; the emergence of Marx's conception of alienation, and clear signs of his transition from radical democracy to communism. This view of Marx's essay is developed in the article linked below, which might be more critical of Leon and Bordiga (and of Marx, for that matter) if it was written today....
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/114_jewish_question.html

Alf-- that's all fine and dandy but a) what is the special economic function of Jews and b) what does any of what you wrote above have to do with the shared characteristic of "Jewish-ness" being something other than the religion?

Those are, after all, the issues you raised.

So please, before focus on other stuff-- could you respond to those issues you yourself raised?

I really can't focus on this now, but on the economic issue, the starting point has to be what Marx wrote in Capital, Vol 1, ch 1, when he said:
"Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient world only
in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the Intermundia, or
like Jews in the pores of Polish society."

This is a view of the role of Jews in pre-capitalist society, but important elements of it survive in capitalist society, giving rise to the familiar anti-semitic trope of the parasitic, mercantile Jew. Comrades who want to follow this up can read Leon's book which attempts to take the story up to the period of the Second World War (he was murdered by the Nazis during the war). In a critical spirit of course....

Alf

I really can't focus on this now, but on the economic issue, the starting point has to be what Marx wrote in Capital, Vol 1, ch 1, when he said:
"Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient world only
in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the Intermundia, or
like Jews in the pores of Polish society."

This is a view of the role of Jews in pre-capitalist society, but important elements of it survive in capitalist society, giving rise to the familiar anti-semitic trope of the parasitic, mercantile Jew. Comrades who want to follow this up can read Leon's book which attempts to take the story up to the period of the Second World War (he was murdered by the Nazis during the war). In a critical spirit of course....

That just won't do, "trading nations in the ancient world.................like Jews in the pores of Polish society"???? That's not saying Jews are a trading nation, serve a mercantile function. Christ on a crutch, you should not take offense at the expression. It's saying the trading nations exist as "outliers," at the boundaries, between the boundaries and in reality bridging those boundaries. Marx is not saying that Jews exist in Poland as a "trading nation."

Sorry Alf, this just isn't worth pursuing. You are producing nonsense and calling it historical materialism.

Jewish, Jews, etc.-- the shared characteristic is a religious belief. Like Islam. The shared characteristic of Moslems is a religious belief.

And we all need to learn the lesson.........don't bring up stuff you really can't "get into." Why even bring it up? I'm not saying Alf is ducking the issue he brought up but.........

Maybe I've misunderstood, S. Artesian, but the idea that terms like Jewish, Jews, Muslim, etc. only refers to shared religious belief doesn't sound right to me. When people refer to the Jewish anarchist movement and newspapers like Freie Arbeiter Stimme, or in William J. Fishman's East End Jewish Radicals, they are not in any way referring to a shared religious belief. When Jews were sent to the gas chambers by the Nazis, this was not on the basis of their religious belief. Likewise, in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, those who were labelled/labelled themselves Muslims were by no means practising Muslims.

Serge Forward

When Jews were sent to the gas chambers by the Nazis, this was not on the basis of their religious belief.

On what (real) basis then?

Serge,

What then distinguished the papers like Freie Arbeiter Stimme, or Fishman's East End Jewish Radicals from "non-Jewish anarchists," or non-Jewish East End radicals?

As for Jews being exterminated by Hitler--- uh... yes, that, Jewish religion, or being descendant from those of the Jewish religion, whether practiced or not, was the shared characteristic. That Jews themselves assimilated into European cultures doesn't change the existence of antisemitism which discriminates based upon the religion. And it didn't change the fact that what Jews shared, assimilated or not, practicing or not, was simply a religion.

I'd pose the same question to you as to Alf-- what is the shared, special economic function of Jews that Alf, on-again, off-again, thinks exists?

What special, shared economic, historical role does the textile mill owner in Lodz, Poland in 1905 share with the Triangle Shirtwaist workers?

What do the Jews of Zitomer share with those who lived in Ethiopia, or China?

"Jewish" is not determined by religion? That's why Schmoopie just knew that the owner of the two shepherds wasn't Jewish? Because Jews share an aversion to German shepherds? Because the owner didn't "look Jewish"?? Or may it was the cross the owner was wearing around his neck? But if Jews aren't just a religion, then we can't go by the cross, can we?

This is far too much effort to expend due to Schmoopie's story, and the attempt to humorously point out the unwarranted assumptions in such a story.

Just wanted to advertise a great book from back in post 126:

factvalue

Sorry for the long quotation but Shlomo Sand says what I want to say about 'ethnicity' much better than I can in The Invention of the Jewish People:

The murderous first half of the twentieth century having caused the
concept of race to be categorically rejected, various historians and other
scholars enlisted the more respectable concept of ethnos in order to preserve
the intimate contact with the distant past. Ethnos, meaning "people" in ancient
Greek, had served even before the Second World War as a useful alternative
to, or a verbal intermediary between, "race" and "people." But its common,
"scientific" use began only in the 1950s, after which it spread widely. Its main
attraction lies in its blending of cultural background and blood ties, of a
linguistic past and a biological origin—in other words, its combining of a
historical product with a fact that demands respect as a natural phenomenon.7
Far too many authors have used this concept with intolerable ease, sometimes
with astonishing intellectual negligence, though some of them do apply
it to some premodern historical entity, some mass of shared cultural expressions
from the past, that despite its dissolution persists in a different form. The
ethnic community is, after all, a human group with a shared cultural-linguistic
background, not always well defined but capable of providing crucial materials
for a national construction. Yet a good many other scholars cling to ethnos
as though to bring in by the back door the essential primevalism, the racial
concept that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bolstered the promoters
of the fragile national identity.

Thus ethnos has become not merely a historical and cultural unit but an
ambiguous entity of ancient origin, at whose heart lies a subjective sense of
closeness that it inspires in those who believe in it, much as race did in the
nineteenth century. Committed scholars argue that this identity belief should
not be challenged, because it carries a powerful sense of origin that should
not only be taken into account during critical analysis and dissection—a legitimate,
even essential process—but should even be adopted as a whole, and as a
positive historical fact that need not be questioned. These scholars admit that
the idea that the modern nation sprang from the ethnos may be unverifiable.
Nevertheless, we have no choice but to live with it; attempting to question it is
pointless and ultimately undesirable.

