Condemning/not condemning

[hitmouse]

Following on from a discussion on another thread:

Regarding condemnation of the events of 7th October wrt the Barnaby Raine interview. (Was originally posted in response to Wilf but not really aimed at Wilf):




I see it the other way round. Understanding the dark place they were coming from, the desperation of the circumstances, the sheer rage is exactly what moral maturity is about. The various left knee jerks about Hamas being an oppressor in their own right, are simultaneously true and irrelevant and shamefully excuse moral thinking. I don't believe the young men who broke through the fence carried out these atrocities simply because they were following orders of an evil scheming leadership (I'm sure there were instructions of course). How many of us in that situation would do the exact same thing? I'm certain that those who are most quick to condemn would also be the first to go slitting throats. I see morality and moralism as diametric opposites in such a scenario.

There are SWP like anti-imperialist formulae about not condemning eg. the 9/11 attacks. And I would certainly question these formulae (to say the least!). But in contrast to the 911 bombers, the young men in Gaza faced a life time of food insecurity, water insecurity, dependence on aid, literal dependence on the Israeli enemy for necessities and the chance to work, a life without a future. And their children would face the same as would their children and so on. Permanent occupation/blockade. No hope, no future and with Hamas/Qassam Brigades as one of the very few opportunities to make something of themselves. And that's without going into the fact that many of them would have had to bury loved ones due to past Israeli incursions, had their homes destroyed, everything they had built destroyed or seen their hero friends in wheel chairs after the march of return in an even more hopeless, dependant state than they are.

I know most of you will roll your eyes at that second paragraph. The context doesn't matter (you knew about it already anyway). Right is right and wrong is wrong regardless. A basic sense of humanity is a basic sense of humanity. And two wrongs don't make a right. But what is this sense of right and wrong that is abstracted from the human being making the moral decisions?

I think in Gaza as everywhere there should be an aspiration for a sense of morality that is internationalist. An aspiration that understands that the solution whatever it looks like will see Arab and Jew living peacefully together. That's my one moral judgement. But that sense of morality will come with a sense of mission, an actually existing project that provides hope. But they were a long way from an ultimate solution and even a long way from a project of hope. There are those in Gaza who refuse to give up on this aspirational morality, who don't give into to humbled despair or vengeful rage, but that there are praiseworthy individuals does not mean that we can dismiss those who fall short of that standard. I know I'm not in a position to not least because I don't have any ideas that provide hope for them nevermind the ability to point to an actually existing project to provide them hope.

We should understand that Hamas have tried entering into the electoral/democratic process, they have tried negotiation with Israel, they have tried reconciliation with the PA, they have tried peaceful protest. Each of these attempts have been met with violence and at the end of this stint of 15 years of blockade and 75 years of dispossession they have nothing to show and nor do any other faction, the Palestinian cause was getting sidelined and forgotten about while the material situation especially in Gaza was set to gradually deteriorate and its state of dependency sealed permanently. They had no options including doing nothing.

It's probably worth noting that the lefty critics of Hamas were nowhere to be seen during the Great March of Return protests which were absolutely organised by Hamas (because of course they were). Hamas regardless of their role in domestic oppression can and have organised popular resistance of both peaceful and terrorist types. The question is not why Hamas is the organising force, but rather why popular resistance takes these different forms at different times.

And all in all that is why I switch off when people talk about the necessity of condemnation. And that is why Barnaby Raine has just short up in my estimation. (fwiw I thought he did pretty badly otherwise - letting himself get distracted - in that interview.)

And I will also say that it's particularly disappointing to see tactical convenience being counterpoised to questions of morality and especially strange to see such explicitly opportunist counter position framed as maturity.

