New thinking
Two posts from the blog The Deliverators relevant to our subject:
On Israel and the Left
Extract:
So what is needed then is a new style of opposition to the status quo in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. I think that Zizek handles this issue well, pointing out that a revolutionary project must ultimately be about busting through the boundaries of the possible and making the impossible a reality. For this reason I believe that the only revolutionary policy would be a single state policy. Well, in honesty I believe that the only solution is a No State Solution, but we’re talking turkey here: the only hope for a broad, radical/revolutionary alternative to the brutality of both Israel and its enemies (and I am happy to draw moral equivalence between them all), and the only meaningful vision to oppose the various two-state stumbling blocks is a One State Solution. Imagine a single multiethnic, secular, socialist republic, Israel-Palestine, built on the common ground shared by Jews and Palestinians: the fact that nobody else wants them. This has been done at least once before, in North America, and its result was profoundly revolutionary. Now that the American experiment has run well past its sell-by date, Israel-Palestine would offer a place to launch a new project in human liberty, an opportunity for a realignment of the values of the world.
Some Thoughts on Israel and the Left
Extract:
Being called a racist or an anti-Semite can come as a bit of a shock, because we’ve learned never to associate it with ourselves, but only to those we can clearly define as racists (i.e. the Klan, or the Third Reich, and so on and so on). If you’re a revolutionary communist, say, who is ostensibly at war with capitalism and racism and so on, you can’t, in your own mind, possibly be a racist. And then, if you view anyone outside your political system as racist, “everyone who is not a revolutionary communist is a racist,” well…
You’re saying this zone of self-critique is basically over. The response is never (Coates sort of put it like this) “well, maybe you have a point, my bad.” It’s “how dare you call me a racist” or “maybe you’re the racist.” The second part is this weasel justification, “we’re not homophobic, we’re just defending ourselves against the gay agenda.” It’s not “we dislike the Jews,” when the synagogue gets smashed up, it’s about Zionism, it’s about the injustice that justifies the dislike.
The blog Anti-German Translation has a strand called “critique and theory“. Here are some of the links in it, which might help towards the “new style of opposition” called for in the extract above: New from Anarchist Federation: Against Nationalism. Postone v Debord. Zizek quotes Postone [via PD]. Claussen on Adorno. On Karl Korsch. Noam Chomsky and genocidal causality. ‘Productive’ and ‘unproductive’ labour. New Moishe Postone. Why anarchists should not attack banks. In Praise of Usura.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Israel, Left, Palestinian Territories, anarchism, anti-zionism, national self-determination. 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 November 14, 2009 Rebecca wrote:
And how is this utopian one-state solution supposed to work when nobody but a few anarchists wants it? This isn't merely utopia, it's UTOPIA!!! (sorry for the exclamation points, but this really is a proposal that won't work).
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on November 16, 2009 schalomlibertad wrote:
thanks for the comment rebecca.
it reminds me of an old comment from the contentious centrist, on another forum in response to others who were also propagating a “one state solution.” it’s not that such a resolution should be ruled out indefinitely. it’s just that it has no basis in current reality, as you point out. and that it arises more out of an abstract reasoning about universalism, divorced from historical circumstances, or as the expression of cluelessness in the face of powerlessness. anyway, noga’s comment is here:
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on December 14, 2010 Wozzeck wrote:
Well, a world without money, value, labour, commodity; a world without capital is a utopia, isn’t it!?
And I am curious to know more about your “historical circumstances” — except the fact that (at least!) 70% of Israelis are hostile (ie palestino-arabophobic; ie racist) to a simple cohabitation with their fellow Arab citizens!
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