Bogus "anti-Zionism" deconstructed
We have, of course, repeatedly pointed out that—however much Zionists may propagandistically abuse the charge—anti-Semitism (veiled, barely veiled, or plain old blatant) really is evidenced in much ostensibly "leftist" discourse these days. One alarmingly common fallacy probably falls into the "barely veiled" category: When "Zionism" is blamed for the ills of the global capitalist system, you know the writer is taking his cue from the Protocols—even if he is ostensibly coming from the "left." We most recently had to call out supporters of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez for engaging in this idiotic barbarism. Pointing this out is not a defense of Zionism.
Now, we wish we could have been at this event, instead of just getting it through the perhaps slightly distorted lens of The Forward of May 25. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research held a conference at New York's Center for Jewish History entitled "Jews and the Left." Some of the speakers apparently touched on precisely the question of bogus anti-Zionism. Yet, we fear (or, actually, we hope) that The Forward is distorting their views. From the article:
One of the most intriguing aspects of the conference was the extent to which the participants who self-identify with the left agreed with the view that it had indeed betrayed the Jewish state. Mitchell Cohen, professor of political science at Baruch College, established a distinction between anti-Zionism as legitimate protest of state actions and anti-Zionism as sublimated anti-Semitism, indicating that much of the current discourse falls into the latter category. Moishe Postone, professor of history at the University of Chicago, gave a Marxist critique of anti-Zionism, which, he explained, has become a "fetishized form of anti-capitalism," meaning that people attribute to Israel and Jews all the negative effects of capitalism. This, he made clear, is racism pure and simple, and a fundamental flaw in leftist theory and practice.
We certainly agree that that Zionism-is-to-blame-for-capitalism hogwash is "racism pure and simple." But we see it less as a "flaw in leftist theory and practice" than right-wing ideology creeping into the left, with contemporary "leftists" being too naive to notice. We haven't read the works of professors Cohen and Postone, but we hope they would dissent from The Forward's characterization of them as as agreeing that the left has "betrayed the Jewish state." By buying such hogwash, the left has betrayed rationalism, secularism, anti-racism and class analysis—all the things that the left has traditionally stood for. And things which are also fundamentally incompatible with the notion of a "Jewish state"! And the problem is not merely "state actions" (as if a "Jewish state"—that is, an explicitly ethno-supremacist state—could "act" benignly), but (yes) Zionism.
Bogus, evil, wacky "anti-Zionism" that masks (however crudely) anti-Semitism can only be truly opposed by a legitimate anti-Zionism, that understands what Zionism is: the ideology and program of Jewish colonization of historic Palestine. Otherwise, we just have a demoralizing contest between competing reactionary ideologies.
We will try to find time to bone up on the works of Cohen and Postone, and report back our findings here. Meanwhile, the esteemed professors are more than invited to weigh in...
About the Author
Bill Weinberg is an award-winning 25-year veteran journalist in the fields of human rights, indigenous peoples, ecology and war. He is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico, now available from Verso Books, and War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America (Zed Books, 1991).
Comments
Straw argument
This is an overstated, straw argument. It has little basis in fact within the broad contemporary Left. If Zionism is, as you state, a colonization project, it is also greatly informed historically by European colonial ideology, itself rooted in imperialist interests founded in the exigencies of capitalist expansionism. Zionism, colonialism, and capitalism are of course not the same thing (some early Zionists, for instance, claim to have been socialists--although they were also racist in their Eurocentric sense of superiority to indigenous Palestinians); however, these practices quickly became--and today remain--systemically intereffective. The pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. can neither be ignored nor denied, for prime example; to do so is itself antisemitic. Nor should one forget Theodor Herzl's support and recommendation for petit bourgeois settlement of Palestine as opposed to that backed by Rothschild or the "socialist" kibbutzniks. See the following article for a relevant analysis:
http://icmes.academia.edu/TerriGinsberg/Papers/1061518/The_Deployment_of...
Talk about "straw arguments"
How does any of that address what I said? Every word you wrote is irrelevant. Want to try again?
Money
The problem is a small group of humans decided the larger group of humans make the most "wealth" accumulation in labor capital.
The small group of humans are not any "religion," but indeed, the yoke of religion is what has been used since the beginning of being able to brainwash, and this conditioning was advanced in Pavlov's experimentation, to enslave the masses of humans for the few humans that decided to be more "elite."
Fast forward and the digital computer keystroke "monies," was basically a shadow power orchestrated in systems which are obvious: education, information, medical, religious, government, et Cetera. Bio-metric gulags now we can prove in the NO privacy for any individual living in the U.S., and globally.
Who and whom are in charge? Herein lies the rub. We must, every human in the cognitive seeking to undo the dissonance, expose the digital computer faux wealth because the cannibals have not changed since first roaming the planet.
Once a cannibal, always it appears. Thus, the cannibal class must be at long last on earth, taken into healing centers to cycle the time necessary for higher intelligence to prevail over computer digital faux wealth.