I mean, someone (who I think is often a bit of an idiot about other things) put it pretty well with an analogy along the lines of "if we were tortured enough, most of us would probably betray our loved ones. But that doesn't mean we have to take this idiotic position of 'well, I'm not being tortured right now, so I have no grounds to say whether or not informing on our family to the Gestapo is a good thing or a bad thing', we can say that informing on your family to the Gestapo is clearly a bad thing while also understanding the circumstances that would lead people to do that".
Idk what the point about lefty critics of Hamas refers to - lefty ones inside of Gaza or outside it? Of course I was nowhere to be seen during the Great March of Return protests cos I don't live in Palestine, is that the point being made here?
Your final sentence is a bit difficult to follow, but I think there's a lot to be said for consequentialist positions, where you judge the morality of an act by its consequences. On which grounds, I think the attacks of October 7th were terrible in and of themselves, they can't be justified by the massive increase in happiness and wellbeing that they've brought about in Gaza in the weeks since then, and I don't see how some posho looking like an idiot in a GBNews video has positive consequences for anyone either.

Thanks for that reply. It's a good one. I think this question should probably go in its own thread because there's a lot to think about and it will just distract from the immediate topic.

Having said that there are two quick replies to the two points you raise. Your example about the prisoner tortured by the Gestapo does not address the question of whether you condemn the prisoner, which is really the question at hand.

As to consequential morality, how does that morality look in a situation of powerlessness when there are no good consequences?

Following on from Knotted's last post there - well, point one, I think this is where analogies break down, because no analogy is ever 100%, so I'm not likely to end up on a GBNews interview with Rees-Mogg asking me to condemn a prisoner being tortured by the Gestapo, which would need to happen for the analogy to fully hold up. Having said that, if I did end up in that situation, I think I'd try to say that, while I could understand their actions in the circumstances, I certainly wouldn't endorse or defend them or say there was anything positive about them.

As for the last point about powerlessness... I dunno, but I don't think there's any military solution for this situation, on either side, it has to be a social/political one. I don't think that's very close, but then I don't think that we're very close to seeing the outcome I'd like in most countries around the world, really, including the UK, and I don't give up my basic political positions when assessing them.

Also, the other major point I should've made earlier but forgot, which is fairly fundamental to how I think about this: do you condemn the nakba? I don't think that condemning anything is actually that useful, but I do feel like the starting point for any decent anti-zionist position should probably involve being able to say "the nakba was bad and I don't think it should've happened, I think those involved should've chosen differently". And that is a monstrously arrogant, judgemental, whatever, position, in that it involves passing judgement on people who lived through the horrors of the holocaust. And it is also correct and necessary. As I say, thinking about that point is fundamental to how I feel about Israel/Palestine as a whole.

 

[PTK]

Following on from a discussion on another thread:





Following on from Knotted's last post there - well, point one, I think this is where analogies break down, because no analogy is ever 100%, so I'm not likely to end up on a GBNews interview with Rees-Mogg asking me to condemn a prisoner being tortured by the Gestapo, which would need to happen for the analogy to fully hold up. Having said that, if I did end up in that situation, I think I'd try to say that, while I could understand their actions in the circumstances, I certainly wouldn't endorse or defend them or say there was anything positive about them.

As for the last point about powerlessness... I dunno, but I don't think there's any military solution for this situation, on either side, it has to be a social/political one. I don't think that's very close, but then I don't think that we're very close to seeing the outcome I'd like in most countries around the world, really, including the UK, and I don't give up my basic political positions when assessing them.

Also, the other major point I should've made earlier but forgot, which is fairly fundamental to how I think about this: do you condemn the nakba? I don't think that condemning anything is actually that useful, but I do feel like the starting point for any decent anti-zionist position should probably involve being able to say "the nakba was bad and I don't think it should've happened, I think those involved should've chosen differently". And that is a monstrously arrogant, judgemental, whatever, position, in that it involves passing judgement on people who lived through the horrors of the holocaust. And it is also correct and necessary. As I say, thinking about that point is fundamental to how I feel about Israel/Palestine as a whole.

I don't think it is judgemental to condemn the people who engaged in the deliberate expulsion of the Palestinian Arab population. That did not have to do that.

