Brutal Zionist Police Beating of Palestinian Worker Shows Need For Palestinian Self-Defense

Trigger Warning: Police brutality, violent language

This post was also published on the RCIT's website. Despite my myriad disagreements* with the RCIT, I highly recommend checking out their website for some high-quality and timely analysis. Even more importantly, I encourage all supporters of Palestinian liberation to answer the RCIT's call for solidarity with comrade Michael Proebsting, who is being persecuted by the semi-fascist Austrian government for his actions in solidarity with Palestine.

*I would like to make it very clear that these differences in no way lessen the importance of supporting cde Proebsting. 

Yesterday (22.5) in Tel-Aviv, as he was taking out some garbage, supermarket worker Maysam Abu al-Qian was approached by two men who asked him for identification papers. When he responded that his ID was inside the store and asked who the men were, the two, who turned out to be plainclothes members of the Border Police, proceeded to brutally beat him, shortly joined by several other clothed police. They continued to do so even as al-Qian was lying wounded on the floor, posing no threat to the armed throng which attacked him. Other workers who tried to help al-Qian were also beaten, and an elderly woman who asked the cops what they were doing was told that to "fuck off before we finish you off too". Such is the heroism of the Zionist entity's Boys In Blue. After he was taken into custody, al-Qian was put in house arrest and was given an order barring him from entering Tel-Aviv, thus preventing him from reaching his workplace. [1][2]

The Zionist media, in a fittingly cynical move for those who refer to the occupation of Palestine by Zionists as a "conflict", called this clear act of racist police brutality a "brawl", with some echoing police claims that al-Qian tried to bite the cops,[3][4] a ridiculous claim that was promptly mocked by Israeli commenters.

"Security footage shows the suspect attacking four tanks and trying to damage them. The suspect was put in house arrest and barred entry to Beijing." [Image posted by Ido Kenan.]

It is common for liberals and left-Zionists to blame the increasingly common acts of violence and open racism against Palestinians on"the occupation", meaning in this case the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. However, as any supporter of Palestinian rights should know - let alone communists, who should understand Zionism's colonialist, imperialist nature - Zionist violence and racism towards Palestinians did not begin in 1967. It did not even begin in 1948. From its very inception, Zionist colonialism was based on the "occupation of land" and "occupation of labor" - driving out as many Palestinians from their land, and making life impossible for those who managed to somehow hang on. For a while, it was possible for the Zionist entity to concentrate its violence on 1967 Palestinians, although even those decades are full of acts of violence against 1948 Palestinians, including, but not limited to, the October 2000 massacre (by a left-Zionist government, one might add) and the 2005 massacre in Shefa-'Amr by Kahanist soldier Eden Natan-Zada. However, as Zionist society crumbles and the Zionist regime relies increasingly on racist incitement and brutality, the methods of the settlers and the Zionist army in the West Bank begin to seep back into "Israel proper".

Due to the colonialist nature of Israeli society, it is rare for Jewish workers to feel any sympathy towards Palestinians. However, the reports of supermarket workers attempting to help al-Qian, as well as the protest which took place outside the supermarket later that day, are good signs that show a potential for class solidarity across national lines. Nonetheless, the history of the Palestinian struggle against Zionist oppression shows time and time again that only by accepting the leadership of Palestinians can Israeli Jewish be reliable allies. Therefore, the demand must be raised for Palestinian self-defense against Zionist police, army and fascist thugs.

Protest outside the supermarket in which al-Qian works, where the beating took place. [Image taken from [5]].

Some might argue that given the racist climate in Israel, such a slogan is impractical, or that it can be used to blame Palestinians and leftists of terrorism. However, by now any Palestinian should know that to be blamed of being a terrorist, he need only be a Palestinian. As for calling for self-defense in a climate of racism, there are precedents: the Black struggle in the US South, for example, relied heavily on self-defense, to the point where some described Martin Luther King Jr.'s home as "an arsenal". Indeed, without Black self-defense, it is doubtful that any of the gains of the civil rights movement could be achieved.

The brutal police beating of al-Qian, as well as the cynical response to it from the Zionist media and state, prove once more that only a resolute struggle against Zionist oppression can put an end to racist violence. Attempting to rely on the police or liberal Zionists to protect Palestinians can only result in more death. Against the increasing audacity of the Zionist police thugs, revolutionaries must call for Palestinian workers to defend themselves, joined by Jewish workers who realize that Zionism is a death-trap for them and that their place is with their class sisters and brothers.

Sources:

1. Tel Aviv police beating sparks calls for ‘soul-searching’, Times of Israel, May 23, 2016
2. Border Police assault Arab supermarket employee in central Tel Aviv, +972, May 22, 2016
3. שוטרי מג"ב תועדו תוקפים עובד מרכול ערבי במרכז תל אביב, Haaretz, May 22, 2016
4. אלימות במרכול: "התנפלו על העובד הערבי במכות ודרכו לו על הראש", ynet, May 22, 2016
5. "שמונה הכו אחד, זה היה מחריד", Arutz 2, May 22, 2016

Marxism and Centrism in the Face of Islamophobia: A Reply to a Member of the LRP

INTRODUCTION

"Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists."
~Leon Trotsky, Learn to Think

"In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!"
~Leon Trotsky, Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Key to Liberation

(I have been criticized below, among other things, for my use of Trotsky quotes. Consider this my reply.)

The racist campaign against Arabs and Muslims has wrought much brutality and violence on the oppressed, but one of its most overlooked, yet most insidious and pervasive consequences, is that it has instilled an axiom in the minds of many in the imperialist countries: that as brutal and oppressive as imperialism as, as reactionary as its puppet regimes may be, Islam - or, at the very least, certain variants of it - is particularly reactionary, particularly oppressive towards women, particularly dangerous - and thus, when it comes to Islam, we must suspend our lofty ideals and fight it by different means.

When it comes to Marxist groups, this poses a particular problem: Marxism has a long and proud tradition of opposing imperialist war waged in the name of democracy and progress. How can one claim to be a Marxist and at the same time, support or equivocate on the question of opposing imperialist aggression undertaken under the pretense of fighting oppressive Islamic terrorism? Of course, by gutting Marxism completely and replacing its understandings of imperialism and the struggle against it with liberal platitudes.

There are countless examples of this method; today we will be discussing one given by a member of the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP), a centrist group in the USA claiming to represent the authentic tradition of Leninism and Trotskyism, a claim that will soon be seen in its full comedic light.

