The Three Way Fight
March 13, 2007This is the text of a talk I gave this past weekend at the National Conference on Organized Resistance in Washington DC. It’s not necessarily directly relevant to my research on STO, although I do mention the debt the Three Way Fight perspective owes to some of the anti-fascist work done by STO in the late seventies and into the eighties. Regardless, I thought it would be good to post it up here in hopes of getting critical feedback. Also, for what it’s worth, I prefaced my talk with a brief attempt to position myself, saying something more or less like this: “I’m not Jewish and I’m not Muslim, and I have no real expertise in the Middle East. But I care deeply about the topics mentioned in my title, and I believe in the principle that all people should attempt to engage critically with such important issues. As a result, my talk will hopefully be brief, and we’ll have a lot of time at the end for an open discussion. I’m learning as I go here, and hopefully that will be true for everyone in this room during the next hour and a half.”
****************
Challenges to Capitalism, Challenges for the Left:
Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the Three Way Fight
Washington, DC March 11, 2007
This talk is about the present and the future, but I’m a historian, so I want to begin by talking briefly about the past. The recent past, mind you; specifically, that heady time just five and a half years ago, immediately before the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Until that day, the anti-capitalist movement in the global north was riding a modest wave of success, beginning with the events in Seattle in 1999 and most recently featuring the massive showing in Genoa, Italy in the summer of 2001.
Those of us who had been active in that cycle of growth were probably over-optimistic about the immediate prospects for building a strongly anti-capitalist movement out of the mish-mash that was known variously as the anti-globalization movement, the global justice movement, or by a variety of other names. Certainly we were naïve about the state of the world and of the character of the forces arrayed against us.
But 9-11 took from us one of the most important things that contributed to our limited success: momentum. The attacks of that day deflated our sails, although we mostly didn’t recognize it until a year or two later. At the same time, that year or two changed the entire context in which we operated. The reasonable pacing of (and relatively easy access to) global economic summits – Seattle, Prague, Quebec, Genoa – was replaced by a much more rapid-fire list of places that were far more difficult to reach: Kabul, Kandahar, Baghdad, Fallujah.
More fundamentally, our previous understanding of neoliberalism and globalization was challenged, and most of the former anti-globalization movement became convinced that “globalization” was suddenly less pressing than regional geo-political power struggles characterized by terms like “terrorism” or “imperialism,” or “war for oil.” Especially during the build-up to the Iraq War, many radicals came to believe that divisions within global capital, often described using the old left jargon of inter-imperialist rivalries, had over-powered the global capitalist unity that we believed had characterized the various summits at which we had protested. (As it happens, these changes seem to have been largely illusory, and the shift in leftwing perspective was shortsighted at best.)
In the aftermath, a small number of us, veterans of a range of movements and struggles, began to develop what seemed to us a somewhat novel way of thinking about the world. Expanding the insights we had gained from involvement with anti-fascist activities in the preceding decade, we started talking about a three-way fight, about a world best conceptualized by thinking not simply about us versus them, but about them, them and us.
At its core, the three way fight is a critique of authoritarianism as much as it is a response to fascism. It is also a way to understand various social movements through a sort of schematic categorization. The two sets of “them” that I mention here can roughly be taken to represent the capitalists and the fascists, and the “us” can be thought of as the anti-authoritarian revolutionary left. But the three way fight is not dogma; it requires that anyone who adopts it as a framework take the time to think through a range of questions and come to their own conclusions, whether individually or collectively. One key question is: is a given group or organization or movement revolutionary or reformist? If they are revolutionary, we can then ask, are they aiming for an authoritarian revolution or an anti-authoritarian revolution? Again, there’s no objectively correct answer to any of these questions and there’s a lot of grey area throughout, but that doesn’t let us off the hook. We still have to ask them, and we have to come up with some answers, no matter how tentative, in order to move forward.
In this framework, the global capitalist ruling class, whose movements we had tracked from summit to summit over the previous several years, could be thought of as the 800 pound gorilla in the ring, much as it was before 9-11, theories of inter-imperialist rivalry notwithstanding. The difference was in recognizing that we were not the only, nor even the most important, opposition force on the playing field. Just as the domestic fascist movement in the US had grown increasingly dangerous – and increasingly revolutionary – over the previous several decades, so too had many revolutionary movements the world over begun to appear more similar to fascism than we had previously understood. Al-Qaeda was the most prominent example in the period immediately after 9-11. As J. Sakai argued in the book Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement, “We weren’t thinking about fascism while we watched two 757s full of people fly into the ex-World Trade Center. And maybe we still weren’t thinking of fascism when we heard about the first-ever successful attack on the Pentagon. But fascism was thinking about us.”
For much of the left, the three way fight analysis of fascism was alien and confusing. This had a lot to do with decades of common-place usage among radicals where “fascist” was merely a synonym for “very, very bad.” In developing a more sophisticated understanding of the term, we looked in part to the pioneering work done two and a half decades ago by a long-defunct and little-known revolutionary group called the Sojourner Truth Organization. STO had spent considerable time and effort in the late 1970’s and early eighties analyzing and organizing against the fascist resurgence then sweeping the US. In doing so, they highlighted the insurgent, revolutionary potential of fascism, which represented a direct danger not just to the obvious targets of fascist violence (blacks, immigrants, Jews, women, gays and lesbians, and on and on), but also to the revolutionary left, and indeed to the capitalist status quo itself. Don Hamerquist, co-author with Sakai of Confronting Fascism, had been a leading member of STO, and continues to be a source of innovative ideas for our small sub-current.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, those of us from the anti-capitalist movement who were drawn to a three way fight analysis were not the only people to make connections between revolutionary Islamic movements and the fascist tradition. A range of centrist and right-wing intellectuals and politicians have done so as well, from Christopher Hitchens to President Bush, who last summer caused a stir by using the term “Islamic fascism” repeatedly. Bush’s comments were made primarily in the context of defending the brutal devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military, and often he was referring implicitly or explicitly to the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah.
Around that same time, the blog Three Way Fight became a somewhat high profile forum for left discussion of Hezbollah, largely due to several pieces posted there by Matthew Lyons, an anti-fascist researcher and writer. Lyons maintained that Hezbollah was an essentially right-wing movement built around a theocratic version of Shiite Islam inspired by Iran’s Islamic Republic, but that it was not helpful to describe them as fascist, largely because they are not revolutionaries. He also argued strenuously that the left should condemn the Israeli attacks and critically support the Lebanese resistance, even though it was led by Hezbollah.
This approach was not only a response to knee-jerk left-wing perspectives on the Middle East (both pro-Israel and pro-Hezbollah), but also a challenge to the rest of us involved in developing the three way fight analysis. Lyons was rightly concerned with the too-easy equation many of us – myself included at times – had made between right-wing anti-imperialism and fascism. Lyons disagreed with this assessment, and with its abstentionist implications: if Hezbollah, for instance, was fascist, then no self-respecting radical could in any way support them, any more than we could support Israeli aggression. In contrast, said Lyons, leftwing revolutionaries should critically support the Lebanese resistance, even as we simultaneously challenged the right-wing character of Hezbollah’s politics.
The response to Lyons and Three Way Fight from some segments of the left was instructive: despite his specific (and repeated) rejection of the position that “we should denounce Israel and Hezbollah equally,” a number of leftists criticized Lyons and Three Way Fight for being overly critical of Hezbollah. This challenge was most forcefully articulated by Rami El-Amine, an Arab leftist and co-founder of the magazine Left Turn. In an essay entitled “Anti-Arab Racism, Islam, and the Left,” El-Amine argued that Lyons’ position exemplified the white left’s internalized islamophobia and reflected “a level of acceptance of the lies about Islamism, even by radicals.” He suggested that Lyon’s analysis of Hezbollah as essentially right wing “will one day become part of one of Hilary Clinton’s … speeches justifying a war on Lebanon and Iran.”
Putting to one side this frustrating smear, El-Amine’s essay exemplifies one important type of response to the post-9-11 world, a response that argues that the major challenge for the North American left is to overcome the internalized islamophobia we have absorbed from decades of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim politics and media coverage in the US. If we can’t accomplish this task within our own ranks, El-Amine argues, we will never be able to challenge the mainstream acceptance of this sort of racism. In his words, “Exposing and ending anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism needs to be a priority in the anti-war movement and the left in general. Doing so will not only bring more Arabs and Muslims into the movement, but also undercut the racist basis of support for the war. It will also alleviate the sense of isolation and powerlessness that so many Arabs and Muslims feel as a result of being the targets of war and racism.”
In a world that seems perpetually polarized by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is easy (perhaps too easy) to see in El-Amine’s views a mirror of the arguments put forward by those radicals who believe that the central challenge facing the North American left is the danger posed by our unexamined, or at least under-examined, anti-Semitism. The disturbing history of anti-Semitism on the left stretches across generations, runs through competing trends, and taints to some extent almost all lineages of the left in this country, as a diverse range of radicals – both Jews and non-Jews – have documented.
In such a context, argue some leftists, the danger of uncritically supporting a movement like Hezbollah, simply because it stands in clear opposition to US imperial aims in the Middle East, is that to do so requires ignoring, dismissing, or rationalizing those aspects of Hezbollah’s politics that are not simply in opposition to the Israeli oppression of Lebanon, but are truly anti-Semitic. The end result, it is feared, will be a left that is hopelessly compromised in its principles, and thus incapable of mounting any effective challenge to a global capitalist system that exploits such inconsistencies quickly and effectively.
Some leftists, like the mostly British grouping gathered around the Euston Manifesto, go even further, arguing that the line between opposition to Israeli policy and opposition to Jewish-ness as such is increasingly blurry. Hezbollah, to stick with our example, not only opposes Israeli involvement in Lebanon, it is also anti-Zionist – it opposes the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. This can be perceived as simple anti-Zionism more or less uncomplicated by the occasional lapses of Hezbollah’s leadership into anti-Semitism, or it can be thought of as part of the long-standing history of anti-Semites world-wide attempting to cloak themselves with mantle of legitimate anti-Zionism, or it can be seen as evidence of the deep interpenetration between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Those of us, whether Jewish or not, who strive to be non-anti-Semitic anti-Zionists have long recognized the importance of differentiating the two concepts. But the Euston Manifesto presents an example of the opposite perspective, denouncing a context where “‘Anti-Zionism’ [that’s in quotes] has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups.” It is unclear how much traction this approach has within the US left, although I have corresponded with a handful of anarchists who have either signed the Manifesto or hold positions substantially identical on this question.