 

[phildwyer]

Following on from a discussion on another thread:





Following on from Knotted's last post there - well, point one, I think this is where analogies break down, because no analogy is ever 100%, so I'm not likely to end up on a GBNews interview with Rees-Mogg asking me to condemn a prisoner being tortured by the Gestapo, which would need to happen for the analogy to fully hold up. Having said that, if I did end up in that situation, I think I'd try to say that, while I could understand their actions in the circumstances, I certainly wouldn't endorse or defend them or say there was anything positive about them.

As for the last point about powerlessness... I dunno, but I don't think there's any military solution for this situation, on either side, it has to be a social/political one. I don't think that's very close, but then I don't think that we're very close to seeing the outcome I'd like in most countries around the world, really, including the UK, and I don't give up my basic political positions when assessing them.

Also, the other major point I should've made earlier but forgot, which is fairly fundamental to how I think about this: do you condemn the nakba? I don't think that condemning anything is actually that useful, but I do feel like the starting point for any decent anti-zionist position should probably involve being able to say "the nakba was bad and I don't think it should've happened, I think those involved should've chosen differently". And that is a monstrously arrogant, judgemental, whatever, position, in that it involves passing judgement on people who lived through the horrors of the holocaust. And it is also correct and necessary. As I say, thinking about that point is fundamental to how I feel about Israel/Palestine as a whole.

It's not necessary to condemn the nakba, or to deny Israel's right to exist. In fact that would be silly. All that's necessary is to insist on a diplomatic solution rather than a military one. That position is supported by a large proportion of Israelis too.

 

[hitmouse]

I don't think it is judgemental to condemn the people who engaged in the deliberate expulsion of the Palestinian Arab population. That did not have to do that.

I mean, I agree with you, for whatever good condemning actions from 70-odd years ago does. But I also think we should recognise what we're doing when we're doing that, we're condemning the actions of people who lived through or narrowly escaped the horrors of the Holocaust. I don't think that means we shouldn't or can't do that, I just think that's why the whole "you can't criticise Hamas unless you live in Gaza" argument is unconvincing to me.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I mean, I agree with you, for whatever good condemning actions from 70-odd years ago does. But I also think we should recognise what we're doing when we're doing that, we're condemning the actions of people who lived through or narrowly escaped the horrors of the Holocaust. I don't think that means we shouldn't or can't do that, I just think that's why the whole "you can't criticise Hamas unless you live in Gaza" argument is unconvincing to me.

In terms of the people directly involved in the Nakba of 1948, they weren't people who lived through the Holocaust tbf. Mostly the founders of Israel had been engaged in the process of Zionism for many years.

 

[PTK]

.

 

[Knotted]

Following on from a discussion on another thread:





Following on from Knotted's last post there - well, point one, I think this is where analogies break down, because no analogy is ever 100%, so I'm not likely to end up on a GBNews interview with Rees-Mogg asking me to condemn a prisoner being tortured by the Gestapo, which would need to happen for the analogy to fully hold up. Having said that, if I did end up in that situation, I think I'd try to say that, while I could understand their actions in the circumstances, I certainly wouldn't endorse or defend them or say there was anything positive about them.

As for the last point about powerlessness... I dunno, but I don't think there's any military solution for this situation, on either side, it has to be a social/political one. I don't think that's very close, but then I don't think that we're very close to seeing the outcome I'd like in most countries around the world, really, including the UK, and I don't give up my basic political positions when assessing them.

Also, the other major point I should've made earlier but forgot, which is fairly fundamental to how I think about this: do you condemn the nakba? I don't think that condemning anything is actually that useful, but I do feel like the starting point for any decent anti-zionist position should probably involve being able to say "the nakba was bad and I don't think it should've happened, I think those involved should've chosen differently". And that is a monstrously arrogant, judgemental, whatever, position, in that it involves passing judgement on people who lived through the horrors of the holocaust. And it is also correct and necessary. As I say, thinking about that point is fundamental to how I feel about Israel/Palestine as a whole.

