[Marxism] Three Simple Proposals: Gaza Seen from Paris

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

CounterPunch January 8, 2009

/**/


 /*Three Simple Proposals */

*


 Gaza Seen From Paris

*

By JEAN BRICMONT and DIANA JOHNSTONE

There are surely millions of us, invisible to each other, enraged and 
powerless as we watch the massacre of Gaza and listen to our media 
describe it as a "retaliation against terrorism", "Israelâs right to 
defend itself". We have reached a point where answering the Zionist 
arguments is both useless and unworthy of humanity. So long as it is not 
recognized that the shells landing on Ashkelon are likely to have been 
fired by descendants of the inhabitants of that region who were driven 
out by the Zionists in 1948, talk of peace is a smoke screen for 
continued Israeli assault on the survivors of that great injustice.

What then is to be done? Yet another dialogue between "moderate" Arabs 
and "progressive" Israelis? An umpteenth "peace plan" to be ignored? A 
solemn declaration from the European Union?

All such mainstream gestures are mere distractions from the ongoing 
strangling of the Palestinian people. But more radical demands are just 
as futile. The call to create an international tribunal to judge Israeli 
war criminals, or for an effective intervention by the United Nations or 
the European Union will accomplish nothing. The real existing 
international tribunals reflect the relationship of forces in the world, 
and will never be used against the cherished allies of the United 
States. It is the relationship of forces itself that must be changed, 
and this can be done only gradually. It is true that Gaza is a dire 
emergency, but it is also true that nothing really effective can be done 
today to stop it, precisely because the patient political work that 
should have been done before still remains to be undertaken.

On the three modest proposals that follow, two are ideological and one 
is practical.

**

*1.* *Get rid of the illusion that Israel is "useful" to the West*.

Many people, especially on the left, persist in thinking that Israel is 
only a pawn in an American capitalist or imperialist strategy to control 
the Middle East. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Israel is of 
no use to anybody or anything but its own fantasies of domination. There 
is no petroleum in Israel, or Lebanon, or Golan, or Gaza. The so-called 
wars for oil, in 1991 and 2003, were waged by the United States, with no 
help from Israel, and in 1991 with the explicit demand from the United 
States that Israel stay out (because Israelâs participation would have 
undermined Washingtonâs Arab coalition). For the pro-Western 
petro-monarchies and the "moderate" Arab regimes, Israelâs ongoing 
occupation of Palestinian lands is a nightmare, which radicalizes much 
of their populations and threatens their rule. It is Israel, by its 
absurd policies, that provoked the creation of both Hezbollah and Hamas 
and that is indirectly responsible for much of the recent growth of 
"radical Islam".

Moreover, the plain fact is that capitalists as a whole make more money 
in peace than in war. It is enough to compare the profits made by 
Western capitalists in China or Vietnam since making peace with those 
countries, compared to the past, when "Red China" was isolated and the 
US waged war against Vietnam. The majority of capitalists could not care 
less which "people" must have Jerusalem as its "eternal capital", and if 
peace were achieved, they would hasten into the West Bank and Gaza to 
exploit a qualified work force with few other opportunities.

Finally, any American citizen concerned with the influence of his or her 
country in the world can see quite clearly that making enemies of a 
billion Muslims in order to satisfy every murderous whim of Israel is 
scarcely a rational investment in the future.

Those who consider themselves Marxists are among the first to see in 
Israel a simple emanation of such general phenomena as capitalism or 
imperialism (Marx himself was much more cautious on the matter of 
economic reductionism). But it does no service to the Palestinian people 
to maintain such fictions â in reality, like it or not, the capitalist 
system is far too robust to stake its survival on the Jewish occupation 
of the West Bank, and capitalism has been doing just fine in South 
Africa since the end of Apartheid.

*

2. Allow non-Jews to speak their mind about Israel

*

If support for Israel is not based on economic or strategic interests, 
why do the political class and the media passively accept whatever 
Israel does? Many ordinary people may feel unconcerned by what happens 
in a faraway country. But this does not apply to the Westâs leading 
opinion makers, who never cease criticizing what is wrong with the 
policies of Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, 
Islam, Serbia, Russia or China. Even unproved rumors and gross 
exaggerations are repeated with insistence. Only Israel must be treated 
with kid gloves.

One explanation offered for this special treatment is Western "guilt" 
for past anti-Semitic persecutions, in particular the horrors inflicted 
on Jews during the Second World War. It is sometimes pointed out that 
the Palestinians are in no way responsible for those horrors and should 
not have to pay the price for crimes committed by others. That is true, 
but what is almost never said and which is obvious nevertheless, is that 
the overwhelming majority of French people, Germans or Catholic priests 
today are just as innocent of what happened during the war as the 
Palestinians, for the simple reason that they were either born after the 
war or were children at the time. The notion of collective guilt was 
already very questionable in 1945, but the idea of transmitting that 
collective guilt to subsequent generations is quite simply a religious 
notion. Even if it is said that the Holocaust should not justify Israeli 
policy, it is striking that the populations who are supposed to feel 
guilty for what happened (the Germans, the French and the Catholics) are 
most reticent to speak out.

It is strange that at the very time the Catholic Church renounced the 
notion of Jews as the people who killed Christ, the notion of the almost 
universal guilt for killing the Jews began to take over. The discourse 
on universal guilt for the Holocaust is like religious discourse in 
general in the way it legitimizes hypocrisy, by shifting responsibility 
from the real to the imaginary (on the model of "original sin" itself). 
We are all supposed to feel guilty for crimes committed in the past 
about which, by definition, we can do nothing. But we need not feel 
guilty or responsible for crimes being committed right before our eyes 
by our Israeli or American allies, whom we can hope to influence.