I have no interest in drawing false equivalences between these two tendencies on the left, or between the problems they describe. Both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are real problems within the North American left, but they are not “equal.” Anti-Semitism has a history going back centuries, and one of its most dangerous qualities is precisely the way in which it exploits the relative privileges granted to Jews. In this country, for instance, most Jews benefit from white skin privilege. Anti-Semitism takes these privileges and reflects them in a sort of circus fun-house mirror that makes them appear to be monstrous deformations of ill-gotten power.
This opens the door to anti-Semitic scapegoating, and plays neatly to some all-too-common forms of left analysis. For example, the anti-globalization movement’s fascination with “global financial capital” in the form of the IMF and World Bank facilitated repeated infiltrations of the movement by fascists who were upset about “the Jews” who were thought to run “the banks.” Too many anti-globalization activists accepted this logic and were ensnared by the latent anti-Semitism to which it appeals, in part because many leftists assume that there is some sort of zero-sum exchange between privilege and oppression. Anti-Semitism belies this simplistic approach, and demonstrates the need for a more dialectical understanding of how oppression works.
At the same time, however, islamophobia meshes all too well with the historic legacies of white supremacy and anti-immigrant racism that have been internalized over generations in this country. The result is a symbiotic relationship between islamophobia and other forms of racism, such that each nourishes the other in a vicious cycle of fear, hatred and disempowerment. One could even argue that islamophobia, in the North American context at least, has less to do with religion than it does with race.
In a post-September 11 world, both the frequency and the intensity of anti-Muslim bias have skyrocketed. So too, ironically, has the acceptance of such bias in black and immigrant (often latino) communities that have themselves been targeted by white supremacy. Other things being equal (which they usually aren’t), it is far more dangerous to your health, safety, freedom, and economic well-being to be Muslim than it is to be Jewish in the United States today.
Differences also exist between the two political perspectives I am describing. El-Amine and others like him, especially in the circle around Left Turn, are committed anti-capitalists and revolutionaries actively involved in anti-war and anti-racist organizing, while most of the Euston signatories are well on their way to friendly confines of liberalism and accommodation with some sort of supposedly humane capitalism. (It should be noted, however, that this situation is hardly etched in stone; the possibilities for liberal reformism exist in both camps. We should not assume that all those who are concerned with islamophobia are or will necessarily continue to be revolutionaries, nor should we assume that all those focused on anti-Semitism are or always will be reformists.)
At the same time, however, one legacy of anti-Semitism’s historic tie to the Nazis is a profound awareness within the Euston camp of the need for an anti-fascist politics, which seems lacking in the anti-war movement, and on the left more generally. This lack of awareness is especially evident in El-Amine’s attempt to tar Lyons with the specter of Hilary Clinton, as if all those who are critical of Hezbollah can be easily grouped as supporters of imperialism. In a way, this is the flip-side of the argument advanced by some Euston signatories that anti-Zionism is always “effectively” anti-Semitic.
Regardless, both problems are real, and both “camps” (to the extent they really exist outside of my rough schematic) have important truths to tell. The nineteenth century Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin famously remarked that “freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, but socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” Something similar is at work here: anti-fascism without revolution (the Euston position) guarantees capitalism’s continuing misery and devastation, while revolution without anti-fascism (the Left Turn position) all but ensures that the insurgent right will ace out the insurgent left. We need both anti-fascism and revolution.
Unfortunately, this “both, and” approach is distressingly uncommon within the North American left, largely due to what could be called “bi-polarity:” that is, the dualistic and anti-dialectical tendency to reduce complex situations to two opposing, and static, sides. In mainstream culture this over-simplification is best exemplified by Bush’s oft-quoted statement that everyone is “either with us, or with the terrorists,” a claim that has been rightly ridiculed by everyone to the left of Christopher Hitchens. But no matter how dismissive we may be of Bush’s ultimatum, a lot of radical politics is built around similar false dichotomies.
Within the left, historically speaking, one major strand of bi-polarity can be traced back to the twists and turns of Stalin-era Soviet foreign policy in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Its specific applications were quite often concerned with an analysis of the rising tide of fascism in Europe. For a time, the Soviets upheld the classic definition of fascism as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” That is, fascism was nothing more than a variation on western capitalism, and both were to be opposed.
A few years later, during the relatively short-lived Hitler-Stalin pact, this position was reversed: suddenly, fascism and Stalinism were allies unified in their opposition to capitalist imperialism. Once Germany and the Soviet Union had parted company (and the former had invaded the latter), the equation changed yet again: now the capitalists and the Stalinists made common cause against the total threat posed by fascist “barbarism.” This formulation resulted in the Yalta Conference, and in the end the division of Europe after World War Two. This is the stuff Orwell was mocking when he wrote about how “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” in the novel 1984.
Sixty years later, most of the left in North America has finally rid itself of the open trappings of Stalinism, but a surprising vestige remains within our worldview: the need to reduce every conflict to two sides, us and them. For the Euston manifesto signatories, “us” means defenders of freedom, democracy and cultural diversity, while “them” refers to the perceived opponents of these concepts – fascists, Islamic fundamentalists, and (non-state) terrorist organizations. According to this logic, even though the Western capitalist countries have problems and are in need of improvement, they are on “our” side insofar as they provide a necessary bulwark against “them.”
This sort of thinking is probably not very appealing to most of us in this room (which is a good thing), but a possibly more tempting version of the same bi-polarity can be found among the most sharp and level-headed critics of this view. People like El-Amine, who rightly decries the internalized islamophobia of “us vs. them” narratives like the one implicit in the Euston Manifesto, often argue in terms that suggest a competing “us vs. them” story line: here, “us” means anti-imperialists, opponents of capitalist globalization, and all who challenge the global hegemony of the United States, while “them” refers to, well, the imperialists, the capitalist globalizers, and those who support the global hegemony of the United States. This is the Chavez-Ahmadinejad International, and Hezbollah are prominent members.
Each version of bi-polarity contains its own blindspot: the Euston position can’t see the legitimacy, indeed the importance, of anti-Zionism, while the El-Amine position can’t see the legitimacy and importance of challenging Islamic fundamentalism. Within the framework of efforts to develop radical solutions to the various conflicts in the Middle East, a clear vision of both these concepts is essential. And for North American radicals in particular, burdened as we are with the legacy of white supremacy and its attendant obsession with categorization (of race, of ethnicity, and of types or forms of oppression), a careful analysis of islamophobia and of anti-Semitism may prove to be invaluable in overcoming the limits of our own political frameworks. As is often the case, in order to effectively present a real challenge to capital, we need to confront the challenges facing the left, in the form of our own political weaknesses.
Once we expand our horizons beyond the Middle East, the relevance of the three way fight perspective becomes even more clear: Zionism represents a particular (but definitely peculiar) example of global capitalism, while some (but definitely not all) versions of Islamic fundamentalism serve as examples of contemporary forms of fascism. (Others, it is important to note, represent competing factions of global capitalism; Iran’s ongoing friendship with Russia and China serves as an example of this alternative.) In this context, a “them, them, and us” approach seems particularly useful, partly because it better describes the reality within which we find ourselves than any of the “us vs. them” narratives I’ve discussed already, but also partly because it presents a bulwark against the further fracturing of the radical left in North America.
Now I have nothing in principle against fractures and disagreements on the left, but in some circumstances, splintering can cause more harm than good. Consider the anti-globalization movement, for instance: here was a highly heterogeneous milieu, one in which conscious anti-capitalists were a distinct minority. Anti-capitalist revolutionaries were often in the forefront of deliberate splits and fractures, both those designed to exclude fascist elements from the movement, and those intended to draw sharp political lines and create a strong anti-capitalist and revolutionary pole within the movement. This was a good thing, but our ability to function within that context, while continuously challenging the political limitations of the broader movement, was dependent upon a certain minimum level of ongoing dialogue. It is this possibility for dialogue that I fear will be lost between those revolutionaries who prioritize resistance to islamophobia and those who emphasize challenges to anti-Semitism.
To understand my fear, it is helpful to look at the decline of the German autonomist movement over the past two decades. In the 1980’s the West German autonomen were among the most vibrant, militant, and inspiring radical movements anywhere in the world. Certainly they were not without their problems, but the situation was dynamic and hopeful. Within the autonomen, several tendencies developed, including the antifas, or anti-fascists, and the anti-imps, or anti-imperialists. The anti-imps were primarily focused on support for third world liberation movements, including especially Palestinian liberation, where the antifas prioritized domestic and international organizing against the far right.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, the antifas became concerned with the rapidly rising tide of far-right activity in (the soon to be former) East Germany, and some of them began to emphasize the special responsibility to support Jewish causes that Germans carried as a result of the holocaust. This led to an opposition to German reunification, which was seen as an opening for an expansionist, even fascist, resurgence. At the same time, some antifas criticized the anti-imps for their tendency to uncritically support Palestinian struggles, even when they employed terrorist methods and used anti-Semitic rhetoric. Given the dodgy history of the post-war German left on questions of Israel/Palestine, this was probably pretty reasonable.
Around the time of the Iraq War in 2003, a minority segment of the antifas took this constellation of ideas and turned them into a principled opposition to German-ness as such, taking the name the anti-Deutsche (anti-Germans). At this point, the autonomist movement was in a shambles, partly because of changing objective conditions in the reunified Germany, but also in part because of the long-standing splits between tendencies that had less and less contact with each other.
The most extreme sectors of the anti-Deutsche drew two sets of highly questionable conclusions: first, the “special responsibility” morphed into a specific responsibility to support the State of Israel; second, the only possible geopolitical counter-weight to resurgent German expansionism was the United States. Since the US also represented the most stalwart international supporter of Israel, the internal logic was as solid as it was circular. The result is the occasional spectacle at pro-Israel demonstrations in Germany of small groups of protestors decked out black bloc style carrying US and Israeli flags. This is bi-polarity taken to absurd extremes.
It is always dangerous to draw parallels between left-wing movements in different countries, and the uniqueness of the German situation (given its history of Naziism and the holocaust) makes it all the more troublesome in this case. In addition, much of the anti-Deutsche milieu has avoided these comic extremes, while still pressing the left on issues of anti-Semitism. Further, there is no visible tendency within the US left that shows any immediate propensity toward developing in the direction taken by the anti-Deutsche.
Nonetheless, the danger of this sort of polarization is real, and must be combated if we are to develop real challenges to capitalism. One can imagine comparable movements in the North American context developing out of either camp we have discussed here today. Already, groups like the Workers’ World Party assume a consistent stance of unconditionally supporting any and all movements or governments that are seen to oppose US imperialism, from North Korea to Iran to Venezuela. Smarter revolutionaries who are sincerely concerned with the dangers of islamophobia could end up following the same logic. The opposite danger is also visible in the pro-US and pro-Israel stance taken by many Euston signatories.
