Thursday, May 8, 2008
Gilad Atzmon - Anatomy of a Conditionally Unresolved Conflict
According to Hegel, attaining 'self-consciousness' is a process that necessarily involves the other. How am I to become conscious of myself in general? It is simply through desire or anger, for example. Unlike animals that overcome biological needs by destroying another organic entity, human desire is a desire for recognition.In Hegelian terms, recognition is accomplished by directing oneself towards non-being, that is, towards another desire, another emptiness, another ‘I’. It is something that can never be fully accomplished. "The man who desires a thing humanly acts not so much to possess the thing as to make another recognise his right. It is only desire of such recognition, it is only the action that flows from such desire, that creates, realizes and reveals a human, non biological I." (Kojeve A., Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, 1947, Cornell Univ. Press, 1993, p. 40). Following this Hegelian line of thinking, we can deduce that in order to develop self-consciousness, one must face the other. While the biological entity will fight for its biological continuity, a human being fights for recognition.
In order to understand the practical implications of this idea, let us turn to the 'Master-Slave Dialectic'. The Master is called the Master because he strives to prove his superiority over nature and over the slave who is forced to recognize him as a master.
At first glance, it looks as if the master has reached the peak of human existence but as we shall see, this is not the case. As has just been stated, it is recognition that humans fight for. The master is recognised by the slave as a master but the slave's recognition has little value. The master wants to be recognised by another man, but a slave is not a man. The master wants recognition by a master, but another master cannot allow another superior human being in his world. "In short, the master never succeeds in realising his end, the end for which he risks his very life." So the master faces a dead-end. But what about the slave? The slave is in the process of transforming himself since, unlike the master who cannot go any further, the slave has everything to aspire to. The slave is at the vanguard of the transformation of the social conditions in which he lives. The slave is the embodiment of history. He is the essence of progress.
A Lesson in Mastery
Let us now try to apply the Hegelian Master-Slave Dialectic to the notion of Jewish ‘chosenness’ and exclusivity. While the Hegelian 'Master' risks his biological existence to become a master, the newborn Jewish infant risks his foreskin. The chosen infant is born into the realm of mastery and excellence without (yet) excelling at anything. The other awards the chosen baby his prestigious status without the requirement of facing any process of recognition. And in fact, the ‘chosen’ title is given to Jews by themselves (allegedly God) rather than by others.
If, for instance, we try to analyse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the Hegelian mechanism of recognition, we realise the impossibility of any dialogue between the two parties. While it is more than clear that the Palestinian people are fighting for recognition, which they declare at every possible opportunity, the Israelis avoid the whole recognition issue altogether. They are convinced that they are already fully recognised in the first place. They know who they are - they are born masters who happen to live on their ‘promised land’. Israelis refuse to join the dialectic 'meaning transformation' game and instead divert all their intellectual, political and military efforts into demolishing any sense of Palestinian recognition. The battle for Israeli society is to suppress any Palestinian symbol or desire, whether material, spiritual or cultural.
Strangely enough, the Palestinians are managing quite well in their fight for recognition. More and more people out there are now beginning to understand the just nature of the Palestinian cause and the level of inhumanity entangled with the entire concept of Zionism and Jewish politics in general. More and more people out there find the Palestinian people and their spokesmen very easy to empathise with. Even the Hamas who were despised by most Western political institutions are now managing to get their message across. The Israelis, on the other hand, are falling behind in such manoeuvres. The average Western listener finds them almost impossible to sympathise with. While a Palestinian will call you to share his pain and misery, talking straight to your heart, the Israeli spokesman will demand that you to accept his views. He will insist on selling you a ready-made fantastic historical narrative; a repetitive tale that starts somewhere around Biblical Abraham, continues with a series of Holocausts and leads eventually towards more current bloodshed. It seems as if the Israelis, the masters, always present the same faceless story. Can Abraham and the Holocaust justify Israeli inhuman behaviour in Gaza? Not really, and the reason is simple, Abraham and the Holocaust and historical narratives in general do not evoke genuine emotional feelings. And indeed, the Jewish political world is so desperate to maintain its narrative that the last Holocaust has now been transformed into a legal narrative. The message is as follows: “beware, if you doubt my narrative you will end up behind bars.” This is obviously an act of desperation.
Following Hegel, we learn that recognition is a dynamic process; it is a type of understanding that grows in you. While the Palestinians will use all their available, yet limited, resources to make you look at their faces, in their eyes, to carry you into a dynamic process of mutual recognition, the Israelis would expect you to accept their narrative blindly. They would expect you to turn a blind eye to the clear fact that as far as the Middle East is concerned Israel is an aggressor like no other. Israel is an occupying regional super power, a tiny State heavily engaged in exploring different nuclear, biological and chemical arsenals. It is a racially orientated apartheid state that bullies and abuses its minorities on a daily basis. Yes, the Israelis and their supportive Jewish lobbies around the world want you to ignore these facts. They insist upon being the victims, they want you to approve their inhuman policies referring to Jews endless suffering.
How is it that Jewish politics has become aggressive like no other? It is simply the fact that from a Jewish political perspective, there is ‘no other’. The so-called other for them is nothing but a vehicle rather than an equal human subject. Israeli foreign affairs and Jewish political activity should be comprehended in the light of a severe lack of a 'recognition mechanism'. Israeli and Jewish politics, left right and centre, is grounded on locking and fixing of meaning. They would refuse to regard history as a flux, as a dynamic process, as a journey towards 'oneself' or self-realisation. Israel and Israelis view themselves as if they are external to history. They do not progress toward self-realisation because they have a given, fixed identity to maintain. Once they encounter a complex situation with the surrounding world, they would then create a model that adapts the external world into their chauvinist self-loving value system. This is what Neo-conservatism is all about; this is what the fantasmic yet sickening newly emerging Judeo-Christian discourse is all about.
As sad as it may sound, people who are not trained to recognise the other are unable to let them be recognised. The Jewish tribal mindset: left, centre and right, sets Jews aside of humanity. It does not equip the followers of the tribal mindset with the mental mechanism needed to recognise the other. Why should they do it? They have done so well for many years without having to do so. Lacking a notion of an other, indeed transcends one far beyond any recognised form of true humanist thought. It takes one far beyond ethical thinking or moral awareness.
Instead of morality, every debate is reduced into a mere political struggle with some concrete material and practical achievements to aim for.
Hegel may throw some further light on the entire saga. If indeed one becomes aware of oneself via the other, then the ‘Chosen subject’ is self-aware to start with. He is born into mastery. Accordingly, Israelis are not practicing any form of dialogue with the surrounding human environment since they are born masters. In order to be fair to the Israelis, I have to admit that their lack of a recognition mechanism has nothing to do with their anti-Palestinian feelings. As a matter of fact, they cannot even recognise each other - Israel and Israelis have a long history of discrimination against its own people (Jews of non-European descent such as Sephardim Jews are discriminated against by the Jewish elite, those of Western descent). But are progressive Jews any different? Not really. Like the Israelis and similar to any other form of tribal chauvinist ideology, they are continuously withdrawing into self-centred segregated discourse that has very little to engage or grab the interest of anyone besides themselves. Consequently, like the Israelis who surround themselves with walls, the Jewish progressive cells have already set themselves into cyber ghettos that are becoming increasingly hostile to the rest of humanity and those who supposed to be their comrades.
Historic Materialism
If one cannot establish relationships with one's neighbour based upon recognition of the other, there must be another way of establishing a dialogue. If one cannot form a dialogue based upon empathy with the other and the rights of the other, one must pursue another mode of communication. It seems as if the alternative 'chosen' dialogical method reduces any form of communication into a materialistic language. Almost any form of human activity, including love and aesthetic pleasure, can be reduced to a material value. The Chosen political activists are well practised in using this method of communication.
Recently the Israeli ultra-Zionist author A B Yehoshua has managed to upset many American Jewish Ethnic leaders at the American Jewish Committee conference by saying: “You [Jews in the Diaspora] are changing jackets … you are changing countries like changing jackets.” Indeed, Yehoshua came under a lot of pressure following his remark, he was very quick to regret his statement. However, Yehoshua’s insight, while far from being original, is rather painfully truthful.
It is quite apparent that some politically orientated Diaspora Jews are engaged in an extremely fruitful dialogue with any possible core of hegemony. Yehoshoua’s criticism was fairly spot on. Following Yehoshua, once it is clear that a new country is becoming a leading world super power, it won’t take long before a wave of liberated assimilated Jews would try to infiltrate into its governing elite. “If China ever became the world’s foremost super power,” he warned, “American Jews would migrate there to assimilate rather than in the US.” (http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2006/june/june30-1.html).
A decade ago, at the peak of the legal battle between major Jewish institutions and the Swiss Bank, Norman Finkelstein stood up and said that very little remains of the Jewish Holocaust apart from various industrial forms of financial bargaining for compensation. According to Finkelstein, it was all about profit-making. Without any criticism intended by me about financial compensation, it appears as if some people are quick to translate their pain into gold. (It is important to mention that pain as well as being transformed into gold, can be transformed into other values such as moral or aesthetic ones). However, the possibility of transforming pain and blood into cash stands at the heart of the Israeli false dream - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the refugee problem, is resolvable. Now we know where this assumption originates. The Israelis, as well as Jewish leading institutions, are fully convinced that if they were happy to come to a financial settlement with the Germans (or the Swiss for the matter), the Palestinians would be equally happy to sell their lands and dignity. How do the Israelis arrive at such a strange conviction? Because they must know better than the Palestinians what the Palestinians really want. How? Because the Israelis are brilliant, they are the Chosen People. Moreover, the chosen subject doesn’t even try to engage with the human in the other. Sixty years after the Nakba, the mass the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians, the vast majority of Israelis and world Jewry do not even start to acknowledge the Palestinian cause, let alone do they show any form of empathy.
When you talk to Israelis about the conflict, one of their most frequently used arguments is the following: "When we (the Jews) came here (to Palestine), they (the Arabs) had nothing. Now they have electricity, work, cars, health services, etc." This is obviously a failure to recognise the other. It is typical of the chauvinist colonialist to impose one’s own value system on the other. In other words, the Israelis expect the Palestinians to share the importance they attach to the acquisition of material wealth. “Why should the other share my values? Because I know what is good. Why do I know what is Good? Because I am the best.” This arrogant and completely materialistic approach obviously lies at the heart of the Israeli vision of peace. The Israeli military calls it ‘the stick and the carrot’. Seemingly, when referring to Palestinians they actually have rabbits in their minds. But, as bizarre or even tragic as it may sound, the Israeli born, ultra-left Mazpen movement was not categorically different. They obviously had some revolutionary dreams of secularisation for the Arab world. They obviously knew what was good for the Arabs. Why did they know? Shall I let you guess? Because they were exclusively and chauvinistically clever. They were the Marxists of the chosen type. Hence, I wasn’t overwhelmingly surprised that as time went by, the legendary ‘revolutionary’ Mazpen and the despised neo-conservatism actually united into a single catastrophic message: “We know better what is good for you than you yourselves do.”
Both Zionists and Jewish leftists have a "New Middle East dream". In Peres’s old fantasy the region turns into a financial paradise in which Israel would stand at the very centre. The Palestinians (as well as other Arab States) would supply Israeli industries (representing the West) with the low cost labour they need. In turn, they, the Arabs, would earn money and spend it buying Israeli (Western) goods. In the Judeo progressive dream the Arabs leaves Islam behind, they become Marxist cosmopolitan progressives (East European Jews) and join the journey towards a world revolution. As much as Peres’s dream is sad, the Judeo Marxist version is almost funny.
As it seems, within the Zionist dream, Israel would establish a dual coexistence in the region where the Palestinian people would be the eternal slaves and the Israelis their masters. Within the Judeo progressive cosmopolitan dream, Red Palestine will establish a dual coexistence in the region where the Palestinian people would be the eternal slaves of a remote Euro-centric ideology. If there is a big categorical difference between the two Judeo centric ideologies, I just fail to see it.
However, according to Hegel, it is the slave that moves history forward. It is the slave that struggles towards his freedom. It is the slave who transforms himself and it is the master who eventually vanishes. Following Hegel, we have good reason to believe that the future of the region belongs to the Palestinians, the Iraqis and nation Islam in general. One way of explaining why Israel ignores this understanding of history relates to the conditional detachment of the exclusive 'chosen' state of mind.
Welcome to Cuckoo land
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian doctor who lives and works in the occupied West Bank, referred to Israel as "trying to be David and Goliath at the same time" (Dr. Barghouti was speaking at a debate at the House of Commons, 22 Nov. 2000). According to Dr. Barghouti, this is impossible. He also claimed that "Israel is probably the only State that bombs a territory it occupies." He found this very strange and even bizarre. Is it really strange to be David and Goliath simultaneously? Is it really strange to destroy your own property? Not if you are insane. The lack of mirroring (again, seeing oneself through the other) can lead people, as well as nations, into strange dark corners. The lack of a framework which would allow you to discern your own image through the other, the lack of a corrective mechanism, appears to be a very dangerous state of affairs.
