RE: Israeli exceptionalism

[Gavin M Walker <gmwalker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

"Revolutionary standards of conduct aren't "universal" ones -- they 
are higher than normal behavior of oppressors."

--------------------------

I think that the key problem with this logic is that it presumes a
"higher-lower" trajectory of standards of conduct that takes the behavior of
the oppressor as its foundation. It's not so much that I think Yoshie's point
isn't a good one in certain ways, it's that this sort of logic presupposes that
the "behavior of oppressors" is somehow standard, par for the course, while
"revolutionary behavior" is "above" it. I would submit that the practice of
legitimate resistance, in other words lived revolutionary conduct, obeys
entirely different standards altogether, which are not qualitatively evaluable
in comparison with bourgeois expectations. 

This is different from saying "anything goes" - it merely expresses the fact
that a given situation's internal logic will determine the development of a
revolutionary conduct appropriate to and formed under the aegis of its
particular circumstances. To have a discussion from afar of the tactics
employed by a given movement doesn't seem particularly wrong, as long as it's
meant to remain internal, amongst comrades and friends: obviously, everyone
holds opinions on the effectivity and suitability of certain strategies and
tactics. It's dangerous though, to make any of the points raised in these
discussions prescriptive - solidarity workers don't have any right to dictate
the terms in which a people wages struggle. 

It seems to me important to clarify that it's quite possible to not support an
"anything goes" mentality (which often works against the ability of solidarity
workers to communicate effectively), and simultaneously combat a "judgment from
afar" type of decentered universalization of the importance of understanding
singular struggles through the lens of specific conditions. 

Gavin









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