So, it’s not a question of “choosing” islamophobia or anti-Semitism as the “primary” enemy. Rather, the more central questions are: can we develop and maintain a sophisticated and dynamic political analysis in a world where the pull toward simplistic dualism is sometimes overwhelming? Can we build revolutionary politics in a left that seems perpetually drawn to liberalism, to reform, to what is deemed “really possible”? Can we help strengthen the social movements in which we participate? Clarifying our politics is key to making revolution, and a three way fight analysis is an important part of that process.
Mike,
I am straight-up impressed with your presentation and the approach of the Three Way Fight concept. It was an excellent, well-articulated, and responsible critique of the “quasi-Maoism” and simplistic dialectical analysis that pervades the Left. Your presentation nicely characterizes much of my critiques of the conservative tendency within the so-called hip-hop intelligentsia: that Manichean, binary, polarizing, rigid, and mechanical conception of opposites.
I do have my critiques of some of the theoretical trajectory of 3WF. I won’t go into here because I think that for practical purposes, it suffices to provide an avenue to tackle an increasingly complicated social arrangement.
I don’t usually read long ass internet pieces. I lose interest very quickly, but you kept me engaged and I imagine that you were able to do the same for the audience. I’m with you, bro. Throw my name behind it.
Peace.
Comment by Krisna Best — March 17, 2007 @ 4:39 am
Hey Krisna,
Thanks for your comments. I’m glad you liked the talk. At some point, I’d love to hear more about your criticism of the three way fight, because it’s an analysis in the early stages of development. Any feedback helps…
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — March 19, 2007 @ 9:28 pm
As I mentioned before yesterday I ran your piece in the Oread Daily. However, today I ran this as a clarification of my position (See Below)
It is true. I should have known better then to reprint some lengthy, lefty analysis. I’ve avoided that for years because I didn’t want to be drawn into one of those useless and endless sectarian type arguments. But I went ahead and printed that thing yesterday, so today I want to make a very few, short and simple comments…and with any luck that’ll be it…
1) Please note I said the piece was close and similar to my thinking. I did not say or mean that it exactly represented my thoughts.
2) The main thing I hoped people would focus on and get out of it was simply the notion “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend…”
3) I think that while the author makes a big to do over not being anti-semitic, he himself in some ways falls into the trap. How is this?
A. He fails to mention what he even means by zionism and anti-zionism.
B. He fails to address the issue of Israel’s right to exist or nor clearly and if he feels that Israel does not have a right to exist why does the left harp on just this one “settler” state and not the dozens of other settler states (i.e. Canada, U.S., most of the states of the western hemisphere, Australia, New Zealand and on and on), or the conquerer states of Europe, or the artificial states all over the world.
C. He fails to address why what amounts to one form of reactionary nationalism (zionism) is singled out from all the other reactionary nationalisms of the world.
D. He fails to address how or why one small nation state is singled out constantly as a menace to the world. He fails to address the oft implied left (and right) notion that the small state of Israel somehow is the tail that wags the dog of the superpower known as the U.S.A. Personally, I think that notion is absurd on the face of it and if you don’t I would like to hear an explanation that is NOT anti-semitic.
I, myself, have little use for any of the world’s nation states and certainly even less for any of their governments. However, I live in the world and I recognize that they exist (and I recognize that Israel exists as well).
I also recognize that most of the Jews who have headed for Israel didn’t head there because they were zionist but rather because they were persecuted (and persecuted historically) in their “home” states.
I also recognize that none of the above justifies the many policies and actions of the state of Israel, nor does it justify any sort of Jewish racialism or Jewish racial superiority as represented by some who call themselves zionist.
By the way I do not consider myself a zionist despite the fact that I do (within the limitations I’ve already said) “recognize Israel’s (and other such states) so called right to exist. Again, let me make it clear, if it were up to me there were be no borders and no states, but it ain’t up to me.
Finally, the simple fact that the left (and the right) spend so much time and energy on the question of Israel and talking about zionism, I find more than suspicious. I always find it odd that so much time and space is spent worrying about the alleged “vast powers” of the few million Jews who exist in the world or even the “huge danger” represented by the tiny state of Israel (except, that is, by the Palestinian people who actually are the direct victims of that tiny states oppression).
To me Israel is just another state - worse than some, better than some, more oppressive then some, less oppressive then some. The same goes for zionism in relation to other forms of nationalism.
Okay, that’s all for my rant. And it is a rant. I did not sit around working hours on end on this thing, just threw it out there. I’ve been here before and I hope to not be here again.
Comment by Randy — March 22, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Hello Randy,
Thanks for your comments. Glad to see you’re still reading my blog, and glad to hear that the Oread Daily is back up and running. Thanks once again for bringing my writings to a broader audience. I’m also happy to see that in general you liked my talk, and I’m not too surprised by your areas of disagreement. I’ll try to respond to your criticisms more or less point by point.
You are correct that I didn’t attempt to define either Zionism or anti-Zionism. In the context I was describing, I think of Zionism as the defense or advocacy of Israel as a Jewish-majority state, and I think of anti-Zionism as opposition to Israel’s existence as a Jewish-majority state. These definitions are not meant to be scientific or perfect, but they probably help contextualize my comments.
Like you (I think), I am not much for rights-talk in general, and I don’t believe that any state has any “right to exist.” But I’ve also long opposed the theoretical flattening that too many anarchists take part in, whereby all states are more or less equally bad because they are states. Even in the world of settler states, you are right that Israel is not alone, although it is clearly unique (as are all the others you mention). That said, I do have a particular opposition to Israel as it is currently constituted, and not simply to Israeli policy. I guess this is similar to the position of many who deny Israel’s “right to exist,” although I think this similarity is not as deep as might be apparent on first glance.
For myself, I only singled out Zionism for challenge in this talk because it was clearly related to my discussion of anti-Semitism in ways that an opposition to, say, Canadian nationalism is not. I have written elsewhere about questions of nationalism and especially revolutionary nationalism in a Latin American context. That doesn’t explain anything about the ways in which the rest of the left treats Zionism, but again it hopefully puts my comments in some context.
I assume you are correct that most Jewish immigrants to Israel have not been ideologically committed Zionists. But neither did European immigrants to the US come because they were ideologically committed to white supremacy. That doesn’t keep me from opposing white supremacy and the existence of the United States as a white supremacist and imperialist state. (Comparisons like this are always flawed, but I hope my point is clear.)
I do not believe, and I don’t think I ever implied, that Israel is a “menace to the world.” I have long disagreed with the “tail wagging the dog” version of the relationship between Israel and the US. I’m not sure I think such an explanation is absurb “on the face of it,” but as far as I can tell the evidence clearly doesn’t back up the theory. In my experience, most of those who advance this sort of analysis, especially the versions that obsess about the dangerous powers of AIPAC, are usually leftists who cling to hopes about the possibly redemption of the Democrats, which they believe can only happen if/when prominent Dem’s abandon their uncritical support of Israeli policy. This has never been my position, and in general I don’t think AIPAC exerts any greater control over its chosen areas of influence than does the Cuban National Foundation and its ilk over their specific area of work. Hey, the gusanos tipped tipped the 2000 elections…
I agree with your assessment of Israel and Zionism: “worse than some, better than some, more oppressive then some, less oppressive then some. The same goes for zionism in relation to other forms of nationalism.” But again, I tend to shy away from phrases like “just another state,” because it implies a sort of equivalence that tends to negate the particulars of specific states.
I’m not sure you’ll think that any of this extricates me from the “trap” you believe me to be caught in. I’d be happy to extend the conversation if you have further comments.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — March 26, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
I thinks the conference below puts your points into mobilzation action.
Inspired by the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution and moved by the ongoing human rights crisis in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, grassroots organizers in the Katrina Self-Determination and Bolivarian Movements throughout the country have agreed to host the Mutual Aid and International Solidarity Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana at Dillard University, one of the country’s oldest black educational institutions on May 24th – 27th, 2007. Presenters & attendees will share organizing experiences, explore opportunities for mutual aid and stand in solidarity for human rights and self-determination.
The conference calls on all progressive forces in the U.S. to join at the to build the Katrina Self-Determination and Bolivarian Solidarity Movements. This conference is designed to network person-to-person and grassroots links between the peoples of Venezuela and the United States.
For more info go to MutualAidSolidarity.org
Comment by Akil — March 26, 2007 @ 4:50 pm
Hello Akil,
Thanks for the link to this conference. I had read about it before, and I would have been interested in attending if my partner wasn’t due with our second child in late May. I’ve been trying to understand the regional, national, and international implications of Hurricane Katrina for a while now, and I’m also a sometime student of the Venezuelan situation. However, I have mixed feelings about the Bolivarian process, based in part upon a visit my partner and I made to Venezuela two years ago. You can read about our experiences and our thinking by looking at the piece we wrote upon returning: http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=839 Regardless, the conference looks very interesting; good luck with it.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — March 26, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
MIke, Thanks for your reaction to my comments. Your response was clear and I found well thought out. We aren’t really all that far apart. I didn’t mean to “negate the particulars of specific states” in this case Israel and you are right to bring that up. I presume when you talk about the particular make up of this state, you are referring to it being mandated a Jewish majority state. Yes, that is a concept that is impossible really to defend as it would be like saying that the US must be a white majority state. I understand where it comes from in Israel’s case (for most Jews I think they just want a place where they aren’t a minority existing at the whim of the majority - which has not worked out to well for Jews), but still it isn’t something I’d like to try to defend - and is one big reason why I would not defnine myself as a zionist of any sort. That said I still think Israel today has a right to exist. I wonder for example if any Muslim or Christian state were suddenly facing the prospect of a Jewish majority in their state would react. In fact, isn’t that indeed one (not the only) reason why Jews fleeing the Holocaust were not welcome in Palestine regardless of their ideology (and isn’t that in fact one reason why so many white anti-immigrant folk in the USA claim to oppose immigration from Mexico). So in that regard many states are or would be like Israel under different circumstances. I mean isn’t this really what nationalism is all about. This, again, is not meant to let Israel off the hook. Just to say the specific quality I figure you are referring to is maybe not all that specific after all. Just a thought.
And finally, for the record, I certainly do not think that all states are equally “good” or equally “bad.”
Anyway, enough for now. Stay in touch.
Comment by Randy — March 26, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
Just to be clear, I didn’t mean the anti-immigrant folk in the US were worried about Jews, they’re worried about demographics i.e. maintaining a white anglo majority.
Comment by Randy — March 26, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
Side note in response to the politics of the anti-migrant movement in the U.S.:
For the record, sections of this movement are antisemitic. They believe that immigration from Mexico and South America to be largely due to NAFTA which is in their view due to Jewish control of Washington. Because the Minutemen are a media group, they don’t often state this position explicitly, but you find it if you read between the lines.