Sorry for not getting back to sooner. I find this all a bit exhausting tbh.

Some comments.

---
There are various problems with consequentialism, but what strikes me is that in this case it doesn't even apply. Consequentialism maybe a way of making moral decisions but that doesn't tell you much about how you judge/understand someone else's decision. Perhaps they've done the "wrong" thing but that doesn't tell you how to relate to that decision.

---
I think your last point is a bit off historically. Israeli historian Benny Morris argues that "transfer" ie. the removal of the Arab population of Palestine was always inherent in Zionism (I should be a little bit careful and note that I don't remember exactly what he said). This would have been baked in before WW2. There is probably still something to say about the post-holocaust circumstances of 1947/48. Deutscher famously made a (quite tortured IMO) metaphor about it, but I'm not convinced the holocaust was the central driving force, apart from anything a lot of Zionists will find that really insulting if you suggest that it was. It is about a Jewish national movement which demands to exist regardless of the condition of Jews.


---
On some days I think that condemning anything is pointless. You can either oppose or support something. What use is the moral dimension? But I think it does relate to something like end goals as I think you suggest. Or perhaps rather how people orient to the world and how we can orient towards them.

My understanding of Hamas is that although I don't think they want to kill all the Jews or remove them from Palestine, they do envisage Jews (and Christians) living under Islamic rule. This is the deeply reactionary content of Islamism, it's a kind of Islamic supremacy where Islam is the solution to the world's problems.

My understanding of (political) Zionism in both its labour and revisionist forms is that it sees Jews as the perennial and inevitable victims in gentile countries and that Jews need a national liberation movement that exists in a settler-colonial form. That Jewish self-interest is supreme for Jews and certainly the interests of Palestinian Arabs are of little or no concern. In its original form there is also a contempt (sometimes very extreme) for the Jewish diaspora and the "shtetl Jew". So again I think this is a reactionary ideology and one with a core of indifferent brutality (see for example Jabotinsky's Iron Wall.)

Why would I condemn the Nakba? It think its the expression of political Zionism that has realised its own freedom. I don't see it as a post-holocaust act of desperation. Whereas I think most people think something similar about Hamas on 7th October, this is Hamas following their own internal logic. By contrast Norman Finkelstein compares it to a slave revolt in particular the Nat Turner revolt. I think this may be a flawed analogy (they aren't slaves) but I think it suffices to make ground moral understanding.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I am deeply suspicious of anyone whose whole life is defined by their religious beliefs.

 

[hitmouse]

OK, getting around to replying to this now - similar really:

Sorry for not getting back to sooner. I find this all a bit exhausting tbh.

Some comments.

---
There are various problems with consequentialism, but what strikes me is that in this case it doesn't even apply. Consequentialism maybe a way of making moral decisions but that doesn't tell you much about how you judge/understand someone else's decision. Perhaps they've done the "wrong" thing but that doesn't tell you how to relate to that decision.

Might be that we've gone as far as we can on this point. I still stand by my original point, which is that it'd be a bit of a dilemma if something that seemed bad in itself, like a massacre of civilians, had really positive consequences, but a massacre that's only been followed by more and worse massacres seems pretty straightforward.

I think your last point is a bit off historically. Israeli historian Benny Morris argues that "transfer" ie. the removal of the Arab population of Palestine was always inherent in Zionism (I should be a little bit careful and note that I don't remember exactly what he said). This would have been baked in before WW2. There is probably still something to say about the post-holocaust circumstances of 1947/48. Deutscher famously made a (quite tortured IMO) metaphor about it, but I'm not convinced the holocaust was the central driving force, apart from anything a lot of Zionists will find that really insulting if you suggest that it was. It is about a Jewish national movement which demands to exist regardless of the condition of Jews.