Blurring the categories of ancient social groupings, as these scholars
have helped to do, apparently seemed to them a necessary condition for the
preservation of unstable identities in the present. Anthony D. Smith, who
became one of the most active scholars in the field of nation studies, made a
significant contribution to this process. At a relatively late stage in his work, he decided to grant the ethnic principle a decisive role in his research, and even
described his approach as "ethno-symbolic." The term "symbolic" helps soften
the essentialist resonance of the phrase while supplying the desired ambiguity.
For Smith, "an ethnic group, then, is distinguished by four features: the sense
of unique group origins, the knowledge of a unique group history and belief
in its destiny, one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality, and
finally a sense of unique collective solidarity."

The diligent British scholar, it seems, considers that the ethnos is no longer
a linguistic community with a common way of life; that the ethnos does not
inhabit a particular territory but needs only to be associated with one; that
the ethnos need not have an actual history, for ancient myths can continue to
serve this function equally well. The shared memory is not a conscious process
moving from the present to the past (since there is always someone around who
can organize it) but rather a "natural" process, neither religious nor national,
which flows by itself from past to present. Smith's definition of ethnos, therefore,
matches the way Zionists see the Jewish presence in history—it also matches the
old concept of pan-Slav identity, or that of the Aryans or Indo-Europeans, or
even of the Black Hebrews in the United States—but is quite unlike the accepted
connotation among the traditional community of anthropologists.

Toward the end of the twentieth century and in the early twenty-first,
"ethnicity"—which Etienne Balibar rightly described as entirely fictitious—
has experienced a resurgence in popularity. This French philosopher has
reiterated that nations are not ethnic, and that even what is deemed to be their
ethnic origin is dubious. It is in fact nationalization that creates a sense of
ethnic identity in societies—"represented in the past or in the future as if they
formed a natural community."10 Unfortunately, this critical approach, which
warns against ethnobiological or ethnoreligious definitions, has not had sufficient
impact. Various theoreticians of nationality, like nationality-supporting
historians, continue to thicken their theories and hence their narratives with
essentialist, ethnicist verbiage. The relative retreat of the classic sovereign nationalism in the Western world in the late twentieth century and the beginning
of the twenty-first has not weakened this trend; indeed, in some ways it
has strengthened it.

S. Artesian, what distinguished FAS and the Jewish anarchists from other anarchists would, I assume, have been a shared commonality, shared experience derived from past religious and ongoing cultural identity and language.

With anti-semitism and the Holocaust, I don't think it was about the religion though but was more about politics of the "other", a perceived or actual cultural "otherness" that was easy to scapegoat for political ends. For the record, I don't buy into the economic role of Jews either... though Leon's book does look interesting.

I'd pose the same question to you as to Alf-- what is the shared, special economic function of Jews that Alf, on-again, off-again, thinks exists?

Historically, the main factor that distinguished Jew from gentile in European history has been the exclusion of Jews from agriculture. This exclusion by the ruling Christian elite forced Jews to find other means of earning their bread. One of these pursuits was usury, another the Stage, diplomacy, tailoring, etc.

To put it simply, if I look backwards I am Jewish (by race, by descent, by religion and by the particular distinguishing socio-economic factors that defined me as Jew). If I look forward, I am a proletarian (a captive of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).

Of course, the inference, and assumption of this question, is that Zionism is bad. Maybe we should start from square one and discuss that assumption which is really the issue. The left has demonized Israel, labeled its policies "apartheid" equal to the old system in South Africa. Is Israel a colonial imposition into the lands of the natives by Europeans? Is the whole process of creating a state in Palestine by Jews no better than what the British did in South Africa or India? They obviously have big differences. What about Cuba? Fidel is a descedent of Spanish conquistadores. He threw out or forced out or even shot a lot of Cubanos who he considered a threat. So it's all right to create a state as long as it conforms with the left's anti-capitalist anti-imperialist anti-western criteria? I was raised left, CP parents, anti-war, but I don't swallow the anti-Zionist diatribe that every p.c. leftist spouts. Every situation is different. Choices have to be made. With Israel I see a progressive state which gives women equal rights, an essentially democratic state and not a monarchy or a dictatorship which gives the vote to all who want to be citizens no matter what their religion or ethnicity. The kibbutz movements in Israel are some of the most progressive efforts toward socialism in the world and this is an important factor to consider. Israel isn't perfect and there are abuses but what country is? Cuba imprisons gays and executes people for smoking marijuana. China executes people for embezzlement. The Palestinian cause is important but is Israel to blame or should be look to those countries that confine them to camps, refuse them citizenship, (Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria) So maybe the question should be, "Is being pro-Zionist anti-left?"

Yes, Zionism is fucking bad because all forms of nationalism is bad. Anarchist don't oppose the state of Israel because it's an exceptional evil but because it is a violent, racist state like any other.

If all states and violent and racist then all tribes are violent and racist and all clans are violent and racist and all people are violent and racist. Oh well. Not much hope then is there.

Wow, amazing logic there and clueless as to what the state really is. Why are you even bothering posting here? Your clearly not an anarchist.

Is Israel a colonial imposition into the lands of the natives by Europeans?

Yes. Precisely that. See the Balfour doctrine, and the history of British "administration."

Is the whole process of creating a state in Palestine by Jews no better than what the British did in South Africa or India?

Not a bit better.

What about Cuba?

What about it? Are you truly likening the overthrow of Batista to the expulsion of Palestinians?

He threw out or forced out or even shot a lot of Cubanos who he considered a threat

. You mean like Batista's police forces? Or the Bacardi family? Or the plantation owners? Look into my eye, let me know if you see anything like a tear forming there.

With Israel I see a progressive state which gives women equal rights, an essentially democratic state and not a monarchy or a dictatorship which gives the vote to all who want to be citizens no matter what their religion or ethnicity.

Palestinian women, they get equal rights, too? Democracy? There are severe restrictions on the political activity of Palestinians. Democracy? Like the US South was a democracy-- for white people.

The kibbutz movements in Israel are some of the most progressive efforts toward socialism in the world and this is an important factor to consider. Israel isn't perfect and there are abuses but what country is?

Really? Expelling a resident population is a progressive effort towards socialism? Who would have thunk that.

