AUT: anarchronisms...

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On 30/10/2002 2:31 AM, "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The scenario of an East Meditarrean political-
> economical confederation is not more radical
> than it probably would be preferred by the
> European Union, and capitalists throughout
> the region, including entrepreneuring
> capitalists in Israel of the more neo-liberal kind.
> The Zionist project  has become an anacronism.
> Washington might see it otherwise.
>

You keep returning to this phrase "East Mediterranean." Palestinians that I
know tend to object to the phrase "Middle East" because of its eurocentricity,
I wonder if this phrase is any better. In my mind it seems to suggest that the
federation would include Turkey, Cyprus, Israel and the coastal Arab states.
That's maybe a not too far fetched angle of expansion for the E.U. if
Washington were to be transplanted to a moon of Saturn. Why not see the
integration as moving eastward, which seems much more likely, or southward (as
was the case until the colonialist scramble in the 1870s)? Why imagine that the
force of integration will be some sort of liberalist European philosophy?

My feeling on this is that capitalism thrives on anachronisms of the sort you
mention: I don't have in mind in particular the utility of Israel as a regional
lieutenant. Rather Israel is a case of borders gone mad - and in this way
differs from the Netherlands or Australia in intensity rather than quality of
violence. Borders and bizarre chauvinism are not atavistic remnants of the age
of Nationalism which will be molten away by neoliberal development or E.U.
style federation, which are dependent on all manner of 'dirty work'. (Along
this line I wonder: What is the great difference between Pym Furtuine's
liberalist anti-imigrationism - "we can't have them here because they are
intolerant" - and Israeli disavowals of Palestinian existence? As an anti-
nationalist, I cannot maintain that Palestinians have rights in Palestine/
Netherlands which they would not have in the Netherlands/Palestine.)


Thiago






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