Re: [Marxism] Spiked online's obsession with anti-Semitism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Shane Mage wrote:
> 
> 
> But what does this denunciation of Furedi have to do with the alleged  
> "Zionist apologetics" in the article by O'Neill?
> 

Due to space limitations, I didn't respond to O'Neill. But let me just 
put out a few comments:

1. There is same flaw that was present in Furedi's piece. It does not 
deal with the base but with the superstructure. In other words, there is 
an all-consuming desire to engage with ideology rather than praxis. To 
reduce Zionism to the level of just another nationalist ideology robs 
the discussion of the all-important historical context. For example, the 
nationalism of Garibaldi was intended to unite a pre-existing Italian 
nation on Italian territory under a bourgeois state. In the case of 
Israel, the goal was to remove a population from a territory in order to 
create an exclusively Jewish state. Garibaldi was a revolutionary; Herzl 
was a pro-imperialist intriguer. It doesn't matter that their words were 
similar.

2. O'Neill accepts Zionist propaganda at face value:

"Contemporary Zionism is defensive. It is underpinned not by visions of 
the future but by ideas of Jewish victimhood, by the necessity of 
halting ‘future Holocausts’ against the Jews from their various mortal 
enemies. This has given rise to an even more physical, closed-off form 
of Zionism, where Israel builds monumental brick walls covered in barbed 
wire to protect Jews from the external world. This is a tragedy, not 
only for Palestinians, but for Jews, too.'"

This is utter nonsense. George W. Bush also used the idea of victimhood 
to punish Arabs. And Hitler used it as an excuse to launch WWII. The 
idea that Zionism is "defensive" implies that there is some basis in 
fact--like being surrounded by hostile Muslim countries. Of course this 
is bullshit.


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