They operate with a conspiratorial politics, and in Jim Gilchrist’s “Minutment: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders” an entire chapter is devoted to the conspiracy theory about Mexico trying to reclaim what is now the Southwest of the U.S. On the far-Right, you see the conspiracy theory about Jewish control of Washington explicitly stated. And while mainstream news reporters sometimes even condemn the racist skapegoating of anti-migrant politics, in the following example, they (just as well as people on the Left are) are often blind to antisemitic positions.
An example is the video game that caused a media stir last Spring. The game was called “Border Patrol,” and it encourgaed players to shoot latino migrants coming across the border. The depictions were typical racist stereotypes (lazy, pregnant, welfare parasites, etc.). The border sign that reads “Welcome to the United States” displays an American flag whose 50 stars have been replaced by one large Star of David, implying Jewish control of Washington. Here, it is clear how a conspiratorial politics of blaming Jews coincides with a racist politics. While this is a “sidenote,” I think it can help us think through the connection of antisemitism and racism on the far-Right, rather than competing between the two ourselves.
Comment by Massklo — March 28, 2007 @ 8:34 am
Here’s a link to the NBC article about the “Border Patrol” video game I referred to in my post, including an image: http://www.wlwt.com/family/4720628/detail.html#
Comment by Massklo — March 28, 2007 @ 8:49 am
I was just reading “A Revolutionary Artist” from UT 12 by Stan Weir. It is an interesting piece in light of the Three Way Fight concept as it discusses C.L.R. James’ advancing of the Third Option between supporters of the war for nationalist reasons and the Marxist parties in support of the war against fascism.
Its real short and worth the read. Mike, do any of the personalities behind TWF have any James’ influences?
http://www.sojournertruth.net/revartist.html
Comment by Krisna C. Best — March 30, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
In Great Britain it IS more dangerous to be a Jew, at least a Jew that is visibly marked as Jewish, than it is to be a Muslim. Religious Jews are wearing baseball caps instead of yarmulkes. America is the only Western country where antisemitism is not increasing.
The irony is that most American Jews vote for Democrats. 77% of American Jews oppose the war in Iraq. If American Jews controlled America, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry would all have been elected president.
Personally, I feel betrayed and disappointed by the left and I have become what my leftist friends deride, a liberal.
Hezbollah leaders are Holocaust deniers. There literature is filled with false antisemitc conspiracy theories. However, because they are “fighting American imperialism, they are treated as heroes by sections of the left.
Comment by Susan — April 6, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
I have to confess that I find these discussions within a fringe group on the Left in America or Britain, or anywhere else in the West, about whether Israel should or should not exist - strangely surreal. It’s as though this fringe group, lacking substantial material over which to experiment with their radical notions , have latched on to the easiest, smallest, most vulnerable country in the world, populated by the most historically and currently persecuted people in the world. What are you doing? You are treating the state of Israel, which is populated by human beings you know, as though it were a frog in a highschool biology lab class: dissecting here, dissecting there, never mind that it’s going to die, under your merciful scalpel. To what purpose?
Do any of you consider what may be the result of your ruminations should you ever get to a position of world power, capable of “solving” the Israeli problem in accordance with your ideals? Do you realize you will be a step away from your version of the Wannsea Conference? How hermetic and self-righteous can you get, discussing with such nonchallance the fate of 5 million Jews??
Comment by Noga — April 6, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
I’ve been busy moving, and am only now able to respond to the various comments that have been posted here over the past couple of weeks.
Randy: I think you’re right that we aren’t that far apart, although we should probably just agree to disagree on the “right to exist” question. I see your point about the hypothetical potential for other countries to adopt similarly ugly methods in order to preserve a non-Jewish majority; I hope that I would oppose such efforts at least as vigorously as I oppose Zionism. I’m not sure that this is “really what nationalism is all about,” but it’s certainly an aspect that is not unique to Israel.
Massklo: Thank you very much for bringing this detail into the conversation. I can’t say I’m surprised to learn about this sort of explicit anti-Semitism in the anti-immigrant movement, but it’s interesting to see the overlap.
Krisna: I re-read that piece by Stan Weir, and I can see why you drew a connection to the three way fight analysis. At the same time, I have tended to associate “third camp” Trotskyism with a functionally pro-US politics, probably because that was the trajectory taken by James’ one-time comrade Shachtman. The version ascribed to James by Weir is significantly more interesting. As for James’ influence in the three way fight milieu, I would say it is limited. Many of us are familiar to one degree or another with James and his contributions, but he doesn’t necessarily stand out in terms of influence.
Susan: I don’t know much about the situation in the UK, but in the US it has been widely reported that Blair and other top-level politicians have come out strongly against the public display of Muslim religious head-gear. Religious Jews may be wearing baseball caps, but not as a result of official government harassment. At the same time, your point about the tie between US Jews and the Democratic Party is an important one. Much of the time I share your feeling of having been “betrayed and disappointed by the left,” but I don’t think becoming a liberal is the only alternative in that case. As for Hezbollah’s anti-Semitism, I suggest the brief analysis offered by Matthew on the Three Way Fight blog in his post “Further Thoughts on Hezbollah.”
Noga: I agree that this sort of discussion is a bit surreal when none of those involved has even marginal power over actual geo-political decisions. That said, I don’t think the comparison to frog dissection (not to mention the Wannssee Conference) is particularly helpful, precisely because the frog dissectors have actual power over the frog, where no one in this conversation has any power over Israel. I think the chances of anyone who has posted here gaining “a position of world power” are just about zero. And at least some of us remain convinced that the world can be changed from below, as a result of collective action by masses of people, exactly the opposite of the approach that characterized the Wannsee Conference. Also, last I checked, Israel was not the “easiest, smallest, most vulnerable country in the world;” a cursory examination of last summer’s war (and a quick glance at a map) shows Lebanon to be smaller and more vulnerable than Israel.
Comment by Mike — April 8, 2007 @ 2:38 am
Susan,
My response to your comment about religious Jews wearing baseball caps was flip, and I apologize. Assuming your statement is true (and I have no reason to doubt you), it is deplorable, and I should have said so in my response. Still, based on my very limited knowledge of the situation in the UK, I remain skeptical of your initial claim that “it IS more dangerous to be a Jew.”
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 8, 2007 @ 4:11 am
Mike:
My comment was not meant to be helphul. Minds in the grip of omnipotent dogma allied to a sense of moral superiority are impossible to help. The sense you convey of utter powerlessness is also a feature of such a mind. Do you mean you actually feel so powerless that anything you say, is allowed?
I was wondering whether any of you, dissecting the moral intricacies of anti-Zionism and antisemitism (whatever you mean by these terms) are aware of the racist language your discourse is laced with. Jews enjoying white-skin previleges? Isn’t that Louis Farrakhan’s stock-in-trade argument? Isn’t that the source David Duke’s major angst? As well as some other great anti-semites in history, such as l’abbe Lionel-Groulx?
Never mind. Like I said, nothing I argue here will make a dent in that smooth, shining armour of self-righteousness.
Your argument about Lebanon did not knock the wind out of me. Geographically, you are factually right: Lebanon is three-quarters the size of Israel, and about a million less in population. But Lebanon is an Arab state, enjoying the full support of Al-Jazeera and the BBC, the 21 other Arab states, the active military support of Iran and Syria, the 1.2 Billion Muslims, and the many who are “all hizballa” in the West. While Israel was enjoying most of the support of the great power of the 8 million Jews in the world, and George W. Bush.
Can you honestly look at the map of the Middle East and not see Israel’s extreme vulnerability? Don’t you have to blot out this inconvenient truth in order to carry on with your single-minded assault on Israel’s security and future?
Comment by Noga — April 8, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Noga,
Talk about “moral superiority” and “smooth, shining armour of self-righteousness”!
Take a look at the rest of my blog, or google my name and look for my other writings, and you will discover that I am not committed to “a single-minded assault on Israel’s security and future;” in fact, this is the very first time I have ever published anything remotely related to these topics. It’s awfully presumptuous, not to mention simply inaccurate, to declare that I’m “in the grip of omnipotent dogma.”
Apart from questions of accuracy, it is not racist to claim that in the United States “most Jews benefit from white skin privilege.” Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism is only tenuously connected to his problems with white people, which, in any event, are essentialist and bear no resemblance to the critique of white skin privileges. Similarly, David Duke’s anti-Semitism is based directly on a sort of biological-determinist white supremacy that could not be further from the understanding that race is a social/political category, which underpins the white skin privilege analysis. For more on this, you might want to check out this from my blog.
Glad to hear my Lebanon jab didn’t “knock the wind out” of you; that wasn’t the point. Regardless, your overview of the balance of forces in terms of last summer’s war is simply wrong: it’s laughable to say that the BBC offered “full support” to the Lebanese resistance, and you might recall that all the Arab states other than Syria sat out much of the war in conspicuous silence because they initially believed that Israel would prove quickly victorious and because they feared Hezbollah’s potential contribution to the “Shi’ite resurgence.”
Nonetheless, you do raise an interesting point about my claims of “powerlessness”. While there are fundamental differences between social transformation from below and geo-political calculations that characterize capitalist decision-making in a world of nation-states, my protestations did bear some similarity to the traditional logic of anti-Semitism that I criticized in my original essay.
Finally, thank you for your honesty in clarifying that your comments were not meant to be helpful.
Comment by Mike — April 9, 2007 @ 2:12 am
Mike:
Language leads us. Creates our notions and reinforces our inclinations. I cringe when I read such phrases as “white skin previleges”. It automatically invokes the age old suspicion about Jews being the masters of hypocrisy and double face. Your casuistrous explanation has the tang of indulgence and moral indolence. Why are you resorting to these tropes unless to arouse unease? And what is the reason for wanting to discuss “Jews” in terms of skin colour, pretense and non-authenticity? By insisting on this line of thought, you are actually legitimizing an ingrained suspicion of Jewish pathological hypocrisy.
BTW, the only reason I read your piece was because it was posted on “Engage” which is a website set up to fight antisemitism (unfortunately often mutating into other forms) . So my interest in what you say is strictly Jewish. And Israeli.
And if we are being honest, let me tell you that when I read something like this : “geo-political calculations that characterize capitalist decision-making in a world of nation-states,” I get the feeling that someone is trying to wallop me into submission by the use of intimidating Marxist jargon. Why is it that when people want to express contempt to their interlocutor, they resort to this tactic of haughty and hermetic language? It’s like hearing the bombast in the concluding notes of a symphony:
geo-political - boom
capitalist - boom boom boom
nation-states, - boooom! boom!