The first generation of Israeli leaders (Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Meir, Peres, Begin) grew up in the Diaspora, mainly in Eastern Europe. Being a Jew living in a non-Jewish environment forces one to develop a sharpened self-awareness and imposes a certain kind of mirroring. Moreover, early Zionism is slightly more developed than other forms of Jewish tribal politics for the simple reason that Zionism is there to transform the Jews into ‘people like other people’. Such a realisation involves a certain amount of necessary mirroring. However, this was not enough to restrain Israeli aggressive acts (e.g., Deir-Yassin, Nakba, Kafer Kasem, the '67 war, etc.) but it was more than enough to teach them a lesson in diplomacy. Since 1996, young leaders who were born there have led Israel into the state of ‘chosenness’ (Rabin, Netanyahu, Sharon, Barak, Olmert). Whilst in their earlier years they were imbued with an intense traditional Jewish anxiety, as they grew up this was overtaken by the legacy of the 1967 ‘miracle’, an event that turned some of the ‘chosen’ ideologies into a messianic extravaganza. This fixation with absolute power exacerbated by Jewish anxiety coupled with ignorance of the 'other' leads to epidemic collective schizophrenia, both of mood and action; a severe loss of contact with reality that gives way to the use of excessive force. The recent “Second Lebanon War” was an obvious example for that matter. Israel retaliates with machine guns in response to children throwing stones, with artillery and missiles against civilian targets following a sporadic uprising, and with a total war to a minor border incident. This behaviour should not be explained by using political, materialist or sociological analytical tools. Much greater understanding could be gained by situating the conflict within a philosophical framework, which allows a better understanding of the origins of paranoia and schizophrenia.
The Israeli Prime Minister, representing both 'David and Goliath', can talk about the vulnerability of Israel, Jewish pain and Jewish misery in one breath and about launching a massive military offensive against the whole region in the next. Such behaviour can only be explained by seeing it as a form of mental illness. The funny/sad side of it is that most Israelis do not even realise that something is going terribly wrong. Being a born master leads to the absence of a 'recognition mechanism'. Inevitably it leads toward blindness. This lack of a recognition mechanism results in a split psyche, being both 'David and Goliath' at one and the same time. It seems that neither Israel nor Israelis can any longer be partners in any meaningful dialogue.
Labels: Atzmon, hasbara, holocaust, Israel, jewish identity politics, philosophy, Zionism
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Gilad Atzmon - The Right to Self-Determination - A Fake Exercise in Universalism
In the picture, a visual explanation of Jewish Self-Determination
The right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power reserved for the rich, strong and privileged. Since Zionists hold the reigns on international political power through their influence in important positions as well as the military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’, any current political debate on the legitimacy of this concept would lead inevitably to a dismissal of what we have come to accept as the Palestinian right of self-determination. Yet, instead of demanding this right, which is currently impractical, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis for what it is. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.
A Citizen of the World, A Cosmopolitan and an Atheist
Last year in a little community church in Aspen, Colorado, at the question time following my talk, a middle-aged person at the back of the room stood up, presenting himself as follows:
“I am a citizen of the world, I am a cosmopolitan and an atheist. I would like to ask you something Mr Atzmon…”
“Hang on,” I stopped him, “please do not be offended by me asking, but are you by any chance a Jew?”
The person froze for a second, he couldn’t stop his face from blushing, everyone in the room turned around. Maybe they were curious enough to want to see what a 21st century self-loving cosmopolitan looks like. I, on my part, felt a bit guilty about it all, I didn’t have any intention to embarrass the man. However, it took him a few good seconds before he could get his act together.
“Yes Gilad, I am a Jew, but how did you know?”
“I obviously didn’t know,” I said, “I was actually guessing. You see, whenever I come across people who call themselves ‘cosmopolitans’, ‘atheists’ and a ‘citizens of the world’, they somehow always happen to be ‘Jews’ of the so-called ‘progressive’ assimilated type. I can only assume that ‘non-Jews’ tend to live in peace with whoever they happen to be. If they are born Catholic and decide to move on at a certain stage, they just dump the church behind. If they do not love their country as much as others do, they probably pack a few things and pick another country to live in. Somehow ‘non-Jews’, and this is far from being a scientific law, do not need to hide behind some vague universal banners and some artificial righteous value system. However, what was your question?”
No question followed. The ‘cosmopolitan, atheist and citizen of the world’, couldn’t remember what his question was. I assume that following the tradition of post-emancipated Jews he was there to celebrate his right to ‘self-determination’ in public. The man was using question time to tell his Aspen neighbours and friends what a great human being he was. Unlike them, local patriotic believers and proud Americans, he was an advanced humanist, a man beyond nationhood, a godless non-patriotic subject. He was the ultimate ‘self determined’ rational product of enlightenment. He was the son of Voltaire and the French revolution.
Self-determination is a modern Jewish political and social epidemic. The disappearance of the Ghetto and its maternal qualities led towards an identity crisis within the largely assimilated Jewish society. Seemingly, all post-emancipated Jewish political, spiritual and social schools of thought, left, right and centre were inherently concerned with issues to do with the ‘right to self-determination’. The Zionists would demand the right to national self-determination in the land of Zion. The Bund would demand national and cultural self-determination within the East European proletarian discourse. Matzpen and the ultra Israeli leftists would demand the right to self-determination for the ‘Israeli Jewish nation’ in the ‘liberated Arab East’, Anti Zionist Jews would insist upon the right to engage in an esoteric Jewish discourse within the Palestinian solidarity movement. But what does that very right to self-determination stand for? Why is it that every modern Jewish political thought is grounded on that right? Why is it that some ‘progressive’ assimilated Jews feel the need to become citizens of the world rather than just ordinary citizens of Britain or France or Russia?
The Pretence of Authenticity
It should be said that though identity search and self-determination are there to convey the pretence of a final march towards an authentic redemption, the direct result of Identity politics and self-determinative affairs is the complete opposite. Those who have to self-determine who they are, are those who are far removed from any authentic realisation to start with. Those who are determined to be seen as ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘secular humanists’ are those who fail to see that human brotherhood needs neither an introduction nor a declaration. All it really takes is a genuine love for one another. Those who initiate and sign humanist manifestos are those who insist upon being seen as humanists while at the same time spreading some Zionist tribal evil around. Clearly, real genuine cosmopolitans do not have the need to declare their abstract commitment to humanism. Real citizens of the world, similarly, just live in an open world with no boundaries and borders.
I am surrounded, for instance, by jazz musicians of all colours and ethnic origins. People who live on the road, people who sleep every night in a different continent, people who make a living out of their love of beauty. Yet, I have never seen a Jazz artist who calls himself or herself either a citizen of the world or a cosmopolitan or even a beauty merchant. I have never met a Jazz artist who adopts an air of egalitarian importance. I have never met a Jazz musician who celebrates his or her right to self-determination. The reason is simple, authentic beings do not need to self determine who they are, they just let themselves and others be.
The right to self-determination
The right to self-determination is often cited as the acknowledgment that "all peoples have the right to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” This very principle is often seen as a moral and legal right. It is also well embedded in the philosophy of the United Nations. The term self-determination was used in the UN Charter and has been defined in various declarations and covenants.
Though we all tend to believe that every human is entitled to celebrate his or her symptoms, the right to self-determination is in fact significantly meaningful only within the Western liberal discourse which accepts such a right and premises it on the notion of enlightened individualism. Moreover, the right to self-determination can be celebrated only by the privileged who can mobilize enough political power or military might to make this right into a practical reality.
However, it must be mentioned that even within the Western liberal discourse, it is only Jews who premise their political power on the ‘right to be like others’. The reason is simple, though liberated Jews insist upon being ‘like others’, it is rather clear that others prefer actually to be ‘like themselves’. This obviously means that the Jewish demand to be like others is futile and doomed to failure.
It must be mentioned also that within oppressed societies, the right to self-determination is often replaced with the right to rebel. For a Palestinian in the occupied territories, the right for self-determination means very little. He doesn’t need to self-determine himself as a Palestinian for the obvious reason that he knows who he is. And just in case he happens to forget, an Israeli soldier in the next roadblock would remind him. For the Palestinian, self-determination is a product of negation. It is actually the daily confrontation with the Zionist denial of the Palestinian right of self-determination. For the Palestinian, it is the right to fight against oppression, against those who starve him and expel him from his land in the name of the Jewish rather-too-concrete demand to be ‘people like other people’.
As much, as the right to self-determination presents itself as a universal liberating political value, in many cases it is utilised as a divisive mechanism that leads towards direct abuse of others. As we happen to learn, modern Jewish demand for the right to self-determination is rather too often celebrated at the expense of others whether these are Palestinians, Arab leaders, Russian proletariats or British and American soldiers who fight the last pocket of Israeli enemies in the Middle East. As much as the right to self-determination is occasionally presented has a ‘universal value’, scrutinising the pragmatic sinister utilization of the very right within the Jewish political discourse reveals that in practical terms, it is there to serve the Jewish tribal interests while denying and even dismissing other people’s elementary rights.
The Bund and Lenin’s Criticism
It would be right to say that the Bund and the Zionists were the first to eloquently insist upon the Jewish right to self-determination. The Bund was the General Jewish Workers' Union of East Europe. Like the Zionist movement, it was formally founded in 1897. It maintained that Jews in Russia deserved the right to cultural and national self-determination within the Soviet future revolution.
Probably, the first to elaborate on the absurdity in Jewish demand for self-determination was Lenin in his famous attack on the Bund at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (1903). “March with us” was Lenin’s reply to the Bund, rejecting their demand for a special autonomous ethnic status amongst the Russian workers. Lenin obviously spotted the tribally divisive agenda within the Bund philosophy. “We reject,” said Lenin, “all obligatory partitions that serve to divide us”. As much as Lenin supported “the right of nations to self-determination”, he was clearly dismissive of such a Jewish right which he correctly identified as divisive and reactionary. Lenin supported the right of oppressed nations to build their national entities, however he resisted any bigoted, narrow nationalist spirit.
Lenin raised three main reasons against the Bund and its demand of cultural self-determination:
First. Raising the slogan of cultural-national autonomy leads to splitting the nations apart, and therefore destroying the unity of the proletariat within them.
Second. Lenin saw that the intermingling of nations and their amalgamation was a progressive step, while turning away from that is a step backwards. He criticized those who "cry out to heaven against assimilation."
Third. Lenin did not regard the ‘non-territorial cultural independence’ advocated by the Bund and the other Jewish parties as advantageous, practical, or practicable.
Lenin’s approach to the Bund is rather significant and should be reflected upon. Using his sharp political common sense, Lenin doubted the ethical and political grounds of the right of Jews to self-determination, as much as the Bund demanded that Jews should be treated as a national identity like all other nationals. Lenin’s answer was strictly simple: “Sorry guys, but you aren’t. You are not a national minority just for the reason that you are not attached to a piece of geography.”
Matzpen and Wolfowitz
“The solution of the national and social problems of this region can come about only through a socialist revolution in this region, which will overthrow all its existing regimes and will replace them by a political union of the region, ruled by the toilers. In this united and liberated Arab East, recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination (including the right to a separate state) of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation” (Matzpen Principles http://www.matzpen.org/index.asp?p=principles)
Seemingly, Lenin’s criticism has never been properly internalised by Jewish so-called ‘progressive’ ideologists. Abuse of others and dismissal of elementary rights has become inherent to Jewish ‘progressive’ political thinking. Reading the principle document of Matzpen, the legendary ultra leftist Israeli group may leave one perplexed.
Already in 1962 Jewish Matzpenists had a plan to ‘liberate’ the Arab world. According to Matzpen’s principles, all you have to do is “overthrow all (Arab) existing regimes” so “recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including (of course) the Israeli-Jewish nation.”
It doesn’t take a genius to grasp that at least categorically, Matzpen’s principles are no different from Wolfowitz’s Neocon mantra. Matzpen had a plan to ‘overthrow’ all Arabs regimes in the name of ‘socialism’ so Jews can ‘self-determine’ who they are. Wolfowitz would do exactly the same in the name of ‘democracy’. If you take Matzpen’s Judeo-centric ‘progressive’ text and replace the word ‘Socialist’ with ‘Democratic’ you end up with a devastating Neocon text and it reads as follows:
“The solution of the national and social problems of this region, can come about only through a democratic revolution in this region, which will overthrow all its existing regimes and will replace them by a political union of the region …Recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation.”
Seemingly, both the ‘legendary’ progressive Matzpen and the reactionary despised Neocons use a similar abstract concept with some pretence of universality to rationally justify the Jewish right to self-determination and the destruction of Arab-grown regional power. Seemingly, both Neocons and Matzpen know what liberation may mean for Arabs. For the Matzpenist, to liberate Arabs is to turn them into Bolsheviks. The Neocon is actually slightly more modest, all he wants is for Arabs to drink Coca Cola in a westernised democratic society. Both Judeo-centric philosophies are doomed to failure because the notion of self-determination is overwhelmingly Euro-centric. Both philosophies are premised on an enlightened notion of rationality. Both philosophies have very little to offer to the oppressed, instead they are there to rationalise and provide the colonialist with some fake ‘universal’ legitimacy.
Clearly, Matzpen has never had any political power, it never had any political significance since it has never been in any proximity to Arab people, not to say Arab masses. Consequently, Matzpen could never affect Arab people’s lives nor could it destroy their regimes. However, Matzpen is seen by Jewish Leftists around the world as a significant chapter in the Israeli left. It is seen as a singular moment of Israeli ethical awakening. Thus, it is actually embarrassing or even devastating to find out that the most enlightening and refined moment of Israeli-left moral awakening produced a political insight that is no different categorically to George Bush’s infamous attempt at Liberating the Iraqi people. It should be clear beyond doubt that Jewish ultra leftists (a la Matzpen) and Zionised Anglo-American interventionism (a la Neocons) are in fact two sides of the same coin or may I allow myself to say two sides of the very same Shekel. They are very close theoretically, ideologically and pragmatically. Both political thoughts are Judeo-centric to the bone yet, they both pretend to premise themselves on universalism and aim towards ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’. But at the end of the day they aim toward Jewish self-determination at the expense of others.
