I would agree with Carrol's rule of thumb for 2001: the U.S. position on any national question is likely to be the position of the oppressors. This is because the U.S. is the head oppressor nation of the world "in charge", these days. Global colonialism has been centralized in the U.S. and its war machine and state department.
With respect to Palestine and Israel, has anyone mentioned that the Soviet Union, i.e. the Leninists, was the critical victor from WWII supporting the establishment of the state of Israel, as I understand it ? The SU had a better position than any of the imperialist nations. Leninists have since the beginning and consistently supported a two state solution in that land. Put that in your anti-Leninist pipe and smoke it.
My understanding would be that the characterization of Zionism as racism is not general but specific to a certain point in its history when the Israeli state fell into the hands of the imperialists as a tool, contra many of the legitimate yearnings for self-determination and national liberation which had constituted Zionism's history. I don't think the judgment of the overwhelming majority of the world's nations at the UN , the vast majority of them oppressed colonial nations, in voting for this proposition can just be dismissed and discounted. This is so despite the extraordinary tragedy of the German holocaust against the Jews which gave understandably desparate and emergency need to establish a state for self-preservation even ( and however) to the extent of trampling on the rights to self-determination and national liberation for the Palestinian people. It is quite tragic that the Israelis could not find a way to trust and ally with the Soviet Union (Leninism) which had b! een their ace boon coon ab initio ( not to mention liberator from the Nazis) instead of making a pact with the devil of imperialism.
Charles Brown
>>> sawicky at bellatlantic.net 07/29/01 04:58PM >>>
I wasn't trying to pick a fight on this.
I was partly agreeing with part of what
Leo said, regarding the difficulty of
sorting out why some on the left support
some nationalisms and not others.
If you want to say, following Carrol, that any nationalism supported by the U.S. should be opposed because of the U.S. role in the world, that is defensible, though I happen to disagree.
If, on the other hand, you support a particular nationalism on the grounds that peoples *in general* have a *right* to be free from foreign domination, then you are obliged to support all nationalisms, not just the ones the U.S. opposes.
To bring it closer to home, if I support Black nationalism on the grounds that African- Americans have a right to autonomous development, including self-segregation along the lines that Art McGee raised recently, then my support cannot be conditional on your autonomous development following particular lines congenial to me. If you support autonomy for others, you have to let go.
In the same vein, if we say that Palestinians have a right to self-determination, not because the U.S. opposes an independent Palestine, but because self-determination is a right, then Jews have a right to a state as well. Jews are no less a nation than Palestinians. This raises the huge problem of how two such states could co-exist, but that's a practical issue that doesn't cancel anyone's 'right' to self-determination, if we think there is such a right. (I do.)
mbs
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 4:22 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: RE: Anti-Zionism Is Racism
>>> sawicky at bellatlantic.net 07/28/01 05:02PM >>>
I have noted previously on PEN-L that some leninist support for nationalism is totally hypocritical, since it is premised entirely on opposition to the U.S. or Europe, not on any commitment to ideas of freedom or autonomy per se. But we don't have many leninists here on LBO, and perhaps none for whom my criticism applies.
((((((((((
CB: That sounds like a provocation here.
And I sure hope Michael gave you a reprimand when you said on PEN-L.