Since the member did not make his comments public, I will not identify him by name, but refer to him simply as J. J has made various assertions about both my character and that of my former organization, the ISL, and my comrade Yossi Schwartz. I realize that my unwillingness to identify J is to my detriment, seeing as I will lack his ability to substitute personal attacks for political criticism, as well as his willingness to resort to lies and slander. Still, I believe I will come out on top. Such is the sorry state of centrism in our times that even with such advantages, it is incapable of conducting itself respectfully in debate, let alone successfully.

I do not intend to let slander go unanswered; but I will endeavor to address politics first and the personal later. Such are my preferences, and to each his own, I suppose. I will note, however, that J's slander against comrade Schwartz has already been answered elsewhere.

THE GRYNSZPAN ANALOGY

In my original post on Charile Hebdo, I made the comparison between the men who committed the attack and Jewish youth Herschel Grynszpan, who assassinated a Nazi diplomat in retaliation for the Nazi government's deportation of his family. This comparison, comrade J informs us, "is not only mistaken, but actually quite offensive":

"...Herschel Grynszpan was a lone individual while the terrorists who launched their attacks in Paris were trained members of reactionary jihadist groups... Grynszpan had no aim other than to strike a blow against oppression when he assassinated that Nazi official. Very much *unlike* Grynszpan, the terrorists who attacked in France did so with the aim of advancing a movement that is entirely devoted to oppressing people."

As readers may recall, I had anticipated this sophistry:

"As usual with analogies, it is easy to find differences and use them to discredit the analogy altogether. The first will probably be that while Grynszpan was a Jewish youth who wanted vengeance against those who forced his family into a miserable life as stateless refugees in Poland, the men who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo were terrorists. This distinction without a difference is again steeped in racism, as if there is any doubt that those who join Islamist groups are generally motivated by a desire to strike back against imperialist criminals in some way, without having a revolutionary organization that would appeal to them. The fact that so many French Muslims find themselves forced into the arms of a group like Al-Qaeda (which is the group that the attackers apparently associated with, not ISIS) is a crushing indictment of the French left, which has either equivocated or fully supported French imperialism's aggression, most recently in Mali and the Central African Republic."

It is truly sad how easy it is to anticipate the centrist response to events and to revolutionary criticism. Centrist political degeneration inevitably leads to a degeneration of thought as well, and this is expressed most clearly in J's comments here:

"...it is worth remembering that fascism takes people’s anger at the injustices of capitalism and misdirects it toward attacks on Jews as the supposed embodiment of finance capital. That’s why fascists, like Nazis for instance, consider themselves anti-capitalist “national socialists.” In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the experience of plummeting standards of living drove much of the German middle-class and sections of the working class to fascism. Genuine communists sympathized with the experience of rising poverty and hopelessness that was driving people toward fascism and sought to convince them that the alternative was socialism’s promise of freedom and justice for all. But genuine communists certainly did not hesitate to criticize those who embraced fascism. As Trotsky pointedly advised: “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement."

J has already managed to equate the attackers with the Nazis; Netanyahu would be proud. To sound progressive, he also compares their goals to those of Zionism:

"...the jihadists’ aimed with their attacks to provoke an anti-Muslim and racist backlash by the French state. It is in their interests to make life an even more intolerable hell for Muslims, Arabs and Africans in France. In particular, they need more volunteers to join them in Iraq and Syria and that is helped by conditions that make life intolerable for Muslims in France and all of Europe. Overall, they want to force upon the masses a choice of either them or the French state and thereby sabotage any possibility of working-class unity... [it is] absolutely right to compare the jihadists’ aims with their Paris attacks with the Zionists’ welcoming of fascist oppression as aiding their colonial project in Palestine."

What despicable comments, borne out of a complete lack of class perspective, concrete political analysis or historical understanding. Of course, comrade J pays lip service to working-class unity between oppressed Muslim workers and French workers - reminiscent of other ostensibly-Trotskyist groups, who blame Palestinian terrorism for disrupting Arab-Jewish unity - but he is compeltely incapable of putting his analysis of fascism in class terms or to retain any of the revolutionary analysis of fascism.

J believes that "the magnificent history and reputation of selfless Jewish resistance to oppression should be defended against the defamation of comparison to jihadists". Should J desire to attack those who would compare a Jewish youth driven by the oppression he faced and Muslim youth who were driven by similar oppression - the only comparison I made, it should be noted - I suggest he look for a job in the Israeli foreign ministry. I hear they're looking for progressive-sounding people.

THE CLASS NATURE OF ISLAMISM

In his comments comparing Islamism and fascism, J mentions the working-class and middle-class, but he does not explain how any of these or other classes relate to fascism. Indeed, he can't, because he knows that if he tries, his analysis would fall apart in a matter of seconds.

It is common for liberals to explain the rise of fascism in Europe along these lines: worsening economic conditions drove "people" into the arms of the fascists, who misdirected their anger into attacks on Jews, leftists, homosexuals and other groups deemed alien and dangerous. It's human nature, you see, to blame those who are different for your troubles; the solution is better education.

This position is very similar to the perspective put forward by J, but completely alien to Marxism and its analysis of fascism. Trotsky recognized that fascism is not simply a very reactionary movement appealing to "people", but a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie, which uses the basic class antagonism between its social basis and the working class to inspire the former to attack the latter, thus atomizing the labor movement and saving capitalism from revolution. Of course, once in power, fascism has no choice but to serve the capitalist class, and gradually degenerates into a "standard" bourgeois dictatorship, alienating its social basis, and making fascism an effective but also a dangerous and untenable solution for the capitalists. For this reason, fascism presupposes not only a capitalist class threatened by a workers' revolution, but also the active support of the ruling class.

That this in no way describes groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS is of no interest to J. What he cares about is not the class nature of movements, but their intentions. He writes on and on about the reactionary social vision of the radical Islamists, as if it is not obvious to everyone involved.

Yes, al-Qaeda and ISIS are reactionary movements. As pro-capitalist movements, they could not be otherwise. Revolutionaries realize that such movements, even if in conflict with a certain faction of world imperialism, can easily collaborate with other imperialists or, as we have seen in the case of the PLO, come to an accommodation with those whom they previously resisted. This does not change the fact that these movements ultimately rest on a social basis of people who want to fight against their oppression, who have not found an answer in the left - small wonder, considering what this left is like - and were driven into the arms of leaders hostile to their interests. The form is similar; however, the content is quite different from the imperialist reaction of 1930s fascism, as well as from Zionist colonialism, which always openly sought collaboration with imperialism. Such a distinction is a book sealed with seven seals to our centrists, as are the distinctions between program and class interests, between oppressor and oppressed:

"The terrorists’ attacked Charlie Hebdo for very different reasons than our reasons for supporting protest against them. As I’ve said, the jihadists were indeed outraged by the oppressiveness of the French state and the imperialists’ crimes in the Middle East, but they did not seek to target imperialism. In the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the terrorists executed the editor and cartoonists (as well as regular workers) for blasphemy – not racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. They did so just as their fellow al Qaeda members executed Palestinians in Yarmouk camp in Syria for blasphemy... just the same as they bomb Shiite religious processions in Iraq for apostacy; just the same as they slaughter Kurds in Iraq and Syria."