I really don't think you can talk about the foundation of Israel without talking about the holocaust. Yeah, zionism existed prior to the holocaust, just as islamism exists outside of the context of the occupation of Gaza, but there's a set of specific historical circumstances that led to zionism being able to claim such a central role among the surviving remnant of European Jewry, just as there's a set of specific historical circumstances that led to Hamas having the position that they're in.
I mean, as you also say in the same post, "it sees Jews as the perennial and inevitable victims in gentile countries" - surely you can see how the events of the 1930s-1940s would lead to that kind of pessimistic narrative seeming more compelling to people who might otherwise reject it? Like, I do reject zionism, I think Jews and gentiles can and should leave in peace alongside each other and so the idea of a Jewish ethnostate is unhelpful and unnecessary, but I can see how the events of the years immediately prior to the foundation of Israel make that argument a lot harder.

On some days I think that condemning anything is pointless. You can either oppose or support something. What use is the moral dimension? But I think it does relate to something like end goals as I think you suggest. Or perhaps rather how people orient to the world and how we can orient towards them.

I think I'd often be tempted to agree with you there, and indeed to go further and to say that just "opposing" or "supporting" something is pretty meaningless without being paired with concrete actions that follow on from that support or opposition.

My understanding of Hamas is that although I don't think they want to kill all the Jews or remove them from Palestine, they do envisage Jews (and Christians) living under Islamic rule. This is the deeply reactionary content of Islamism, it's a kind of Islamic supremacy where Islam is the solution to the world's problems.

My understanding of (political) Zionism in both its labour and revisionist forms is that it sees Jews as the perennial and inevitable victims in gentile countries and that Jews need a national liberation movement that exists in a settler-colonial form. That Jewish self-interest is supreme for Jews and certainly the interests of Palestinian Arabs are of little or no concern. In its original form there is also a contempt (sometimes very extreme) for the Jewish diaspora and the "shtetl Jew". So again I think this is a reactionary ideology and one with a core of indifferent brutality (see for example Jabotinsky's Iron Wall.)

Why would I condemn the Nakba? It think its the expression of political Zionism that has realised its own freedom. I don't see it as a post-holocaust act of desperation. Whereas I think most people think something similar about Hamas on 7th October, this is Hamas following their own internal logic. By contrast Norman Finkelstein compares it to a slave revolt in particular the Nat Turner revolt. I think this may be a flawed analogy (they aren't slaves) but I think it suffices to make ground moral understanding.

Idk, I don't think there's a neat distinction to be made between "ideology/internal logic" and "reaction to external circumstances", I'd see both the Nakba and 7th October as being the acts of people following a violent reactionary ideology, a violent reactionary ideology that made sense to them as a reaction to a previous/already-existing set of brutal and inhumane circumstances. I think we can and should understand both of those events, without seeing anything to support in either of them.


Or, to take a different approach to all of this, here's the Na'amod statement ahead of last weekend's demo:

With antisemitism and islamophobia reaching frightening levels, this rally will also be a chance to stand together against attempts to stoke divisions here in the UK.

As we write, over 11,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and deprivation under siege — mothers, fathers, children, grandparents — entire families wiped out.

Na’amod wholeheartedly condemns Hamas’s massacres and hostage-taking but cannot accept that one series of war crimes can ever justify the perpetration of others.

1.7 million people – 70% of Gaza’s population – have been displaced from their homes, with no guarantee of return. Hospitals, which should be safe havens, have become sites of death, destruction and despair.

The loved ones of the 200+ hostages taken by Hamas are being ignored by a government that is placing a punitive military campaign ahead of the lives of its own citizens.

Hamas’s taking of civilian hostages from southern Israel was a war crime and on principle they should be unconditionally released, as should all Palestinians arbitrarily detained. We are backing the Israeli families’ practical demands for a hostage exchange that will hasten their return.

As of Nov. 1, the number of Palestinians arbitrarily detained had risen to 2,070, with mounting evidence of torture and mistreatment. In the West Bank, over 190 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF and settlers, and 15 communities forcibly displaced.