The Right to be Like Others -The Zionist Logic
The following is a collection of extracts taken from a document submitted to the United Nations COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS in 2005.
It was composed by the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations (CBJO) and B'nai B'rith. It helps to grasp how Jewish organisations implement political power around the claim for self-determination.
As a point of historical departure of its statement, the CBJO chooses the ‘end of the Holocaust’ and the creation of the UN. The link is rather clear and intentional. The role of the UN is set as one that will save the Jews from any further genocidal attempts.
“As the world marks the 60th anniversaries of the end of the Holocaust and the creation of the United Nations this year, we in the human rights community have the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundation documents of the international human rights regime. One of the most fundamental of these rights is that of self-determination. This right guarantees other human rights, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person, preservation of honor, equality under the law.”
It can be seen that at this stage the right to self-determination is conveyed in universal terms. But do not let yourself be misled just yet. It won’t take long before the Zio-centric twist will reveal itself.
“The events revealed sixty years ago when Allied forces entered and liberated the Nazi concentration camps could have been prevented if only the Jewish people's right to self-determination had been protected and fostered…. As the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century demonstrates, without a State of their own – the fulfillment of the right to self-determination – the Jewish people were at risk of discrimination, isolation, and ultimately, extermination.”
Slowly but surely, we can now see the shift from the universal ethical approach to a Judeo-centric self-centred argumentation. However, it is crucial to mention that prior to the big war western and American Jews were emancipated and enjoyed rights to self-determination, yet not many Jews thought that such a right should be celebrated in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people. Moreover, thinking in retrospective terms makes it rather clear that the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’ has brought Holocaust on the Palestinian people. In other words, the Jewish right to self-determination has very limited positive impact on humanity and human reality. Something the UN Human Rights Commission better take into account.
“As we reflect on this history, we must note the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and its new manifestation – anti-Zionism. In various intellectual circles, on university campuses and in the media, the Jewish people’s basic human right to self-determination is being eroded on a daily basis through misrepresentations and false equations. These anti-Zionists portray the Jewish people’s self-determination as excluding Palestinian self-determination. Some wish to turn back the clock of history by advancing a "one-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a proposal that was rejected by the General Assembly in 1947 precisely because it would have denied the Jewish people their right of self-determination…. Anti-Zionism is a dangerous path, for it hinges on the destruction of the Jewish State. As such it runs counter to the Charter of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights….”
Interestingly enough, the gifted people at the CBJO do realise that sooner or later someone is about to question the ethical validity of the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. In fact this is exactly what I myself plan to do within a page or two. Zionists are clever enough to grasp the possibility that their ‘carte blanche’ to ruin millions of lives in the Middle East in the name of fake universal concept may expire one day.
However, the CBJO are aiming towards an optimistic resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This is at least what they want us to believe:
“Today, we see remarkable progress in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian people have elected a government – one that has pledged to reject terrorism as a political weapon in favor of democracy and peace. This path of promoting peaceful co-existence with the Jewish people marks an important turning point from the Palestinian policy of violence. …All resolutions passed by this body under this agenda item should seek to affirm the right to self-determination for the Jewish people alongside that of other peoples…. Only then will the Commission on Human Rights be true to its founding principles. Only then will the CHR be part of the solution, instead of exacerbating the problem. Only then will this body demonstrate that it has retained the lessons that should have been learned 60 years ago, upholding and defending the basic right of the Jewish people to self-determination alongside a democratic Palestinian State.”
As we can see, the CBJO is there to tell the Palestinians who they are and what they should be. i.e., democratic and secular. Wrongly enough, the right-wing CBJO is no different to the legendary ‘progressive’ Matzpen and the implications must be clear from now on. There is no left and right within modern secular Jewish politics but rather self-centric tribal orientation which produces fake images of political diversity for obvious reasons.
One State, Two States or Just a State Of All Its Citizens
Not many Palestinians and Arab intellectuals take part in the One State/Two State debate. The reason is pretty obvious, Palestinians and Arabs do realise very well that issues to do with the future of the region are not to be determined by academic institutes or Palestinian solidarity conferences but rather on the ground. The impact of a single Qassam rocket hitting in the Western Negev is far greater than any form of intellectual conclusive discussion to do with ‘conflict resolution’. As it seems, the demand for ‘one State’, be it secular, democratic or Islamic is theoretical and rhetorical and has no implication whatsoever on the Israelis who still possess the political power and military might to maintain the Jews-only State.
As much as the notion of self-determination has zero significance on Palestinian people, the same is so for the verbal demand for one State. At a time of starvation in Gaza and genocidal plans announced by the Israeli Government, debates regarding the future of the region seem to be a luxurious endeavour explored by the privileged.
If anything, the debate over the one State solution is there to maintain the Israeli and Jewish hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. The reason is pretty simple, every discussion that aims at political resolution naturally takes into account the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. This would be the case forever unless we allow ourselves to introduce a radical political and intellectual shift into the discourse. Like Lenin in 1903, we must call into question the true validity of the notion of the right to self-determination. Following Lenin, we should allow ourselves to admit the possibility that the Jewish right to self-determination is actually divisive or may even be a false call. It is there to be celebrated by the rich and colonial and the privileged at the expense of the weak and the oppressed.
We should stand up and ask openly why exactly Jews or anyone else deserves a right to self-determination. Isn’t it true that the right to self-determination always comes at the expense of someone else? We should stand up and ask, what moral right entitles a Brooklyn Jew to self-determine oneself as a Zionist and a future occupier of Palestine? We should openly ask what exactly entitles an Israeli born Jew the right to dwell on Palestinian land at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian? Am I entitled to demand the right to self-determine myself as a NASA Astronaut, or alternatively as a heart surgeon? Would you let me fix your heart based on my false self-inflicted recognition as a heart surgeon?
These questions are far from being easy to answer. Yet, we shouldn’t stop ourselves from raising them. Like Lenin, I tend to dismiss the Jewish legitimacy of the right to self-determination as a false divisive call. Instead, I would suggest an alternative ethical approach, which I borrowed from Ex MK Azmi Bishara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azmi Bishara), the Palestinian intellectual who had to run for his life from Israel in spite of being a Parliament member. Bishara moved beyond the one State/ two State debate or the Judeo-centric right to self-determination. He coined a brilliant political notion, namely ‘a State of all its Citizens’. Rather than a State of the Jews, Bishara suggested to make it into a State of the people who dwell in it.
Azmi Bishara is a vigorous intellectual and a well-known critic of the Israeli State. In numerous writings and public appearances, he has maintained that the Israeli State's self-definition as ‘Jewish and democratic’ is discriminatory. Bishara calls for an Israel that would be a ‘State of all its citizens.’ Bishara has openly pointed to a direct conflict between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority over the definition of nationality in Israel. He articulates a trend among the Arab-Palestinian minority that poses a demand for socio-economic and political equality not only in formal law, but in civic citizenship and nationality. It would be right to say that Bishara’s approach is a political exercise in the Palestinian right to self-determination. Consequently, however, it didn’t take long before Bishara had to run for his life and search for a shelter out of Israel.
As we have seen, the right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power. It is not going to be celebrated by any group but those who are already rich, strong and privileged. Zionists can boast all these qualities, as well as possessing the necessary power and military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’. However, given the reality on the ground, instead of demanding some rhetorical rights, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies and academic exchange, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.
The right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power reserved for the rich, strong and privileged. Since Zionists hold the reigns on international political power through their influence in important positions as well as the military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’, any current political debate on the legitimacy of this concept would lead inevitably to a dismissal of what we have come to accept as the Palestinian right of self-determination. Yet, instead of demanding this right, which is currently impractical, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis for what it is. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.
A Citizen of the World, A Cosmopolitan and an Atheist
Last year in a little community church in Aspen, Colorado, at the question time following my talk, a middle-aged person at the back of the room stood up, presenting himself as follows:
“I am a citizen of the world, I am a cosmopolitan and an atheist. I would like to ask you something Mr Atzmon…”
“Hang on,” I stopped him, “please do not be offended by me asking, but are you by any chance a Jew?”
The person froze for a second, he couldn’t stop his face from blushing, everyone in the room turned around. Maybe they were curious enough to want to see what a 21st century self-loving cosmopolitan looks like. I, on my part, felt a bit guilty about it all, I didn’t have any intention to embarrass the man. However, it took him a few good seconds before he could get his act together.
“Yes Gilad, I am a Jew, but how did you know?”
“I obviously didn’t know,” I said, “I was actually guessing. You see, whenever I come across people who call themselves ‘cosmopolitans’, ‘atheists’ and a ‘citizens of the world’, they somehow always happen to be ‘Jews’ of the so-called ‘progressive’ assimilated type. I can only assume that ‘non-Jews’ tend to live in peace with whoever they happen to be. If they are born Catholic and decide to move on at a certain stage, they just dump the church behind. If they do not love their country as much as others do, they probably pack a few things and pick another country to live in. Somehow ‘non-Jews’, and this is far from being a scientific law, do not need to hide behind some vague universal banners and some artificial righteous value system. However, what was your question?”
No question followed. The ‘cosmopolitan, atheist and citizen of the world’, couldn’t remember what his question was. I assume that following the tradition of post-emancipated Jews he was there to celebrate his right to ‘self-determination’ in public. The man was using question time to tell his Aspen neighbours and friends what a great human being he was. Unlike them, local patriotic believers and proud Americans, he was an advanced humanist, a man beyond nationhood, a godless non-patriotic subject. He was the ultimate ‘self determined’ rational product of enlightenment. He was the son of Voltaire and the French revolution.
Self-determination is a modern Jewish political and social epidemic. The disappearance of the Ghetto and its maternal qualities led towards an identity crisis within the largely assimilated Jewish society. Seemingly, all post-emancipated Jewish political, spiritual and social schools of thought, left, right and centre were inherently concerned with issues to do with the ‘right to self-determination’. The Zionists would demand the right to national self-determination in the land of Zion. The Bund would demand national and cultural self-determination within the East European proletarian discourse. Matzpen and the ultra Israeli leftists would demand the right to self-determination for the ‘Israeli Jewish nation’ in the ‘liberated Arab East’, Anti Zionist Jews would insist upon the right to engage in an esoteric Jewish discourse within the Palestinian solidarity movement. But what does that very right to self-determination stand for? Why is it that every modern Jewish political thought is grounded on that right? Why is it that some ‘progressive’ assimilated Jews feel the need to become citizens of the world rather than just ordinary citizens of Britain or France or Russia?
The Pretence of Authenticity
It should be said that though identity search and self-determination are there to convey the pretence of a final march towards an authentic redemption, the direct result of Identity politics and self-determinative affairs is the complete opposite. Those who have to self-determine who they are, are those who are far removed from any authentic realisation to start with. Those who are determined to be seen as ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘secular humanists’ are those who fail to see that human brotherhood needs neither an introduction nor a declaration. All it really takes is a genuine love for one another. Those who initiate and sign humanist manifestos are those who insist upon being seen as humanists while at the same time spreading some Zionist tribal evil around. Clearly, real genuine cosmopolitans do not have the need to declare their abstract commitment to humanism. Real citizens of the world, similarly, just live in an open world with no boundaries and borders.
I am surrounded, for instance, by jazz musicians of all colours and ethnic origins. People who live on the road, people who sleep every night in a different continent, people who make a living out of their love of beauty. Yet, I have never seen a Jazz artist who calls himself or herself either a citizen of the world or a cosmopolitan or even a beauty merchant. I have never met a Jazz artist who adopts an air of egalitarian importance. I have never met a Jazz musician who celebrates his or her right to self-determination. The reason is simple, authentic beings do not need to self determine who they are, they just let themselves and others be.
The right to self-determination
The right to self-determination is often cited as the acknowledgment that "all peoples have the right to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” This very principle is often seen as a moral and legal right. It is also well embedded in the philosophy of the United Nations. The term self-determination was used in the UN Charter and has been defined in various declarations and covenants.
Though we all tend to believe that every human is entitled to celebrate his or her symptoms, the right to self-determination is in fact significantly meaningful only within the Western liberal discourse which accepts such a right and premises it on the notion of enlightened individualism. Moreover, the right to self-determination can be celebrated only by the privileged who can mobilize enough political power or military might to make this right into a practical reality.
However, it must be mentioned that even within the Western liberal discourse, it is only Jews who premise their political power on the ‘right to be like others’. The reason is simple, though liberated Jews insist upon being ‘like others’, it is rather clear that others prefer actually to be ‘like themselves’. This obviously means that the Jewish demand to be like others is futile and doomed to failure.
It must be mentioned also that within oppressed societies, the right to self-determination is often replaced with the right to rebel. For a Palestinian in the occupied territories, the right for self-determination means very little. He doesn’t need to self-determine himself as a Palestinian for the obvious reason that he knows who he is. And just in case he happens to forget, an Israeli soldier in the next roadblock would remind him. For the Palestinian, self-determination is a product of negation. It is actually the daily confrontation with the Zionist denial of the Palestinian right of self-determination. For the Palestinian, it is the right to fight against oppression, against those who starve him and expel him from his land in the name of the Jewish rather-too-concrete demand to be ‘people like other people’.