_________
BTW, I don’t see where you get the idea that Syria is against Hizzballa. They are very good friends. In fact, Hizzballas are hard at work preserving Syrian interests in Lebanon. And Syria was facilitating the transportations of weapons and long-range missiles through its territory to Hizzbala outposts in South Lebanon. I can’t begin to understand where you get your information, from the official website of Syria’s Information Dept? Why the need to modify known, verifiable realities in the service of politics? What kind of political cause is it that has to rely on disinformation to sustain itself?
Comment by Noga — April 9, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
“if Hezbollah, for instance, was fascist, then no self-respecting radical could in any way support them, any more than we could support Israeli aggression. In contrast, said Lyons, leftwing revolutionaries should critically support the Lebanese resistance, even as we simultaneously challenged the right-wing character of Hezbollah’s politics.”
What more would it take for Hizzballa to be labelled “fascist” by you and your friends, Mike, and thus merit your moral opposition? They seem to have it all, including antisemitic canards and declared wish to wipe out Israel.
In order to continue with the charade, you must blot out this kind of information:
“Nasrallah and Jews
Within a month of Nasrallah’s taking over as leader, Hezbollah (with the help of Iranian intelligence) bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring over 200. The next attack perpetrated by Hezbollah—again with Iranian help—was the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 86 and injuring over 200.
The widening arena of Hezbollah’s attacks stemmed from Nasrallah’s perception that Jews anywhere are legitimate targets. In fact, Nasarallah has said:
If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)
Shiite scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb analyzed the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology in her book Hezbollah: Politics & Religion. In it, she quotes Hassan Nasrallah describing his antipathy toward Jews:
If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. (New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2002)
Nasrallah also incoroporates anti-Semitic rhetoric in speeches. For example, he has characterized Jews as the “grandsons of apes and pigs” and “Allah’s most cowardly and greedy creatures.” (MEMRI: Al- Manar, Feb. 3, 2006) ”
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=11&x_article=1158
I am stumped by this kind of deliberate self-delusion. You seem like a decent person. What can be the moral underpinnings for supporting such an organization whose leader seems to emulate Hitler? What if Nassralah, a talented man and gifted demagogue, by all acounts, gets to acquire enough power to act upon his fantasies?
Are you permitting yourself to support him and Hizz despite better judgment, because you think he is not so dangerous as long as he remains where he is?
I mean, I really don’t get it. Going through thought- mangling acrobatics in order to get to a point where you can convince yourself and others that this is a legitimate voice of resistance. What kind of world are you envisioning when you previlege this kind of ideology with your moral support?
I am assuming, of course, that you find these notions as nauseating as I (and most people) do. But I may be making a big assumption here, no?
Comment by Noga — April 9, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
Noga,
Okay, okay, you win: you’ve clearly out-intimidated me with your superior use of language: “tang of indulgence and moral indolence,” “tactic of haughty and hermetic language,” “thought-mangling acrobatics,” etc. And “casuistrous;” ouch!
However, your writing abilities apparently exceed your reading skills. I suggest you quit posting messages and instead re-read what I and others have actually written. To take just one example: I wrote “all the Arab states other than Syria sat out much of the war…” In other words, I never suggested that Syria was anything other than supportive of Hezbollah. Talk about relying on disinformation. (And for more criticisms of Hezbollah’s anti-Semitism, including favorable references to Amal Saad-Ghorayeb’s book on women in the organization, I suggest, again, that you look at Matthew’s piece “Further Thoughts on Hezbollah.”)
Thanks again for your comments; as harsh as my responses have been, it’s been good to be challenged on some of these issues.
Comment by Mike — April 10, 2007 @ 1:38 am
1. I do not see the point here at all. Why pick on Jewish nationalism? Why not pick on Muslim imperialism? It has a long history, notwithstanding the, at present, comparative military impotence of the various Muslim states. And that history is one of, when Muslims had military might, an unbroken string of aggressive, offensive warfare. And, for what purpose? Conquest.
2. One might consider, for example, the political movements of the Arab regions. Much of it is imperialist in character. With respect to Palestinian Arabs, the HAMAS movement is, if one reads its covenant, rather explicitly imperialist and eliminationist Antisemitic. What that movement seems to want is a judenrein region - with the Jews dead or expelled - in which historic Palestine would not become a nation but a waqf within some greater Muslim empire which would pursue a traditional Islamic foreign policy prior to the time that the Muslim empires began their decline. How is that a better manner of politics? Such is reactionary imperialism.
3. Frankly, Zionism on its worst day has far more limited aims than the Islamism of the HAMAS or even of FATAH - a political party which literally adopted the Islamic religious term for conquest, as in conquest and colonize (literally, opening in Arabic).
4. So, there is an attack one group, the Israelis, as being reactionary in favor of another group, Palestinian Arabs, whose leadership publicly espouses an imperial theosophy to recapture the religious glory of the 7th Century. Bizarre.
5. In the case of Israel, it is pretty hard to make a case for imperialism. The country has no imaginable aim to conquer the region it is in. Rather, on its worst day, it might keep a strip of land the size of Rhode Island. And, that is not really in the cards, so all this Anti-Zionism talk is nonsense, based on a strange interpretation that denies Jews the rights as human beings.
6. In a word, the view that Anti-Zionism is not Antisemitism is meaningless nonsense. In the modern world, Anti-Zionism is worse than Antisemitism. The practical implications of an Arab majority in Israel would mean the demise - as in death and deportation - of that country’s entire Jewish population. That, after all, is the express political position taken by the HAMAS, the group which officially represents Palestinian Arab interests.
Comment by Neal — April 10, 2007 @ 2:25 am
Neal,
1. I still don’t think I’m “picking on” Zionism. It happened to be relevant to my chosen topic, and several people here and elsewhere have asked me for my opinions on the question. Before your comment, no one has asked me what I think about Muslim imperialism. I’m opposed to it. I agree that one major aspect of the history of Islam is a history of military conquest.
2. I have no use for the politics espoused by the leadership of Hamas, nor for the anti-Semitic and especially the eliminationist aspects of the popular ideology embraced by much of the Palestinian population. I’m also opposed to the Caliphate-style fantasies propagated by some Islamist movements; I don’t know enough about Hamas to know whether they pay more than lip service to this concept. Apart from this, though, I’m not sure I think of Hamas as an imperialist outfit, since to the best of my knowledge they are not interested in, for instance, conquering Egypt or Jordan as part of a greater Palestine. Regardless, Hamas has reactionary politics.
3. Zionism’s “worst day” is certainly bad enough for me, regardless of whether it is somehow less bad than Hamas or Fatah. I don’t know Arabic, so I can’t assess your translation other than to say that “opening” seems rather different than “conquest.”
4. I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but I have no interest in attacking Israelis, although I do have an interest in supporting Palestinian Arabs. The two are not necessarily tied together.
5. I don’t think I’ve ever described Israel as “imperialist.”
6. It seems to me that a multi-confessional Israel/Palestine in which Arabs are a majority without expelling Jews is at least as plausible as the idea that walling off Gaza and the West Bank will make Jewish residents of Israel more secure. Regardless, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the question of whether anti-Zionism is necessarily anti-Semitic. Lots of people have been over this ground before us, and we probably both know the major arguments on either side. I’m not sure it’s worth re-hashing them here. (Also, I can’t resist pointing out that “meaningless nonsense” is two words, not one…)
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 10, 2007 @ 2:42 am
Mike:
Sorry about misreading. I still stand behind my contention that the Arab countries were all supportive of Lebanon. You are thinking regimes. I am thinking peoples. Al-Jazeera, both reflecting and inciting Arab populism, is a good place to start noticing the watersheds of hatred and hyperbole that pours out of that world. Why don’t you check up MEMRI sometime. You might get an education. Ah, but MEMRI is anathema to the genuine “Leftist”, isn’t it?
I’m sorry you avoided my explicit question about your support for Hizzbala as a “resistance” movement. Frankly, your glib answers are no substitute for substance. If you were so willing to listen and internalize Matthew Lyons’s convoluted rationalization in favour of supporting it, you must be able to explain, in your own words, what exactly makes you accept his definitions and moral guidance. How is it that you can ignore Hizzbala’s genocidal messages, just put them aside, so long as they somehow conform to your overwrought idea of resistance? What are they resisting, in a war they started? What is their reason for hounding Israelis along the northern border? After all, any legitimate grievance they had was done with, 7 years ago, when the UN marked the Blue Line and Israel withdrew every last soldier it had on Lebanese soil? I mean, these are easily verifiable facts!
And why are you even pointing me to “women” in Hizzbala? What do I care about Hizz women? Are they any less hateful and murderous because of their gender?
I wish you would take up this one challenge to your article (well intentioned I’m sure but so full of inner contradictions): How do you support Hizzbala and still claim you are concerned with human rights, peace and justice?
Comment by Noga — April 10, 2007 @ 11:54 am
BTW. Mike, I didn’t consider your responses harsh at all. You should see some of the comments I got when I entered some Far Lefties’ lions’ dens (like the Australian Marxist “leftwrites” or “The Atlantic free press”). I was impressed by your relative civility. Or maybe you are benefiting from the effect of the Rabbi’s goats
There is some slight hesitation in your ideas and arguments that suggest you are not completely taken over by the dark side (by which I mean, the bizarro morality of the Ultra left.)
Comment by Noga — April 10, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Noga,
You make a good point about the difference between regimes and peoples, one that I am fully familiar with as an anarchist. I must point out, however, that your initial reference on April 8 was to the “full support” of “the 21 other Arab states,” from which I inferred that you were discussing regimes (“states”), not peoples. You are correct that popular opinion in every Arab state was largely supportive of Hezbollah. Also, I had never heard of MEMRI until you mentioned it. Having briefly glanced at their website it looks to be a valuable resource, and I will probably check it out in more depth soon. I don’t see how that makes me any less of a leftist.
As for my critical support for the Hezbollah-led resistance (which was never limited to Hezbollah, although it was clearly led by them), and in particular my reliance on the work of Matthew Lyons, I can briefly say that I “accept his definitions and moral guidance” because I know and trust him and his previous work, and he has spent more time pondering these questions than I have. (You may remember that my actual talk was only tangentially related to the questions that you, Susan, Neal and others have chosen to focus on.) It should be clear from what both Matthew and I have written that neither of us ignores the negative aspects of Hezbollah’s politics. To offer just one example, I opposed the tendency on the left toward “ignoring, dismissing, or rationalizing those aspects of Hezbollah’s politics that are not simply in opposition to the Israeli oppression of Lebanon, but are truly anti-Semitic.” I’m not sure how much more clear I can be on this.