The UK has given Israel a carte blanche to continue its destructive path in Gaza and elsewhere. It is turning a blind eye to the nature of this Israeli government and its threats of ethnic cleansing and elimination, and the risks that this war will provide cover to realise these aims.

It is not too late to prevent this catastrophe from escalating yet further.

We cannot bomb our way to safety. The only hope is a future of freedom, equality, and dignity for all.

Would you disagree with that? Is that an example of cynical opportunist moralism, or whatever?

 

[tim]

In terms of the people directly involved in the Nakba of 1948, they weren't people who lived through the Holocaust tbf. Mostly the founders of Israel had been engaged in the process of Zionism for many years.

So, mostly People who'd escaped the Pogroms and got out before the Holocaust and are now all either dead or over 95.

 

[Knotted]

Just on the Na'amod statement. It's probably not their intention but it is in practical terms part of a conversation about Israel's response. "There needs to be a response but not this hard a response." That's not what they've said but it's the conversation their statement prompts. "Wholeheartedly condemning" Hamas is one thing but not even mentioning the blockade is really terrible. The statement in effect is saying stop the immediate violence and return to the dire situation prior to 7th October.

By contrast here is Norman Finkelstein being interviewed by Piers Morgan and because he refuses to condemn he has invited a conversation that contextulises the events of 7th October. It's just brilliant.



[I'm tempted to say if we're following the norms of consequentialist philosophy then in plain pragmatic terms it is immoral to condemn. What is gained by it?]

At the minute I'm happy to march with anyone who is willing to call for a ceasefire. But that by itself is subminimum. The minimum is ceasefire now, end the blockade and stop settlements in the West Bank. That's the absolute minimum, if one is supportive of the two state solution (for example) in a serious way then these demands are bare minimums.

But in terms of what we can do now, we can start that conversation about the blockade in particular. About the history of Gaza. I'm inflexible on this very basic point. Being willing to talk about the lived reality of the people of Gaza is non-negotiable. Kow-towing to the Israeli narrative about crazy Hamas killers is a failure on the most elementary level.

 

[Knotted]

To paraphrase Clausewitz, war is continuous with politics. And to take that to another dimension politics is continuous with morality. If you are failing to engage on a moral level, you are losing the political conversation that will happen after the violence. Look how disarmed you are politically if you accept Israel's moral framing. Reduced to handwringing and/or utopianism.

 

[lazythursday]

The red army did some pretty awful retributive shit in Germany targeting civilians at the end of WW2, and there were of course also forced relocations of whole ethnic groups within Europe at the same time as borders were redrawn. And then again more recently in Bosnia. The actions of both sides in this conflict have clear historical parallels - makes no sense to consider Hamas or the far right Israelis as uniquely evil in some way.

 

[ska invita]

If I started to have to condemn the things I condemn Id be here forever - they all exist concurrently and interconnectedly - once you start condemning where do you stop?

 

[Knotted]

An aside on Zionism.

It's very tempting to talk about Zionism as a causal entity in its own right. Ilan Pappe does this a lot for instance and rejects more systemic critiques. I think he's wrong here but I think it's very tempting to see things this way because the (political) Zionists were so successful in realising their project. But was the Nakba the result of people following a violent reactionary ideology? I would say the ideology itself is rooted in a response to anti-semitism that took on the colonial forms that were standard in its time and the (partial) backing of the British colonial power was signficant in that it broke the back of Arab resistance in 1937.

In a different context like the Warsaw ghetto uprising would we quibble about the character of the ideology of those fighting many of whom were Zionists? Do we complain about the hopelessness of the uprising and its failure to meet consequentialist standards? I realise the uprising is very different to the events of 7th October in that there was no massacre of civilians by the uprising but then there have been plenty of other uprisings by the oppressed which have been extremely bloody cf the Indian Mutiny or the Haitian slave revolt. How does history view these revolts?