This is astounding. The jihadists executed people for blasphemy, and thus, did not seek to target imperialism. Perhaps J also thinks that Palestinians who attack Israeli Jews for their occupation of Muslim land - actions which, by the way, it would be much more justified to condemn - are not doing so due to opposition to Zionism. What nonsense. As for the comparison between CH journalists and oppressed Palestinians and Shiites in Syria and Iraq, if J cannot tell the difference, then really, what else is to be said?

J asks:

"Compared with the anti-imperialist aims of the jihadists that he imagines, Yehuda declared that “Those differences are of a secondary nature at best” and “I know their motives are rotten to the core, but that's not important."... Seriously?"

Again, J is conveniently confusing the reactionary leadership with the social basis which obviously joins jihadist movements with the intention of fighting imperialism. But to answer the question: yes, dear J, seriously. Unlike you, I recognize that under any ideological veneer, the bourgeoisie remains the enemy of the working-class. When revolutionaries side with non-working-class forces against an imperialist attack, it is not done as a reward to the leaders of these, nor is it due to illusions in the progressive nature of these forces. It is done because we recognize that imperialism is always the number one enemy. Your revision of this simple fact is the true difference between the LRP and the ISL on Mali, and makes all the more amusing your lecturing to me on my supposed lack of a class perspective.

THE KOSHER MARKET AND CENTRIST RED-BAITING

J hilariously delves into metaphysics when he contrasts the "revolutionary energy" of Grynszpan with the "counterrevolutionary energy" of Couliably. Science would love to learn of these mysterious new entities, especially as J clearly has a method of measuring them not all the way from the US, but decades after Grynszpan's death. But that is a small matter compared to J's next slander, which has to do with the attack on the kosher market:

"The first and central idea of Yehuda’s blog statement on the Paris attacks is that he is opposed to condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo but he does not mention this other attack... I wonder, does he condemn the killing of Jewish civilians in France? As for me, I am in favor of condemning such attacks on civilians whose only known “crime” was being Jewish. In fact, I am in favor of condemning such attacks in advance, and with bullets if necessary."

You see, by opposing but refusing to condemn an attack on active participants in a massive racist campaign against Muslims, I have put my willingness to oppose anti-Semitism into question, unlike the ever-noble comrade J, and have proven my "disregard for the fate of the masses". Congratulations, J - you sound exactly like my fine country's Prime Minister! That foreign ministry position is practically yours.

The basic flaw in this slander is that I indeed did not mention the kosher market attack, for a very simple reason: there was nothing to mention. The attack was a criminal anti-Semitic act that was condemned by practically everyone on the face of the planet. My intention was to write a short post, to be published as soon as possible so as to make my position clear when it still counts - a concept completely alien to the LRP, I know - and I saw no reason to specifically write about the most obvious part of the attacks. For the same reason, I don't see any need to write a post every time a rocket is fired at Israeli civilians or every time anyone tries to stab them on a bus. Of course Marxists oppose such attacks!

In Israel, leftists, especially anti-Zionists, are blamed constantly for strengthening "Palestinian terrorism" (which, in the eyes of the ruling class, includes any action against Zionist oppression) by calling out the government and military on their actions and expressing solidarity with the oppressed. That J uses similar language shows that he will not refrain from the most obvious and foul red-baiting in the face of revolutionary criticism.

AGAIN ON MALI

In our world, in the historical period that we are going through, it is not possible to stand for too long between oppressor and oppressed. At some point, one must make the choice. The similarity between J's language and that of the Zionists is not due to his keen support for Israel, but to the fact that the logic of his political position naturally leads him into the same camp. His comments are the concentrated expression of a fast-degenerating centrist tendency, moving to the right at an alarming pace.

This was not always the case. When I first came across the LRP, at that time, as a member of the ISL, it was a healthier organization. This history was mostly dealt with elsewhere. However, in light of comments by J, I find it necessary to address some issues. J wrote that we

"...refused to criticize ... oppression by the jihadists, even though they knew all about it. I provided them with documentation proving the jihadists’ participation in the slave trade in Mali. I had even provided them pictures of Malians that the jihadists had alleged were guilty of adultery and blasphemy, being buried up to their necks before being punished with stoning until they were dead, their heads looking like blooming bouquets of canned dog food...  And while the jihadists had no base of popular support and were not fighting imperialism (which they explained in documents laying out their plan for how, when their actions triggered an imperialist invasion, they would escape to their mountain hideouts and leave the masses to face the consequences), Yehuda and the ISL declared their “support” for these reactionaries against imperialism, regardless of the consequences for the masses in Mali."

The first slander is that the ISL "refused" to condemn the oppressive acts J mentions. Of course, he cannot source this ridiculous claim. The ISL never refused to condemn these acts, but simply stated, in an initial statement released after weeks of cowardly equivocation by the LRP, that regardless of the internal situation in Mali, of which we did not have extensive knowledge, we stand against French imperialism and are for its demise at the hands of any who would oppose it. Later, the ISL backed the RCIT statement on Mali, which expressed opposition to all bourgeois forces in Mali - both Islamist and nationalist. This is the true difference between the ISL and the LRP on this question: while the LRP wanted to claim that the bourgeois nationalists were somehow progressive and could conduct a consistent anti-imperialist struggle in Mali, the ISL retained its class perspective, with no illusions in the alleged anti-imperialist motives of any non-working-class force.

Since J obviously read the ISL statement on Mali, he knows that it contains the following passage:

"...in a conflict between an imperialist force and an oppressed country led by bourgeois forces, we always take the side opposite to that of the imperialists. Nothing special needs to be known to follow this simple, common-sense line. At the same time, we do not for a moment give these organizations an ounce of political support: we do not call on workers to join them or to support them in elections or other such platforms."

