Moishe Postone: Hamburg, 2009 – another German Autumn
(Address given at a demonstration in Hamburg against the blockade of the film showing of Claude Lanzmann’s “Why Israel.” December 13, 2009)
I think it is politically important that so many on the Left are taking seriously the expressions of anti-Semitism that have become widespread among groups that regard themselves as anti-imperialist. Perhaps it can also lead to some long overdue theoretical clarification. At issue is not whether or not Israeli policies can be criticized. Israeli policies should be criticized, especially those aimed at undermining any possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. However, the critique of “Zionism” prevalent in many anti-imperialist circles goes beyond a critique of Israeli policies. It attributes to Israel and the “Zionists” a unique malevolence and global conspiratorial power. Israel is not criticized as other countries are criticized – but as the embodiment of that which is deeply and fundamentally evil. In short, the representation of Israel and the “Zionists” in this form of “anti-imperialist” “anti-Zionism” is essentially the same as that of the Jews in the virulent anti-Semitism that found its purest expression in Nazism. In both cases, the “solution” is the same – elimination in the name of emancipation.
The conventional Stalinist and Social Democratic representation of Nazism and fascism as simply tools of the capitalist class, used to crush working class organizations, always omitted one of their central dimensions: These movements, in terms of their own self-understanding and their mass appeal, were revolts. Nazism presented itself as a struggle for liberation (and supported “anti-imperialist” movements in the Arab world and India). The basis for this self-understanding was a fetishized understanding of capitalism: the abstract, intangible, global domination of capital was understood as the abstract, intangible global domination of the Jews. Far from simply being an attack on a minority, Nazis anti-Semitism understood itself as anti-hegemonic. Its aim was to free humanity from the ruthless ubiquitous domination of the Jews. It is because of its anti-hegemonic character that anti-Semitism poses a particular problem for the Left. It is the reason why, a century ago, anti-Semitism could be characterized as the “socialism of fools.” Today it can be characterized as the “anti-imperialism of fools.”
This anti-Semitic form of “anti-Zionism” is, unfortunately, not new. It was at the center of the Stalinist show trials of the early 1950s, especially in Czechoslovakia, when internationalist Communists, many of whom were Jews, were accused of being “Zionist agents” and shot. This coded form of anti-Semitism, whose origins had nothing to do with struggles in the Middle East, was then transported there by the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War – especially by the intelligence services of the DDR working with their Western and Middle Eastern clients (e.g. the RAF and various “radical” Palestinian groups).
This form of “leftist” anti-Zionism has converged with radical Arab nationalism and radical Islamism – which are no more progressive than any other form of radical nationalism, such as radical Albanian or Croatian nationalism, and for whom the eliminationist impulse towards Jews in Israel is justified as being directed against “European” colonizers. Whenever the eliminationist impulse towards Jews in Israel is strongest, the legitimacy of Israel is called into question most – with arguments ranging from the claim that most European Jews are not biologically Middle Eastern (a claim made in 1947 by the Arab Higher Committee and now recycled as a “new discovery” by Shlomo Sand) to the idea that they are simply European colonizers who, like the pied noir, should be sent home. It is unfortunate, if not surprising, that radical nationalists in the Middle East view the situation in these terms. It becomes perverse, however, when Europeans – especially Germans – identify the Jews, the group most persecuted and massacred by Europeans for a millennium, with those very Europeans. By identifying the Jews with their own murderous past, those Europeans can slip out of dealing with that burdensome legacy. The result is a mode that purports to fight the past, but actually continues and extends it.
This form of anti-Zionism is part of a campaign, gathering strength since the beginning of the second Intifada, to eliminate Israel. Its focus on the weakness of the Palestinians veils that ultimate intent. This form of anti-Zionism is part of the problem, not a part of the solution. Far from being progressive, it allies itself with radical Arab nationalists and Islamists, that is, with the radical Right in the Middle East, and, in so doing, strengthens the Israeli Right. It is constitutive of a war increasingly defined in zero-sum terms, which undermines any possible political solution, a recipe for an endless war. The hatred expressed by this anti-Zionism explodes the limits of politics, for it is as boundless as its imagined object. Such boundlessness points to the dream of elimination. The Germans, along with many other Europeans, know this eliminationist dream only too well. It is time finally to wake up.