Israel isn't perfect? But who's asking for perfection. How about the blockade? How about ending that? How about the division of the West Bank into "A" territories, "B" territorires, "C" territories, with the original residents confined to the least economically viable territories, and the most fertile areas reserved for Israeli settlements? Is that simply not "being perfect"? Or is it representative of a "settler capitalism," like........South Africa was?

China executes people for embezzlement.

Israel executes people for being Palestinian. Hence, Palestinian = embezzler. Got it. Now that's democracy.

The Palestinian cause is important but is Israel to blame or should be look to those countries that confine them to camps, refuse them citizenship, (Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria)

That's an easy one. Look to source of their dispossession and expulsion. That would be Israel.

"Is being pro-Zionist anti-left?"

Or perhaps the question should be is defending Zionism as a democracy an exercise in sophistry, as you so ably demonstrate.

excuuuse me for upsetting the purity of your website. I didn't know that anarchists liked to maintain total control over their media. Bit of a contradiction, no? .

AndrewX

excuuuse me for upsetting the purity of your website. I didn't know that anarchists liked to maintain total control over their media. Bit of a contradiction, no? .

I'm not an anarchist, and you're full of crap.

Even though he's a good mate of mine I don't see Alf ignoring or distorting the nature of the proletariat within any class division.

There's an abiding myth around Jews, taken up and used by the bourgeoisie in various forms, that is outside the question of religion and has a historical existence of its own. I haven't read any of the links above, nor some of the longer posts, but I agree with Serge's post above and his framework of the "others", the fear of differences, outsiders, that's all too relevant today. Scapegoating and the pogrom mentality (something that can take on its own dynamic in certain circumstances) is never far away in capitalism.

Zionism is the particular expression of a "nation" born from the guts of imperialism, which lives in constant fear of war and whose main purpose is war. It is a "typical" nation, with certain specifics, of a decaying social system.

excuuuse me for upsetting the purity of your website. I didn't know that anarchists liked to maintain total control over their media. Bit of a contradiction, no? .

If we maintain "total control", how come you can still post? So, no contradiction at all. But you can still take your megaphone desktop tool and shove it up your ass. And if you do intend to stick around, at least bother reading the threads you post to because what you wrote had fuck all to do with the discussion but instead a canned defence of Israel that was supposed to do... what?

Serge Forward

S. Artesian, what distinguished FAS and the Jewish anarchists from other anarchists would, I assume, have been a shared commonality, shared experience derived from past religious and ongoing cultural identity and language.

With anti-semitism and the Holocaust, I don't think it was about the religion though but was more about politics of the "other", a perceived or actual cultural "otherness" that was easy to scapegoat for political ends. For the record, I don't buy into the economic role of Jews either... though Leon's book does look interesting.

Let's not assume. We're talking about history. We can know. You claimed some other commonality using specific examples. I'm just asking you to not assume what the commonality was, but what in all actuality was the characteristic that distinguished FAS and other examples from "non-Jewish" anarchists. Somewhere along the line, it traces back to a shared religion, or a shared interpretation of the religion (Ashkenazi, as opposed to Asian, Arabic, or African Jews).

Leon's book is very interesting. I recommend it.

As for the "other" thesis; what was the "otherness" based on? Physical appearance? Blonde-haired blue-eyed Jews were gassed in the camps. Hitler doesn't refer to his struggle against "the other"-- he identifies the other as "Jews," who share a religion, which he then distorts to characterize Jews as a "race."

So, according to Artesian, the Cubano government is justified because it replaced the repressive government of Batista. I'm not arguing that. In fact I agree with it. Choices are made, meaning that more progressive choice is the better one. Applying this argument to Israel, before its creation it was a colony or Rome, then the Ottomans, then the British, all of which were colonizers and repressive in varying degrees to the local population. So in comes Israel which is opposed by the Arab League because they don't want a Jewish state in the midst of what they consider their sphere, their goal of an Arab dominated Middle East. These Arab states were without exception undemocratic, repressive states. So I go with Israel just like you go with Cuba.

It's going to be fun watching Artesian rip you a new one.

Applying this argument to Israel, before its creation it was a colony or Rome, then the Ottomans, then the British, all of which were colonizers and repressive in varying degrees to the local population.

But you fail to note that when "Israel came", it also repressed the local population. And still does. And no, that Jews were oppressed and thrown out of Arab countries does not justify anything Israel is currently doing to Palestinians. It just shows that wherever some bourgeois faction wants to create a state, they will be xenophobic as fuck.

AndrewX

So, according to Artesian, the Cubano government is justified because it replaced the repressive government of Batista. I'm not arguing that. In fact I agree with it. Choices are made, meaning that more progressive choice is the better one. Applying this argument to Israel, before its creation it was a colony or Rome, then the Ottomans, then the British, all of which were colonizers and repressive in varying degrees to the local population. So in comes Israel which is opposed by the Arab League because they don't want a Jewish state in the midst of what they consider their sphere, their goal of an Arab dominated Middle East. These Arab states were without exception undemocratic, repressive states. So I go with Israel just like you go with Cuba.

I don't "justify" the Cuban government; I explain, and support the historical process of the Cuban Revolution, more than a technical difference. I recognize that the Cuban revolution was the response to a police state that deprived the majority of the population of safe drinking water, access to medicine, education, sanitation, literacy in order to preserve the accumulation of value by a small minority, and accumulation by the US bourgeoisie.

This is not about making "choices," as if the Palestinians "chose" to leave Palestine when the state of Israel was declared, rather than being compelled to leave; forced to endure expropriation of property; threatened with loss of life and livelihood.

You asked a bunch of self-serving rhetorical questions-- and I provided historically accurate corrections to your nonsense. Now all of a sudden you drop that-- is Israel just like South Africa? You fucking-A bet it is. Now you don't want to deal what's been done in the West Bank; what's been done to Gaza. Now you don't want to grapple with the division of the West Bank into territories with the original residents restricted to the least viable. Now you don't want to deal with any of that because your self-serving abstractions have been exposed to be the pile of shit they are.

Now we get a different self-serving history; how Palestine once upon a time was a Roman colony, and Ottoman possession, a British protectorate, and how all of that was repressive. Yeah, and so what?