J is completely aware of this traditional distinction between political support and support for a military victory against imperialism. There is no conclusion one can reach here except that J is consciously attempting to slander me and the ISL by mixing up these very different concepts and presenting our position on Mali as if we were enthusiastic supporters of the Islamists or had faith in their anti-imperialism or loyalty to the masses. With such hopeless people, the only course of action is to shake one's head and offer some traditional Trotskyist advice: learn to think!

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

J wrote:

"There is an unfortunate phenomenon on the Trotskyist-identified left of people who react to events in far-away lands not by studying them before forming conclusions, but by asking themselves: is there a quote from Trotsky that can be presented as an analysis? This approach certainly saves one a lot of hard work. It even frees one to make unnecessary, a-political, nasty comments like Yehuda’s above about whether the LRP will take 1 or 2 years to issue a statement on the Paris attacks."

That J disapproves of my nasty comments is immediately seen to be quite hypocritic in his attempt to describe my political character, with no sense of irony whatsoever. Of course, there is nothing a-political about the LRP's inability to release statements. The LRP, a centrist organization feeling the pressure of different classes from all sides, is incapable of taking a position on anything but the most rudimentary questions as events are unfolding. It took the LRP 2 years to release a statement on Syria, and it has yet to release one on the latest wave of Zionist aggression or on Charlie Hebdo.

Indeed, with such weighty issues that they still need to address, I did not expect anyone from the LRP to reply to my criticism within the next decade. But one of the benefits of the Mali debate is that it clarified something about the LRP's character: at the time, the LRP had many contacts who supported the Egyptian National Salvation Front, a popular front which included both socialist organizations as well as bourgeois politicians like Hamdeen Sabahi and Amr Moussa. How could one justify such a betrayal except by presenting Islamism as an especially dangerous threat, one that justifies giving support to the nationalist bourgeoisie? Of course, nothing was gained from this rotten capitulation. But the LRP is bound to keep trying.

What's depressing in all this is how generic J's response is. Back when the ISL and the LRP were polemicizing against members of the Israeli CWI, we were constantly blamed of being too small and insignificant, of fussing around with theory instead of really doing things. Now this is all J can say to try and give his liberal platitudes any credibility. Every revolutionary organization is revolutionary in its own way, but centrist degeneration is always the same. That's why those same Trotsky quotes keep coming up. To tell you the truth, at this point, I find it quite boring.

As for reverend J's proposal that I kiss his hand, confess my sins and rejoin his flock, I believe I have made my position clear. Should J have trouble deciding where to put such offers in the future, I can suggest some surprisingly close storage space. I have no intention of going back to the LRP any more than I intend to rejoin the IMT, or to become a Zionist again. What little practical involvement I have in actual struggles, I prefer to have on the side of the oppressed. Not all is lost, though; we may yet catch a glimpse of one another from opposite sides of the barricades.

---

APPENDIX: J'S ORIGINAL REPLY

This is the original post J wrote in response to my abridged comments on Charlie Hebdo. I have removed only the mentions in this text of the comrade to whom J was addressing his replies: they were not addressed to me, since centrist liars and slanderers unsurprisingly also happen to be cowards. At any rate, any omission would only be to my adversary's advantage.

...your pointing out that Herschel Grynszpan was a lone individual while the terrorists who launched their attacks in Paris were trained members of reactionary jihadist groups points to why I think comparing the two is in fact utterly mistaken, and why my and Yehuda’s comments actually express opposed perspectives.

Grynszpan had no aim other than to strike a blow against oppression when he assassinated that Nazi official. Very much *unlike* Grynszpan, the terrorists who attacked in France did so with the aim of advancing a movement that is entirely devoted to oppressing people.

The al Qaeda and Islamic State jihadists’ vision promises those they label apostates with death in the case of men and enslavement (literally) in the case of women, and promises the Sunni masses absolute dictatorship in a Caliphate ruled by Wahhabi theocrats. Jihadists like al Qaeda and the Islamic State are not so much anti-imperialist as they are insistent that the exclusive right to murder, enslave, colonize and exploit people in the Middle East belong to them. 

Our recognition of what drives people to take any particular political action does not preclude judgement of their politics and of their actions. Along these lines, it is worth remembering that fascism takes people’s anger at the injustices of capitalism and misdirects it toward attacks on Jews as the supposed embodiment of finance capital. That’s why fascists, like Nazis for instance, consider themselves anti-capitalist “national socialists.” In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the experience of plummeting standards of living drove much of the German middle-class and sections of the working class to fascism. Genuine communists sympathized with the experience of rising poverty and hopelessness that was driving people toward fascism and sought to convince them that the alternative was socialism’s promise of freedom and justice for all. But genuine communists certainly did not hesitate to criticize those who embraced fascism. As Trotsky pointedly advised: “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.”

All this explains why I think Yehuda's comparison of reactionary jihadists with Herschel Grynszpan is not only mistaken, but actually quite offensive – it dirties Grynszpan’s good name. Yehuda’s comment that he alone thought to compare the jihadists with Grynszpan is true, but I think it should be pretty obvious that the reason for this is not the one Yehuda imagined. Take a look again at the quote from Trotsky about Grynszpan that Yehuda thinks is relevant: Trotsky describes Grynszpan’s actions as expressing “revolutionary energy” that had he “walked in the milieu of the Fourth International he would have discovered a different and more effective outlet for.” It should be clear that the jihadists in Paris exercised *counterrevolutionary energy* and had they walked in the milieu of the Fourth International, they would have killed us. In any case, I think the magnificent history and reputation of selfless Jewish resistance to oppression should be defended against the defamation of comparison to jihadists just as much as it must be defended against the Zionists’ hypocritical claims.

There is an unfortunate phenomenon on the Trotskyist-identified left of people who react to events in far-away lands not by studying them before forming conclusions, but by asking themselves: is there a quote from Trotsky that can be presented as an analysis? This approach certainly saves one a lot of hard work. It even frees one to make unnecessary, a-political, nasty comments like Yehuda’s above about whether the LRP will take 1 or 2 years to issue a statement on the Paris attacks.

In my experience, the people who engage in this approach to politics generally have the least practical involvement in actual struggles against oppression and their radicalism is generally confined to postings on the internet. They don’t realize that without the accountability of facing their readers’ questions and criticisms in the context of on-going collaboration in struggles, it is so much easier for them to fall into the trap of convincing themselves of some very mistaken ideas. I think Yehuda would do himself, and everyone else, a favor by thinking about this. It would help him avoid debacles like his comparison of the selfless Herschel Grynszpan to despicable al Qaeda and Islamic State-supporting terrorists.

