Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 17:23:53 +0200
From: "Israel Shamir" <shamir at home.se> Subject: The Marxists and the Lobby, by Israel Shamir
The Marxists and the Lobby
By Israel Shamir
When an author and an editor of a left-wing magazine repeats word-perfect the last speech of Ashcroft at ADL New York, it can't but cause some eyebrow twitching. That is the case with recent condemnation of 'antisemitism' by Nat Weinstein[1] http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sum_03/sum_03_08.html on pages of The Socialist Viewpoint, a high-quality magazine consistently supporting democracy in Palestine and end to the Jewish apartheid state.
What is worse, Weinstein's style and rhetoric are those of Ashcroft and of Abe Foxman, as well. Weinstein writes: "Buchanan's insinuations of a Jewish conspiracy in the service of Israel echo a similar claim that lay at the heart of Adolph Hitler's brand of fascism." However, an open Jewish 'conspiracy' of supporting Israel is a hard fact, and it is expressed by almost every Jewish newspaper by slogan 'Jews stand steadfast behind Israel' . This slogan is not an empty word: recent survey shows 86% of the US Jews support Israel. In a recent discussion on the Web, Jeff Blankfort, a consistent antizionist, made a sober conclusion: "the distinction that we are always careful to make between being Jewish and being Zionist is essentially deceptive and that while all Jews are not Zionists, the organized Jewish communities throughout the world, despite whatever differences they may have, are totally behind the Zionist project. To pretend that these organizations do not speak for the overall Jewish community, one, that without any doubt, supports Israel as a Jewish state, is illusory."
Weinstein creates 'guilt by association' as he calls explicit words of Buchanan 'insinuations echoing Adolf Hitler'. However, 'guilt by association ' is a double-edged weapon, as he himself echoes Abe Foxman, Ashcroft and Bush. That is why let us deal with the question properly
Weinstein writes: "claim that the "Jewish Lobby"-a small group of pro-Zionist Jews-could dictate foreign or domestic policy to the hard- nosed, quintessentially-pragmatic American capitalist class, is absurd. In fact, those that make such a charge are either simple-minded fools or unmitigated anti-Semitic scoundrels."
It is an arrogant statement, for this opinion is universally shared by billions of people outside of the US, and by many Americans as well, with one correction: the Jewish Lobby is not a 'small group of pro-Zionist Jews' but an extremely powerful group of billionaires, media lords, and their supporters in the left and the right, from the New York Times to the Nation, from Wolfowitz of Pentagon to Rabbi Lerner of Tikkun. (This subject is covered in Fiesta of St Fermin, by Israel Shamir). 'Hard-nosed American capitalists' are indeed "quintessentially-pragmatic", and they understand what is good for them personally. That is why even the dedicated antisemite Henry Ford preferred to scrap his book when he had met with the irresistible force of Jewish boycott. That is why the American parliamentarians are united in their support of Israel, as it was recently confirmed by the Senate vote 89 to 4 against Syria. The Iraqi war was a disaster from the point of view of American capitalism: as it was predicted, it brought them no oil, no weaponry orders, no new friends; but the capitalists are not idealists Weinstein presupposes: they know that their stand against Israel would ruin them personally, and they disregard 'the general interest of capitalist class'.
Indeed, Buchanan and La Rouche (censured by Weinstein) represent the true interests of the American capitalists (or 'the middle class' in usual terms) when they fight the Jewish Lobby. They aren't natural allies for the Left, but not less unlikely than Foxman and Ashcroft. Weinstein tries to adhere the label of racist, Nazi and fascist to La Rouche; but the label does not stick. Instead of expressing his approval, Weinstein is visibly upset that La Rouche is not a racist: "Rather than demonizing African Americans, La Rouche lays claim to the heritage of Martin Luther King and . established a relationship with the Black nationalist Nation of Islam."
Weinstein is hard to please: La Rouche 'uses anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist' slogans, so he's got to be a fascist (!). La Rouche 'does not attack Jews, communists and striking workers', so he is a crypto-fascist. La Rouche 'learned from Trotsky', so he is a perverted fascist.
It reminded me a short piece by Hanoch Levine, our best playwright:
"The Military Governor's Standing Orders for soldiers in Occupied territories:
A nervous pedestrian is a suspected Arab terrorist.