The issue isn't Rome or London or Instanbul. The issue isn't what the "Arab League" wants or doesn't want. The issue is what it took to create your "progressive, socialist, democratic, equal rights granting" Israel. It took terrorism, warfare, against a resident population in order to expel them and seize the property and territory left behind. It took those things, and it continues to take them. So yeah, Israel is precisely that product of European colonialism, and does not stand as an antithesis of the Arab league; the antithesis of "intolerance," of inequality, of dictatorship. Israel stands as the product of dispossession of a resident population; and continued oppression, aggrandizement, and, IMO, war crimes. Anybody who thinks not has never ever seen what white phosphorous does to the human body.

Short version AndrewX: Fuck you and that IDF issue donkey you rode in on.

Yes Khawaga, Israel repressed its enemies just like every state has done, does, and will do throughout history. Otherwise they don't survive. You can argue that states in general should then not exist, which I think you did previously, but to single out Israel is unfair, and frankly, racist (anti-semitic i.e., anit-Jewish).

Khawaga

It's going to be fun watching Artesian rip you a new one.

Sure he needed one anyway:

But you can still take your megaphone desktop tool and shove it up your ass

.

Yes Khawaga, Israel repressed its enemies just like every state has done, does, and will do throughout history. Otherwise they don't survive. You can argue that states in general should then not exist, which I think you did previously, but to single out Israel is unfair, and frankly, racist (anti-semitic i.e., anit-Jewish).

On this we completely agree. Well but for calling indigenous people "enemies".

Just earlier I wrote

Yes, Zionism is fucking bad because all forms of nationalism is bad. Anarchist don't oppose the state of Israel because it's an exceptional evil but because it is a violent, racist state like any other.

So you supposed "gotcha" about singling out Israel completely misses the point. And, in fact, if you'd bothered just a bit to read what people on this site write about Israel, you'd find that the majority consensus is that singling out Israel among all other states is racist because what Israel is doing now is something that almost all states have done and continue to do.

Do you really think you're the first of your megaphone using kind that's come on this site? And do you really think we've not heard all of your arguments before? You nationalists are all the fucking same and say the same.

factvalue

Khawaga wrote:
It's going to be fun watching Artesian rip you a new one.
Sure he needed one anyway:

Quote:
But you can still take your megaphone desktop tool and shove it up your ass

ZING! That made me actually lol.

As did that megaphone craic, why Khawag, I didn't know you had such a pithy style to you, I like that, o yes!

Khawage: "It's going to be fun watching Artesian rip you a new one.....You nationalists are all the fucking same and say the same." This thread is about nationalism? I thought it was about Zionism. I'll wait to see what Artesian has to write. He appears to be more rational and intelligent and avoids anal references. You sound like you spent a lot of time in lockup and enjoyed every anal minute of it.

Craic? Are you a Geordie? And yes, I am not known for being pithy. On that we are quite alike.

This thread is about nationalism? I thought it was about Zionism.

You do know that Zionism is just a particular word for Israeli nationalism, right? I mean Zionism as a movement emerged together with all kinds of nationalist movements (although granted it wasn't at first Israeli nationalism, but became so later). In any case, this thread was about anti-semitism.

You sound like you spent a lot of time in lockup and enjoyed every anal minute of it.

Great and now the nationalist makes rape jokes and homophobic slurs. Colour me surprised.

hey factvalue- your strawman showed up on the thread after all!

Khawaga

Craic? Are you a Geordie? And yes, I am not known for being pithy. On that we are quite alike.

No, Irish, craic = crack. I hope you didn't take it as a criticism or back-handed compliment, your megaphone comment made me giggle quite a bit is all. Anyway, back to the tabloid buffoonery of our new nationalist.

Ah, no offence taken at all. And didn't know craic was irish, then again my familiarity with that term is from watching Geordie Shore.

AndrewX

Khawage: "It's going to be fun watching Artesian rip you a new one.....You nationalists are all the fucking same and say the same." This thread is about nationalism? I thought it was about Zionism. I'll wait to see what Artesian has to write. He appears to be more rational and intelligent and avoids anal references. You sound like you spent a lot of time in lockup and enjoyed every anal minute of it.

In case you missed it, it's in post 392 above. Take your little homage to "freedom loving, democratic Israel" and send it to those freedom-loving democratic souls in the Israel government who advocate driving the Palestinians from Gaza into the desert, and penning them there until the government can decide what's to be done with them.

And above the entrance to the detention camps, in Hebrew, will be inscribed "Arbeit Macht Frei."

S. Artesian

And above the entrance to the detention camps, in Hebrew, will be inscribed "Arbeit Macht Frei."

And you were doing so well until you had to go and spoil it with your Israel/Nazi analogy. Fucking rubbish that.

Come on now Serge, if the Israeli's are going to just keep on playing the holocaust card while they're doing all this then, you know?

But jesuithitman, which of the straw men on your list did you mean? Did you mean the one where I ramble on endlessly about some old bollocks concerning the propaganda of entities like the ADL influencing debate about anti-Semitism, as in post 332:

factvalue

I was referring, as I have been for a while now, to the propaganda of entities such as the ADL. I think such propaganda influences discussions like these and opinions such as Alf's.

sure could you not forgive me exaggerating a wee bit just to make a point, come on, play fair...or no...wait a minute, didn't someone, I think it was Malva or someone...didn't Malva explicitly wheel out some 'figures' produced by this notorious, despicable, repellent, corrupt organisation in post 92:

Malva

If we were all blessed with a research grant and years of experience to carry out a quantitative sociological study on the extent of antisemitism on the left maybe that would be a reasonable demand. Unfortunately, such research does not exist and we have to rely on analysing the statements that we come across in our own experience. However, there are studies of the general population carried out by the ADL: http://global100.adl.org/ It reveals some shocking facts.

- 'facts', that's a good one. But I won't go on about it and risk annoying you, S. Artesian dealt pretty thoroughly with it in post 96 (you should read the thread some time if you're going to join in like).