As much, as the right to self-determination presents itself as a universal liberating political value, in many cases it is utilised as a divisive mechanism that leads towards direct abuse of others. As we happen to learn, modern Jewish demand for the right to self-determination is rather too often celebrated at the expense of others whether these are Palestinians, Arab leaders, Russian proletariats or British and American soldiers who fight the last pocket of Israeli enemies in the Middle East. As much as the right to self-determination is occasionally presented has a ‘universal value’, scrutinising the pragmatic sinister utilization of the very right within the Jewish political discourse reveals that in practical terms, it is there to serve the Jewish tribal interests while denying and even dismissing other people’s elementary rights.
The Bund and Lenin’s Criticism
It would be right to say that the Bund and the Zionists were the first to eloquently insist upon the Jewish right to self-determination. The Bund was the General Jewish Workers' Union of East Europe. Like the Zionist movement, it was formally founded in 1897. It maintained that Jews in Russia deserved the right to cultural and national self-determination within the Soviet future revolution.
Probably, the first to elaborate on the absurdity in Jewish demand for self-determination was Lenin in his famous attack on the Bund at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (1903). “March with us” was Lenin’s reply to the Bund, rejecting their demand for a special autonomous ethnic status amongst the Russian workers. Lenin obviously spotted the tribally divisive agenda within the Bund philosophy. “We reject,” said Lenin, “all obligatory partitions that serve to divide us”. As much as Lenin supported “the right of nations to self-determination”, he was clearly dismissive of such a Jewish right which he correctly identified as divisive and reactionary. Lenin supported the right of oppressed nations to build their national entities, however he resisted any bigoted, narrow nationalist spirit.
Lenin raised three main reasons against the Bund and its demand of cultural self-determination:
First. Raising the slogan of cultural-national autonomy leads to splitting the nations apart, and therefore destroying the unity of the proletariat within them.
Second. Lenin saw that the intermingling of nations and their amalgamation was a progressive step, while turning away from that is a step backwards. He criticized those who "cry out to heaven against assimilation."
Third. Lenin did not regard the ‘non-territorial cultural independence’ advocated by the Bund and the other Jewish parties as advantageous, practical, or practicable.
Lenin’s approach to the Bund is rather significant and should be reflected upon. Using his sharp political common sense, Lenin doubted the ethical and political grounds of the right of Jews to self-determination, as much as the Bund demanded that Jews should be treated as a national identity like all other nationals. Lenin’s answer was strictly simple: “Sorry guys, but you aren’t. You are not a national minority just for the reason that you are not attached to a piece of geography.”
Matzpen and Wolfowitz
“The solution of the national and social problems of this region can come about only through a socialist revolution in this region, which will overthrow all its existing regimes and will replace them by a political union of the region, ruled by the toilers. In this united and liberated Arab East, recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination (including the right to a separate state) of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation” (Matzpen Principles http://www.matzpen.org/index.asp?p=principles)
Seemingly, Lenin’s criticism has never been properly internalised by Jewish so-called ‘progressive’ ideologists. Abuse of others and dismissal of elementary rights has become inherent to Jewish ‘progressive’ political thinking. Reading the principle document of Matzpen, the legendary ultra leftist Israeli group may leave one perplexed.
Already in 1962 Jewish Matzpenists had a plan to ‘liberate’ the Arab world. According to Matzpen’s principles, all you have to do is “overthrow all (Arab) existing regimes” so “recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including (of course) the Israeli-Jewish nation.”
It doesn’t take a genius to grasp that at least categorically, Matzpen’s principles are no different from Wolfowitz’s Neocon mantra. Matzpen had a plan to ‘overthrow’ all Arabs regimes in the name of ‘socialism’ so Jews can ‘self-determine’ who they are. Wolfowitz would do exactly the same in the name of ‘democracy’. If you take Matzpen’s Judeo-centric ‘progressive’ text and replace the word ‘Socialist’ with ‘Democratic’ you end up with a devastating Neocon text and it reads as follows:
“The solution of the national and social problems of this region, can come about only through a democratic revolution in this region, which will overthrow all its existing regimes and will replace them by a political union of the region …Recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation.”
Seemingly, both the ‘legendary’ progressive Matzpen and the reactionary despised Neocons use a similar abstract concept with some pretence of universality to rationally justify the Jewish right to self-determination and the destruction of Arab-grown regional power. Seemingly, both Neocons and Matzpen know what liberation may mean for Arabs. For the Matzpenist, to liberate Arabs is to turn them into Bolsheviks. The Neocon is actually slightly more modest, all he wants is for Arabs to drink Coca Cola in a westernised democratic society. Both Judeo-centric philosophies are doomed to failure because the notion of self-determination is overwhelmingly Euro-centric. Both philosophies are premised on an enlightened notion of rationality. Both philosophies have very little to offer to the oppressed, instead they are there to rationalise and provide the colonialist with some fake ‘universal’ legitimacy.
Clearly, Matzpen has never had any political power, it never had any political significance since it has never been in any proximity to Arab people, not to say Arab masses. Consequently, Matzpen could never affect Arab people’s lives nor could it destroy their regimes. However, Matzpen is seen by Jewish Leftists around the world as a significant chapter in the Israeli left. It is seen as a singular moment of Israeli ethical awakening. Thus, it is actually embarrassing or even devastating to find out that the most enlightening and refined moment of Israeli-left moral awakening produced a political insight that is no different categorically to George Bush’s infamous attempt at Liberating the Iraqi people. It should be clear beyond doubt that Jewish ultra leftists (a la Matzpen) and Zionised Anglo-American interventionism (a la Neocons) are in fact two sides of the same coin or may I allow myself to say two sides of the very same Shekel. They are very close theoretically, ideologically and pragmatically. Both political thoughts are Judeo-centric to the bone yet, they both pretend to premise themselves on universalism and aim towards ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’. But at the end of the day they aim toward Jewish self-determination at the expense of others.
The Right to be Like Others -The Zionist Logic
The following is a collection of extracts taken from a document submitted to the United Nations COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS in 2005.
It was composed by the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations (CBJO) and B'nai B'rith. It helps to grasp how Jewish organisations implement political power around the claim for self-determination.
As a point of historical departure of its statement, the CBJO chooses the ‘end of the Holocaust’ and the creation of the UN. The link is rather clear and intentional. The role of the UN is set as one that will save the Jews from any further genocidal attempts.
“As the world marks the 60th anniversaries of the end of the Holocaust and the creation of the United Nations this year, we in the human rights community have the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundation documents of the international human rights regime. One of the most fundamental of these rights is that of self-determination. This right guarantees other human rights, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person, preservation of honor, equality under the law.”
It can be seen that at this stage the right to self-determination is conveyed in universal terms. But do not let yourself be misled just yet. It won’t take long before the Zio-centric twist will reveal itself.
“The events revealed sixty years ago when Allied forces entered and liberated the Nazi concentration camps could have been prevented if only the Jewish people's right to self-determination had been protected and fostered…. As the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century demonstrates, without a State of their own – the fulfillment of the right to self-determination – the Jewish people were at risk of discrimination, isolation, and ultimately, extermination.”
Slowly but surely, we can now see the shift from the universal ethical approach to a Judeo-centric self-centred argumentation. However, it is crucial to mention that prior to the big war western and American Jews were emancipated and enjoyed rights to self-determination, yet not many Jews thought that such a right should be celebrated in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people. Moreover, thinking in retrospective terms makes it rather clear that the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’ has brought Holocaust on the Palestinian people. In other words, the Jewish right to self-determination has very limited positive impact on humanity and human reality. Something the UN Human Rights Commission better take into account.
“As we reflect on this history, we must note the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and its new manifestation – anti-Zionism. In various intellectual circles, on university campuses and in the media, the Jewish people’s basic human right to self-determination is being eroded on a daily basis through misrepresentations and false equations. These anti-Zionists portray the Jewish people’s self-determination as excluding Palestinian self-determination. Some wish to turn back the clock of history by advancing a "one-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a proposal that was rejected by the General Assembly in 1947 precisely because it would have denied the Jewish people their right of self-determination…. Anti-Zionism is a dangerous path, for it hinges on the destruction of the Jewish State. As such it runs counter to the Charter of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights….”
Interestingly enough, the gifted people at the CBJO do realise that sooner or later someone is about to question the ethical validity of the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. In fact this is exactly what I myself plan to do within a page or two. Zionists are clever enough to grasp the possibility that their ‘carte blanche’ to ruin millions of lives in the Middle East in the name of fake universal concept may expire one day.
However, the CBJO are aiming towards an optimistic resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This is at least what they want us to believe:
“Today, we see remarkable progress in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian people have elected a government – one that has pledged to reject terrorism as a political weapon in favor of democracy and peace. This path of promoting peaceful co-existence with the Jewish people marks an important turning point from the Palestinian policy of violence. …All resolutions passed by this body under this agenda item should seek to affirm the right to self-determination for the Jewish people alongside that of other peoples…. Only then will the Commission on Human Rights be true to its founding principles. Only then will the CHR be part of the solution, instead of exacerbating the problem. Only then will this body demonstrate that it has retained the lessons that should have been learned 60 years ago, upholding and defending the basic right of the Jewish people to self-determination alongside a democratic Palestinian State.”
As we can see, the CBJO is there to tell the Palestinians who they are and what they should be. i.e., democratic and secular. Wrongly enough, the right-wing CBJO is no different to the legendary ‘progressive’ Matzpen and the implications must be clear from now on. There is no left and right within modern secular Jewish politics but rather self-centric tribal orientation which produces fake images of political diversity for obvious reasons.
One State, Two States or Just a State Of All Its Citizens
Not many Palestinians and Arab intellectuals take part in the One State/Two State debate. The reason is pretty obvious, Palestinians and Arabs do realise very well that issues to do with the future of the region are not to be determined by academic institutes or Palestinian solidarity conferences but rather on the ground. The impact of a single Qassam rocket hitting in the Western Negev is far greater than any form of intellectual conclusive discussion to do with ‘conflict resolution’. As it seems, the demand for ‘one State’, be it secular, democratic or Islamic is theoretical and rhetorical and has no implication whatsoever on the Israelis who still possess the political power and military might to maintain the Jews-only State.
As much as the notion of self-determination has zero significance on Palestinian people, the same is so for the verbal demand for one State. At a time of starvation in Gaza and genocidal plans announced by the Israeli Government, debates regarding the future of the region seem to be a luxurious endeavour explored by the privileged.
If anything, the debate over the one State solution is there to maintain the Israeli and Jewish hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. The reason is pretty simple, every discussion that aims at political resolution naturally takes into account the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. This would be the case forever unless we allow ourselves to introduce a radical political and intellectual shift into the discourse. Like Lenin in 1903, we must call into question the true validity of the notion of the right to self-determination. Following Lenin, we should allow ourselves to admit the possibility that the Jewish right to self-determination is actually divisive or may even be a false call. It is there to be celebrated by the rich and colonial and the privileged at the expense of the weak and the oppressed.
We should stand up and ask openly why exactly Jews or anyone else deserves a right to self-determination. Isn’t it true that the right to self-determination always comes at the expense of someone else? We should stand up and ask, what moral right entitles a Brooklyn Jew to self-determine oneself as a Zionist and a future occupier of Palestine? We should openly ask what exactly entitles an Israeli born Jew the right to dwell on Palestinian land at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian? Am I entitled to demand the right to self-determine myself as a NASA Astronaut, or alternatively as a heart surgeon? Would you let me fix your heart based on my false self-inflicted recognition as a heart surgeon?
These questions are far from being easy to answer. Yet, we shouldn’t stop ourselves from raising them. Like Lenin, I tend to dismiss the Jewish legitimacy of the right to self-determination as a false divisive call. Instead, I would suggest an alternative ethical approach, which I borrowed from Ex MK Azmi Bishara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azmi Bishara), the Palestinian intellectual who had to run for his life from Israel in spite of being a Parliament member. Bishara moved beyond the one State/ two State debate or the Judeo-centric right to self-determination. He coined a brilliant political notion, namely ‘a State of all its Citizens’. Rather than a State of the Jews, Bishara suggested to make it into a State of the people who dwell in it.
Azmi Bishara is a vigorous intellectual and a well-known critic of the Israeli State. In numerous writings and public appearances, he has maintained that the Israeli State's self-definition as ‘Jewish and democratic’ is discriminatory. Bishara calls for an Israel that would be a ‘State of all its citizens.’ Bishara has openly pointed to a direct conflict between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority over the definition of nationality in Israel. He articulates a trend among the Arab-Palestinian minority that poses a demand for socio-economic and political equality not only in formal law, but in civic citizenship and nationality. It would be right to say that Bishara’s approach is a political exercise in the Palestinian right to self-determination. Consequently, however, it didn’t take long before Bishara had to run for his life and search for a shelter out of Israel.
As we have seen, the right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power. It is not going to be celebrated by any group but those who are already rich, strong and privileged. Zionists can boast all these qualities, as well as possessing the necessary power and military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’. However, given the reality on the ground, instead of demanding some rhetorical rights, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies and academic exchange, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.
