re:[Marxism] Exchange with Benny Morris in Counterpunch

["Charlie Parks" <jcparks5550@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> As someone who's written about Palestine for CP since I was 18, I'd like to
> say I was never shocked by Morris' so-called revelation of his genuine
> politics. The American left is so miserably weak on Palestine traditionally
> - and still is - it tries desperately and pathetically to cling to any sign
> and say, "Look - here are some respectable, upstanding, honorable Israelis
> who we can cite in defending the Palestinians so my liberal Zionist
> tea-time friends won't call me an anti-Semite and disinvite me from their
> reading club."

I agree--this is one of the most odious effects that Zionist PACs and
Zionist liberals in general have had on American political discourse; they
hegemonically frame the debate so that whenever American left writers argue
against corrupt Zionist policies and in favor of the Palestinian cause, such
writers feel compelled to dignify the scurrilous charge of anti-semitism (or
if they're Jews, self-hatred) with a response, and are therefore more
inclined to invest Jewish sources attesting Israel's systematic destruction
of the Palestinians with far more authority than non-Jewish ones, especially
accounts by the Palestinians on the receiving end of Israeli missiles and
bulldozers. As for Morris, his frankness in defense of ethnic cleansing was
probably only a shock to people outside of Israel/Palestine, whose
inhabitants are doubtless familiar with the tradition among certain Israeli
writers and politicians (think of Moshe Dayan, for instance) of frankly
acknowledging the widespread destruction of Palestinian homes and villages
involved in the founding of the state of Israel, only to go on to support
the continuation of such barbarism as a "brutal necessity for Israel's
survival." --CP

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