Or maybe this isn't the pile of straw you'd been thinking of. Perhaps you meant that one where I was chundering on about peaks in anti-Semitism having something to do with IDF massacres (fuck me, now if that's not delusional I don't know what is, what a complete fantasist I must be, wtf eh?), you know, the one that Ed had been wanting me to produce evidence for in post 248:

Ed

As an interesting aside, I think factvalue's point about "genuine anti-semitism" rising alongside massacre by the state of Israel is a fair assumption (though obv needs verifying with stats). I would agree that much anti-semitism is driven these days by the very real atrocities committed by Israel.

only to go silent when I did (from Tel Aviv University and the CST for example – sorry if I'm going on a bit, maybe you could take a break at this point and stare out of a window, I know you don't like to get into detail and get bogged down in a lot old words 'n' stuff). The weird thing about that one is how it was already contained in Ed's post 72, while he was discussing the effect of the 'We are all Hamas' slogan:

Ed

while it has basically fuck all effect whether Westerners sloganeer "We are all Hamas" on what happens in Israel/Palestine it does have an effect on how acceptable people think anti-semitism generally and so opens the door for anti-semitic acts towards Jews in the West (and I'm thinking of how many anti-semitic incidents are motivated by pro-Palestine sympathy).

I mean, sewing the arms and legs on our Mr Straw just a little, would a massacre by the IDF issue in absolutely zero pro-Palestine sympathy or something? D'you reckon?

But no, you're right, we should keep all patrols on heightened Straw Alert until further notice. How's it going over at Anarchist News International btw?

But jesuithitman, which of the straw men on your list did you mean?

I think the straw man jesuithitman is referring to is none other than AndrewX. Our jesuit was making a joke... I think.

Khawaga

But jesuithitman, which of the straw men on your list did you mean?

I think the straw man jesuithitman is referring to is none other than AndrewX. Our jesuit was making a joke... I think.

Fuck me, I wasn't expecting that.

factvalue

Come on now Serge, if the Israeli's are going to just keep on playing the holocaust card while they're doing all this then, you know?

The title of this thread is Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitic? Of course, the answer is, it depends. But your use of terms like 'playing the holocaust card', your repeatedly banging on about 'the holocaust industry' and your 'Jew this and Jew that' earlier in the thread tells me all I need to know. Your anti-zionism has clearly drifted into anti-semitism. I'm amazed you've been tolerated on here for so long.

Serge Forward

S. Artesian

And above the entrance to the detention camps, in Hebrew, will be inscribed "Arbeit Macht Frei."

And you were doing so well until you had to go and spoil it with your Israel/Nazi analogy. Fucking rubbish that.

Except Serge, Moishe Feiglin, deputy-speaker of the Israeli Knesset did actually advocate precisely that-- removing all the Palestinians in Gaza to camps in the desert, until the Israeli government could decide what's to be done with them.

If that isn't analogous to Nazi ideology, if that doesn't just scream out "Arbeit Macht Frei"--well, it does to me.

And there's more than just that: Now the Knesset is considering deporting the families of those killed by the IDF, or the Israel police, for "anti-Israel" activities from the West Bank and to Gaza: see here

So if the Nazi analogy is "rubbish," would the "strategic hamlet" analogy be more apt? Or maybe the concentration of the Cuban civilian population in camps during the revolutionary war against Spain?

SF, I really don't understand how you can think this, or is it just straightforward smear? You said previously that you were familiar with Finkelstein - these are his phrases. Is HE anti-Semitic in your view?

It looks very much like we've nothing more to say to each other on the matter because I can only surmise that your own prejudice is influencing your position. Good luck to you!

S. Artesian, I know what Zionism is all about and you don't need to convince me of how shit it is and what vileness its adherents are capable of. But by equating it with the inscription on the gates at Auschwitz is using an anti-semitic trope.

Artesian I don't "justify" the Cuban government; I explain, and support the historical process of the Cuban Revolution, more than a technical difference. I recognize that the Cuban revolution was the response to a police state that deprived the majority of the population of safe drinking water, access to medicine, education, sanitation, literacy in order to preserve the accumulation of value by a small minority, and accumulation by the US bourgeoisie.

You don't justify the Cuban government but you "explain" the circumstances for its creation and you "support" it. Good. So why can't you apply the same standards to Israel?
[/b]
This is not about making "choices," as if the Palestinians "chose" to leave Palestine when the state of Israel was declared, rather than being compelled to leave; forced to endure expropriation of property; threatened with loss of life and livelihood.

The Cubans were fighting Batista's army. They then were fighting terrorists, enemies from within...the revolution forcible took control of property and expelled landowners in order to incorporate those properties into state control. Many people lost their lives, lost their properties. Some innocent. Some not. During the Israel War of Independence similar things happened. It was a war and most Arabs were not sympathetic to the Jewish state. One big difference between Cuba and Israel is that the US doesn't accept Palestinians are political refugees. If all the Cubans who left Cuba were rounded up into camps in a swamp in Florida, there would be a lot more sympathy for them. But fortunately for them, they got citizenship.

You asked a bunch of self-serving rhetorical questions-- and I provided historically accurate corrections to your nonsense. Now all of a sudden you drop that-- is Israel just like South Africa? You fucking-A bet it is. Now you don't want to deal what's been done in the West Bank; what's been done to Gaza. Now you don't want to grapple with the division of the West Bank into territories with the original residents restricted to the least viable. Now you don't want to deal with any of that because your self-serving abstractions have been exposed to be the pile of shit they are.

The West Bank was controlled by Jordan for some 19 years. How come Jordan isn't criticized for not granting a state to the Palestinians? Then Jordan attacked, lost it to Israel, and ceded it to Israel. Sounds straight forward enough. Gaza was ceded back to Palestinian control in 2005 and now Hamas uses it to launch attacks into Israel. Great way to encourage Israel to cooperate with the Palestinians.

Now we get a different self-serving history; how Palestine once upon a time was a Roman colony, and Ottoman possession, a British protectorate, and how all of that was repressive. Yeah, and so what?
It's about choices. Cubans threw out Batista. Israel through out the British and the Arab League. I wonder how many Syrians living in the Golan Heights want to become part of Syria right now. Yes, it is about choices.

