Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Obama Says Inequality Led to Rise of the Right, but Takes No Responsibility for It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0De24c0tyqs
Israel’s best hope lies in a single state
In East Jerusalem, vigilantes
prowl, hunting for Jewish girls who consort with Arab men.
BY SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
In Israel, there is a growing
number of initiatives - from official bodies and rabbis to private
organisations and groups of local residents - to prevent interracial dating and
marriage. In East Jerusalem, vigilante-style patrols work to stop Arab men from
mixing with local Jewish girls. Two years ago, the city of Petah Tikva created
a hotline that parents and friends can use to inform on Jewish women who mix
with Arab men; the women are then treated as pathological cases and sent to a
psychologist.
In 2008, the southern city of
Kiryat Gat launched a programme in its schools to warn Jewish girls about the
dangers of dating local Bedouin men. The girls were shown a video called
Sleeping With the Enemy, which describes mixed couples as an "unnatural
phenomenon". Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu once told a local newspaper that the
"seducing" of Jewish girls is “another form of war" and a
religious organisation called Yad L'Achim conducts military-style rescues of
women from "hostile" Arab villages, in co-ordination with the police
and army. In 2009, a government-backed television advertising campaign, later
withdrawn, urged Israeli Jews to report relatives abroad who were in danger of
marrying non-Jews.
It is no wonder that,
according to a poll from 2007, more than half of all Israeli Jews believe that
intermarriage should be equated with "national treason". Adding a
note of ridicule late last year, Rabbi Ari Shvat, an expert on Jewish law,
allowed for an exception: Jewish women are permitted to sleep with Arabs if it
is in order to gather information about anti-Israel activity - but it is more
appropriate to use unmarried women for this purpose.
The first thing that strikes
one here is the gender asymmetry. The guardians of Jewish purity are bothered
that Jewish girls are being seduced by Palestinian men. The head of Kiryat
Gat's welfare unit said: "The girls, in their innocence, go with the
exploitative Arab." What makes these campaigns so depressing is that they
are flourishing at a time of relative calm, at least in the West Bank. Any
party interested in peace should welcome the socialising of Palestinian and
Jewish youth, as it would ease tensions and contribute to a shared daily life.
Until recently, Israel was
often hit by terror attacks and liberal, peace-loving Jews repeated the mantra
that, while they recognised the injustice of the occupation of the West Bank,
the other side had to stop the bombings before proper negotiations could begin.
Now that the attacks have fallen greatly in number, the main form that terror takes
is continuous, low-level pressure on the West Bank (water poisonings, crop
burnings and arson attacks on mosques). Shall we conclude that, though violence
doesn't work, renouncing it works even less well?
If there is a lesson to be
learned from the protracted negotiations, it is that the greatest obstacle to
peace is what is offered as the realistic solution - the creation of two
separate states. Although neither side wants it (Israel would probably prefer the
areas of the West Bank that it is ready to cede to become a part of Jordan,
while the Palestinians consider the land that has fallen to Israel since 1967
to be theirs), the establishment of two states is somehow accepted as the only
feasible solution, a position backed up by the embarrassing leak of Palestinian
negotiation documents in January.
What both sides exclude as an
impossible dream is the simplest and most obvious solution: a binational
secular state, comprising all of Israel plus the occupied territories and Gaza.
Many will dismiss this as a utopian dream, disqualified by the history of
hatred and violence. But far from being a utopia, the binational state is
already a reality: Israel and the West Bank are one state. The entire territory
is under the de facto control of one sovereign power - Israel - and divided by
internal borders. So let's abolish the apartheid that exists and transform this
land into a secular, democratic state.
Losing faith
None of this implies sympathy
for terrorist acts. Rather, it provides the only ground from which one can
condemn terrorism without hypocrisy. I am more than aware of the immense
suffering to which Jews have been exposed for thousands of years. What is
saddening is that many Israelis seem to be doing all they can to transform the
unique Jewish nation into just another nation.
A century ago, the writer G K
Chesterton identified the fundamental paradox facing critics of religion:
"Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity
end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church . .
. The secularists have not wrecked divine things but the secularists have
wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them." Does the same not
hold for the advocates of religion? How many defenders of religion started by
attacking contemporary secular culture and ended up forsaking any meaningful
religious experience?
Similarly, many liberal
warriors are so eager to fight anti-democratic fundamentalism that they will
throw away freedom and democracy if only they may fight terror. Some love human
dignity so much that they are ready to legalise torture - the ultimate
degradation of human dignity - to defend it. As for the Israeli defenders of
Jewish purity: they want to protect it so much that they are ready to forsake
the very core of Jewish identity.