I certainly don’t hold Hezbollah blameless in causing last summer’s war, but even if I held them solely and entirely responsible (which I don’t), it would still be clear that the Israeli “response” amounted to a series of reprehensible war crimes and completely indefensible attacks on a civilian population and the infrastructure that supported it. Like it or not, that is what Hezbollah and other Lebanese were resisting, regardless of whether or not they “started” the war.
I mentioned Saad-Ghorayeb’s book on women in Hezbollah only because you had previously mentioned it, in your long quote from MEMRI. My point was not that the female members of Hezbollah are “any less hateful and murderous,” but that you are not the only one drawing upon this research.
By this point, I hope you have been able to piece together how I can “support Hizzbala and still claim you are concerned with human rights, peace and justice.” You haven’t expressed an opinion of last summer’s war, other than to say that Hezbollah was responsible for starting it, but I have a hard time imagining how someone can support Israel’s conduct during the war and still claim to be “concerned with human rights, peace and justice,” none of which was served by bombing every bridge in Lebanon.
I’m glad you find my tone relatively civil, although I’m generally a proud member of the ultra-left. The hesitation you sense is probably related to my aversion to “the dualistic and anti-dialectical tendency to reduce complex situations to two opposing, and static, sides,” as I put it in my original talk. It’s also related to the fact that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about these issues, and while I’m not a total blank slate, I am certainly open to argument from all sides. (I’m afraid, however, that you’ll have to enlighten me as to the Rabbi’s goats; I’m unfamiliar with the reference…)
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 10, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
“… it is far more dangerous to your health, safety, freedom, and economic well-being to be Muslim than it is to be Jewish in the United States today.”
UK Report: “Jews far more likely to be victims of faith hatred than Muslims”
Sunday Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/nislam117.xml
Comment by UK figures — April 10, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
UK figures,
I have seen similar tallies for the United States, and in all cases there are at least three issues that cast some doubt on the usefulness of the statistics. 1) Many attacks on Muslims are not reported to the police due to concerns regarding immigration status, which is usually not an issue for Jews in the US or the UK; 2) Many attacks on Muslims are carried out by the police (this may be more true in the US than in the UK; here, the post-9/11 roundups of Muslim immigrants are never included in the studies equivalent to the one you mention from the UK); 3) Many attacks on Muslims are likely to be reported as race-based rather than faith-based, while this is unlikely to be true for attacks on Jews because most Jews in the US and the UK are “white.”
That said, I should be clear that any faith-based attacks on Jews or Muslims are wrong and must be opposed. A bunch of the political work I’ve done over the years has been anti-fascist organizing against people who frequently target both Jews and Muslims for attack.
Comment by Mike — April 11, 2007 @ 2:28 am
Im guessing that “J” is not a reader of Left Turn magazine, since the things he/she mentions are all major points that they consistantly point out (ie. the role of US direct intervention combined with the funding of right wing islamic movements during the cold war etc).
Read Mahmoud Mamdani’s “good muslim, bad muslim” for more insights into this topic.
As for the longer post by Mike, im not sure what to say. Left Turn does not have one line on the subject, and they have *never* uncritically supported Hizbullah or any other armed grouping in the world (perhaps the Zapatistas at times it might be argued).
Why not just stick with the Sparts and Workers World and their more simplistic analysis of middle east events, there your arguments are completely right on. Each long post on the topic makes it clear that you have not really read left turn for more then a few random articles or a few blog posts by different people within the organization who hold different views.
To me, equating (or it seems if i read it correctly, even elevating) the effects of anti-semetic oppression today in the US above what every single arab and muslim family face on a daily basis is just not accurate. I cant say more then that. Anti-semitism is real, it has a long history, no real leftist would argue that point.
Check out the plans for the new cable tv “terrorism network” whos hit comedy show “Jihad to be there” features arab characters, all named ahmed (or something similar), complete with strapped explosives etc. I wont both mentioning the Danish cartoons or anything like that. I somehow doubt anything similar could be shown about any other population of people. It would be nice if some of the TWF analysis would touch on some of this stuff, but im afraid its probably just not on the radar because of either their specific background and or position in life, or because they are too focused on anti-semetism in the left.
I think the thing you are missing is that developing an analysis that helps the building of an effective anti-war movement here in the US (not germany in the 80s, not anywhere else) does have to be rooted in an anti-arab racist lens.
The argument that basically the “Left Turn analysis” leads you to an “Chavez-Ahmadinejad International” is a total straw argument, not based on anything Left Turn stands for (it is true of some other, but completely irrelevant sectarian groupings).
I commend your work on trying to flesh out the politics of this sometimes complex issue, but Matt’s follow up article was way more insightful then this last one by Mike. Focusing on that one sentence about hillary clinton (not the best argument i agree) out of a 5,000 word article is not the way to generalize about “segments of the left”.
I hope Rami or someone else from Left Turn has the time to set the record straight.
Comment by North_Caolina — April 11, 2007 @ 3:37 am
Your comment regulator won’t let me post a long comment because it contains three links. so I’m going to break them into three comments. This is the first:
Mike says: “it would still be clear that the Israeli “response” amounted to a series of reprehensible war crimes and completely indefensible attacks on a civilian population and the infrastructure that supported it. Like it or not, that is what Hezbollah and other Lebanese were resisting, regardless of whether or not they “started” the war.”
I am linking to cartoon posted on Mick Hartley’s blog,
http://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/gentle.html
because it illustrates the same reversal of logic found in your quoted statement above. In Hizzballa case it would be: Let’s commit a crime so awful and unignorable that the Israelis will have no choice but to attack us. And when they do, we can then “resist them”, and be hailed by the stupid Leftists in the West as a resistance movement. We win on all fronts: we get to kidnap, kill and terrorize Israelis and then we get to be seen as victims.
In other words, Mike, Hizzbala were counting on exactly the kind of rationale you are providing.
No right-thinking person can support Hizzbala, no matter how much he or she may seek to criminalize Israel. It makes little sense, when you choose to give your moral support to an organization which emulates Hitlerian ethos.
Comment by Noga — April 11, 2007 @ 4:35 pm
I won’t exhaust you with a repetition of the travesty of justice that was unfolding in the last Israel-Lebanese war. A celebration of Israel-bashing media coverage, kowtowing to the dictates of a genocidal organization, out of fear or out of ignorance and laziness or out of beliefs similar to yours, Mike.
Here is a recently published study which you should be reading:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/research_publications/papers/research_papers/R29.pdf
My opinion about the Lebanese-Israeli war?
As an Israeli with friends living within range of the katiushas, and suffering the hourly terror and never ending provocation, the moral picture is perfectly clear.
I know it is hard for you to imagine Israelis as decent people who want nothing but to live in peace and quiet. It is a proposition you find hard to accept . You live in an ideology of perfect justice which can only be sustained by blackening chunks of humanity in the picture. In this case, Israelis (and to some extent, most Jews). Don’t delude yourself that your position is not dualistic. I am saying it because I see how
impossible it is for you to admit that Hizzbala is a malicious, antisemitic organization, in the eliminationist tradition of antisemitism. They are not just talking. They are doing. And you justify them.
Comment by Noga — April 11, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
In my initial post here I mentioned the Wannsea Conference. You misunderstood the context. What I meant was not that discussing “white skin previlege” takes you a step closer to that conference (though it helps in creating the mood of suspicion necessary for such a conference to take place). What I meant was, that in view of your support of Hizzbala and their goals, should you and your co-ideologues ever gain a position of power to act, you will find yourself sitting together with such organizations, plotting how to make Israel disappear. And it can only be done through mass violence, death and deportations. All for the sake of greater humanity, as Robespierre avowed.
You appear to make an effort to ignore documents and statistics that prove that Jews are persecuted to a point where their daily life is beleaguered and endagered. (Is it because you consider that sympathy for Jews must be militated against, because it serves … “Zionism”?)
Anecdodal experience: I have not heard of a Mosque or a Muslim school being firebombed here in Canada. And I sure hope no parent or a person ever has to suffer the anguish and terror of such acts. The school mentioned in the linked article was my son’s. My 7-year old daughter takes Art lessons in the Community Center which was targeted last week. What is for you a theoretical possibility, for me is reality.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/199605
Comment by Noga — April 11, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
Mike,
You write: Zionism’s “worst day” is certainly bad enough for me, regardless of whether it is somehow less bad than Hamas or Fatah.
And, you also write: I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but I have no interest in attacking Israelis, although I do have an interest in supporting Palestinian Arabs. The two are not necessarily tied together.
Yet, you also write: I don’t know enough about Hamas to know whether they pay more than lip service to this concept. [By concept, you refer to, it appears, imperialism.]
And, you write: It seems to me that a multi-confessional Israel/Palestine in which Arabs are a majority without expelling Jews is at least as plausible as the idea that walling off Gaza and the West Bank will make Jewish residents of Israel more secure.
I juxtapose these point of yours because I do not see how you reconcile them. Politics is about making choices. The choices concern how people will live.
You choose Palestinians Arabs yet, by your own admission, you are not all that familiar with the politics of the very group which dominates Palestinian Arab politics. So, you do not know the sort of choices they would make, were they in a position to do so. And, you think, notwithstanding whatever views are held by Palestinian Arabs, all can be somehow reconciled. How can you possible take such a view?
It seems to me that the political positions adopted by Palestinian Arabs are precisely central to whether there can be reconciliation on any terms. The same for the political positions adopted by Israelis. The positions of those involved, not pipe dreams, will determine whether the interests of those involved can be reconciled.
I also do not see, based on your comment, how you distinguish Jewish nationalism from any other nationalist movement on Earth. I do not see the basis for your favoring Palestinian Arabs. It seems to me that support a group, you must study to know what that group advocates, meaning, you must know their politics. Otherwise, you are supporting a pig in a poke.
In the 1930’s, many people on the Left said about Germany what you say about Palestinian Arabs. Germans were victimized by the Treaty of Versailles. That was certainly the case. So, when a nasty political movement arose in Germany, many on the left - and on the right - did not look all that carefully at what that movement espoused. What people thought was that by doing justice toward Germans, the issues raised by Germany could all be reconciled. In Britain, those who took that position called themselves “appeasers.” They saw that as an honorable position. But again: such people did not bother themselves to learn the nature of politics in Germany. And, that was a fatal error.
In the case of Palestinian Arabs, the dominant political party is the HAMAS. It places itself - by its own words and deeds - in the same camp as the Muslim Brotherhood and, for that matter, al Qa’eda.
The HAMAS, by its own words and deeds, seeks not only the demise of Israel but the death of all its Jewish citizens. The HAMAS makes no bones about their plans. It is all printed in black and white.