The issue isn't Rome or London or Instanbul. The issue isn't what the "Arab League" wants or doesn't want. The issue is what it took to create your "progressive, socialist, democratic, equal rights granting" Israel. It took terrorism, warfare, against a resident population in order to expel them and seize the property and territory left behind. It took those things, and it continues to take them. So yeah, Israel is precisely that product of European colonialism, and does not stand as an antithesis of the Arab league; the antithesis of "intolerance," of inequality, of dictatorship. Israel stands as the product of dispossession of a resident population; and continued oppression, aggrandizement, and, IMO, war crimes. Anybody who thinks not has never ever seen what white phosphorous does to the human body.

Name me a state in the world that didn't require terrorism and warfare to create it. Israel was more than willing to abide by the UN vote to partition Palestine peacefully. That didn't happen. No, the IDF is not made up of choir boys, or in this case yeshiva boys. Neither are Palestinian suicide bombers, knife wielders, ...

Short version AndrewX: Fuck you and that IDF issue donkey you rode in on

If you want to fuck my donkey, go for it. Better yet, go join Hamas. They would love to strap you up with a few pounds of C4 and drop you into a cafe in Tel Aviv. It's idiots like you which make the left irrational, unable to see where progress can be made.

Serge Forward

S. Artesian, I know what Zionism is all about and you don't need to convince me of how shit it is and what vileness its adherents are capable of. But by equating it with the inscription on the gates at Auschwitz is using an anti-semitic trope.

Sorry, Serge. If you think identifying a policy of deportation, collective punishment, and a call for concentration camps as Nazi-like is using an antisemitic trope, then you need explain how such a trope, a "misdirection" has been used in the past to discriminate against Jews.

Can you show that? I don't think so, because a) I haven't misidentified, or distorted, a thing. I have pointed out how precisely analogous Israeli policies to policies used by the Nazis b) where has any such identification ever been used to discriminate against Jews?

Your objection really doesn't hold any water, and is, in fact an attempt to identify something as a "trope" in order to avoid dealing with the real content.

How is the advocacy of concentration camps by Israelis for the incarceration of Palestinians different from the Nazi advocacy of concentration camps for the incarceration of Jews?

Think what you like, but I'm really not going to engage with someone who howls "antisemitism" when somebody points out how Israeli treatment the Palestinians parallels, and converges, with the Nazi treatment of Jews.

Blablabla, more justifications for Israel based on how bad other states are. It's really the worst argument for the existence of any state. You should try a lot harder.

And also, most of us don't consider us to be part of the left; one of the reasons for that is the left's naïve cheerleading of national liberation groups like Hamas. But in any case, you're not a Lettie what with your homophobia and rape culture jokes. You're just a Zionist troll.

You don't justify the Cuban government but you "explain" the circumstances for its creation and you "support" it. Good. So why can't you apply the same standards to Israel?

Because the Cuban Revolution involved class struggle, and the attempt to overthrow a brutalizing, corrupt, capitalist regime that was an appendage of international capitalism.

The establishment of Israel established a brutalizing, corrupt, capitalist regime as an appendage of international capitalism through the forced expropriation and expulsion of a resident population.

The West Bank was controlled by Jordan for some 19 years. How come Jordan isn't criticized for not granting a state to the Palestinians? Then Jordan attacked, lost it to Israel, and ceded it to Israel. Sounds straight forward enough. Gaza was ceded back to Palestinian control in 2005 and now Hamas uses it to launch attacks into Israel. Great way to encourage Israel to cooperate with the Palestinians.

WTF does that have to do with anything? First off in the 1967 war, as in 1956, Israel attacked first. Not that it matters. Jordan didn't fucking cede the West Bank to Israel. Israel conquered and refused to return the territory. Sounds straight forward enough to you? Only because you a dissembler. Only because you make stuff up to suit your needs.

Name me a state in the world that didn't require terrorism and warfare to create it. Israel was more than willing to abide by the UN vote to partition Palestine peacefully. That didn't happen. No, the IDF is not made up of choir boys, or in this case yeshiva boys. Neither are Palestinian suicide bombers, knife wielders, ...

So then why are you upset when it's pointed out that Israel is exactly on a par with what the British did in India, in South Africa? That Israel, rather being the benign little experiment in socialist democracy, is a state founded upon, and maintained by terror against a previously resident population?

If you want to fuck my donkey, go for it. Better yet, go join Hamas. They would love to strap you up with a few pounds of C4 and drop you into a cafe in Tel Aviv. It's idiots like you which make the left irrational, unable to see where progress can be made.

Priceless. "Where progress can be made." All hail the progress that willy peter bestows upon humanity.

Khawaga

But jesuithitman, which of the straw men on your list did you mean?

I think the straw man jesuithitman is referring to is none other than AndrewX. Our jesuit was making a joke... I think.

thanks khawaga. the state of things--just. wow.

S. Artesian, fine, don't engage. Besides, it's tiresome trying to discuss with someone who seems to think the substance of the discussion is secondary to how far they can piss. If you really don't see the anti-Semitic trope in the imagery you're suggesting (and no one here, beyond AndrewX, is denying the oppressive actions of the Israeli regime), then you're not as clever as you think you are.

AndrewX:

Better yet, go join Hamas. They would love to strap you up with a few pounds of C4 and drop you into a cafe in Tel Aviv. It's idiots like you

The Palestinian 'state' and the State of Israel are enemies just as Sinn Fein and the British Government are enemies. Eventually they will sit down round a conference table and decide how to carve up their working classes; assuming there is no collusion already.

Serge Forward

S. Artesian, fine, don't engage. Besides, it's tiresome trying to discuss with someone who seems to think the substance of the discussion is secondary to how far they can piss. If you really don't see the anti-Semitic trope in the imagery you're suggesting (and no one here, beyond AndrewX, is denying the oppressive actions of the Israeli regime), then you're not as clever as you think you are.

This is typical of your style of 'engagement'. SA addresses what you wrote so you just write it again. No matter how vague or knee-jerk your original assertions or allegations are, they're yours and no one is going to deprive you of them. Good for you. Keep them, the only people interested in your precious rubbish are those with as little to say as you have.

For the record, factvalue, I don't think S. Artesian is an anti-Semite but I believe he did use an anti-Semitic trope. You, however, hold some incredibly suspect views and you're a nasty little shite. I repeat, I honestly have no idea why you're tolerated on here. Either way, you'll not get the time of day off me from now on. Do one.