Source: http://b-g-h-u.blogspot.com/2009/12/moishe-postone-hamburg-2009-another.html
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on December 20, 2009 John Garvey wrote:
I agree with virtually all that Postone said. However, I think his swipe at Shlomo Sand was unfortunate. I am pasting below a message I wrote a short time ago after I read sand’s book and heard him speak.
Dear All,
So, I’ve read the book and heard the author speak. What do I think? I think his argument is so fundamental and convincing that serious political work around Israel and the Middle East must take its argument into account.
So, as I guess everyone has figured out, Sand doesn’t believe that the Jews are a people—a group entitled to their own land and sovereignty. His book is an argument about why the Jews are not a people (by which he does not mean that there are no Jews—he describes himself as a Jew—albeit one that doesn’t subscribe to the beliefs or religious practices of Judaism).
Quick summary of his basic argument:
The Old Testament is not a reliable historical document.
There was no great kingdom of David and Solomon in Israel and Judea.
There was no expulsion of the Jews from Palestine either in 70 CE or 135 CE. The number of Jews in Palestine was probably reduced because of the Roman assault and some of the relatively privileged members of the Jewish society might have fled but the peasants stayed put. The story of exile is best understood as a later Jewish appropriation of what was originally a Christian slander—that the Jews were exiled because of their refusal of Christ.
The existence of Jewish communities around the Mediterranean and elsewhere is testimony to the power of the Jewish religion as a belief system. In other words, people in a number of different places converted to Judaism as an alternative to paganism or Christianity. Those places included Italy, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Northern Africa (among the Berbers). I’m leaving out Iraq because I forget the details and I don’t want to take the time to go back to read the chapter again right now. (Sand clearly believes that Judaism is one of the great religions of the world—no sarcasm on his or my part).
The advent of Islam changed things quite a bit. In Palestine, both Jews and Christians were permitted to worship as they chose (while pagans were not). But, unlike Muslims, they had to pay taxes. As a result, most of the Jews converted to Islam—this may or may not have resulted in any changes to what their everyday religious practices looked like. Sand suggests that it’s possible that today’s Palestinians might be more likely to be the descendants of those peasant Jews than most of the Jews in Israel or elsewhere in the world. At the same time, he acknowledges that the Middle East was a pretty busy place with people coming and going and it’s not very clear who was descended from whom. Meanwhile, although the Jewish Berbers of North Africa initially resisted the Islamic assault, they eventually became allies of the Muslims in the conquest of Spain—which explains the large Jewish population there.
One last moment—the rulers of Khazaria (between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea) converted to Judaism and promoted the religion among their subjects. The Khazars were eventually overwhelmed by the Mongols and they scattered across what is now Eastern Europe. They became the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews. (For those who know about this stuff, this is what Arthur Koestler was arguing in his book, The Thirteenth Tribe,a long time ago). Sand has a really interesting account of how Yiddish might have developed in the everyday lives of Jewish trades people who were going back and forth across a number of different languages. He specifically argues that it was not a product of the German spoken by the Jews in western Germany.
Taken altogether, this means, among other things, that Judaism was a proselytizing religion (Sand notes that this was not universally favored by all Jewish authorities) and that Judaism’s “exclusiveness” is not well founded until much later on. It also explains why there were Jews in so many different places—even until the late 20th Century. And those Jews did not share a common ancestry—they shared, more or less, religious beliefs and customs.
Sand utilizes historical documents, archeological evidence, linguistics and genetics to support all of this. I am, of course, not qualified to judge the quality of his evidence but it looks good.