As I said in my post, the jihadists’ aimed with their attacks to provoke an anti-Muslim and racist backlash by the French state. It is in their interests to make life an even more intolerable hell for Muslims, Arabs and Africans in France. In particular, they need more volunteers to join them in Iraq and Syria and that is helped by conditions that make life intolerable for Muslims in France and all of Europe. Overall, they want to force upon the masses a choice of either them or the French state and thereby sabotage any possibility of working-class unity. 

Along these lines, ... you were absolutely right to compare the jihadists’ aims with their Paris attacks with the Zionists’ welcoming of fascist oppression as aiding their colonial project in Palestine. Bravo!

Now, let’s look a little closer at the attacks in France, because I want to explain why I don’t think they targeted imperialism and why they demand condemnation.

Let’s begin with Islamic State (IS) supporter Amedy Coulibaly. Nothing could make the IS’s reactionary character clearer than the fact that it’s principal tool for recruiting foreign jihadists to join them in Iraq and Syria now are videos showing their members, after conquering Kurdish and Shiite towns and killing all their male inhabitants, choosing sex slaves from among the female survivors and talking at length about how these spoils of war can be yours too if you are a Sunni male willing to join them in their fight. “Revolutionary energy,” I’m sure we agree, this is not.

It should be noted that Coulibaly is from Mali and therefore can be expected to have been particularly familiar with the jihadists’ role there. The jihadists who briefly ruled the north of that country implemented precisely this nightmarish social vision before French imperialism invaded not to free the oppressed but to rescue the neo-colonial Malian state that they rely on to protect their interests.

One of the differences I and the LRP had with Yehuda and his comrades in the ISL at the time was that while we both stood for the defeat of French imperialism, he and they refused to criticize this oppression by the jihadists, even though they knew all about it. I provided them with documentation proving the jihadists’ participation in the slave trade in Mali. I had even provided them pictures of Malians that the jihadists had alleged were guilty of adultery and blasphemy, being buried up to their necks before being punished with stoning until they were dead, their heads looking like blooming bouquets of canned dog food. And Yehuda and the ISL pointedly refused to criticize these crimes. And while the jihadists had no base of popular support and were not fighting imperialism (which they explained in documents laying out their plan for how, when their actions triggered an imperialist invasion, they would escape to their mountain hideouts and leave the masses to face the consequences), Yehuda and the ISL declared their “support” for these reactionaries against imperialism, regardless of the consequences for the masses in Mali.

Now, when Coulibaly launched his attack in Paris, did he attack imperialism? No. His main target was a kosher market where he aimed to kill Jews, not imperialists. Before opening fire and killing four people he yelled: ‘You are a Jew, you will die!’ That is not anti-imperialism, of course. That is murderous anti-Jewish bigotry.

The first and central idea of Yehuda’s blog statement on the Paris attacks is that he is opposed to condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo but he does not mention this other attack. That’s curious, no? I wonder, does he condemn the killing of Jewish civilians in France?

As for me, I am in favor of condemning such attacks on civilians whose only known “crime” was being Jewish. In fact, I am in favor of condemning such attacks in advance, and with bullets if necessary. 

These views are mine and not necessarily those of the LRP which hasn’t had a chance to discuss this aspect of the question, but anyone can certainly feel free to quote me. I am very proud of this view.

Furthermore, I am in favor of hailing as a hero the Malian Muslim immigrant worker in that kosher market, Lassana Bathily, who risked his life by hiding shoppers from the terrorist Coulibaly 

Now, what of the attack on Charlie Hebdo?

Charlie Hebdo promoted racist, anti-Muslim bigotry. For these crimes, it should have been shut down – not by the state, but by mass protest. Genuine revolutionary communists recognize the capitalist state as our greatest enemy and do not want to empower it to censor anyone. At the same time we do not believe in free speech for racists and favor mass action against them. We also defend the right to blaspheme even while we condemn those who unnecessarily insult people’s religious beliefs and especially those who target the religious beliefs of the oppressed.

The terrorists’ attacked Charlie Hebdo for very different reasons than our reasons for supporting protest against them. As I’ve said, the jihadists were indeed outraged by the oppressiveness of the French state and the imperialists’ crimes in the Middle East, but they did not seek to target imperialism. In the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the terrorists executed the editor and cartoonists (as well as regular workers) for blasphemy – not racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. They did so just as their fellow al Qaeda members executed Palestinians in Yarmouk camp in Syria for blasphemy (https://www.facebook.com/Matt.../posts/704468532985390); just the same as they bomb Shiite religious processions in Iraq for apostacy; just the same as they slaughter Kurds in Iraq and Syria.

As I’ve said before, genuine revolutionaries will have nothing to do with the hypocritical condemnations of these attacks coming from the mass murdering criminals of France’s imperialist ruling class and its allies. But that does not mean that we renounce their right to condemn acts which attack the rights of the oppressed and set back real struggles against oppression and exploitation. To renounce that right is to renounce leadership and thus capitulate to reactionary forces among the oppressed.

Renunciation of the independent perspective of the workers’ and oppressed is the real meaning of Yehuda’s opposition to condemning the attacks in Paris. It was the real meaning of his and the ISL’s refusal to condemn the jihadists in Mali. It was the real meaning of the ISL’s first statement on the Syrian revolution after breaking with the LRP, the fraudulently plagiarized article of Yossi Schwartz’s (http://www.the-isleague.com/syria-15-3-2013/). That article declared that “Revolutionary Marxists are on the same side as the Islamists in the conflict against Assad’s tyranny,” ignoring the fact that Assad had released al Qaeda jihadists from prison when the revolution broke out precisely to help his counterrevolution, and ignoring the fact that these jihadists had been attacking democratic revolutionaries ever since.

 In this regard, I think we should all take note of Yehuda’s last comment in this thread where he responds to your points about the difference between racist cartoonists and Nazi officials, and the difference between a lone Jewish opponent of the Nazis versus jihadists with oppressive goals who, with their attacks in Paris, aimed to trigger a backlash of racism, anti-Muslim bigotry and repression. 

Compared with the anti-imperialist aims of the jihadists that he imagines, Yehuda declared that “Those differences are of a secondary nature at best” and “I know their motives are rotten to the core, but that's not important.”

Seriously? 

I’d suggest that Yehuda’s disregard for the fate of the masses compared to his imagined anti-imperialist aims of the terrorists is a measure of just how far he has drifted from genuine Marxism – the theory and practical commitment that grows out of the interests and struggles of the workers’ and oppressed people against the nightmare of life under imperialism capitalism. The ethical and practical heart of Marxism is its primary and constant fidelity to the interests of the workers and oppressed. 