Labels: Atzmon, hasbara, holocaust, Israel, jewish identity politics, Palestine, Palestinian politicians, philosophy, Zionism
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz
(A talk given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn’s weekend retreat) At the left, "Innocent" by Ben Heine“They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves” (Matan Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February 2008)
It is clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far from being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the genocidal future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is precisely what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts that are right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in spite of an Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the Palestinians, in spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid to admit that Gaza is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a deadly one. For some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far as evil is concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and vengeance.
Liberty and Authority
In his invaluable text On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that struggle always takes place between the competing demands of liberty and authority. In other words, freedom and hegemony are set to battle each other. However, Western egalitarian liberal ideology is there to introduce a political alternative. It is there to nourish the myth that ‘authority’ and ‘freedom’ could be seen as two sides of the same coin.
Today, I will try to elaborate on the structural dynamic of liberal discourse and the different elements that are involved in maintaining the false image of ‘freedom’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’. I will try to argue that it is our alleged ‘freedom’ that actually stops us from thinking freely and ethically. As you may notice I said ‘false image of freedom’ because I am totally convinced that, as far as Liberal discourse is concerned, freedom is nothing more than a mere image. In practice, there is no such a thing. The image of ‘freedom’ is there to fuel and maintain our righteous self-loving discourse so we can keep sending our soldiers to kill millions in the name of ‘democracy’.
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought
I would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction between ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’.
Freedom of speech can be realised as one’s liberty to expresses one's own thoughts.
Bearing in mind that humans are expressive creatures, there is no easy policing method to guarantee the silencing of the dissident voice. Since speaking is inherent to human nature, any exercise of litigation to do with the curtailing of such an elementary right is rather complicated: You ban one’s books? One would then spread leaflets in the streets. You confiscate one’s flyers? One would then agitate over the net. You cut one’s power, confiscate one’s computer? One may start to shout one’s head off. You chop off one’s tongue? One would then nod in approval when others are repeating one’s manifesto. You are then left with no other option but chopping one’s head off, but even then, all you do is make one into a martyr.
Two available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:
a. prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment);
b. social exclusion.
However, it is crucial to mention that within the so-called liberal discourse, any attempt to ban an idea or a dissident voice is counter-effective, if anything it reflects badly on the liberal authority and the system. This is why liberals try to facilitate some rather sophisticated methods of censorship and thought policing that would involve very little authoritarian intervention. As we will see soon, in liberal society, censorship and thought policing is mostly self-imposed.
As much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of thought is almost impossible.
Freedom of thought could be realised as the liberty to think, to feel, to dream, to remember, to forget, to forgive, to love and to hate.
As difficult as it may be to impose thought on others, it is almost unfeasible to stop people from seeing the truth for themselves. Yet, there are some methods to suppress and restrain intuitive thinking and ethical insight. I am obviously referring here to guilt.
Guilt, inflicted mostly via a set of axioms conveyed as ‘political correctness’, is the most effective method to keep society or any given discourse in a state of ‘self-policing’. It turns the so-called autonomous liberal subject into a subservient, self-moderated, obedient citizen. Yet, the authority is spared from making any intervention. It is the liberal subject who curtails oneself from accepting a set of fixed ideas that support the egalitarian image of freedom and ecumenical society.
However, at this point I see the necessity to suggest that in spite of the liberal claim for peace seeking, liberal societies in general and the Anglo-American ones in particular are currently involved in crimes against humanity on a genocidal scale. Consequently, the more horrid the West is becoming, the greater is the gap between ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘freedom of speech’.
This gap can easily evolve into a cognitive dissonance that in many cases mature into some severe form of apathy. It is said that ‘all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing’. This summarizes perfectly well the apathetic negligence of the Western masses. Not many care much about the genocide in Iraq that is committed in our name or the mass murder in Palestine that is committed with the support of our governments. Why are we apathetic? Because when we want to stand up and say what we feel, when we want to celebrate our alleged freedom and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, or Baghdad with Dresden, something inside us stops us from doing so. It is not the Government, legislation or any other form of authority, it is rather a small and highly effective self-inflicted ‘guilt microchip’ acting as policing regulator in the name of ‘political correctness’.
I will now try to follow the historical and philosophical evolution that leads us from the liberal-egalitarian-utopia to the current ethical and intellectual self-castration disaster.
The Harm Principle
John Stuart Mill, the founder of modern liberal thinking, tells us that any doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone else. This is obviously the ultimate expression of liberal thinking. It ascribes absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, ethical, political, religious or theological.
Though Mill endorsed the fullest form of liberty of expression, he suggested a limitation attached to freedom set by the prevention of ‘harm to others’. It is obviously very difficult to defend freedom of speech once it leads to the invasion of the rights of others. The question to ask is therefore, “what types of speech may cause harm?” Mill distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate harm. According to Mill, only when speech causes a direct and clear violation of rights, can it be limited. But then, what kind of speech may cause such violation?
Feminists, for instance, have been maintaining that pornography degrades, endangers, and harms the lives of women. Another difficult case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech. Yet, it is debatable whether a ban of pornography or hate speech can be supported by the harm principle as articulated by Mill. One would obviously have to prove that such speech or imagery violates rights, directly and in the first instance.
Consequently, Mill’s harm principle is criticised for being too narrow as well as too broad. It is too narrow for failing to defend the right of the marginal. It is too broad because when interpreted extensively, it may lead to a potential abolishment of almost every political, religious or socially orientated speech.
The Offence Principle and Free Speech
Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the ‘harm principle’, it didn’t take long before an ‘offence principle’ had been called into play. The offence principle can be articulated as follows:
‘One’s freedom of expression should not be interfered with unless it causes an offence to others.’
The basic reasoning behind the ‘offence principle’ is trivial. It is there to defend the rights of the marginal and the weak. It is there to amend the hole created by the far-too-broad harm principle.
The offence principle is obviously pretty effective in curtailing pornography and hate speech. As in the case of violent pornography, strictly speaking, the offence that is caused by a Nazi march through a Jewish neighbourhood cannot be avoided and must be addressed.
However, the offence principle can be criticized for setting the bar far too low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be ‘offended’ by anything.
The Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse
There is no doubt that the vast utilization of the offence principle ascribes a lot of political power to some marginal lobbies in general and Jewish lobbies in particular. Counting on the premise of the ‘offence principle’, Jewish nationalist ethnic activists claim to be offended by any form of criticism of the Jewish state and Zionism. But in fact it goes further, in practice it isn’t just criticism of Zionism and Israel which we are asked to avoid. Jewish leftists insist that we must avoid any discussion having to do with the Jewish national project, Jewish identity and even Jewish history. In short, with the vast support of the offence principle, Jewish ethnic leaders both on the left and right have succeeded in demolishing the possibility of any criticism of Jewish identity and politics. Employing the offence principle, Jewish lobbies right, left and centre, have managed to practically silence any possible criticism of Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. More worryingly, Jewish leftist political activists and intellectuals outrageously demand to avoid any criticism of the Jewish Lobby in the USA and in Britain.
As we can see, the ‘offence Principle’ regulates and even serves some notorious Zionist as well as Jewish leftist political lobbies at the heart of the so-called liberal democratic West. In practice we are terrorized into submission by a group of gatekeepers who limit our freedom via an elastic dynamic operator that is there to suppress our thoughts before they mature into an ethical insight. Manipulation set by political correctness is the nourishing ground of our shattering cognitive dissonance. This is exactly where freedom of expression doesn’t agree with freedom of the thought.
Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political Correctness
We tend to agree that marginal discourses should be protected by the offence principle, so the marginal subject maintains his unique voice. We obviously agree also that such an approach must be applicable to the manifold of Jewish marginal discourses (religious, nationalist, Trotskyite, etc.). Seemingly, Jewish political lobbies want far more than just that, they insist upon delegitmising any intellectual reference to current Jewish political lobbying and global Zionism. As if this is not enough, any reference to modern Jewish history is prohibited unless kosherly approved by a ‘Zionist’ authority. As bizarre as it may be, the Jewish Holocaust has now been intellectually set as a meta-historical event. It is an event in the past that won’t allow any historical, ideological, theological or sociological scrutiny.
Bearing in mind the offence principle, Jews are entitled to argue that any form of speculation regarding their past suffering is “offensive and hurtful”. Yet, one may demand some explanations. How is it that historical research that may lead to some different visions of past events that occurred six and a half decades ago offends those who live amongst us today? Clearly, it is not an easy task to suggest a rational answer to such a query.
Plainly, historical research shouldn’t cause harm or an offence to the contemporary Jew or any other human subject around. Unless of course, the Holocaust itself is utilized against the Palestinians or those who are accused as being the ‘enemies of Israel’. As we learn from Matan Vilnai recently, the Jewish State wouldn’t refrain from bringing a Shoah on the Palestinian people. The Israelis and their supporters do not stop themselves from putting the holocaust into rhetorical usage. Yet, the Jewish lobbies around the world would do their very best to stop the rest of us from grasping what Shoah may mean. They would use their ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the holocaust as a critical tool of Israeli barbarism.
As one may predict by now, in order to censor historical research into Jewish history and a further understanding of current Israeli evil, political correctness is called into play. Political correctness is there to stop us from seeing and expressing the obvious. Political correctness is there to stop us realising that truth and historical truth in particular is an elastic notion. Yet, you may wonder what exactly political correctness is.
Political correctness, for those who failed to understand it, is basically a political stand that doesn’t allow political criticism. Political correctness is a stand that cannot be fully justified in rational, philosophical or political terms. It is implanted as a set of axioms at the heart of the liberal discourse. It operates as a self -imposed silencing regulator powered by self-inflicted guilt.
Political correctness is in fact the crudest assault on freedom of speech, freedom of thought and human liberty, yet, manipulatively, it conveys itself as the ultimate embodiment of freedom.
Hence, I would argue as forcefully as I can that political correctness is the bitterest enemy of human liberty and those who regulate those social axioms and plant them in our discourse are the gravest enemies of humanity.
I would argue as forcefully as I can that since the Palestinians are facing Nazi-like State terrorism, the holocaust narrative and its meaning belongs to them at least as much as it belongs to the Jews or anyone else.
I would argue as forcefully as I can that if the Palestinians are indeed the last victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them more than anyone else.
Bearing all that in mind, equating Gaza with Auschwitz is the right and only way forwards. Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is what liberation of humanity means today and in the near future.
Labels: Atzmon, gatekeeping, Gaza, holocaust, human rights violations, Israel, Israeli politicians, jewish identity politics, philosophy, Zionism
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Mamoon Alabbasi and Robert Green - Poems for the Palestinian people
Artwork by Juan KalvellidoPeople of Palestine
By Mamoon Alabbasi*
Like a slave in the American south
They shall be liberated
Even if it means another civil war
Like a persecuted Jew
They shall survive the genocide
Even if takes another World War
Like beloved yet betrayed Jesus
They shall be back
Even if it would be at the end of time
Like the visionless cured by Jesus
They shall regain their sight
Even if the rest of the world remains blind
Like resurrected flesh
They shall come back to life
Even if it would be at the end of days
Like the Day of Judgement
They shall have justice
Even if it means there will be hell to raise
It matters not on whose side is the Divine
It matters not who shall inherent the heavenly kingdom
While on earth stop the massacre of the people of Palestine
Let peace and justice reign, not Lucifer's Pandemonium
*Mamoon Alabbasi is an editor for Middle-East-online.com and can be reached at: [email protected]
Poem by Robert Green, former Board member of Deir Yassin Remembered and distant relative of David Ben GurionYou Want to Quibble Over Whether or Not It’s Genocide?
Then let’s forget the word entirely
it’s a made up modern word
for what’s been done by tribes since before before
made up by Raphael Lemkin
1943
to name what was happening to us
which until then
was known as the crime of barbarity
now genocide
which I know
I agreed not to mention
but it was done to us
and now we’re doing it to the next guy
the Palestinians
if we are allowed that word
like the word ‘Jew’ or really, “Juden”
a word that was supposed to be wiped out
with us
but wasn’t
but our lives
one thousand years in Europe
our home
cleansed of us
and they said we were not a true people
“a people class” said Lenin
“a disease” said others
and now we’re doing it to the next guy
OK, no gas ovens
that we know of
yet
but poison gas aplenty
torture rooms
a special hanging called “a Palestinian hanging”
that now the Americans use
hang a human
by the wrists
tied together
back behind
till they crush their own lungs
over hours
maybe a few days
and die in horror
done so much
it’s called “a Palestinian hanging”
and steal the land
and wall them in
and starve their babies
beat the pregnant women in front of their children
their mothers
their husbands
and the land, stealing it, walling it, pissing on it,
wiping out the place names.
I can’t find my grandmother’s village
on a map of Belarus, what she called “White Russia.”
It was called “Kapulya,” “near Minsk,”
but it’s not there.
as isn’t Palestine.
R.L. Green 2.17.2008
Labels: Gaza, jewish identity politics, journalism, Palestine, poetry, somoud, war
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Turin Book Fair "Israel Guest of Honour", and the debate begins!
at the left, a book to BUY!Turin will host the International Book Fair in May. Already, there has been quite a bit of movement about it in activist circles. Why? Because the Guest of Honour is Israel, and 60 Authors (magic of numbers?) will be the highlighted ones. Aharon Shabtai already said NO! Ibrahim Nasrallah said NO! and others too have raised their voices. Strange thing thought, the leading Left Newspaper il manifesto, who takes money for the paid ad for supporting Gaza, comes out against the Boycott. It is the reasoning behind it that is incredible. Read this editorial by Valentino Parlato and this response (I will translate more later, I have a growing list here) by Diego Traversa.
