Re: DEBATE OVER "LEFT ANTISEMITISM"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> As an alternative, he suggests that Israel transform into a "non-racist"
> state "beyond tribalism, and open to all."  This notion of a bi-national
> state where the various communities would live in harmony is a
> conception once favored by the progressive sector of Zionism but now
> regarded as impractical or even idealist.  Kovel, however, believes it
> is possible to revive this project, and that it could be successful.  As
> a contemporary example of a relatively similar situation, he points to
> South Africa's metamorphosis from a vicious apartheid system into a
> single democratic state encompassing black and white.

An interesting observation, but one that shows the tendency of ideas to
gain momentum of their own and become as much as a part of the
*objective conditions* governing the class struggle as the level of
industrialization, etc.

Zionism is such an extremely reactionary ideology, especially the Likud
variety, that it has the potential to destroy itself by lacking the
*flexibility* to accomodate to social and political realities. I have
absolutely no doubt that if the Israeli government announced tomorrow
that there would be a single, secular state called Palestine and that
the right of return would be abolished, etc., the outcome would likely
resemble post-apartheid South Africa. I am quite sure that Yasir Arafat
or some other leader would be quite happy to run a new state that made
every sort of concession to democracy, except on *social and economic*
terms.

There would be some Palestinian millionaires who trumpet "liberation"
while the masses went without water, electricity and health care as is
in the case in South Africa. But any attempts at revolutionary action
would be preempted by the appeal to vote for change at the time of the
next election.


The South African ruling class was much more savvy than its Israeli
brothers.


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