Renunciation of that moral compass opens the door to all sorts of mistakes, political and otherwise. 

It’s never too late for people to correct the error of their ways. I’ll always be ready to welcome such people – so long as they begin by honestly recognizing their mistakes.

Hue and Cry Over Charlie Hebdo

I do not condemn the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

First of all, I do not condemn it because I had nothing to do with it. No one on the left did. It is not my responsibility. The racist oppressors create the conditions for people to be driven to terrorist acts; it is shameful that so many on the left find that they have any need to apologize for what is clearly another's doing.

And yeah, I can give you the usual spiel about how Marxists do not support terrorism, and I can link to Trotsky's Terrorism and Communism and tell you how crazy* and radical the attackers are. I can do all the things that every other leftist has been doing. On the face of it, it would be true. But the truth is contextual: it is true that Islam, as a religion, just like any other religion, is reactionary and oppressive; but to write an article about that in the context of a worldwide racist campaign against Muslims is to play into the hands of the racists. That's how most of the left is nowadays, though: cowardly and desperate to pander to white racism and Islamophobia.

*Gotta love equating mental illness with violent terrorism, right?

This is in stark contrast to the classic Marxist attitude, as expressed in Trotsky's Grynszpan approach. Just over 76 years ago, in the same Paris, France, 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan assassinated a Nazi diplomat. The assassination served as a pretext for Kristallnacht, and Grynszpan was attacked by the Stalinists as a Trotskyist provocateur. Trotsky replied:

"All the more revolting in its police stupidity and inexpressible violence is the campaign now being conducted against Grynszpan by command of the Kremlin in the international Stalinist press. They attempt to depict him as an agent of the Nazis or an agent of Trotskyists in alliance with the Nazis. Lumping into one heap the provocateur and his victim, the Stalinists ascribe to Grynszpan the intention of creating a favorable pretext for Hitler’s pogrom measures. What can one say of these venal “journalists” who no longer have any vestiges of shame?...

The Stalinists shriek in the ears of the police that Grynszpan attended “meetings of Trotskyites.” That, unfortunately, is not true. For had he walked into the milieu of the Fourth International he would have discovered a different and more effective outlet for his revolutionary energy. People come cheap who are capable only of fulminating against injustice and bestiality. But those who, like Grynszpan, are able to act as well as conceive, sacrificing their own lives if need be, are the precious leaven of mankind."

How different from the common left sentiment of our days.

As usual with analogies, it is easy to find differences and use them to discredit the analogy altogether. The first will probably be that while Grynszpan was a Jewish youth who wanted vengeance against those who forced his family into a miserable life as stateless refugees in Poland, the men who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo were terrorists. This distinction without a difference is again steeped in racism, as if there is any doubt that those who join Islamist groups are generally motivated by a desire to strike back against imperialist criminals in some way, without having a revolutionary organization that would appeal to them. The fact that so many French Muslims find themselves forced into the arms of a group like Al-Qaeda (which is the group that the attackers apparently associated with, not ISIS) is a crushing indictment of the French left, which has either equivocated or fully supported French imperialism's aggression, most recently in Mali and the Central African Republic.

The other one will probably be that while Ernst vom Rath was a Nazi diplomat, those who were killed in the attack were journalists and caricaturists. To answer that argument, let me put into perspective what sort of journalists we are talking about:

This is the sort of "satire" that Charlie Hebdo is known for. With a few details changed - as one caricature shows, not that many - these caricatures would not be out of place in Der Stürmer. Leftists who appeal to international law and other such bourgeois institutions would do well to recall that Julius Streicher himself was rightly accused of crimes against humanity for his role as a propagandist for the extermination of the Jews and German aggression:

"... For his 25 years of speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as 'Jew-Baiter Number One.' In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism, and incited the German people to active persecution. ... Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity."

And what are the people who produced the above caricatures but little Julius Streichers?

I do not support the attack. I think it will backfire, and I think people who, as Trotsky said, are capable of "sacrificing their own lives if need be" would be better saved for the work of building a revolutionary party to overthrow class society. At any rate, Communist revolutionaries would not behave this way. But when the official communists, socialists and other leftists look the way they are, who can be at all surprised that hatred of imperialist racists is manifested in this way?

Yehuda Stern for President!

Yes yes, I know what you're thinking.

On the one hand, there's the purists (and don't you hate those): Israel is a Zionist, capitalist, imperialist state! Even if you could become its head of state, why would you ever do that? How can you want to be a leading figure of a country which is so vile in your eyes? You would be corrupted, you would have to justify the most terrible crimes against humanity for a living, and you would end up not changing anything, seeing as how Presidents are merely ceremonial figureheads.

To these people I say: you are absolutely right. But I dunno, it really sounds like easy money.

More importantly, there's also the pessimists: there's no chance in hell someone like you could ever become President of Israel! First of all, you support having a Palestinian workers' state from the river to the sea, which kinda leaves Israel's existence in question. Plus, nobody likes you and even fewer people know you exist. What makes you think you have any chance of becoming President of a country where you refer to most people through the use of pejoratives?

Ah, but here you are wrong, my friends. Given recent developments, I think I have every chance to win the support of many, many people in this country. Indeed, given recent developments, I anticipate that by 2019, I will become the beloved President of this not-so-great not-really-a-nation. 

Why is that? Well, as you may have heard by now, recently our dear President Rivlin gave a speech in Kafr Qasim apologizing for the many wrongs done to the Palestinian people by the Zionist state, including the notorious Kafr Qasim massacre, in which 49 Palestinian citizens were murdered by Zionist savages with all the humane spirit of the Einsatzgruppen, a mere 11 years after the Jewish holocaust. Actually, that might be overselling it. In reality, Rivlin paid some lip service to equality, talking about how maybe Israeli Arabs suffered from discrimination at certain points and he just might do something about it one day, by god. I won't hold my breath, seeing as how this is the man who supported the mass murder of over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza just a few months back and has capitulated to hardline orthodox Rabbis on several issues - most notably, women's rights and the attitude to non-orthodox Jews - but that's not the point.

 The point is that the things Rivlin says are so well-received by people from the left, it's just crazy. All it took was for a rather hardline Zionist politician to say a few things about equality, and just like that, an entire army of useful idiots from the Israeli left has dedicated itself to proclaiming Rivlin a great democrat, a true leader and the Messiah, all rolled into one. Things really came to a head in this Haaretz article, where Rivlin is proclaimed "Israel's one-state president" (one Jewish state, it should be said, but who cares? Palestinian self-determination, Palestinian self-shmetermination!), and - not only that - a "lone voice against anti-Arab racism".