A WRONG BOYCOTT
By Valentino Parlato (from il manifesto, 24/01/08)
The International Book Fair will be held in Turin next May (from the 8th to the 12th) but it is already arousing quarrels and polemics that have concerned even our tenacious and tolerant group. The fair is being held in the 60th anniversary of Israel’s foundation and therefore, quite inevitably, the Palestinian question gets resumed.
After World War II and the massacre of the Jews, it was necessary to recognize their right to have a territory and a state of their own. Even Stalin was in favour of the foundation of Israel while Great Britain, a fact of not minor importance, was against it. And it’s my personal memory to insist that the Arab world wouldn’t have accepted a Jewish state, it favoured great manifestations of resistance: in Tripoli (where I lived at that time) a violent and blooddy anti-Jewish pogrom took place in a complicit indifference of the British military authorities.
Today’s polemics regard this Book Fair, one that gives Israel a place of honour with the risk of a literary legitimization of its policies. Let me say first that I have no position in principle against the boycott, since it was more than fair to endorse it against the racist white South Africans. But there’s boycott and boycott and therefore I’m completely against boycotting this Book Fair (books must be always respected) and against boycotting Israel. The Israelis, who after all are still Jews, no matter how many wrongs as they have done against the Palestinians, can by no means be compared with the racist South Africans and moreover, there’s a point that we can’t forget and, by no means a small one, that there is the historical persecution of the Jewish people, there are the ghettos and the concentration camps.
At this point is useful recalling what I was told in an interview to il manifesto with Rome’s Chief Rabbi. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the last song the Jews sung was the Internationale (translator’s note, Communist anthem). And then they were slaughtered by the Germans.
Hence let’s take advantage of this International Book Fair of Turin to talk, to criticize Israel’s policies, to uphold the Palestinians’ rights who, in those territories, seem to have turned into the new Jews. Let’s talk and argue with each other, but let’s tell the boycott to go to hell. Not only because the Israelis are Jews and not Afrikaaners, but also because the boycott is mute. It’s a no without any arguments. Next May in Turin there are going to be Jewish writers of high stature and we must talk, reason, argue and defend the Palestinian people’s rights along with them. I’m aware of the ancestral fears of Israel’s people. I’m aware of their fear, I was told by a good Israeli ambassador in Rome, of being the target of renewed crusades. I think I can understand, but Israel must be more Jewish with the Palestinians. It must consider them as close relatives. But just because of all this, the boycott serves only to be detrimental the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Translated by Diego Traversa and revised by Mary Rizzo
By Valentino Parlato (from il manifesto, 24/01/08)
The International Book Fair will be held in Turin next May (from the 8th to the 12th) but it is already arousing quarrels and polemics that have concerned even our tenacious and tolerant group. The fair is being held in the 60th anniversary of Israel’s foundation and therefore, quite inevitably, the Palestinian question gets resumed.
After World War II and the massacre of the Jews, it was necessary to recognize their right to have a territory and a state of their own. Even Stalin was in favour of the foundation of Israel while Great Britain, a fact of not minor importance, was against it. And it’s my personal memory to insist that the Arab world wouldn’t have accepted a Jewish state, it favoured great manifestations of resistance: in Tripoli (where I lived at that time) a violent and blooddy anti-Jewish pogrom took place in a complicit indifference of the British military authorities.
Today’s polemics regard this Book Fair, one that gives Israel a place of honour with the risk of a literary legitimization of its policies. Let me say first that I have no position in principle against the boycott, since it was more than fair to endorse it against the racist white South Africans. But there’s boycott and boycott and therefore I’m completely against boycotting this Book Fair (books must be always respected) and against boycotting Israel. The Israelis, who after all are still Jews, no matter how many wrongs as they have done against the Palestinians, can by no means be compared with the racist South Africans and moreover, there’s a point that we can’t forget and, by no means a small one, that there is the historical persecution of the Jewish people, there are the ghettos and the concentration camps.
At this point is useful recalling what I was told in an interview to il manifesto with Rome’s Chief Rabbi. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the last song the Jews sung was the Internationale (translator’s note, Communist anthem). And then they were slaughtered by the Germans.
Hence let’s take advantage of this International Book Fair of Turin to talk, to criticize Israel’s policies, to uphold the Palestinians’ rights who, in those territories, seem to have turned into the new Jews. Let’s talk and argue with each other, but let’s tell the boycott to go to hell. Not only because the Israelis are Jews and not Afrikaaners, but also because the boycott is mute. It’s a no without any arguments. Next May in Turin there are going to be Jewish writers of high stature and we must talk, reason, argue and defend the Palestinian people’s rights along with them. I’m aware of the ancestral fears of Israel’s people. I’m aware of their fear, I was told by a good Israeli ambassador in Rome, of being the target of renewed crusades. I think I can understand, but Israel must be more Jewish with the Palestinians. It must consider them as close relatives. But just because of all this, the boycott serves only to be detrimental the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Translated by Diego Traversa and revised by Mary Rizzo
Memory, Hypocrisy and that Messy Little Place of Honour
By Diego Traversa
By Diego Traversa
Despite all the respect that I might have for Valentino Parlato, I am writing to express how stunned his editorial on the Turin Book Fair has left me.
It seemed to me a very simplistic and dogmatic article, overflowing to the brim with hypocrisy and a “feel-good” sentiment. But, of course, it’s still January, the Day of Holocaust Memory is upon us so naturally all of us must acknowledge how important it is to be philo-Jewish, all of us to kneel down humbly and to make amends for the horrors of the past. And, since I am here, I am going to take advantage of the opportunity myself, to absolve my duty and publicly ask pardon from all Jews: forgive us for what our people did to you and forgive me if I had a grandfather who was a convinced Fascist.
Having said this, let’s go back to dig through the lines of the article by Valentino Parlato, authoritative and legendary voice of il manifesto.
His comments on the upcoming Book Fair of Turin seem to me at the very least pointless and contradictory.
In the first place, it is not true that it was necessary to give a state to the Jews and further, neither is it true that Stalin was in agreement: his was mere political shrewdness, oriented at extending the Russian dominion towards the Mediterranean. This is indeed true in that Russia radically changed its politics by becoming fiercely anti-Zionist, just to show how much Stalin had the Jewish people close to heart!
It seemed to me a very simplistic and dogmatic article, overflowing to the brim with hypocrisy and a “feel-good” sentiment. But, of course, it’s still January, the Day of Holocaust Memory is upon us so naturally all of us must acknowledge how important it is to be philo-Jewish, all of us to kneel down humbly and to make amends for the horrors of the past. And, since I am here, I am going to take advantage of the opportunity myself, to absolve my duty and publicly ask pardon from all Jews: forgive us for what our people did to you and forgive me if I had a grandfather who was a convinced Fascist.
Having said this, let’s go back to dig through the lines of the article by Valentino Parlato, authoritative and legendary voice of il manifesto.
His comments on the upcoming Book Fair of Turin seem to me at the very least pointless and contradictory.
In the first place, it is not true that it was necessary to give a state to the Jews and further, neither is it true that Stalin was in agreement: his was mere political shrewdness, oriented at extending the Russian dominion towards the Mediterranean. This is indeed true in that Russia radically changed its politics by becoming fiercely anti-Zionist, just to show how much Stalin had the Jewish people close to heart!
The pivot of Parlato’s theorem is that one must reject the anti-Israeli boycott for an entire set of reasons: because the Jews have suffered unspeakable wrongs, because they can’t be compared to racist white South Africans (as a matter of curiosity, who knows if the Israeli magnates of the diamond industry momentarily put aside their traffic with South Africa when the entire world was practicing the boycott…) and especially because the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, before they were massacred by the Nazis, “sang the Internationale”.
What kind of discourse is he engaged in?
It is as if the sole fact of having had relatives who are evacuated and socialists guarantees any individual whatsoever the right to act any way he wants, stepping on the rights of others. It is almost like saying that the single mother in Taranto who made an unauthorised occupation of the house of that old woman who was taken to the hospital has the right to do such a thing. Even if this example does not fit like a glove, seeing as how the Israelis have done much more than occupy someone else’s house unlawfully.
In the first place, theirs is not a popular nationalism, but rather a nationalism imposed from on high, born out of diplomatic trafficking and intrigue between powers when the Jewish masses had not even the slightest interest in searching for a new country. Furthermore, it was not only the Jewish Socialist leaders who brought forward demands of independence, but even the ultra-conservatives and the representatives of the petit bourgeois and the middle classes. As a matter of fact, truth to tell, the history of Israel is nothing but an anthem, the triumph of an ideology that is one of the most reactionary possible. After the Ben-Gurions and Moshe Sharetts (who, rather than Socialists, I would define National Socialists), came the Begins, the Shamirs, and the Sharons to model modern Zionism, that is, the “ideological” children of that Vladimir Jabotinsky who promoted the crudest nationalism by supporting violence and the transfer of the Palestinian people. Therefore, telling us the story that the Jews sang the Internationale as valid argumentation to justify the existence of the Jewish state seems to me quite absurd, if not outright ridiculous and unjust, as if the destruction and violence committed against the indigenous Americans was justified by the religious persecution that the founding fathers and pilgrims of the Mayflower underwent and rendered dignified by their sacred hymns.
Yet, I don’t wish to focus too much attention on the history of Israel, but I can’t help but notice that the entire contradiction expressed by Parlato comes to the surface when he talks about boycotting: first he insists that it was right to enact that instrument against South Africans, but then he summons that the boycott is useless because it is “a no without arguments”.
It seems to me that the boycott is a civil and democratic form of non-violent protest: it is not censorship, forbidding someone to speak. It is only an outspoken way to express dissent. Specifically, considering the place of honour that has been given to the writers of Israel, it is more than opportune to should dissent against the exponents (respectable or not as they may be) of a country as racist, militaristic and warlike as Israel. Precisely because the Israelis have not learned anything from their past; precisely because they should be the first to oppose the modern horrors committed in Palestine, being, as we are constantly reminded, the “only” people to have known just what true suffering is; and especially because they do not treat the Palestinians like Semitic brothers (quite the opposite, they hate them a great deal, as witnessed in the widespread racism within Israeli society).
I am sorry for those Israeli writers who rightly point their fingers at the terrible politics enacted by their government, but unfortunately, this event in Turn has taken on a stale and disgusting taste of institutional legitimisation of Israel: the first to boycott this disgrace should be precisely those same writers who know firsthand what it means to live in Palestine today and how much horror Zionism has brought about. Theirs would be a clamorous deed, more meaningful than a thousand boycotts.
In regards to Valentino Parlato, I can only say: January may have become the Month of Memory but, please, let’s be careful it does not become the Month of Hypocrisy.
Translated from Italian by Mary Rizzo. Diego Traversa and Mary Rizzo are both members of Tlaxcala, network of translators for linguistic diversity.
Labels: activism, boycott, gatekeeping, hasbara, Israel, Italy, jewish identity politics, journalism, poetry, Zionism
Friday, January 18, 2008
Gilad Atzmon - "Public Lapidation" round one
Once again, rabid Zionists have united with the so-called 'Jewish anti-Zionists protagonists'. This time, they insist upon believing that I am a Holocaust Denier.It all started when a site that specialises in texts known as “Holocaust Denial” linked to an Iranian paper that reported that the German Lawyer Sylvia Stolz, who acted as attorney for Ernst Zundel and has been sentenced to serve three and a half years in prison for doing so, quoted me in her defence.
According to the Iranian paper "Stolz has reportedly read a newspaper article to the court about the appearance of world renowned Israeli artist, Gilad Atzmon in Bochum." http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=38848§ionid=351020604
In order to set things straight, I have to mention that the newspaper item read by Mrs Stolz was highly misleading. It was not at all representative of what I had said. At the time, this was immediately pointed out by the Festival organiser who invited me and moderated the meeting. Indeed, the organiser felt that the paper misrepresented almost everything possible.
This is the text of the letter he had written to the newspaper.
“Dear editorial staff of Ruhr Nachrichten,
I usually do not write letters to the editors and as an organizer I can live with bad critics. However, as the subject is rather delicate, I felt I had to comment the article containing big mistakes as regards content and strongly falsifying Gilad Atzmon’s political tendency.
Firstly, concerning the big mistakes:
“According to him the true enemy was not Hitler but Stalin”. You have left out an important piece of information, notably whose enemy Stalin had been. Atzmon argued that America’s true enemy had not been Hitler but Stalin. As long as Hitler had communism under control, America did not believe it to be necessary to get involved in the war. Atzmon uses the same argument for all wars led by the USA until the present time. Atzmon also refers to Hitler as a criminal. Atzmon neither denies nor plays down the Holocaust.
The following statement is wrong, too: “[…] the Germans [should] stop feeling guilty and responsible”. In fact, Atzmon encourages the present generation of Germans not to feel guilty any longer but he does not deny the Germans’ responsibility in general. On the contrary, he believes the Germans to be extremely vigilant today concerning any kind of potential racist or fascist tendencies.
Regarding the discussion about the number of murdered Jews during the Holocaust, it is very difficult to resume the contents of this debate with only a few sentences. Atzmon criticises that publicly doubting the number of 6 million is being penalized, while even the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem itself mentions various studies that state numbers of 5.1 million or even 5.29 or 5.5 million. Atzmon emphasises that this abstract number has become a kind of fetish, as if the Holocaust were more harmless if there had been only half of the number of murdered Jews. Atzmon does not accuse Bush, Blair and Sharon of being criminals of war in order to minimise Hitler’s own crimes of war.