 

[hitmouse]

Just on the Na'amod statement. It's probably not their intention but it is in practical terms part of a conversation about Israel's response. "There needs to be a response but not this hard a response." That's not what they've said but it's the conversation their statement prompts.

Sorry, this is fucking mental. "That's not what they've said, but it's some words I've decided to put in their mouths." Did you miss this bit? "We are backing the Israeli families’ practical demands for a hostage exchange that will hasten their return."

"Wholeheartedly condemning" Hamas is one thing but not even mentioning the blockade is really terrible. The statement in effect is saying stop the immediate violence and return to the dire situation prior to 7th October.

Did you miss this bit? "We cannot bomb our way to safety. The only hope is a future of freedom, equality, and dignity for all."
For what it's worth, here's a more recent statement on the hostage releases:

We’re tremendously relieved to hear that dozens of hostages will be released, and that families and friends will be reunited with their loved ones after weeks of torturous uncertainty.

We call for the release of ALL civilian hostages and ALL Palestinians held without charge or trial, or who've been unjustly convicted. Everyone has the right to freedom and dignity. No one should have to endure such painful separation.

There's indications that a similar deal was proposed earlier, but the Israeli government prioritised a campaign of retribution ahead of safe retrieval of its citizens. It answered war crimes with more war crimes, killing over 14,000 Palestinians & ravaging the lives of survivors.

All efforts must go into making this ceasefire permanent, a moral and legal imperative after the unrelenting fear, loss and trauma of the past 6 weeks.

1.6 million Gazans must be allowed to return to their homes. Forced displacement cannot become permanent ethnic cleansing.

Our hearts go out to all who have faced unconscionable violence in recent weeks. Politics, not force, is the only viable way forward. We cannot return to a status quo of dispossession, structural violence and restrictions on the basic necessities of life.

Is that a call for a return to the status quo? Or is a form of politics that opposes the occupation while still maintaining some basic moral clarity about massacres being bad?

[I'm tempted to say if we're following the norms of consequentialist philosophy then in plain pragmatic terms it is immoral to condemn. What is gained by it?]

Well, in terms of coalition-building and maintaining, you lose a few headbangers and people who get excited about the idea of killing civilians, but you help keep people who are less keen on the idea of killing any civilians on side, so it's a delicate balancing act.

An aside on Zionism.

It's very tempting to talk about Zionism as a causal entity in its own right. Ilan Pappe does this a lot for instance and rejects more systemic critiques. I think he's wrong here but I think it's very tempting to see things this way because the (political) Zionists were so successful in realising their project. But was the Nakba the result of people following a violent reactionary ideology? I would say the ideology itself is rooted in a response to anti-semitism that took on the colonial forms that were standard in its time.

Well, yeah, that's the central point I've been trying to make through this whole thread, it's a violent reactionary ideology that was rooted in a response to anti-semitism and an entirely justifiable demand for safety. Does it then follow that we need to be uncritical of it?

 

[Knotted]

Is that a call for a return to the status quo? Or is a form of politics that opposes the occupation while still maintaining some basic moral clarity about massacres being bad?

It literally doesn't call for an end to the occupation. I believe Na'amod as an organisation do call for an end to the occupation, but these are poor statements. I think the problem is that they're failing to educate about the occupation, about the blockade, about the refuges etc. for the sake of peacenik opposition to the latest round of violence. That and it is calling for a reset to 6th October. That's the actual stated position even if they have more to say stated elsewhere, they're keeping quiet about it.

