Re: The List, the Left & Zionism (Forwarded from Chris Brady)

[Warwick Fry <wfry10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think a lot (not all) of your questions are resolved by distinguishing
'Jews' from 'Israelis'  - at least that's how I used to communicate with
Central American activists (who, unlike many north americans, were fully
aware of the Israeli support for the fascist regimes of Central America).

It does, however raise some questions about ethnicity, and I guess, in New
York and Manahattan, class. How does a progressive person who 'claims'
Jewish ethnicity deal with the fascistic tendencies of Israel? Does the
close knit correlation of Israeli foreign policy with US foreign policy
have any basis in an Israeli presence in the financial circles of a
dominant class? I doubt it, but I'm sure there are people on this list who
believe I should be corrected.


At 06:57 PM 2/13/00 -0500, you wrote:
>I experienced an episode similar to Gary's Iraqi Jew bash when I was
>working in Manhattan back in the early-mid 1980s.  I was employed by a
>large Upper West Side restaurant, famous in those days, and we had a big
>staff.  The front of the house (bar and floor) were young, hip and
>cosmopolitan, and the back of the house (kitchen workers and porters)
>was young and international, with a strong Latin character with a few
>Iranians and some US-born labor.  In all, there was an extremely low
>proportion of African-Americans and Puerto Ricans in consideration of
>the location of the neighborhood.  At a party I introduced a young man
>from one of the war-torn provinces of El Salvador to some co-workers.
>He was basically a refugee.  He and I had become friendly mostly because
>I knew more about the situation in his home land than anyone else.  The
>other guys were an American handy-man and bass player, an American
>Indian trucker who had done some work for the place, and a piano-player
>pal of the bass player who had crashed the party.  I had hoped to get my
>Salvadoran friend to elucidate on the US role in the civil war in El
>Salvador, but I erred in initiating such a dialogue late into the
>party.  The guy had put the bottle to his lips too many times and what
>issued forth from his mouth was a scandalous and vicious invective
>against Jews.  I almost swallowed my tongue.  It just so happened that
>the three other guys were all part-Jewish.  Although anti-rite (a term
>worthy of note) they were understandably sensitive to anti-Semitism and
>quite taken aback, to say the least.  I can't recall precisely how I
>handled that gaff but I made the Salvadoran chap aware of the ethnic
>makeup of his astonished audience whereupon he clumsily disengaged and
>fled the festivities.
>
>I later button-holed my Central American co-worker and confronted him
>about his anti-Semitic diatribe.  He apologized.  He said he was sorry
>for embarrassing me in front of my friends. But he made no apologies for
>his condemnation of Jews.  He remarked that Jews in New York were so
>aggressively defensive about Israel and intensely sensitive about
>anti-Jewish remarks and yet they were so racist and so rich.  The
>prosperous restaurant where we worked was indeed owned by a couple of
>Jewish guys.  "And you know what they're like, man?"  Privately I
>quipped to myself, "yeah, they're a schandar for the goyim."  I argued
>that they were hardly representative of the Jewish people.  Why don't
>the Jewish people care about other people? He demanded. Why are they so
>special?  Did I know that Israel was pumping money, and weapons, and
>special advisors in interrogation and trainers in murder, into Central
>America and the Jews of New York
>did-not-care-all-they-care-about-was-their-goddamed-Israel-that-treats-other
>s-like-they-were-treated-by-the-Nazis?
>
>His humble repentance had turned around to a vituperative attack, and I
>felt at the time that it was close to an attack on me personally because
>I too was ignorant of what was happening then in Central America.  I had
>no idea Israeli counterinsurgency specialists were aiding the likes of
>Roberto D'Aubbison in El Salvador or the Contras surrounding Nicaragua,
>as well as other places.   I was not wholly surprised, however, because
>I was just learning about the fascism of Menachim Begin and Yitzhak
>Shamir.  Later I discovered that Israel is the largest producer of
>weapons per capita of any country in the world.  Their Uzi machine guns
>are famous.  Their Kahlil assault rifles are well-known among military
>men.  Huge state-supported yet privately-owned arms industries have made
>a select few Jews in Israel very wealthy.  Who could blame them for
>wanting to stay rich?  You can blame them for other things.  A lot of
>other things.  But they are no different than the Americans who reap
>riches by sowing death around the world.  In fact they are all together
>in it.  As Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran noted in the early Fifties, US
>capitalism was rescued by the Second World War.  Why should it kill the
>goose that laid the golden egg?  Now that the Cold War is over the beast
>stands naked yet so few remark on its over-indulged malignance, on its
>useless evil.  But it is not useless.  It is the reason that capitalism
>is paramount and it is the reason that the working class of the world,
>in El Salvador and in Israel as well as everywhere else, suffers.  The
>many must suffer for the few to revel in their extravagance.  Capitalism
>wastes people and the world we live in. That is how it lives.  It is
>still that blood-drenched, slavering creature caricatured in
>early-twentieth century publications. It really lives on death.
>
>I am still trying to trace the development of what Gary identified as
>the movement of American Jews from left to right, and I have certain
>thoughts there that need some time and more input to gestate. From what
>I can gather, the Soviet Union played a counter-productive and
>self-destructive role.  Right-wing elements in Palestine and the USA,
>and elsewhere, stoked class struggle in the context of the Cold War, and
>there being a city that is effectively the capital of capitalism that
>also has the biggest population of Jews anywhere, contributed to this
>development.  Fold in the Hollywood Ten (many Jews), the Rosenbergs, and
>the rest of the Truman/McCarthy witch-hunt and initially apolitical or
>uninformed/neutral US Jews got the point.  You are with the US or
>against the US.  Israel, right and wrong.
>
>The real problem is to coordinate an international socialist
>organization that includes Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians.
>That is a problem for capitalists, as well, if it occurs, so do not
>think they did not take that into account.  They were far more effective
>in their assaults on left political Arab organizations than with the
>religious zealots throughout the Middle East.  Who among Israelis could
>possibly have anything in common with Hezbollah?  As with the mujahedin
>in Afghanistan, the West supported the zealots against the reds.  It is
>perfect.  The threat of socialism is aborted = constant low-level
>warfare is guaranteed under the leadership of religious maniacs (in
>Eretz Yisrael, too) = markets for the best products for profits (other
>than drugs) are assured.  A vacuum cleaner designed by engineers steeped
>in planned obsolescence has nothing on a cruise missile.  Use once.
>Need to restock.  NO wonder the Stock Market has no ceiling. The sky is
>not the limit.  Not with Star Wars!
>
>In solid.,
>Chris Brady
>Las Cruces, CHILE
>
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
>
>