Surely, the language barrier posed a problem during the discussion last Sunday. Suddenly, an audience that mainly expected to attend a concert preceded by a reading, was confronted by a political discussion. Had we known this beforehand, we would have organised a professional bilingual interpreter’s service for the evening.
We were aware of the fact that Gilad Atzmon’s novels are provoking and up to a certain extent such a provocation was intended. He criticised harshly Israel’s politics and shows that due to this historical victimhood, the United Nations mostly tolerate Israel’s racist and nationalist action towards the Palestinians and that criticism is nipped in the bud with the allegation of anti-Semitism.
It is true, that the ambiance after the discussion was not very favourable to the concert. We ourselves had several discussions in the lobby of the concert hall with members of the public who wanted to leave the event. Two of the women who had left returned however later and continued to speak with Gilad after the concert in a small group. This discussion was far less controversial than the momentarily heated one before the concert. They all said goodbye heartily and shook hands.
Maybe it would have made sense if Thorsten Hoops had seized the occasion to verify the ideas he got during the discussion. Such delicate subjects demand greater care from journalists than writing about a concert, which one can certainly resume in a competent way even if one does not stay until the very end.”
In the Bochum event I shared with my audience my usual critique of the common WW2 narrative as well as my different reading of the Holocaust as a meaningful event rather than a mere legal account.
My detailed take on the issues can be found in the following links:
Rearranging the 20th Century: Allegro Non Troppo
Rearranging the 20th Century: Deceptive Cadence
Interview: It Ain’t Necessarily So
What I find very interesting is to discover how this news made the rounds. It seems that on a few leftist lists and on a rabid settler’s site, this news item based on falsity, bad translation and distortion of facts is the “hot” topic of the day. It seems that a few anti-Zionist Jews and some radicals who steal land from Palestinians are sharing their tactic today. They are circulating the news from a site that specialises in what they call Holocaust Denial. It’s a site I don’t read, and won’t even link to, but they obviously do and have. Yes, the rabid Zionists such as Arutzsheva, Seven Plaut and the Jewish anti-Zionists Tony Greenstein and Shraga Elam count on a denial site when it comes to me. I wonder if they suddenly trust Neo Nazis and Holocaust deniers as serious, trustworthy truth-tellers and legitimate sources of information. I wonder how they feel just having demonstrated what kind of navigation they engage in. Since they take the report in the Holocaust Denial site as correct, truthful and precise, how do they know that this site’s account on other things is categorically false? Where do they draw the line, if they draw one? It is probably just too much to expect Zionists (whether they know themselves to be or not) to be consistent. Once again we happen to learn that intellectual integrity is not a common trait amongst Jewish ethnic activists whether they are settlers or leftist cyber stalkers.
Labels: activism, Atzmon, documents, gatekeeping, hasbara, holocaust, Iran, Israel, jewish identity politics, journalism, settlers, Zionism
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Some Human Beings are More Human than Others
Why ethnic campaigning can be unethical
by Mary Rizzo
This blog recently has had some attention from Tony Greenstein. Taking a detour from his general direction of activism (sic) which boils down to exclusively attacking a growing list of other Pro-Palestinian activists - posting the same article that has been proven to be a misrepresentation consisting of a series of out-of-context quotes and insinuations about Gilad Atzmon - he’s using the same method, wallpapering every spot he can think of with his rantings using an identical post (to get the most mileage out of it, I suppose) that my blog is an Anti-Semitic sewer because it had this:
He stated:
“Under a title ‘Peacepalestine Offers Prisoner Exchange’ are four photographs of Ariel Sharon, Gilad Shalit, David Hirsh and myself, with what presumably are supposed to be wanted posters bearing our names, photographs, the title ‘human being’ (presumably this is disputed) and then, in reverse video the word ‘JEW’. All that is missing is the yellow star, but I’m sure Rizzo will manage to find a graphic artist up to the task.”
He then emphasizes that this is “clearly racist and anti-Semitic”.
Well, finally Tony Greenstein and I can partially agree on something. Gilad Atzmon and I have been stressing for years now that asking people to take action or to influence them by merit of some ethnically-based criterion is simply a racist way of thinking and operating, and Tony finally admits as much. If we are people, it shouldn’t matter one iota what group we are born or raised into. Ideologies are mindsets that are not "genetically instilled" and can be adopted or cast off or used at will. We can’t accept an objective ethnic belonging that carries no merit or defect as such, as an ethical device or even a way to persuade people. Ideologies matter, ethnic belonging does not. Belonging to one group or another should be irrelevant when trying to persude people of the value of an argument and influence their opinions. We should move beyond the stage of focussing on a person according to race, sex, religion, nationality or political leaning, and listen to their arguments.
It is too bad that Tony feels the need to continually insist on telling us that he was “The only Jewish speaker” at this meeting or that. Gosh, I didn’t know that there is a census made of the ethnic or religious belonging of the people who speak at meetings and that Tony was privy to that information. He also believes that Jews have special sensitivity to racism. “Jews, of all people, should be the first to oppose racism, whoever the victims and the perpetrators,” he says. While at the same time, he knows how (presumably all) Blacks must feel about it, refering to one of his interlocutors, so that he can be easily identified, apparently, as “a Black Sudanese guy”: “But again Black people have better understanding of racism than white ex-councillors”. (Following this logic, if the white ex-councillors are Jewish, they should be the first to oppose the racism, but other whites certainly are lacking in this moral characteristic.) If one were to judge the way he writes, it seems he does indeed think in racial stereotypes and categories and can’t resist mentioning it as if it were the normal thing to do. Yet, on the other hand, he insists that race does not exist, er… rather, it is a political construct. “Just to be clear. Zionism isn't based on a race, nor is German anti-Semitism for the simple reason there are no such things as race. Race is a political construct.” (Alef message 5 January, 2008) Whether or not there is such a thing as race seems to be a matter of debate for geneticists, and we’ve all seen acceptable arguments from both sides of the debate. Tony is extremely “ethnically aware”, and this is absolutely crystal clear in almost every intervention he has on internet. One might say that it borders on an obsession. Whites, Blacks, Jews, Non-Jews, hardly a single thing he has written escapes this ethnic (or racial, if you like) labeling, complete with a categorical judgment of the sensitivity each group must have to racism issues a priori of their personal experiences. What DOES seem interesting is the fact that when TONY stresses his ethnicity, in his worldview, it’s a good and positive thing. When OTHER people do it, as the Shalit campaigners do, or those who spoof it, as Peacepalestine has done, it’s clearly racist and anti-Semitic. I wish he would make up his mind one way or the other.
I agree that the campaign for Gilad Shalit is clearly racist, but it is far from being anti-Semitic. They will have to presumably find someone to paste in that Yellow Star as Tony suggests, not because the campaign is anti-Semitic, but because it represents to perfection the Jewish Victim role, the only way we are supposed to feel about Jews, especially Israeli ones. To justify what Israel does, we have to know they are clearly victims of some irrational hatred based on the simple fact that they are Jews in an Arab world hostile to their very existence. The Yellow Star would be an apt symbol of the victim paradigm that we should never forget or place into any context, no matter what. Jews are and will be the eternal victim, and you better get the idea that they act only out of reasons of defense. Being victims, we have to empathise with their plight in all instances.
The identifying label of the righteous victim is used to influence people and suspend any other kind of rational thinking or judgment. The innocent victim status is used in the Shalit campaign to instill an idea that goes against reality. We have to suspend our judgment on the role that he fulfilled. We have to think that a soldier who was in an Occupation army, in occupied territory AS an occupier, not a journalist or excursionist, there to render the lives of the people under Occupation a hell on earth and endanger their very safety with his presence, was just an innocent child who needs to be returned to his worried parents. He has become the centre of a “humanitarian” campaign that has very little to do with humanity, despite the text one can read on the banner.
This campaign has been going on for a while. Anyone who has seen even one blog by Israel supporters has bumped into it. It’s really hard to remain indifferent to. Indeed, the graphic artists felt it NECESSARY to point out that Shalit is a Human being. Oh, yes, and a Jew as well. Generally, members of Homo Sapiens Sapiens ARE considered to be Human beings and we don’t need to be told, even though the pictures of Shalit bring more the idea of a lost puppy to mind.
And we all know that if Shalit was an IDF member, well, he could have been nothing other than Jewish. Tony was shocked at the horrible sort of racist labeling. As a matter of fact, he thought it was something I dreamed up myself and not a parody. He was unaware of this campaign. Where has he been hiding? The amount of posts he leaves around would indicate that he’s online a hell of a lot of hours in a day. A legitimate question to ask is what precisely does he do other than post his own repetitious text? He claims that he fights Zionism, but he has NEVER seen a Zionist site or blog since the day of the campaign??? That is longer than a year. How can one fight the enemy if one does not even know what the enemy is up to? Or maybe he’s seen it, but is pretending righteous indignation in order to influence people who may not be familiar with the propaganda tools of Zionism so that they come to think of my blog in the same jaundiced way he does. He obviously detests it, because it exposes his endless smear and silencing campaigns against Gilad Atzmon. Yet, to call it a rightwing blog with an anti-Semitic and conspiracist agenda is really pushing it. Apparently, he may need to convince himself more than he does others. And with the three-person following he has, he has to work harder on it, apparently.
But, leaving aside this provincial matter for the moment, I shall return to the issue of humanity and the Gilad Shalit campaign. I had the good fortune of working for several years in a major advertising agency as a copy editor and then copywriter. Our clients would show us their new product and we would have to come up with an appropriate campaign. The first thing one has to do is to “frame the target”. You have to know who you are trying to convince, and you have to use a language that will appeal to them on even a subconscious level. You have to reach them, then you have to influence them. Later, they will become an additional and correlated (not to mention cost-free) advertising element, by driving around on your motorcycle (in the case of the campaigns I managed).
Bringing that knowledge to the Shalit campaign, we see this: our target probably is NOT the group or individuals that hold Shalit. Most likely, they would not be overly sensitive to the fact that he is a Jew, or at least, this would not be the aspect of his being that would influence them the most. Perhaps those who created the campaign feel that those holding him in captivity are unaware that he is a human, so they have to spell it out, but I tend to believe that since the advert is in English and in Hebrew, our target is the Zio-blogosphere. So, the banner gets picked up and distributed on sites where people go who support Israel or at least aren’t blatantly or even latently pro-Palestinian. I have never seen the banner on a single pro-Palestinian site. Correct me, someone, if I am wrong and it is posted on some site of the sort.
The language then, has got to appeal to the crowd that follows the Zio-blogosphere. It is “normal” for them, I guess, to believe racial profiling is acceptable. If you are a Jew, anyway, and you are a Jew who is doing it, however. I doubt they would be convinced that Tony is right and that it is anti-Semitic. If I were still in advertising and worked on this campaign, I am pretty sure they would like the Yellow Star, though, and should consider integrating it into future versions of the campaign (all campaigns require a refresher in order to remain effective).
Now, what is the most interesting aspect of the entire campaign, attempting to appeal to the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, is we see just how the people who support this campaign think. Take a look at http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/ and see that there is a poll asking the following question:
Poll: One Year On. What should the Israeli Government do?
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit was been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them one final deadline before military action
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water.
view results
Well, how do you think that the public answered as of today's date?
Let me show you the results:
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas 18% 127
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes 14% 97
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable 10% 72
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them another final deadline before military action 10% 73
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water. 47% 327
total votes: 696
More than half of them (58%) demand that there be military action taken (raids, presumably resulting in deaths of innocent civilians, as is often the case), and a whopping 47% call for total cessation of Israeli-supplied electricty (sic) and Water. (As if it comes from someplace else).
What would the result of such a call be? It isn’t too hard to comprehend, given that Israel has already begun the cessation of supply to the people they keep confined in Gaza. It means treating human beings like their lives are expendable, and actually turning a deaf ear as one hears their cries that they are dying. I would hope that people who care about Shalit would think before they push a little button to state their opinion, and consider that it is very inhumane to cut off basic utilities services of the people who you have made depend on them. It is a form of torture and duress. It certainly is how a complete sadist would operate. Animals in a zoo are treated better than that.
Are the people who are so concerned to show the world that the IDF soldier captured while he was in operative duty is a Human being (oh, and a Jew too), able to even see or feel that the more than one million men, women and children in Gaza are Human beings as well? Or does the fact that there are no longer any Jews in Gaza mean that genocide and collective punishment is acceptable? Was the last human removed from Gaza with the unilateral withdrawal?
But, I don’t know why any of this surprises me. We all have heard that the reason for the breakout of the so-called Second Lebanon War was the capture of two IDF soldiers and the killing of eight in the border zone between Lebanon and Israel. This is the Israeli Government version of the war. Therefore, untold death and devastation is a normal and acceptable price to pay for the lives of a Human being (and Jew) wearing an IDF uniform? We know how many innocent Human beings were killed in the war Israel started. This is the page of the Israeli deaths, and this is a listing of all the casualties. Take a look at it carefully. The civilian casualties are 1,233+ (the plus meaning countless and unknown numbers of those whose death was not immediate, and we can probably add a great deal more to this list, given the situation of utter devastation that Israel created in Lebanon. The civilian wounded tops 5,089 people. The military deaths are 438 - 888+ (given the variable reports) and more than 512 wounded. The situation of devastation caused over one million people (human beings, as far as I know) to have been temporarily made into refugees, “with an unknown number of missing civilians in the south”, as was stated in several articles referenced but no longer available in an online version. It is important to mention that the southern zone of Lebanon, a residential area, was cluster bombed, meaning, the resettlement of humans is quite unlikely, due to the remote possibilities of returning to a land that has been wilfully disseminated with unconventional (and illegal, even in an activity as unholy as war) weapons that will bring about devastation for years to come. These weapons were dropped there precisely for that inhumane purpose by the Israeli army.