And, the HAMAS, rather than, for public consumption, acquiesce in agreements reached by FATAH, walked away from basically a billion dollars in assistance. Does that not mean anything to you? Does that not tell you that they are in earnest?
Moreover, that group, rather than accept prior agreements, advocates a hudna. A hudna is a truce within the Islamic tradition. It is not intended as a settlement. In the Islamic tradition, a hudna is, by religious decree, a period where the Islamic side must arm itself in order to restart the battle at the opportune time. Perhaps, that might tell you something about the HAMAS?
I find your view very troubling. I do not see that you have done your homework about either the origins of Israel, about Palestinian Arabs or about Arab history. It would seem to me that before taking the views you do, you need to understand the position that Jews were in and to see it in the light of a group which had no rights and no home. In that regard, they were much like the Greeks who were driven from their homes by the Ottoman Turks but, after many centuries in exile, reclaimed their rights as human beings.
Comment by Neal — April 12, 2007 @ 1:53 am
Hello North Carolina,
Actually, Rami El-Amine was in the audience when this talk was first given at NCOR, and he contributed much to the discussion afterwards, but he never suggested that I had mischaracterized his position or that of Left Turn. (At the same time, you’re right that I’m not a regular reader of the magazine, and was generalizing almost exclusively on the basis of El-Amine’s article.)
Whether or not the “Chavez-Ahmadinejad International” reflects Left Turn’s analysis – and technically, I didn’t say that it did – it is not a straw man. It is a real position held by lots of radicals, including several in the audience at NCOR (not including El-Amine, as far as I could tell), who have otherwise interesting politics and are not members of “completely irrelevant sectarian groupings.”
Certainly you are right that Matthew’s piece “Further Thoughts on Hezbollah” was more insightful than my talk, in terms of the depth of analysis of what Hezbollah is and isn’t, but my purpose was different: I was attempting to address multiple shortcomings that I see in the radical left in the US.
Finally, I think you’re wrong when you suggest that the Three Way Fight blog overall is too focused on anti-Semitism. Not focused enough, I’d say, even though I generally agree with your point that islamophobia is a greater problem (and one I’d like to see addressed in more detail at 3WF).
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 13, 2007 @ 4:20 am
Noga,
First, I’m very sorry to hear about the bombing at the center your daughter attends. My partner and I have a toddler and another one due in a month, and I can’t even begin to imagine how that day must have felt to you.
I think mostly you and I will just have to agree to disagree on much of this stuff. My only request is that you not mischaracterize my views; apart from my cheapshot about your reading skills, I think I’ve avoiding mischaracterizing yours. For the record (again), I do not “find it hard to accept” that Israelis (in general) are “decent people who want nothing but to live in peace and quiet.” That certainly characterizes all the half-dozen or so Israelis I’ve personally known over the years, much as it characterizes the dozen or more Palestinians I’ve been acquainted with. I do not “make an effort to ignore documents and statistics that prove that Jews are persecuted.” My point in reference to “UK Figures” was not that the statistics for Jews were in any way overstated, but that the corresponding figures for Muslims might be understated. These sorts of statistics are not some zero-sum game: both communities suffer abuse, and that abuse should be opposed.
And finally, it is not impossible for me “to admit that Hizzbala is a malicious, antisemitic organization,” although again I will reference Matthew’s writings, and quote him in my stead: “Hezbollah does not exist to kill Jews and is not continuing Hitler’s work. It resists Israeli oppression but also — because of its underlying right-wing philosophy — promotes anti-Jewish stereotyping and bigotry. Not more and not less.”
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 13, 2007 @ 4:47 am
Neal,
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m a revolutionary. This means that I have a different sense of what is possible and what is a pipe dream; different that is, from the liberal politics that seem to inform your comments.
In most ways, I don’t “distinguish Jewish nationalism from any other nationalist movement on Earth.” I’m generally critical of nationalist movements, especially once they take power in their chosen territory.
Also, I must invoke Noga’s wisdom against you on the Hamas question: there is a difference between regimes and peoples. Nowhere have I expressed support for Hamas. And since anti-fascism is one of the cornerstones of my analysis, I think your reference to appeasement of Germany in the 1930’s is misplaced.
Finally, regarding my fitness to express opinions on these questions: Your position is essentially Mao’s – “No investigation, no right to speak” – and while I have some small respect for Mao’s insights, I have long disagreed with this perspective. You will notice that my prefatory note includes the disclaimer that “I have no real expertise in the Middle East. But I care deeply about the topics mentioned in my title, and I believe in the principle that all people should attempt to engage critically with such important issues.” If you disagree, so be it. But in that case, you will want this discussion to end here, rather than respond and thereby encourage me to continue my irresponsible habit of talking out of my ass. Your choice.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 13, 2007 @ 5:11 am
“I think mostly you and I will just have to agree to disagree on much of this stuff.”
Mike, how can you disagree about something you don’t understand, or know? By your own statement to Neal, you say: “I have no real expertise in the Middle East. But I care deeply about the topics mentioned in my title,” . That means you put inclination before enquiry, research, knowledge and reason. How sound are your judgments, when only mere inclination and a disposition for revolutionary interpretation are trusted?
Example:
You ignore my question about why Hizzbala deserves your support. I asked you for an explanation, why you ignore their genocidal antisemitism and pretend that they have a right to exist and act as resistance to Israel.
You replied:
“And finally, it is not impossible for me “to admit that Hizzbala is a malicious, antisemitic organization,” although again I will reference Matthew’s writings, and quote him in my stead: “Hezbollah does not exist to kill Jews and is not continuing Hitler’s work. It resists Israeli oppression but also — because of its underlying right-wing philosophy — promotes anti-Jewish stereotyping and bigotry. Not more and not less.”
You don’t explain how and why they resist Israel when Israel is no longer even in Lebanon and has not been for 7 years before being forced to retaliate against Hizz provocation.
You don’t explain why you think that an organization that promotes antisemitism deserves your moral support.
The Nazi party was very good for the German people. It organized society, restored German pride, solved inflation and unemployment, provided summer camps for German children, etc etc. It was also a party that promoted “anti-Jewish stereotyping and bigotry. Not more and not less.”
I am gratified that you benefit from my wisdom about regimes and peoples, except that the case you apply it to does not quite compute with it. Arab countries have regimes imposed on them, there are no democratic elections and the rulers do not reflect the free choice of the their people. The Palestinians are the exception: they elected Hamas, by a democratic vote which was given a ‘kosher’ certification by none other than Jimmy Carter. Hamas reflects the will and position of the majority of the Palestinian people. And Hamas’s Charter is based on fantastic claims derived from Palestinian myth, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, nazi type antisemitism, Islamist dogma, etc etc.
The right order of reasonable ethical enquiry is first learn and collect knowledge and facts, then form an opinion. Even when personal Inclination usually determines our interests, it does not mean it has to be indulged and given a priority, as you seem to believe. No one is asking you to give up your sympathies. What you are asked is to justify your moral choices in universal norms. That requires that you look at Israelis not through the prism of dogma and personal attitudes but through knowledge, facts, disinterestedness.
When you refused Neal’s challenge to learn more before your give such warm support to Hizzbala and Hamas, you have made a decision to hold beliefs that are outside the universal principles of equality and justice. Is this is what it means to be a revolutionary?
In view of the above, while I would like to believe you that I “mischaracterized” your attitude to Israelis, you have given me no reason to reconsider. To say you know some decent Israelis does not weigh much by way of mitigation as to why you choose to support organizations that demonize Israelis by way of existential neccessity.
Comment by Noga — April 13, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
Mike,
You write: I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m a revolutionary. This means that I have a different sense of what is possible and what is a pipe dream; different that is, from the liberal politics that seem to inform your comments.
The name of your website speaks for itself. So, I well understand where you come from, politically speaking. On the other hand, you have no idea about my politics including whether I am liberal, conservative, socialist or revolutionary or, perhaps, something else entirely. After all, some rather revolutionary people have supported the Zionist movement.
You say you do not support the HAMAS but, instead, the people. You claim to be a revolutionary. You also maintain that it is not necessary to investigate something in order to express an opinion.
First, how do you know that your support of Palestinian Arabs is good for your revolutionary cause? What if, in fact, you are really supporting a reactionary cause? How, without investigating, could you possibly know?
What does it mean to say that you support the people? Hitler said that also.
And, by the way, the HAMAS claims its legacy in the Muslim Brotherhood which, in turn, supported and was supported by the Nazi party. Arafat’s political program, by contrast, has its home in the political program of his relative, the Mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini, who was a Nazi sympathizer, spending his time in Germany and being well aware of the number of Jews being massacred - in real time, not after the fact. Arafat, as you may know, celebrated his infamous uncle. It seems to me that when you support Palestinian Arabs, you are in some ways supporting Nazism.
Lest you doubt me, read - it is not that long a document - the Hamas Covenant. Note this part in particular, as it is a common thread with views held by Nazis over the ages:
For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.
“So often as they shall kindle a fire for war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers.” (The Table - verse 64).
The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy with all their might, in money and in men. These forces take turns in doing that. The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.
“O true believers, contract not an intimate friendship with any besides yourselves: they will not fail to corrupt you. They wish for that which may cause you to perish: their hatred hath already appeared from out of their mouths; but what their breasts conceal is yet more inveterate. We have already shown you signs of their ill will towards you, if ye understand.” (The Family of Imran - verse 118).
It is not in vain that the verse is ended with Allah’s words “if ye understand.”
I know. You do not support the HAMAS. And, of course, the little detail that the HAMAS is the dominant political party among Palestinian Arabs does not much matter to you. Nor, evidently, do you think it matters that the HAMAS advocates genocide, openly and repeatedly.
So, are you really supporting a revolutionary cause or, instead, a reactionary cause? And, without investigating, how could you possibly know?
Comment by Neal — April 13, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
Sorry to be such a pest, Mike, but I keep returning to your comments and marvel at the inner tension between what you want to say and what you probably mean to say, as in this example:
” But I care deeply about the topics mentioned in my title, and I believe in the principle that all people should attempt to engage critically with such important issues.”
When you say “engage critically” what do you mean? To me it means, engage with a subject by learning its history, context, etc etc in order to be able to analyze it and take a stand on it.
I believe the gist of Neal’s criticism to you is that without the necessary knowledge, you are not in a good position to “think critically” and choose sides with such confidence.
And you practically concur with his judgment. You state that your motivation is that you “care deeply” for these issues. In other words, your decision to pick Hizzbala and Palestinians (not Hamas, sorry about that, I misunderstood in my earlier comment) is emotion based.