The fact that we are not all guilty of the crimes of the Third Reich is 
simple and obvious, but needs to be driven home to allow non-Jews to 
speak up freely about Palestine. As it is, non-Jews often feel they must 
leave it to Jews, as the only people who have the "right" to criticize 
Israel, to defend the Palestinians. But given the relationship of forces 
between the Jewish critics of Israel, and the influential Zionist 
organizations claiming to speak for the Jewish people, there is no 
realistic hope that Jewish voices alone can save the Palestinians.

However, the main reason for the silence is surely not guilt precisely 
because it is so artificial, but rather fear. Fear of "what will they 
think", fear of slander and even of being taken to court for 
"anti-Semitism". If you are not convinced, take a journalist, a 
politician or a publisher to some spot where nobody is listening and 
there is no hidden camera or microphone, and ask whether he or she says 
in public all he or she thinks of Israel in private. And if not, why? 
Fear of hurting the interests of capitalism? Fear of weakening American 
imperialism? Fear of interrupting oil deliveries? Or, on the contrary, 
fear of Zionist organizations and their relentless campaigns?

We have little doubt, after dozens of discussions with such people that 
the last answer given above is the correct one. People do not say what 
they think of what calls itself the "Jewish State" for fear of being 
called anti-Jewish and being identified with the anti-Semites of the 
past. This sentiment is all the stronger inasmuch as most people who are 
shocked by Israeli policy are genuinely horrified by what was done to 
the Jews during the Second World War and are sincerely outraged by 
anti-Semitism. If one stops to think about it, it is clear that if there 
existed today, as was the case before 1940, openly anti-Semitic 
political movements, they would not be so intimidated. But today, not 
even the French National Front says it is anti-Semitic and whoever 
criticizes Israel usually starts by denying being anti-Semitic. The fear 
of being accused of anti-Semitism is deeper than fear of the Zionist 
lobby, it is fear of losing the respectability that goes with 
condemnation of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as the highest 
contemporary moral value.

It is imperative to free criticism of Israel from the fear of being 
falsely accused of "anti-Semitism". The threat of this accusation is an 
insidious form of moral blackmail that perhaps constitutes the only real 
potential source of a widespread revival of anti-Jewish resentment.

**

*3. The practical initiatives are summed up in three letters : BDS- 
Boycott, disinvestment, sanctions*

The demand for sanctions is taken up by most pro-Palestinian 
organizations, but since such measures are the prerogative of states, it 
is clear that this will not happen soon. Disinvestment measures can be 
taken by trade unions and churches, on the decision of their members. 
Other enterprises that collaborate closely with Israel will not change 
their policy unless they are under public pressure, that is, boycotts. 
This brings us to the controversial issue of boycotts, not only of 
Israeli products but also of Israelâs cultural and academic institutions.

This tactic was used against apartheid in South Africa in a very similar 
situation. Both apartheid and the dispossession of the Palestinians are 
a late heritage of European colonialism, whose practitioners have a hard 
time realizing that such forms of domination are no longer acceptable to 
the world in general and even to public opinion in the West. The racist 
ideologies underlying both projects are an outrage to the majority of 
humanity and gives rise to endless hatreds and conflicts. One might even 
say that Israel is another South Africa, plus exploitation of "the 
Holocaust" as an excuse.

Any boycott is apt to have innocent victims. In particular, it is said 
that boycotting Israeli academic institutions would unjustly punish 
intellectuals who are for peace. Perhaps, but Israel itself readily 
admits that there are innocent victims in Gaza, whose innocence in no 
way prevents them from being killed. We do not propose killing anyone. A 
boycott is a perfectly non-violent act by citizens. It is comparable to 
conscientious objection or civil disobedience in the face of unjust 
power. Israel flouts all UN resolutions and our own governments, far 
from taking measures to oblige Israel to comply, merely reinforce their 
ties with Israel. We have the right, as citizens, to demand that our own 
governments respect international law.

What is important about sanctions, especially on the cultural level, is 
their symbolic value. It is a way of telling our governments that we do 
not accept their policy of collaboration with a state that has chosen to 
become an international outlaw.

Some object to a boycott on the grounds that it is opposed by both some 
progressive Israelis and a certain number of "moderate" Palestinians 
(but not Palestinian civil society as a whole). But the main question 
for us is not what they say, but what foreign policy we want for our own 
countries. The Israeli-Arab conflict is far from being a mere local 
quarrel and has attained a worldwide significance. It involves the basic 
issue of respect for international law. A boycott should be defended as 
a means to protest to our governments in order to force them to change 
their policy. We have the right to want to be able to travel without 
shame in the rest of the world. That is reason enough to encourage a 
boycott.

(A French version of this text is in preparation).

**

*Jean Bricmont* teaches physics in Belgium and is a member of the 
Brussels Tribunal. His book, Humanitarian Imperialism 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583671471/counterpunchmaga>, is 
published by Monthly Review Press. He can be reached at 
Jean.Bricmont@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:Bricmont@xxxxxxxxxxxx>.

**

*Diana Johnstone* is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and 
Western Delusions 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/158367084X/counterpunchmaga> 
published by Monthly Review Press. She can be reached at: 
diana.josto@xxxxxxxx <mailto:diana.josto@xxxxxxxx>

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