"Let two become one"—Slavoj Zizek argues for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestine
Slavoj Žižek argues
in the New Statesman for a binational state in Israel & Palestine
- the "simplest and most obvious solution" to the conflict.
Highlighting some disturbing
instances of racism (and sexism) in Israeli society (such as the 2007 poll that
showed that over half of Israeli Jews believe intermarriage is akin to
"national treason"), Žižek makes the key point that:
What makes these campaigns so
depressing is that they are flourishing at a time of relative calm, at least in
the West Bank. Any party interested in peace should welcome the socialising of
Palestinian and Jewish youth.
He goes on to say:
Until recently, Israel was
often hit by terror attacks and liberal, peace-loving Jews repeated the mantra
that, while they recognised the injustice of the occupation of the West Bank,
the other side had to stop the bombings before proper negotiations could begin.
Now that the attacks have fallen greatly in number, the main form that terror
takes is continuous, low-level pressure on the West Bank (water poisonings,
crop burnings and arson attacks on mosques). Shall we conclude that, though
violence doesn't work, renouncing it works even less well?...
None of this implies sympathy
for terrorist acts. Rather it provides the only ground from which one can
com.
Visit the New
Statesman to read the full article.
For a critical overview of the
Israeli 'peace camp' liberals and their European supporters, see Yitzhak
Laor's The
Myths of Liberal Zionism.
WHO WILL WIN THE DEMOCRATIC TUG OF WAR?
July 31, 2018
Socialist Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning
upset in a congressional primary electionagainst one of the most powerful
Democrats in the U.S. House has inspired discussion and debate about how this
campaign fits into the project of advancing the socialist left.
SocialistWorker.org is hosting
a dialogue in our Readers’ Views column. This installment has a
contribution from Chris Beck.
The Balance of Power Inside
the Democratic Party
Christopher Zimmerly-Beck |
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in a Democratic congressional primary is an
exciting development for socialists and the working class as a whole.
As a member of the
International Socialist Organization, I hope the Democratic Socialists of
America (DSA), to which Ocasio-Cortez belongs, continues to grow and win in the
electoral arena. The successes of Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign and DSA’s electoral
strategy are raising important questions about elections and how the socialist
left can and should relate to the Democratic Party during a period when
socialism is once again “in the air.”
Echoing what others have
already said, I thank everyone who has contributed
to this debate, many of whom are far more experienced and knowledgeable
than I am. Open debates like this are of vital importance in our current
political moment.
I believe Hadas Thier’s
contribution to this debate (“New
Conditions Give Rise to New Opportunities”) is correct to assert, “Rather
than seeking to shield our members or collaborators from contradictions, we
should work alongside them, and attempt to explain and to learn along
the way.”
My disagreement with Thier is
not in suggesting we grapple with contradictions shoulder to shoulder with our
comrades in and out of the ISO, but that she overestimates, in my opinion, the
impact specific contradictions are having on the Democratic Party and our
side’s ability to take advantage of those contradictions.
As we think about whether to
use the Democratic Party’s ballot line, the role that the Democratic Party has
historically played as the “graveyard for social movements” should loom large.
Thier argues that while the
Democratic Party intends to take people away from activism and co-opt social
movements, we can’t assume that the party will always accomplish its aim or
that “every person who runs on their line has that intention.”
But the intentions of an
individual, even an individual propelled into office by a growing polarization and
radicalization, are small potatoes when compared with the amount of capital and
material leverage behind the Democratic Party officialdom.
This isn’t a hypothetical
situation. In practice, we’ve already witnessed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
retreat on the question of solidarity with Palestine. She has come out in
support of a two-state solution and apologized for
using the term “occupation.”
This retreat on a central
question before having even taken office highlights the kind of pressures that
will face victorious socialist candidates who find themselves with a D by their
names.
Lastly, I disagree with
Thier’s assertion that it is contradictory to “think the election of a
candidate [running on a Democratic Party ballot line] represents a step forward
for our side, but not one which we will support.”
Our experience in the ISO
relating to people excited by the politics that Bernie Sanders expressed during
his presidential primary campaign demonstrates that we can effectively
contribute to movement building and build our organization without accepting the
concessions that come with endorsing candidates inside a capitalist party.
Or to put it another way: Our
practice has demonstrated that we can embrace the victory of a candidate like
Ocasio-Cortez as a step forward, while not throwing our support behind her
running in the Democratic Party.
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