So, are we to deduce from all of this that you are only a Human being if you wear an IDF uniform? Or if you are a Jew? Is calling for carnage and devastation to other Human beings a proper response to the capture of a soldier? Judging by the “humanitarian” mode of thinking by those who support the Free Gilad Shalit campaign, I think we can come to some of our own conclusions.
One thing is clear, and that is that we are anaesthetized into thinking that if it is a Jewish activist, campaigning as such, calling for action, be it to “fight anti-Semitism”, “bring down Zionism” or to collectively punish millions of non-Jews (non-Humans?) it is something “normal”. It is indeed not something normal, and it is about time we started to stop expecting people to think in pre-masticated ways, expecting them to assume that a Jew certainly should know better or act in a way that is beyond judgment. This is a call for the end, once and for all, of ethnically based campaigning. It’s just another aspect of racist campaigning, and it treats us all like we are racists and need to be told what is right and what is wrong.
by Mary Rizzo
This blog recently has had some attention from Tony Greenstein. Taking a detour from his general direction of activism (sic) which boils down to exclusively attacking a growing list of other Pro-Palestinian activists - posting the same article that has been proven to be a misrepresentation consisting of a series of out-of-context quotes and insinuations about Gilad Atzmon - he’s using the same method, wallpapering every spot he can think of with his rantings using an identical post (to get the most mileage out of it, I suppose) that my blog is an Anti-Semitic sewer because it had this:
He stated:
“Under a title ‘Peacepalestine Offers Prisoner Exchange’ are four photographs of Ariel Sharon, Gilad Shalit, David Hirsh and myself, with what presumably are supposed to be wanted posters bearing our names, photographs, the title ‘human being’ (presumably this is disputed) and then, in reverse video the word ‘JEW’. All that is missing is the yellow star, but I’m sure Rizzo will manage to find a graphic artist up to the task.”
He then emphasizes that this is “clearly racist and anti-Semitic”.
Well, finally Tony Greenstein and I can partially agree on something. Gilad Atzmon and I have been stressing for years now that asking people to take action or to influence them by merit of some ethnically-based criterion is simply a racist way of thinking and operating, and Tony finally admits as much. If we are people, it shouldn’t matter one iota what group we are born or raised into. Ideologies are mindsets that are not "genetically instilled" and can be adopted or cast off or used at will. We can’t accept an objective ethnic belonging that carries no merit or defect as such, as an ethical device or even a way to persuade people. Ideologies matter, ethnic belonging does not. Belonging to one group or another should be irrelevant when trying to persude people of the value of an argument and influence their opinions. We should move beyond the stage of focussing on a person according to race, sex, religion, nationality or political leaning, and listen to their arguments.
It is too bad that Tony feels the need to continually insist on telling us that he was “The only Jewish speaker” at this meeting or that. Gosh, I didn’t know that there is a census made of the ethnic or religious belonging of the people who speak at meetings and that Tony was privy to that information. He also believes that Jews have special sensitivity to racism. “Jews, of all people, should be the first to oppose racism, whoever the victims and the perpetrators,” he says. While at the same time, he knows how (presumably all) Blacks must feel about it, refering to one of his interlocutors, so that he can be easily identified, apparently, as “a Black Sudanese guy”: “But again Black people have better understanding of racism than white ex-councillors”. (Following this logic, if the white ex-councillors are Jewish, they should be the first to oppose the racism, but other whites certainly are lacking in this moral characteristic.) If one were to judge the way he writes, it seems he does indeed think in racial stereotypes and categories and can’t resist mentioning it as if it were the normal thing to do. Yet, on the other hand, he insists that race does not exist, er… rather, it is a political construct. “Just to be clear. Zionism isn't based on a race, nor is German anti-Semitism for the simple reason there are no such things as race. Race is a political construct.” (Alef message 5 January, 2008) Whether or not there is such a thing as race seems to be a matter of debate for geneticists, and we’ve all seen acceptable arguments from both sides of the debate. Tony is extremely “ethnically aware”, and this is absolutely crystal clear in almost every intervention he has on internet. One might say that it borders on an obsession. Whites, Blacks, Jews, Non-Jews, hardly a single thing he has written escapes this ethnic (or racial, if you like) labeling, complete with a categorical judgment of the sensitivity each group must have to racism issues a priori of their personal experiences. What DOES seem interesting is the fact that when TONY stresses his ethnicity, in his worldview, it’s a good and positive thing. When OTHER people do it, as the Shalit campaigners do, or those who spoof it, as Peacepalestine has done, it’s clearly racist and anti-Semitic. I wish he would make up his mind one way or the other.
I agree that the campaign for Gilad Shalit is clearly racist, but it is far from being anti-Semitic. They will have to presumably find someone to paste in that Yellow Star as Tony suggests, not because the campaign is anti-Semitic, but because it represents to perfection the Jewish Victim role, the only way we are supposed to feel about Jews, especially Israeli ones. To justify what Israel does, we have to know they are clearly victims of some irrational hatred based on the simple fact that they are Jews in an Arab world hostile to their very existence. The Yellow Star would be an apt symbol of the victim paradigm that we should never forget or place into any context, no matter what. Jews are and will be the eternal victim, and you better get the idea that they act only out of reasons of defense. Being victims, we have to empathise with their plight in all instances.
The identifying label of the righteous victim is used to influence people and suspend any other kind of rational thinking or judgment. The innocent victim status is used in the Shalit campaign to instill an idea that goes against reality. We have to suspend our judgment on the role that he fulfilled. We have to think that a soldier who was in an Occupation army, in occupied territory AS an occupier, not a journalist or excursionist, there to render the lives of the people under Occupation a hell on earth and endanger their very safety with his presence, was just an innocent child who needs to be returned to his worried parents. He has become the centre of a “humanitarian” campaign that has very little to do with humanity, despite the text one can read on the banner.
This campaign has been going on for a while. Anyone who has seen even one blog by Israel supporters has bumped into it. It’s really hard to remain indifferent to. Indeed, the graphic artists felt it NECESSARY to point out that Shalit is a Human being. Oh, yes, and a Jew as well. Generally, members of Homo Sapiens Sapiens ARE considered to be Human beings and we don’t need to be told, even though the pictures of Shalit bring more the idea of a lost puppy to mind.
And we all know that if Shalit was an IDF member, well, he could have been nothing other than Jewish. Tony was shocked at the horrible sort of racist labeling. As a matter of fact, he thought it was something I dreamed up myself and not a parody. He was unaware of this campaign. Where has he been hiding? The amount of posts he leaves around would indicate that he’s online a hell of a lot of hours in a day. A legitimate question to ask is what precisely does he do other than post his own repetitious text? He claims that he fights Zionism, but he has NEVER seen a Zionist site or blog since the day of the campaign??? That is longer than a year. How can one fight the enemy if one does not even know what the enemy is up to? Or maybe he’s seen it, but is pretending righteous indignation in order to influence people who may not be familiar with the propaganda tools of Zionism so that they come to think of my blog in the same jaundiced way he does. He obviously detests it, because it exposes his endless smear and silencing campaigns against Gilad Atzmon. Yet, to call it a rightwing blog with an anti-Semitic and conspiracist agenda is really pushing it. Apparently, he may need to convince himself more than he does others. And with the three-person following he has, he has to work harder on it, apparently.But, leaving aside this provincial matter for the moment, I shall return to the issue of humanity and the Gilad Shalit campaign. I had the good fortune of working for several years in a major advertising agency as a copy editor and then copywriter. Our clients would show us their new product and we would have to come up with an appropriate campaign. The first thing one has to do is to “frame the target”. You have to know who you are trying to convince, and you have to use a language that will appeal to them on even a subconscious level. You have to reach them, then you have to influence them. Later, they will become an additional and correlated (not to mention cost-free) advertising element, by driving around on your motorcycle (in the case of the campaigns I managed).
Bringing that knowledge to the Shalit campaign, we see this: our target probably is NOT the group or individuals that hold Shalit. Most likely, they would not be overly sensitive to the fact that he is a Jew, or at least, this would not be the aspect of his being that would influence them the most. Perhaps those who created the campaign feel that those holding him in captivity are unaware that he is a human, so they have to spell it out, but I tend to believe that since the advert is in English and in Hebrew, our target is the Zio-blogosphere. So, the banner gets picked up and distributed on sites where people go who support Israel or at least aren’t blatantly or even latently pro-Palestinian. I have never seen the banner on a single pro-Palestinian site. Correct me, someone, if I am wrong and it is posted on some site of the sort.
The language then, has got to appeal to the crowd that follows the Zio-blogosphere. It is “normal” for them, I guess, to believe racial profiling is acceptable. If you are a Jew, anyway, and you are a Jew who is doing it, however. I doubt they would be convinced that Tony is right and that it is anti-Semitic. If I were still in advertising and worked on this campaign, I am pretty sure they would like the Yellow Star, though, and should consider integrating it into future versions of the campaign (all campaigns require a refresher in order to remain effective).
Now, what is the most interesting aspect of the entire campaign, attempting to appeal to the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, is we see just how the people who support this campaign think. Take a look at http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/ and see that there is a poll asking the following question:
Poll: One Year On. What should the Israeli Government do?
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit was been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them one final deadline before military action
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water.
view results
Well, how do you think that the public answered as of today's date?
Let me show you the results:
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas 18% 127
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes 14% 97
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable 10% 72
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them another final deadline before military action 10% 73
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water. 47% 327
total votes: 696
More than half of them (58%) demand that there be military action taken (raids, presumably resulting in deaths of innocent civilians, as is often the case), and a whopping 47% call for total cessation of Israeli-supplied electricty (sic) and Water. (As if it comes from someplace else).
What would the result of such a call be? It isn’t too hard to comprehend, given that Israel has already begun the cessation of supply to the people they keep confined in Gaza. It means treating human beings like their lives are expendable, and actually turning a deaf ear as one hears their cries that they are dying. I would hope that people who care about Shalit would think before they push a little button to state their opinion, and consider that it is very inhumane to cut off basic utilities services of the people who you have made depend on them. It is a form of torture and duress. It certainly is how a complete sadist would operate. Animals in a zoo are treated better than that.
Are the people who are so concerned to show the world that the IDF soldier captured while he was in operative duty is a Human being (oh, and a Jew too), able to even see or feel that the more than one million men, women and children in Gaza are Human beings as well? Or does the fact that there are no longer any Jews in Gaza mean that genocide and collective punishment is acceptable? Was the last human removed from Gaza with the unilateral withdrawal?
But, I don’t know why any of this surprises me. We all have heard that the reason for the breakout of the so-called Second Lebanon War was the capture of two IDF soldiers and the killing of eight in the border zone between Lebanon and Israel. This is the Israeli Government version of the war. Therefore, untold death and devastation is a normal and acceptable price to pay for the lives of a Human being (and Jew) wearing an IDF uniform? We know how many innocent Human beings were killed in the war Israel started. This is the page of the Israeli deaths, and this is a listing of all the casualties. Take a look at it carefully. The civilian casualties are 1,233+ (the plus meaning countless and unknown numbers of those whose death was not immediate, and we can probably add a great deal more to this list, given the situation of utter devastation that Israel created in Lebanon. The civilian wounded tops 5,089 people. The military deaths are 438 - 888+ (given the variable reports) and more than 512 wounded. The situation of devastation caused over one million people (human beings, as far as I know) to have been temporarily made into refugees, “with an unknown number of missing civilians in the south”, as was stated in several articles referenced but no longer available in an online version. It is important to mention that the southern zone of Lebanon, a residential area, was cluster bombed, meaning, the resettlement of humans is quite unlikely, due to the remote possibilities of returning to a land that has been wilfully disseminated with unconventional (and illegal, even in an activity as unholy as war) weapons that will bring about devastation for years to come. These weapons were dropped there precisely for that inhumane purpose by the Israeli army.
So, are we to deduce from all of this that you are only a Human being if you wear an IDF uniform? Or if you are a Jew? Is calling for carnage and devastation to other Human beings a proper response to the capture of a soldier? Judging by the “humanitarian” mode of thinking by those who support the Free Gilad Shalit campaign, I think we can come to some of our own conclusions.
One thing is clear, and that is that we are anaesthetized into thinking that if it is a Jewish activist, campaigning as such, calling for action, be it to “fight anti-Semitism”, “bring down Zionism” or to collectively punish millions of non-Jews (non-Humans?) it is something “normal”. It is indeed not something normal, and it is about time we started to stop expecting people to think in pre-masticated ways, expecting them to assume that a Jew certainly should know better or act in a way that is beyond judgment. This is a call for the end, once and for all, of ethnically based campaigning. It’s just another aspect of racist campaigning, and it treats us all like we are racists and need to be told what is right and what is wrong.
Labels: activism, anti-Semitism, Atzmon, call to action, gatekeeping, Gaza, good news, hasbara, human rights violations, Israel, jewish identity politics, Lebanon, military, propaganda, Zionism