Early Jewish and Zionist historians were prepared to acknowledge at least part of the story he tells but those acknowledgements were eventually buried under the weight of official Zionist history and mythology—which emphasized the continuity of ancestry between the ancient Jews of Palestine and modern Jews. He argues that the underlying logic of Zionism shared a great deal with other eastern European nationalisms (German, Poland and Russian) that emerged in the last half of the 19th Century and that they were all good at inventing mythological histories of their people.
Sand begins his book by a fascinating account of his own life as an Israeli—the son of a non-believing Jewish Polish Communist (whose comrades sang the Internationale at his funeral and the son-in-law of a Catalan anarchist (who went to Israel because he hoped that the kibbutzim would carry forward the possibility of a new world).
A quick summary of his political views:
He believes that there is a real Israel—made by sixty odd years of history—with its own genuine culture (theater, cinema, food, humor, politics, etc.).
He argues that Israel is not a democracy, but rather an ethnocracy—a state of all of the Jews (including those who do not live there) and not a state of all the Israelis (including the non-Jewish Arabs who do live there). I don’t know what he thinks of the status of the immigrant workers in Israel.
At the same time, he argues that Israel is a very liberal society—where people like him can say a lot of things that are quite controversial. His book was on the best seller list in Israel for 19 weeks.
He has a somewhat apocalyptic view of what could happen within Israel proper if and when its Arab citizens (mostly the young ones) accelerate their demands for either full citizenship rights or autonomy (in Galilee, for example, where Arabs are in the majority). He suggests that what happened after the break-up of Yugoslavia could be an example and that the result could make the everyday misery of the West Bank look mild by comparison.
Not long ago, he spoke at Al Quds University in the West Bank about his book. He was asked to speak in Hebrew—even though most of the students would not understand—because most of the professors had served time in Israeli prisons and had learned Hebrew. At the end of the talk, he was asked how, in light of what he had said, he could ask the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a state (but not a Jewish state), he responded that even the child born of a rape deserves to live. He also acknowledged that he considers 1948 to have been a rape of the Palestinian people. The next day, a leading Palestinian newspaper carried the headline: “Even the child of a rape deserves to live.”
He is, for the moment, opposed to a one-state strategy. He argued that utopian visions should guide politics but should not replace politics. He cannot imagine a politics that reduces Jews to a minority in a Palestinian state. Instead, he advocates a non-Jewish Israel (a state of all its citizens) and the immediate and complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from all of the occupied territories. (I don’t know what he would suggest should happen with the settlers but my guess is that he doesn’t care all that much). He goes on to say that, on the day that the troops are withdrawn and Israel gives full citizenship rights to all of its citizens, a campaign should be launched for the establishment of a new confederation of Palestine, Israel and Jordan.
When asked if he, like Israel Shahak, thought that Zionism reflected some fundamental aspects of Judaism, he said that Shahak was a nice man (and a chemist) but that he was a lousy historian. Zionism borrowed or stole only the worst aspects of Judaism and used them for its own purposes.
When challenged about his denial of the genetic evidence for the existence of a Jewish people, he said that anyone born in the 20th Century who believed in a biological basis for Jewishness was a “disgrace.” It was the most impassioned thing he said during the whole talk.
He spoke only a bit about anti-Semitism but did not really address the issue of the extent to which the Holocaust and the continuing threat associated with the conviction of more than a few that the Jews control everything and are responsible for much of the world’s misfortune have transformed the situation. I believe that it was Hannah Arendt who argued that the issue of anti-Semitism had to be dealt with separately from the issue of Israel and that the issue of Israel had to be addressed separately from anti-Semitism. That was easier to say and maybe even act upon when the nature of the opposition to Israel was less poisoned by anti-Semitism (as evidenced by much of what passes for common sense among the politicized versions of Islam and the residual and resurgent fascist forces around the world.
I would urge everyone to read the book—other than the first chapter which is devoted to a theoretical discussion of nationalism, it’s a pretty easy read. If and when enough people do so, maybe we could get together to talk about it.
John
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