Well, fuck you. Lone voice? I don't know if you're noticing, but there are quite a few voices against anti-Arab racism - all of those Arab activists (and also people just walking down the street) who are getting murdered and beaten by Zionist police and military on a daily basis! But don't remind the Zionist liberals about that. Arabs are to neither be seen nor heard. They are to accept our lofty ideals of equality at face value and otherwise remove themselves from our presence.  Even among Jews, he is hardly a "lone voice". In fact, during the summer, many Jewish leftists got beaten up by fascist thugs and police for opposing the mass murder which Rivlin supported enthusiastically.

But I'm getting angry again. My apologies. The point is: if Rivlin can get so much support for his pretty moderate views on equality, imagine how enthusiastically the left would accept me! I'm practically a shoe-in.

But now I'm getting a really scary thought. What if - and this is just a thought - what if Israeli leftists don't really want someone who is honest in opposing racism? What if - again, just a thought - all they care about is having someone up there who can talk like a liberal, without really changing anything? Someone who can defend their privileges, but not in a way that would make them feel uncomfortable, that would make them feel weak and exposed in the face of the oppressed masses on the one hand and the reactionary mob on the other? What if all they are looking for is a Christ-figure, to suffer for their sins, to cleanse their souls, so they could put his image in their houses of worship, to put him on a pedestal, an empty idol to distract them from their own emptiness?

Nah. I think I'm good.

A Plague on Both Your Houses: the dead-end of inter-Jewish struggles in Israel - An Introduction / Nationalism in the service of Zionism, and a clarification

It's been a while since the last act of mass-murder in Gaza, and in this time I realized that although it was important to talk about the Zionist extreme-right and its ties to the state, there are some people who got off easy. The attacks on the left from the government and the right-wing were to be expected, but there will always be people who are, for some reason, associated with the left, and yet their only function seems to be to bash leftists in the media and thus implicitly justify persecution and violence towards them. There are plenty of examples: they are the Ari Shavits, Ben-Dror Yeminis and Christopher Hitchens(es?) of our world, bravely fighting those who everyone else dares to fight, speaking lies to the powerless, voices of those who already have plenty of ways of making their voices heard.

For the most part, these people are shunned by leftists, for obvious reasons. Yet the rotten, opportunistic and in general inept Israeli left still mostly identifies with one of the more prominent and more progressive-sounding people in this category, Israeli feminist and Mizrahi activist Ortal Ben-Dayan. During the massacre in Gaza, Ben-Dayan did not find the time to right anything against the horrors committed by the Zionist army against Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank (although she did condemn the murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair, which makes her a great humanist). She did, however, find the time to write a vicious article in right-wing rag Maariv, attacking leftists who protested against the massacre for being Ashkenazi elitist members of a "members-only club" whose "desire to separate themselves from the... masses is stronger than their desire to change society" and who "turn their backs on Israeli society and their faces to the European community... whose approval they desperately need". In other words, under the cover of opposition to the very real oppression of women and of Mizrahim, Ben-Dayan parroted the government and media line with regards to the protesters, rhetoric and all.

It should be said that Ben-Dayan is absolutely right when she accuses the Israeli left of being mostly Asheknazi and elitist, deeply racist, middle-class, full of prejudice and woefully ineffective. And yet the Shavits, the Yeminis, the Hitchenses (that still doesn't look right) and Ben-Dayans always have some valid underlying point when they criticize the left. We live in a world where there is no genuine revolutionary workers' organization, and the left, as a result, is overwhelmingly dominated by petit-bourgeois elements, who bring into the movement all of their classes' prejudices. It is very easy to find faults in the left - I have indulged in that activity every now and then - but when you only condemn from the reactionary crowd and never find the occasion to show solidarity, to commend flawed organizations and individuals for their bravery, to defend them in those instances from attacks from the reactionaries, then you are many things - a provocateur, a useful idiot, and some would say, a traitor - but you're not any sort of leftist or progressive. It should also be said that the vast majority of the Ashkenazim supported Israel's massacre and would stand behind Ben-Dayan's words.

This is not the first time Ben-Dayan joins a reactionary campaign under the guise of opposing racist oppression. She has also been vocal in her support of measures to remove African laborers and asylum seekers from the neighborhoods of southern Tel-Aviv. When the concentration camp Holot was finally closed, she said that she will do anything to physically prevent Africans from returning to southern Tel-Aviv, because the people there are "collapsing under the [white man's?] burden". Which burden? Ben-Dayan probably knows the statistic that says that Africans commit less crimes than the rest of the population. Is the burden simply having African people living near you?

Ben-Dayan often shares stories of rape and sexual assault that are ignored in the media, a very important act. However, she consistently identifies attackers as Eritreans or Sudanese when that is the case. Not so much when Jews commit the same crimes.

There is an important difference between Ben-Dayan and the other people I mentioned: Ben-Dayan is honest. She is not a bought and paid for journalist, who cynically makes money on the backs of those who are out there fighting. She is a real activist and organizer who does many important things. How, then, does she fall into the same pattern as the hired guns?

Simple. Ben-Dayan, while a Mizrahi woman, is also an Israeli Jew. She lives in a country which gives her significant privileges for that fact alone. Her struggles, as a result, remain within the confines of Zionism: there may be Arab women who join them, and she certainly does not personally hate Arabs, but she refuses to break with Zionism and its racist privilege. As a result, her struggles will always eventually be turned against non-Jews, both Palestinians and Africans. This is the way it has always been in this country - we've seen the same most recently during the 2011 movement - and the way it will always be, until Jewish workers break with Zionism and join the Palestinian struggle against all forms of oppression.

In her Maariv article, Ben-Dayan contrasts the elitist left to the right-wing, which "sees itself as an organic and inseparable part of the Israeli public". Leaving aside the fact that Ben-Dayan buys into the false lofty (and, one should say, equally elitist) self-image of the right, her (false) assertion that the chance to discuss "Kahanism's takeover of the Likud and its effect on the Israeli political map" is worth discussion. As we have seen, when it comes right down to it, the difference between the Kahanists, the Likud and Ortal Ben-Dayan remains cosmetic at best. Some say, some do, but all work toward the same goal and end up serving the same masters, despite their best intentions.

Speaking of which...