 

[hitmouse]

As it happens, just seen the new Jacqueline Rose article, which feels relevant here:

Jacqueline Rose · ‘You made me do it’

If we loosen our grip on suffering, discard any claim to own it, then perhaps we can ask a different question: how much...

www.lrb.co.uk

In response to the destruction of Gaza, it seems to be becoming almost impossible to lament more than one people at a time. When I signed Artists for Palestine’s statement last month, I looked for mention of the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli Jews on 7 October, and then decided to settle for the unambiguous condemnation of ‘every act of violence against civilians and every infringement of international law whoever perpetrates them’. At Independent Jewish Voices, the network of UK dissident Jews, of which I was one of the founding signatories in 2007, we opened our statement on the disaster being inflicted on Gaza by specifically mentioning the assault by Hamas. But why, I find myself asking, does it seem to be so hard for those who deplore the Israeli invasion of Gaza to mention Hamas by name or show any sympathy for the anguish of its victims? Why should grief for the death of Israeli Jews be seen to undermine the argument that the longstanding and increasingly wretched oppression of the Palestinian people is the key factor behind what unfolded, so brutally and inexcusably, on that day? And why is any attempt to understand the history of Hamas as part of an insurgency and resistance movement against occupation so easily characterised as dispensing with moral judgment? When António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, suggested that the events of 7 October needed to be placed against their historical and political backdrop, he was immediately accused of fuelling antisemitism across the world. A mere whiff of understanding, and he was condemned.

There have been other exceptions (at PalFest in London last month, Ahdaf Soueif opened with a one-minute silence for ‘everyone, especially all the children who get killed in these moments of conflict’ and also referred to 7 October), but this is, I think, part of a pattern. For some time, certain ways of thought have been blocking our ability to think generatively about the situation in the Middle East. They all turn on the use of invidious comparisons to make a political case. The first is the comparison between levels of violence. According to this way of thinking, the violence perpetrated against Israeli Jews on 7 October and Israel’s mass bombardment of Gaza have to be weighed on the scale against each other...

How, then, to make a reckoning between the people whose most traumatic moment is the industrial genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany, and those for whom the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 in order to create the state of Israel is where the injustice begins? It is, of course, a false choice. ‘There is,’ Edward Said wrote, ‘suffering and injustice enough for everyone.’ He went on: ‘We cannot coexist as two communities of detached and uncommunicatingly separate suffering.’ He was calling for mutual recognition after Oslo, whose failure he predicted...

Finally, many of us are relieved that the London Armistice Day demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza passed off without incident, despite the worst efforts of the now sacked home secretary, Suella Braverman (the only trouble came from the right). As I walked with the Jewish bloc, banners called for the release of the hostages and the cry ‘We are all Palestinians’ resonated. Perhaps one of the best places to look for an alternative to the deadly binaries I have charted here is on the streets.

 

[Knotted]

Fwiw I can agree with all that but I'm not sure how important it is, or how important statements in general are. There's a lot of people very keen to express where they stand morally and what sorrow they express for whom. I put this down to the twitterfication of politics. It feels egotistical to me. However, the third paragraph of the above is a good little statement in its own right - but again it's educational. There has to be and is a point where Israeli Jews are liberated from the violence both as victims and perpetrators. You can see from the degeneration of Israeli politics over the last 20 years what the toll of the occupation and violence is having on them. But that's a point that can only be properly comprehended if you understand about the occupation and check points etc. in the first place.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I've watched bits of a couple of Piers Morgan interviews in recent weeks, linked to on here, and in both of them he's been obsessed with establishing exactly the level of condemnation his interviewee has for Hamas and the atrocities of 7 October. Not watched the Corbyn one, but it appears to be similar. In fact, he appears to care for little else. And he thinks he's the reasonable, fair-minded one. He even frames himself as a long-standing supporter of the Palestinians. But 'they're terrorists' is not just a condemnation. It also serves to close down any further discussion. In the end, those 'terrorists' will need to be part of any political solution, as we're already seeing with the negotiated truces. Discussing who they are, what their aims are, how they might seek to achieve those aims, and who supports them and why, requires context and – even – seeing these matters from their point of view.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I condemn anyone inflicting unnecessary violence against people or peoples.
I have learnt over time that the truth we are told may not be factually correct.
I have also learnt to take into consideration the opposing viewpoint.
I am not so cheap as to believe that the dichotomy I have learnt from, is the correct one.