What does it mean? That you give yourself permission to make far-reaching moral judgments about Israel based on your deep caring for Palestinians? That you are not interetested in hearing and acquiring knowledge that contradicts your judgments? Is this what you mean by “critically think”?
Comment by Noga — April 13, 2007 @ 7:48 pm
hi mike,
thanks for your article and for attempting to begin a much needed discourse as on the left. that said, i can’t say i enjoy adding to excrutiatingly long debates on the internet, however i wanted to bring attn., to a thing or two on your selective use of “history”.
you mention that anti-semitism has a history that goes back centuries… (where you fail to clarify for us if you mean u.s. or europe or in the “west” in general) and how islamaphobia is apart of u.s.’s historical legacy of white supremacy and anti-immigrant racism. So if you mean to be talking about the u.s….then islamaphobia is relatively new, but my point is anti-semitism and islamaphobia both had longer histories in europe…so why not that comparison? whereas we know that islamaphobia has existed as long as there was islam in early europe’s christian empire to the present. so the way i read it is that islamaphobia has less license to make a claim against injustice than anti-semitism b’cos according to your selective memory–anti-semitism has a longer history of persecution? does your argument then lend itself to the argument that israel’s right to exist means that b’cos the jews have endured “anti-semitism” for centuries, it has a longer history than the movement for “palestinian self-determination” therefore the history of the longer persecution trumps the one with the more recent history? Extremely problematic i’d say.
best,
rini
i worry about your claim, b’cos one has only to look at “orientalist” discourse to see the more recent ramifications…but there is a history of islamaphobia that can be traced far back since its beginning that we know that minute traces of it must be bound up not only in contemporary orientalist discourse but in religious discursives on the right as well.
Comment by rini — April 14, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
“Cruelty as a Jewish feature is reflected mainly in caricatures (see below). In today’s communication channels, the Internet is the medium that best transmits a visual message. Indeed, a host of cartoons published in newspapers and distributed on the net conveyed an image of such vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty, Nazi-like, stereotypical Jewish Israelis, that – and this is the subtext − they have no right to exist. This view was best exemplified in 2006, by the well-known Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder. He attributed current Israeli policies to ancient Jewish scripts, which he claimed, advocated cruelty and revenge against the enemies of the Chosen People, thus implying that such an evil entity would never change (see below for further details). Many similar expressions which appeared in mainstream media channels hence validate British scholar David Hirsch’s phrase about the period of the war in 2006: “the summer in which anti-Semitism entered the mainstream.”
You can read the entire report here:
http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/
Comment by Noga — April 15, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
I have to wonder: How long does it take for a comment to get posted here? I have already submitted three comments (as far as I remember) since April 13, none of which contained spam, or flaming. What could be the reason for not posting them?
Comment by Noga — April 16, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Sorry about the delay in approving posts. I’ve been out of town a lot, and haven’t had a chance to check the blog. I will try to respond to all new comments today or tomorrow.
Comment by Mike — April 16, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Noga and Neal,
I’m afraid my crack about Mao was ill-conceived. It fomented a confusion between two concepts: investigation and expertise. Of course people should not “put inclination before enquiry, research, knowledge and reason.” Despite Noga’s assertion, I think my talk and my comments in this discussion make it clear that I have not done so. But I continue to resist the idea that expertise is a requirement for entering this sort of discussion. I have no idea whether Noga or Neal have anything approaching expertise on these topics, but it doesn’t much concern me. In spite of our fundamental disagreements, I think we have carried on a generally useful conversation here. Since Noga asks, I would say this dialogue is an example of what I mean by “critical engagement.”
Too often a demand “learn more” in this sort of situation is a not-so-subtle way of excluding people from the playing field because they disagree with you. That is a common usage of the Mao quote within the revolutionary left, and it is the usage I was disparaging. I apologize if I gave the impression that I had no interest in learning any more than I already know on this constellation of topics. (As to Noga’s claim that my judgments are “emotion based,” I disagree, but I also disagree with the unstated assumptions that emotions have no place in our moral and political decision-making.)
Both of you make analogies to Nazi Germany in an attempt to disparage my support for the Lebanese and Palestinian struggles, but in both cases the analogies fail. Noga suggests that, like Hezbollah, the Nazis “promoted ‘anti-Jewish stereotyping and bigotry. Not more and not less.’” This (the “not more” part) is obviously false and we all know it. Similarly, Neal asks, “What does it mean to say that you support the people? Hitler said that also.” This is meaningless, insofar as every head of state in the past century has claimed to support the people. My point was precisely that I support – that is, I advocate freedom and justice for – various populations against their official leadership, whether “elected” or otherwise, in the US, Lebanon, Israel and the Territories.
Neal makes a good point that many revolutionaries have also been Zionists (even putting to one side the revolutionary project that Zionism represented prior to 1948). But Neal’s comments betray no such revolutionary content. In fact, having re-read Neal’s comments, I was perhaps too kind when I described the “politics that seem to inform your comments” as liberal.
I’m not sure why Neal continues to lecture me about Hamas (at least Noga has backed off on that one); nothing in his post surprises me or causes me in any way to believe that I am supporting a reactionary cause. Hamas is not a cause, it is an organization, and I oppose it. Human freedom from oppression is a cause, and I support it.
Finally, Noga, I couldn’t figure out which report on the Tel Aviv University website produced the quote you offered.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 16, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Rini,
Thanks for wading into this “excruciatingly long debate.” I was indeed talking about the United States, where I believe islamophobia does have a shorter history than anti-Semitism. You are right that both have far longer histories in Europe, but I had focused my talk on North America because that is where I live and also where most members of my initial audience also live. This talk, like others I have given over the past several years, was aimed at influencing the movements that I am (however peripherally) a part of, and I have no meaningful connection to the comparable movements in Europe, Africa or Asia.
Thus, I think your reading of my position is wrong on several counts: I do not think that those who suffer from islamophobia have “less license to make a claim against injustice than anti-semitism.” Similarly, I do not believe that “the history of the longer persecution trumps the one with the more recent history.” As a general proposition I believe that all who suffer injustice have full license to resist that injustice. I’m not usually in the business of “ranking oppressions,” and even when that seems useful to me it doesn’t mean that the recipients of worse oppression are somehow more entitled to resist.
(And, by the way, my only comments on the question of “Israel’s right to exist” were to indicate that I do not believe any state has a “right to exist.”)
I hope this helps clarify my position.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 16, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
Why is rini putting ANTISEMITISM in scare quotes? Or are they ironical quotes? Or reversal quotes?
Rini’s post clarifies all the more easily the kind of historical revisionism your “fellow travellers” support and promote. I feel just a little sorry for you, that for the sake of your revolutionary inclinations - which derive from the wish to see a better, more just, world order (don’t we all?)- you have to make common cause with liars and fantasists of her or his ilk.
This I had to say. To revise the truth and facts of events as they are occurring is one thing, and can be largely attributed to misinformed and easily duped journalists (as can be seen from Kalb’s study which I linked earlier). To revise, distort and lie the history of the last two millennia in the service of an ideology and one particular, and particularly savage, nationalism, is something else: it is actually a crime against truth.
You should be aware where such revisionism leads.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm
Does Rini believe the Holocaust happened? Or is it the “Holocaust” for her/him?
Comment by Noga — April 16, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
Noga,
I expect Rini can respond directly, but I don’t see any lies or fantasies in the post you deplore.
Solidarity,
Mike
Comment by Mike — April 16, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
“Noga, I couldn’t figure out which report on the Tel Aviv University website produced the quote you offered.”
What’s there to figure out? I provided the link. You had to click on
“Antisemitism Worldwide 2006:
General Analysis
and Statistics
(English)
April 15
and get to the report here:
“The Stephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University, 2006 Annual Report.”
http://antisemitism.tau.ac.il/asw2006/gen-analysis.pdf
_____________________
” I also disagree with the unstated assumptions that emotions have no place in our moral and political decision-making.”
No such assumption was made. I am a firm believer in Martha Nussbaum’s neo-stoic theory that the emotions “involve judgments about important things” and that, value judgments are transformed into emotion at the very nexus of the emoter’s perception and neediness. We may recognize empirical knowledge as important and valuable, but its importance and value will only affect us emotionally if we are personally impacted by it.
However, nowhere does she contend that emotions are solely to be trusted. They are pointers, moral guides, no more no less. Once your compassion is invoked by a certain emotive information, it is your duty to learn as much as you can adjust your position to universal norms. As in navigation. All the more necessary this is, when you come from an ideology that previleges any revolution just because it is a revolution. This is purely self-indulgent and cannot be sustained for long without the necessary lies and revisionism that will ensure your umbilical attachment to the “cause”.
Clearly, you have not done your homework about Hizzbala. Or even about Palestinian history of choosing violence over compromise and normalcy. I daresay for you nothing less than the maximalist Palestinian demands will do. Israel has no side or any moral position. Only the “oppressed”, even when they themselves choose to be oppressed.
This is where you cross the line from rational argument into a position that is “religious” as it puts its trust in recited articles of faith.
I will defy you to explain this statement “I advocate freedom and justice for – various populations against their official leadership, whether “elected” or otherwise, in the US, Lebanon, Israel and the Territories. ” in terms of international law and ethical norm.
In what way is Hizzbala resisting “against their official leadership ” when they attack Israel? What are the Palestinians resisting in their terrorist choices? They were offered their own state in 2000. They refused. Because that is not what they are after. Perhaps you can tell me what they are after? And if what they are after is the destruction of Jewish polity and independence, why shouldn’t Israel resist that, to borrow from your jargon??
BTW, did you know that Zionism started in the second half of the 19th century as a Jewish liberation movement, predicated upon such events as the Ukrainian pogroms and the Dreyfuss trial? And zionism, as a project, practically ended with the establishment of the Jewish state?
You have not made a case why you prefer Palestinian nationalism to Jewish nationalism. You are choosing sides, because you care deeply for one side while disregarding Jewish claims, suffering and oppression. You have every right to make your choice but please don’t pretend that it is justice and freedom you care about. It is justice and maybe freedom for Arabs and Muslims. Jews are excluded from your general plan. Or rather, they don’t deserve more than dhimmitude.
Sorry. This is the only conclusion you allow me to arrive at from your own statements.
Comment by Noga — April 16, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
My questions were not addressed to rini, whose versions of history will have you believe that “islamaphobia has existed as long as there was islam in early europe’s christian empire to the present.” Islam in early Christian Europe means Andalucia , whose loss Bin Laden laments, along with “Palestine” in his famous fatwah. It was not a war about regaining territory, interests and whose religion will prevail on the outskirts of Christendom. It was ‘islamophobia”. In other words, the resistance of Christians to be subsumed into a