I hope somebody who agrees with Serge, explains how drawing the parallel between the Knesset deputy-speaker's desire to empty Gaza and place Palestinians in concentration camps and the Nazi policy of placing Jews in concentration camps, is utilizing an anti-semitic trope-- like the other tropes-- "Jews control the banks;" "Jews control the media;" "Jews control the world."

Who would have thunk that "Israel's government treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews" actually means "Jews are Nazis"???

EDIT: Well, there's some good news-- I believe AndrewX has been banned.

Serge Forward

You, however, hold some incredibly suspect views and you're a nasty little shite. I repeat, I honestly have no idea why you're tolerated on here. Either way, you'll not get the time of day off me from now on. Do one.

Really? O well, I'll do my best to try and get along without the masterful subtlety and nuance of your horrendous, politically illiterate emissions.

And just to give fuel to the "anti-semanticists" out there (as opposed to anti-semites) a "trope" is the use of words in a figurative, metaphorical sense-- in the non-literal sense. A trope can also mean a common or overused rhetorical or literary device.

I don't know how describing the actions of the Israeli government as literally the actions of the Nazi government in its treatment of Jews can be a trope; and neither is such a description a common or overused rhetorical device.

But that's just me. Others might have a different definition. I'd just love to find out how criticizing the Knesset's desire to expel Palestinians and put them into concentration camps as a Nazi policy becomes an adventure in antisemitic stereotyping. I did not, for example, say "Jews are Nazis," "All Jews want Palestinians in concentration camps." Or is it because those in charge of the Israeli government are Jews that it becomes a "trope"/

Come on plenty of people think I trivialize anti-semitism, that I indulge in such tropes, so explain this one, would you?

I think that counter-posing a proletarian nature to the Cuban regime in relation to the specific expressions of Israel distorts the question. Imperialism is certainly the raison d’etre of Israel but, with different specifics, no less imperialist interests existed in Cuba.

After a genuine workers’ uprising the working class in Cuba exchanged the Batista regime and all its priviliges to the Castro regime with the privileges, repression and penury of a stalinist state. After being rebuffed by the US Castro turned to Russia in the Cold War and laid the ideological ground for all the “anti-Yankee, anti-imperialism” lies of populist “socialist” charlatans in the region ever since. The hygiene and education of many workers improved after the coup but this was a result of the deliberate development of health and education as a weapon of Cuban imperialism within the Russian bloc. As well as soft there was hard Cuban power with 60,000 Cuban troops, directed by the East German Stasti, defending Russian interests in Angola within the proxy wars that raged in Africa.

I think that it’s also a mistake in relation to Israel to underestimate the role played by the Arab regimes in the repression of the Palestinians. On a body count basis the Arab regimes have killed more Palestinians, imprisoned more and put more into various “camps”. The Israeli regimes have been complicit in all this when they haven’t openly initiated it. The already existing collusion between the Israeli state and the PLO was laid bare by wikileaks a while ago with its leader Abbas, begging his Israeli masters for a “fig-leaf”, anything to give him the least credibility.

I still think that one of the bases of the question of anti-Semitism is the fear and suspicion of the “other” – just one expression it and we see it exploding today throughout the Middle East and into Europe, making this a critical question for the working class. While there are and can be “distinguishing features” to this fear (colour, religion, language, accent, etc.), there doesn’t have to be because the bourgeoisie can also use it as the demonisation of the working class, as in “the enemy within”.

The hygiene and education of many workers improved after the coup but this was a result of the deliberate development of health and education as a weapon of Cuban imperialism within the Russian bloc.

"The hygiene and education of many workers improved after the coup but this was a result of the deliberate development of health and education as a weapon of Cuban imperialism within the Russian bloc"

Huh? What Cuban imperialism?? What external country or people did Cuba subordinate to its own ruling class' need for accumulation?

Education, healthcare, access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation services improved not just for "many workers" but for the population as a whole.

You don't like what happened to the Cuban Revolution? Neither do I, but let's give the devil, including the bureaucratic devil, his due. It was a revolution. The improvement in living standards in Cuba was not done as a propaganda item, and it certainly was not an island wide equivalent of a Potemkin village. It was real. It was subsidized by the fSU, but it involved work, planning, and organization by those who led the struggle. And it still exists, although it has been eroded, and the bourgeoisie can't wait to dismantle it entirely.

As well as soft there was hard Cuban power with 60,000 Cuban troops, directed by the East German Stasti, defending Russian interests in Angola within the proxy wars that raged in Africa.

This is not accurate. See the book Conflicting Missions..... Many studies agree that Cuba's decision to send troops to Angola to preserve the MPLA against the apartheid troops and Savimbi's guerrillas was independent of the Soviet Union's desires, and was not directed by the East German Stasi or any other USSR surrogate.

The interests that the Cuban troops did wind up protecting were those.......of US oil producers-- protecting for example the extraction facilities of US oil major Mobil against attacks from forces opposed to the Angola government, and the revenues the government received from the extraction.

Actually, there were little Soviet interests to be protected in Angola, and the mythology of such Soviet interests, "Soviet imperialism," was used by China to rationalize its backing of Savimbi and .... apartheid South Africa's incursion.

Cuban leadership assessed Africa as a continent ripe for "national liberation," for "anti-imperialist struggle" and consistently, and persistently, intervened with and without the support of the USSR to advance those struggles against those supported by advanced capitalism. Protecting "Russian interests" had little to do with it; and advancing Cuban "imperialism" had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Anyway, is there anyone out there, anywhere, who cares to explain how-- when the deputy-speaker of the Israeli Knesset advocates forcible expulsion of an entire ethnicity from an area; confining that population in concentration camps; how when the Israeli Knesset support forcible expulsion of families of individuals identified with "anti-Israel activities"-- identifying those policies as akin to, if not identical with, the policies and actions of Nazis towards Jews, is employing an antisemitic trope?

Anybody?

..and, is Norman Finkelstein anti-Semitic? How about Edwin Black?

You can't have nationalism without imperialism - it goes with the territory and it's no different for Cuban nationalism, including Cuban nationalism with a Stalinist face.

Many workers in the west were hoodwinked by the "exceptionalism" of a so-called Cuban socialism which was constantly being propagandised by and justified by various elements of Stalinism.

