Re: [Marxism] The "anti-semitism" of the oppressed, etc.?? (was: How to answer these questions?)

["Lüko Willms" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 6 Aug 2006 00:39:51 +0100, Ian Pace wrote:

> Terms such as 'the Spanish' or even 'the Europeans' 
> are understood to refer to states or groups of states, 
> and those acting in their names. 

  When somebody said that "the Spanish" have reached the semi-final, it 
was not meant to mean all Spaniards, but the Spanisch football team at 
the world cup recently held in Germany. 

> As more Jewish people live outside Israel than in the state, 
> it is strictly wrong in all sense to refer to Israeli actions 
> as what 'the Jews' do. 'The Israelis' or 'the Zionists' is correct. 

  For someone living in Palestine, "the Jews" are those among them, i.e. 
those living in Palestine and constituing the ruling ethnicity of the 
state of Israel, which is oppressing the Arabs in the name of "the 
Jews". The Jews living elsewhere do not really concern a Palestinian 
Arab, except as people who have more rights than each and every one of 
them having lived in Palestine for generations, and having worked and 
cultivated the land. 

> Otherwise you are accepting the equation of  Jewish people 
> and their interests with the state of Israel. 

  That's how the state of Israel understands itself, not as a state of 
all its people, but as a state of all Jews, and not only those actually 
living in Palestine, but also those living in Sydney, New York, Berlin, 
Moscow or Paris. That's state doctrine and basic law. The so-called 
"declaration of independence", i.e. the declaration of war against the 
Arab people of Palestine of May 1948 is a basic law of the state of 
Israel, i.e. one of the laws constituing its constitution. 

> Simply using the term 'the Israelis' should be 
> a reasonable request, a definition to do with 
> nationality rather than ethnicity.

  But that is wrong. The Israeli citizens of Arab nationality are not to 
be held responsible for the oppressive nature of the colonial settler 
state of Israel, and by the way, there is no way to register a citizen 
of Israel as being of "Israeli" nationality -- Uri Avnery and others 
have tried, but were refused. No, as Israeli citizen one is either of 
"Jewish" nationality", or "Christian", "Muslim", "Druse", maybe also 
"Arab", but never "Israeli" or even "Palestinian". No way. 

   So, when a Palestinian Arab with or without Israeli citizenship 
describes his enemies as "the Jews", he is only sticking with the 
fundamental Israeli state doctrine and basic laws. 

  When she or he tries to find a theoretical explanation for this fact 
in antisemitic phantasies drawn from Europe, then this is deplorable, 
but just a reflection of what the ruling ethnicity of the state of 
Israel is hammering down on them, including the phantasy that 
antisemitism is an eternal feature of each and every gentile, and can't 
be fought and defeated. 

   Please remember that the Soviet union has been instrumental in the 
passing in the colonialist partition resolution of the UN General 
Assembly of November 1947, and that the USSR is reportedly the first 
country to have recognized the newly declared state of Israel. I imagine 
that this has severely hampered any effort to any kind of socialist or 
communist current in Palestine. 

On Sun, 6 Aug 2006 01:23:24 +0100, Ian Pace wrote replying to "Danielle 
Ni Dhighe" <danielle@xxxxxxxx>:

>> To a certain degree, you're correct.  Israel justifies 
>> itself not as *a* Jewish state, but as *the* Jewish state, 
>> and that its actions are on behalf of all Jews.  
>> That said, I don't think this justifies antisemitism 
> > in response, as you seem to believe.

> I do believe there is a despicable tactic at work here. 
> Israel and its supporters try to portray itself as 
> acting on behalf of all Jews in the hope 
> of provoking responses *against* all Jews. 
> Then this gives further sustenance to the very 
> fundamentals of Zionist propaganda - that the state 
> of Israel is necessary because the rest of the world 
> is irretrievably anti-semitic when you scratch the surface. 
> By responding to such self-justification in 
> an anti-semitic way, we play into their hands.

  First of all, I think it is wrong to identify the Palestinian 
resistance against the colonial settler state Israel as "anti-semitic" 
is utterly wrong, not when they identify their enemy as "the Jews", and 
also not when they pick up European antisemitic phantasies about the 
Jewishness of this oppression they are suffering from "the Jews". The 
latter just means that they add some antisemitic decorations to their 
just struggle against their oppressor, falsely describing the strategic 
line of march, but nevertheless not necessarily being wrong on the next 
step of struggle because of that false characterization. 

