littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I can only repeat: we're not all on settlers' land in the same way. It's a facile point to make.
Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion
- Thread starter PR1Berske
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It's facile because it's trying to make abstract the realities of the Palestinian struggle especially wrt the right of return. I know people find my position beyond the pale but the abstract leftism alternative is more terrible in real terms. The silent dispossession of millions and the self-absolvement via abstract one-size-fits-all slogans is a moral failure.
danny la rouge
I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher.
I didn’t say that either. I was responding to a specific point.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Peace was found in NI although a shaky one. Another problem introduced by the British.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
This is like NI * 1000 though.
You’re trying to place libertarian socialist ideals (which I agree with) on a situation that is enforced by guns.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
No, you said 'we're all on settlers' land'. But because we're not all on settlers' land in the same way, that is a facile thing to say on this thread.
It's also facile to call people putting Palestinian flags on their social media 'embarrassing' and give them a lecture about statism.
Sorry Danny, I usually agree with you on here, but I think you have these things wrong.
strung out
💩 🤣 🍆 💦 🧐 👻 🐝 🐈⬛
The events of 7th October are the reason that this thread exists.
The reason I’ve been obsessing so much over recognising the atrocities from that day for what they are, is that in the first few days of this thread, there seemed to be very little recognition of what had happened, with discussion almost immediately turning to the crimes the Israeli state would inevitably visit upon the Palestinian people. At first I thought it might have been because people perhaps weren’t aware of the scale of the murders, but it soon became clear that people were either going to start denying the atrocities or just ignore any discussion of them.
Loads of people completely disbelieved the reports of decapitated babies, calling them lies or misinformation, designed to gain undeserved sympathy for Jewish civilians (many of those murdered weren’t even Israeli citizens, not that that should matter). People refused to believe the first hand accounts when they came out, presumably wanting to see the photographic evidence of the dead children before they would even countenance it. Those initial reports have now been proven to be correct.
Many of those same people were quick to believe Hamas when they said 500 people were killed by an Israeli air strike on a hospital, ridiculing anyone who cast doubt on that version of events, calling them apologists for Israeli war crimes, and yet that has almost certainly been proven to be incorrect, with (fortunately) far fewer people killed and a misfiring Hamas rocket almost certainly the culprit according to multiple news agencies, governments and independent analysts.
This entire horrible situation is a fucking tragedy, with the Israeli government responsible for much of it now and historically, but the commentary and analysis on this thread has been absolutely abysmal with multiple examples of atrocity denial and apologism.
His position is consistent though. He doesn’t support Hamas or the Israeli state but the working class on both ‘sides’.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Consideration of the difficulties Israel will face entering Gaza and potential consequences https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/90805
I tell you what. I actually agree with most of that. I understand where you are coming from. I'm not interested in minimising Hamas/PIJ atrocities. There's just so much else at stake that I fear you're missing.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't think class analysis makes a lot of sense when you're talking about Gaza. They are all prisoner class.
And the working class in Israel are therefore an oppressing class?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There are workers at kibbutzim taking part in long-term collectivist experiments, setting often amazing examples of how such places could work. But you know where I'm going with this. In many instances, those kibbutzim are literally built on the ruins of Palestinian villages, while the people they displaced languish in Gaza.
What do you do with that?
I think Danny’s position (and mine tbh) is that the Palestinian working class and the Israeli working class reject the boss factions and build peace together.
It’s unlikely, but why not?
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
This is what you said in reply littlebabyjesus
To that you said:
I gather from other posts it is the workers across borders should unite etc. Fair enough. But if one is against flag waving that includes all who do it. Which is what you are implying in reply to LBJ is that - its the same who ever does it. Including those on the demo who are British and Western but have a middle eastern background.
PTK
Paul Kegan
We would be entitled to assume that if you are mentioning events in Roman times then you are justifying the expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs from the land on which they lived.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
First acknowledging and second somehow addressing historical injustices, and the Nakba specifically, would need to involve painful compromises from both sides, and that includes many in Israel who might be identified as working class. But as I said, I'm not sure that term has much meaning when talking about the people of Gaza, who are displaced, dispossessed refugees.