S. Artesian #415
‘How is the advocacy of concentration camps by Israelis for the incarceration of Palestinians different from the Nazi advocacy of concentration camps for the incarceration of Jews?’

I believe your comment was over the top as the Nazi concentration camp remark implies that the Israeli state is planning to liquidate the Palestinians. They are brutal and oppressive though I’ve seen no evidence that they have opted for ‘the final solution’. You’re weakening the good points in your posts – cool down.

baboon

You can't have nationalism without imperialism - it goes with the territory and it's no different for Cuban nationalism, including Cuban nationalism with a Stalinist face.

Many workers in the west were hoodwinked by the "exceptionalism" of a so-called Cuban socialism which was constantly being propagandised by and justified by various elements of Stalinism.

So then, what country or people, outside its borders did the Cuban ruling class subjugate to its needs for accumulation?

Auld-bod

S. Artesian #415
‘How is the advocacy of concentration camps by Israelis for the incarceration of Palestinians different from the Nazi advocacy of concentration camps for the incarceration of Jews?’

I believe your comment was over the top as the Nazi concentration camp remark implies that the Israeli state is planning to liquidate the Palestinians. They are brutal and oppressive though I’ve seen no evidence that they have opted for ‘the final solution’. You’re weakening the good points in your posts – cool down.

Well, I happen to think the deputy-speaker of the Israeli Knesset has exactly that in mind. He said what he said. He spoke of concentration camps "in the desert."

But be that as it may, the issue isn't whether the comment is "over the top." The issue is how the comment is in fact an "anti-semitic" trope. Exactly how does the comment rely upon antisemitic stereotypes, caricatures, distortions, etc?

I'm not objecting to a disagreement with my assessment. I object to the characterization of my argument as employing antisemitic images, language, etc.

The propaganda that facilitates all this braying of 'anti-Semitism!!' when the actions of the Israeli State are compared with those of the Nazis, not long ago resulted in that putrid arch-Zionist Alan Dershowitz alleging on the Harvard Law School website that Norman Finkelstein's deceased mother, who'd been through the worst of the Nazi holocaust from the Warsaw ghetto to concentration and slave labour camps and who, like his father, had lost her entire family, had been a Nazi collaborator.

As Finkelstein said at the time, it's the type of strategy promoted by Hitler in Mein Kampf: a lie's credibility is directly proportional to its size, so make your lies as spectacular as possible if you want people to believe you. Make your claims as brazen as possible and couch them in the crudest form you can and the mud will stick. Because 'after all' people will say, 'surely no-one would make such allegations unless they were true. Yes, mm, and that would explain why he's criticising Israel, mm, mm'. Dershowitz and those like him understand these things.

I was in Israel recently, only for a week, visiting family and some historical sites. I learned a lot about what happened to my Krakow relatives during the second world war, especially from what some of those cousins who survived wrote in an autobiography and a legal deposition.

The three survivors who I knew personally are all dead now. The one who wrote the autobiography, who I have not met and prior to my visit had never heard of, is still alive. Much of the conversation with my still-living cousins was about family history, but we occasionally touched on the state of the nation. The oldest cousin, on my mother's side, now lives in Jerusalem but was born in Britain. He follows a form of orthodox Judaism which I think derives from the liberal humanist tradition of Maimonedes. He considers himself to be a Zionist, but has told me that he is extremely alarmed by what he himself described as a racist and fascist tendency taking hold of the country.

The husband of a cousin on my father's side describes himself as a social scientist and an atheist, and lives in Tel Aviv. He said that he can no longer bear going to Jerusalem, which he feels has been lost to the frummers, the ultra-religious. He even said that he was ashamed to be an Israeli. In a discussion about elections and voting, he responded to me by saying that he used to abstain from all the elections in Israel, but has since changed his mind and today he supports what he called the "far left" party in the Knesset (Meretz, I think). At the same time he maintained that the left is almost non-existent in Israel. For him Israel is already a fascist state.

From the 1920s on, Zionism began to give rise to fascist currents, but originally this was a minority in a movement increasingly dominated by 'Labour Zionism'. Today the heirs of Jabotinsky, Beigin, the Stern Gang and (although he's still officially beyond the pale in Israel) the American "Arabs Raus" Rabbi, Meier Kahane - these are now the dominant trends in Zionism as it manifests itself in the state of Israel. I don't think that it's historically accurate to define Israel as a fascist state, but seriously examining the convergence between the current practices and ideologies of the state of Israel, and those of fascism and of Hitler's Germany, can by no means be dismissed as an anti-semitic trope. It's certainly an irony of history, not only that the Jews created their own Black Hundred gangs, but also that these same Black Hundreds should eventually become the heirs of the Jewish state.

But it's another irony of history that numerous ideological heirs of Hitler have found a new way of exposing the sinister designs and atrocities of the Jews: claiming that they are just as evil as Hitler, perhaps even worse than the Nazis. So the Star of David=Swastika symbolism has indeed been very widely taken up by the current propagandists of anti-semitism. This reality should also not be underestimated.

He said that he can no longer bear going to Jerusalem, which he feels has been lost to the frummers, the ultra-religious.

My mother, also a liberal atheist Jew, expresses the same prejudice against religious Jews. I have never understood that aspect of her character.

I think it is simplistic to describe Israel as fascistic. It is a country split down the middle: a fascist state and the common people.

Appreciate Alf's comments. There's no getting around the parallels, and convergences, so evident in volk nationalisms.

Schmoopie

It is a country split down the middle: a fascist state and the common people.

I don't recall describing Israel as fascist. "Apartheid" or "apartheid-like" absolutely. However there's no way to deny the "final solution" inherent in the Zionist project. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard more than one Zionist, expound, more than one time, upon how much he or she wishes "all the Arabs dead." That's an actual quote from an actual "discussion" with five US Jewish Zionists here in NYC; said by one, agreed to by the other four. And that's not the only time or the only statement I've encountered.

I disagree with Schmoopie's analysis: for one thing, all "countries" are split-- between the state representing the ruling class, and the rest of society. Israel's no different, in this regard from 1930s Germany, or Italy. Hell, you could describe the US South in 1861 as "split" between the state and the "common people." Doesn't make a bit of difference to slaves, though, did it?

...all "countries" are split-- between the state representing the ruling class, and the rest of society. Israel's no different...

I agree