Hal Draper: How to Defend Israel (1948)
the attack upon the Jews’ right to self-determination comes from a deeply reactionary social class – the Arab lords – whose reactionary aims in this case are not alleviated by the fact that they themselves suffer from the exploitation of British imperialism (at the same time that they cling to that imperialism in order to defend their privileges against their own people).In this conflict, as socialists – that is, as the only thoroughgoing and consistent democrats, we not only support the Palestine Jews’ right to self-determination but draw the necessary conclusions from that position: for full recognition of the Jewish state by our own government; for lifting the embargo on arms to Israel; for defense of the Jewish state against the Arab invasion in the present circumstances.But for us this is not the end of the question but only the beginning.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 9:58 am and is filed under Israel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on June 16, 2009 Abel wrote:
Yeah, never look at ethnic cleansing, wich startet in … WOHAHAHA…October 1947! Almost ONE year, before the other Arabs attacked!
Most of the 600.000 to 1.000.000 Arabs (different sources), who were forced to leave were allready pushed out of the later yewish state when the Armys of Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria (the King of Jordania, whose Army was the only dangerous one for the forces of Israel had a secret contract withe the leadership of Israel) attacked Israel. They had less troops, less weapons… Why didn’t they attack with their whole armys?
Propaganda-Blog.
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on June 16, 2009 angelus novus wrote:
Abel,
arguing with anti-Semites like yourself has about as much sense as arguing with Scientologists or Jehovas Witnesses, and isn’t even half the fun, but I’ll indulge you for one round.
If you want to play the “oppression chronology game” (the favorite refrain of every 5-year-old is “but he hit me first”) then I’ll see your “October 1947″ and raise you August 1929.
That’s when a pogrom initiated by the Mufti of Jerusalem cost the lives of 133 Jews and 116 Arabs.
Yes, yes, I know, in the moral universe of an SA-Kommandant like you, a crime against Jews doesn’t have half the moral weight of a crime committed by Jews, but I figure you should at least refine your sense of chronology if you want to formulate more sophisticated rationalizations for your eliminationist program.
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on June 16, 2009 negative potential wrote:
P.S.
To those who have severe reading comprehension problems, I offer a brief summary of the Draper piece:
The piece argues that while communists regard the decision to create a Jewish state in Palestine in 1948 as an error, they nonetheless are obligated to support the right to form such a state.
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on June 16, 2009 Poumatic « Poumista wrote:
[...] Hal Draper: How to Defend Israel (1948) Hal Draper: Karl Marx and Simon Bolívar (1970) [...]
on June 18, 2009 abdel kader wrote:
Reminds me of Der neue Staat des jüdischen Volkes (The new state of the Jewish People) by Paul Merker, also written in 1948. Merker was a member of the GDR’s SED back then and was latter expelled and imprisoned for allegedly being a ‘Zionist agent.’
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on June 20, 2009 PetraMB wrote:
Fascinating as a historic document, and in some points undeniably prescient in its analysis. And well argued, clearly written, though I think that the main prescription was utterly unrealistic, because the role of religion is being ignored. It wasn’t very strong on the Jewish side, since the overwhelming majority of the early Zionists were very secular, but it already played a big role in Arab/Muslim identity.
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on June 23, 2009 Hal Draper: How To Defend Israel (1948) « Greens Engage wrote:
[...] Via Contested Terrain. [...]
on June 23, 2009 Hal Draper: How to Defend Israel – a Program for Israeli Socialists (1948) « Engage – the anti-racist campaign against antisemitism wrote:
[...] Contested Terrain. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment [...]
on June 24, 2009 Marxist theory « Poumista wrote:
[...] 1. Hal Draper’s piece on Israel posted by angelus novus at Contested Terrain (and linked to here) has prompted a very thoughtful, intelligent response by Mira Vogel, posted at [...]
on July 4, 2009 schalom libertad wrote:
thanks for the info Abdel,
Do you have a good english language text on Merker which I could post here? (Maybe I will just translate the German wikipedia article.) It´s an interesting part in the history of antizionism and Stalinism. While most of the antizionist purges were against Jewish communists, Merker´s case is an interesting one. I would like to read more about it.
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on July 6, 2009 schalom libertad wrote:
ok, i found a great text about Paul Merker. “East German Communists and the Jewish Question: The Case of Paul Merker.” By Jeffrey Herf. I will try to post something on it soon. Fascinating case. As Herf says, “The Merker case is as important for understanding the Jewish question in East Germany as the Dreyfus Affair was for pre-first world war France.” And it “was the central event concerning the Jewish question in the history of East Germany, and one of the most important chapters in the modern history of the Jewish question in Europe.”
For those not familiar with Merker, he was a prominent figure in the German communist movement who fled West during the war. He took the Communist line on most things, for example attacking the social democrats as “social fascists”, except from the Communist line on the Jewish question. He gave priority to antisemitism in his analysis of National Socialism (his works were however never published in the DDR). He returned to East Germany after the war and was a major figure of the SED. He prioritized the Jewish cause, recognized them as a victim group on par with other groups, supported reparations, etc. “In 1948/49, the Soviet Union reversed its initial support for Israel and launched an assault on ‘cosmopolitanism’, on Jewish communists and on communists who identified with Jewish concerns. The attack on Paul Merker and others he knew in the years of French and Mexican emigration took place in this context.”
Though not Jewish himself, he was accused of being a zionist agent, put on trial, went to prison, lost his career, etc.
Here´s another quote summing up the charges against Merker: “The interrogators viewed Merker’s contact with and assistance from Jews, both communists and non-communists, during the French and Mexican emigration as further evidence of his participation in an espionage conspiracy. The ‘Joint Anti-fascist Refugee Committee’ in New York which raised funds to help Jews and leftists escape from Europe, friendship with Jews in Mexico who gave financial support to Freies Deutschland, his friendship with Otto Katz (Andre Simone) in Prague, an alleged angry outburst in Paris in 1939 when he heard the news of the Hitler-Stalin pact — dutifully remembered and reported – or invented? – over a decade later by Central Committee member Anton Ackermann, and his published essays and books from the Mexico City days all confirmed the interrogators in their conviction that Merker was an agent in a conspiracy of foreign Jewish capitalists and American imperialists.”
I will try to post something on this soon.
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