The danger, of course, as we have seen, is that Islamism steps in as the ideology of liberation and hope. tbh right now, imho, simple solidarity with Palestinians as a people, as represented even perhaps by a flag, is what is needed here. Not lectures. Some sort of acknowledgement of Palestinians as a nation is going to be required in any realistic settlement. Some kind of a joint state in which equal rights, representation and guarantees are given to two identities - Arab/Palestinian and Israeli/Jew. We cannot pretend such identities don't exist or can be overridden by an underlying class interest. That's just not going to happen.
PTK
Paul Kegan
Certainly, in the past, the trade union federation was an integral part of the Zionist project. That does not mean that the Jewish working class of Israel was or is an oppressing class, but an analogy would be with the White working class in South Africa, which benefitted from apartheid in that country.
"The Histadrut became one of the most powerful institutions in the state of Israel, a mainstay of the Labour Zionist movement and, aside from being a trade union, its state-building role made it the owner of a number of businesses and factories."
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
In One Complete Palestine by Tom Segev ( history of the mandate) he sometimes mentions , if I remember correctly, that Jewish workers and Palestinians worked side by side in some towns.
Some Jews who went to Palestine realised it wasn't an empty land. Nor were they interested in some of the more pure Zionists in going out to countryside to build a new society. They stayed in towns and ended up with some mixing with Arabs.
The hard line Zionists weren't keen on this and attempts were made to get Jewish employers to hire Jews
It is I think part of what Ilan Pappe and Tom Segev say in their histories. Things could have turned out different.
As it was workers uniting across ethnic lines didn't happen with the Nakba leading to mass expulsion. The remaining Palestinians treated as second class citizens.
On expulsion it was any Palestinian - middle class or working class who got expelled.
Zionism is a form of ethni nationalism. Its as Tony Judt says a kind of 19c European nationalism that's past it's sell by date.
Modernising it to include others is going to be uphill task. I don't see proper class politics happening unless the occupation and Zionism as an idea are dealt with.
Some Jews who went to Palestine realised it wasn't an empty land. Nor were they interested in some of the more pure Zionists in going out to countryside to build a new society. They stayed in towns and ended up with some mixing with Arabs.
The hard line Zionists weren't keen on this and attempts were made to get Jewish employers to hire Jews
It is I think part of what Ilan Pappe and Tom Segev say in their histories. Things could have turned out different.
As it was workers uniting across ethnic lines didn't happen with the Nakba leading to mass expulsion. The remaining Palestinians treated as second class citizens.
On expulsion it was any Palestinian - middle class or working class who got expelled.
Zionism is a form of ethni nationalism. Its as Tony Judt says a kind of 19c European nationalism that's past it's sell by date.
Modernising it to include others is going to be uphill task. I don't see proper class politics happening unless the occupation and Zionism as an idea are dealt with.
cupid_stunt
Where's the bloody sun?
Can people just stop this pointless derail about some fantasy workers socialist republic being the solution to this problem, JFC that isn't going to happen.
Can we just stick to the bloody real world, please?
Can we just stick to the bloody real world, please?
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
This is a tricky case to argue, though. It’s not just slavey, it’s the whole project of colonialism. For example, the UK extracted about £30tn in today’s terms from its colonisation of India alone. By comparison, the UK’s current GDP is about £1tn*. A lot of this enormous extracted wealth went into funding the wealth of the capitalist robber barons and aristocracy. But a lot also funded the Victorian infrastructure that we still use today. It’s hard to argue that the relative advantage that even the poor of the UK have over the poor of India is not partially a result of that colonial time.
*These numbers are from memory, so forgive me if they’re a bit out — exact figures aren’t really the point
8ball
#notallwomenz
Mixed feelings about this post, but overall yeah.
8ball
#notallwomenz
People also sometimes argue that slavery raised the living conditions of slaves.
Both arguments deserve equally short shrift.
8ball
#notallwomenz
It’s the only way forward that I can see. Jews were returned their ethnic homeland, and I don’t see taking it away as any solution.
They will have to learn to share it, however.
Imo.
Obv sounds like more than a bit of a stretch right now.
From what i can gather from this evening's news they are not in learning mode-rather the opposite in fact.
PTK
Paul Kegan
"ethnic homeland"?
What is one of them?
It sounds like a concept that the far-right would use.
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