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I've had some experience with anti-Zionists who believe that Palestinians should reject any cooperation, or even conversation, with Israeli anti-Zionist activists. I have no difficulty understanding why, and if you do, try talking to an Israeli leftist yourself sometime. Chances are you will be met with all sorts of hand wringing and equivocation when it comes to Palestinian rights, Jewish racial privilege and even the question of one or two states. Even I, at times, faced the urge to completely write off all possibility of Israeli activists helping the Palestinian struggle in any way. One of the things that helped me come to a better understanding of how these activists should behave is Linah Alsaafin's excellent article, How obsession with "nonviolence" harms the Palestinian cause, especially the part under "Israeli activists should focus on changing their own society":

Israeli activists must work within their own societies and communities... To Palestinians, that would make the difference, not swamping weekly protests that don’t hold much credibility with Palestinians in the first place, and sometimes even outnumbering the Palestinian participants.

Complaints from some Israeli activists of how horrible they are treated and of the persecution they receive at the hands the army can come off as self-indulgent, especially when arrests or injuries of Israelis and internationals are already far more likely to be widely reported anyway than the routine and horrifying abuses suffered by Palestinians on a far larger scale.

Israeli activists sometimes despair about how pointless and ineffective their efforts are in creating more awareness about the realities of the occupation within their own communities but that should only spur them to be more creative in coming up with strategies to confront and challenge their society... 

No one is rejecting Israeli anti-Zionists, but simply calling yourself an anti-Zionist, and even coming to protests is not enough. Israeli activists who do so claim, for the most part, to understand the privileges they enjoy due to being white and Jewish in a colonial situation. But it is not always clear that they understand in practice how these privileges continue to manifest themselves in their interactions with Palestinians.

That really hits the nail on the head there, rightfully condemning the vast majority of Israeli leftists who in effect sabotage Palestinian struggles by attempting to drown out more radical Palestinian voices and trying to take the lead, while offering a way for them to really be helpful to the struggle. Recently, however, Alsaafin has changed her position. Of course, changing one's position is completely legitimate - I have done so every now and then - but it is always sad to see someone's positions take a sharp turn for the worse. I have in mind this article, written by Alsaafin and Budour Hassan.

I realize that Alsaafin and Hassan, much like the rest of the world, do not read what I write, and given their article, would not do so even had they been aware of my existence. But I am not addressing this post to them or to pro-Palestinian activists at large. I am writing here because I feel there are some misconceptions in place that I should address.

There are quite a few issues with the Alsaafin-Hassan article, but also, some very good points. Is it true that many Israeli leftists are fakers, attention-seekers and hypocrites? Of course. Probably the great majority. Should Palestinians reject SA-style Truth and Reconciliation? Certainly. Should Palestinians wait for Israelis to come around and support them? Of course not. But this is where the article's great weaknesses come in - the authors never manage to decide which Israeli leftists they are actually talking about, to the extent that they are talking about real people at all. The lack of sources doesn't help, either.

Indeed, despite the article's headline, it does nothing to "expose" Israeli radical leftists, and there is much to expose. With the exception of the Internationalist Socialist League, there is not a single Israeli left group which does not equivocate on the question of Palestinian liberation in some significant way. Second, I would dare anyone to show me a single example of an Israeli radical leftist who said anything like "Leftists are the new Palestinians". Even they are not so lacking in self-awareness. Third, and finally, there is the claim that the police is defending the leftists - a very popular myth among right-wingers - while for the most part cops actively aided the right-wing attackers.

That's where anyone who's been an activist for a while stops hearing Alsaafin and Hassan speaking, and starts hearing some of the people on the other side of the struggle:

It’s fair to say that dear anti-Zionists, your presence isn’t doing anyone any good. The Israeli society hates you, and the Palestinians don’t care about you. Do not go looking for sympathy, (or empathy, whatever you prefer)... Do not fool yourselves into thinking you are allies or partners for “peace” by virtue of a few token Palestinian acquaintances, because the fact of the matter remains glaringly obvious: you are too insignificant to make a difference...

These words could honestly have been written by any member of the government or any Hasbara troll in the world, especially the part later on, when leftists are told to leave Israel and focus on changing European public opinion. And that really is the bottom line. This rhetoric, falsely touted as some grand radicalism, only serves the Zionist government in its efforts to persecute anti-Zionist activists. It is at that point that nationalism comes full circle and starts serving the imperialist oppressor, as it always inevitably does in our epoch of capitalist decay.

But wait, you'll say - maybe this part is only meant for those equivocating, fake anti-Zionists that I've written about elsewhere? Maybe Alsaafin and Hassan realize that some Israeli anti-Zionists were born here and have nowhere to go, and their attitude towards them is different? Well - kinda, but not really:

With all that said, we are still capable of making the distinction between anti-Zionists who are third-generation settlers and anti-Zionist leftists who made Aliya... We also make the distinction between anti-Zionist Israeli settlers who live in Palestine by choice and those who want to leave but cannot afford it... And to be quite honest, we do not care about the Israeli society.

In other words, Alsaafin and Hassan are capable of making the distinction between different kinds of Israelis, but they just don't care to. To quote myself from the AbuKhalil letter, "...how can someone dedicated to Palestinian liberation not be interested in dividing the base of support of the Zionist state? What sort of general of an army would see divisions among the enemy and not be interested in devising ways to take advantage of them? From a pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective, I think this attitude is irresponsible. From an internationalist perspective, I think it’s even worse."

And yet, for all my criticisms, there is one point that I haven't really addressed, and that is the idea that Israeli leftists view themselves as noble martyrs for the relatively mild consequences that their activism has. This is very true, and to separate myself from such people, let me make a few things very clear: all that I do - to the extent that I do anything, which is not much - I do for me. I do not oppose Zionism for the Palestinians. I do not oppose patriarchy for women. I do not oppose homophobia for LGBTQ people. My opposition to the oppression of others has nothing to do with struggling for or on behalf of the oppressed. To the extent that I have friends and family who suffer from these forms of oppression, I fight for them too. But that's the point: it's all for me. I live in a society I hate and I support those struggles whose victory will help undo it.

So there is no need to moralize me on wanting to fight in the name of others, for others, or instead of others, and there is no point in lecturing me on my privilege. Nor is there really any point to tell me to go live somewhere to help the Palestinian struggle, in as much as I want the Palestinian struggle to win so I can truly live here. I was born here, my family's here, my friends are here, and so, I'm staying right here. The only people who have any real ability of kicking me out of here right now are the Zionist government, and they're not having a lot of luck so far.

*"Blogger" seems like a bit much when you blog only had four posts in it, one of them being a translation of another person's work.

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And in the end you see that beyond all the ideologies, beyond all the rhetoric, fancy titles and bloated self-images, enemies are enemies, allies are allies, and the rest is meaningless.