   The real question is: should the Arabs ruling classes try to be 
accepted as the priviledged partner for US imperialism in West Asia, 
replacing the state of Israel, or should the Arab masses single out US 
imperialism as the main enemy, and eventually reach out to the Jewish 
workers in Israel as an ally, or better as their savior (i.e. the Arabs 
saving the Jewish workers from their association with their class 
enemies). 

   Besides that, as in the biblical "when there are two or three 
righteous men in that city, I will spare it", the actual presence of 
Jews fighting against at least the most savage expressions of the 
"Jewish State", be it in Palestine itself with people like Uri Avnery 
and his Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc), the "Rabbis for Human Rights", 
"Anarchists against the wall", "Committee against house demolitions" 
with Jeff Halper, etc, or the many many anti-war and solidarity 
activists of Jewish descent in the USA, all these people are the living 
demonstration that it is not some genuine Jewish characteristic to be 
cruel. Well, but even not recognizing this, does not take away from the 
fact that it is the "Jewish state" which is hammering the idea in the 
heads and minds of its victims, that this colonial and racist oppression 
is done by Jews, through Jews, and in the interest of Jews as such. 

   Antisemitism becomes a different problem in Germany (and maybe some 
other imperialist countries, but especicially in this country) where 
this is a component of a fascist political movement which still (or 
again) seeks a way for Germany to become a world power (as Hitler's 
credo in his book: "Germany will be a world power, or it will not be"). 
Germany's way to become a world power would actually need a violent 
confrontation with US imperialism. 

   That goes hand in hand with an "antiimperialist" talk (have a look 
for Lenin's 1916 article on "German and non-German chauvinism") and 
dreams of a world wide coalition of, say, Belarus, Russia, China, 
Venezuela and Cuba under German leadership against the USA. This 
"antiimperialism" is actually pro-imperialist, i.e. pro German 
imperialism, but anti-american. 

    Part of this talk is also the talk about defending the Palestinians 
against Israel, and this is of course coupled with the most crude 
antisemitism, and anti-Americanism. This line also includes Iranian 
president Ahmadi-Nedjad with his half-baked and misunderstandable 
remarks about the genocide of the European Jews by the German state in 
the Second World War (I agree with Ahmadi-Nedjad 100% when he says, that 
if Israel is the consequence of the Holocaust, then this state should be 
constructed on German soil, but should not victimise the Arabs in 
Palestine, who have nothing to do with the holocaust). 

   Jürgen Möllemann, who was a central leader of the liberal FDP in 
Germany, a federal government minister, and chairperson of the 
German-Arabic Society, appealed to antisemitic resentments in his last 
election campaign (2002) with a leaflet which attacked simultaneously 
Ariel Sharon for his policy against the Palestinians and Michel 
Friedman, then deputy chairperson of the Central Council of Jews in 
Germany and a member of the CDU for his role in supporting it, thus 
creating an amalgam of the colonial settler state and each and every 
Jew. 

   For me this shows how deeply this coupling of antisemitism and 
anti-Americanism resonates in the German bourgeoisie or at least their 
political apparatus, even if Mölleman was chastised and shunned for this 
leaflet. After being pushed out of his party, and refusing to follow the 
various other former right-wing FPD-people on the fringe of the 
"official" political establishment, without any chance for an early 
come-back, he died in a parachute accident while his offices and house 
were searched by the police because of possible tax frauds. Although 
there is no offical confirmation, I am convinced that he committed 
suicide because of the blind alley he found himself in. 

   Coming back to our topic of discussion, this flirting with 
antisemitism coupled with antiamericanism is mirrored by the "official" 
bourgeois establishment who claim that the historic responsibility of 
the German nation after the holocaust requires strong support for the 
"Jewish state" in West Asia, and by equating opposition to the 
colonialist and racist oppression exercised by the state of Israel with 
antisemitism. 

   This is outdone in a rather hysterical way be the "anti-German", who 
appear to see the existence of humanity put in dange if not the USA and 
Israel prevail over the world. 

   So at least here in Germany, we have to fight for a clear position on 
antisemitism when fighting against the state of Israel, and insisting 
strongly on the separation, even contradition, of the interests of the 
colonial settler state and the actually existing Jews all over the 
world. 


Yours, 
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
--------------------------------
visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in German

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