A calm pedestrian is a suspected cold-blooded Arab terrorist.
A looking upwards pedestrian is a suspected religious Arab terrorist.
A looking downwards pedestrian is a suspected shy Arab terrorist.
A pedestrian whose eyes are shut is a suspected sleeping Arab terrorist.
A stay-at-home person is a suspected sick Arab terrorist.
The above-mentioned suspects should be arrested, and after a warning shot, taken to the morgue"
Indeed, Weinstein does not produce a single proof of La Rouche's 'fascism', or his similarity to Hitler and Mussolini. His true objection to La Rouche and Buchanan is based on one thing, namely on their anti-Jewish rhetoric. He comes clear in following lines:
'The fascists will say that it was the Jews who were the masterminds behind American imperialism's 55-year-long role of creating, financing and arming the Zionist state of Israel. That's why those who profess opposition to Zionism are either foolish or anti-Semitic when they charge the so-called "Jewish lobby" with dictating American foreign policy.'
But we, the friends of Palestine, Jeff Blankfort, Michael Neumann, Elias Davidsson, Stan Heller, Norm Finkelstein, David Hirst, Mazin Qumsiyeh and many, many others (surely not racist antisemites) are not more foolish than Weinstein. We are just honest folk and we say what we think is true. For us, it is more important to stop today the Israeli-American aggression in the Middle East than to worry for 'the Jews' and their position tomorrow, for truth and sincerity is the best defence against forthcoming 'fascists'.
2
Indeed, should the Marxists, including The Socialist Viewpoint, support and protect 'the Jews' from the left? The Marxist view of the Jews was formed by Karl Marx, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky and Abram Leon. It is founded on rejection of the concept of 'the Jewish nation'. Lenin said[2]: 'this Zionist idea is absolutely false and essentially reactionary'. He quoted approvingly: "The modern Jew is a product of the unnatural selection to which his forebears were subjected for nearly eighteen centuries." Abram Leon completed this view with his vision of 'people-class'. For him, the Jews were the original capitalists of pre-capitalist society; people who preferred to fulfil antisocial function of money-lenders and tax- collectors. Naturally, such a 'people-class' does not deserve our support.
But even if Weinstein considers 'the Jews' being a separate nation, it is still no reason to protect them. Lenin called for 'revolutionary war against contra-revolutionary nations'[3], and wrote in 1919: "If we fight [the US President] Wilson, and Wilson turns a small nation into his tool, we should explicitly fight this tool"[4]. Equally, Leon Trotsky denied any connection to the Jews and rejected appeals of the Jews.
Marxists are against RACIST antisemitism, but thankfully this plague is eradicated. Racist antisemitism should not be confused - not only with anti-Zionism, as Weinstein correctly notes, but with non-racist rejection of 'the Jews' elsewhere, as well. The Jewish Question of Marx and of Leon provides an example of such non-racist rejection.
Every Marxist knows of Marx's negative view of the Jews. 'Their God is money ', he wrote. Naturally, he was not a racist and believed that a person of Jewish origin (like he was) can break with the Jews. Usually such a break was formalised by baptism; Spinoza's break was formalised by nidui, the curse of the Jews, after the philosopher rejected Jewish world-view.
Would Weinstein defend Jews against Marx and Spinoza? But anti-Jewish idiom of Buchanan and La Rouche is equally non-racist. Both have numerous persons of Jewish origin on their staff and among their friends. But these people (like Trotsky, Marx or Spinoza) do not belong to Jewry. Moreover, they speak up against 'the Jews', thus encouraging other people of Jewish origin to break with this remnant of medieval past.
In similar way, Prince of Orleans took a name of Phillip Egalite and rejected his ties with aristocracy. If Weinstein thinks that Foxman, Friedman and Sulzberger made an anti-Jewish approach popular in the US, he should call upon the American Marxists to embrace these policies and lead them in ideological non-racist direction. For otherwise his attempts to protect them will backfire. The Americans will say that Jews from Foxman to Weinstein speak in one voice and then, the dangerous racist antisemitism can come back - on the ruins of the Marxist Left.
Moreover, Weinstein's fight against antisemitism objectively works against the declared goals of the Left. The US Jews made their covenant with the American ruling class. They are an integral part of the American elite, the Brahmins to the WASP Kshatriya warrior caste. The Left, and in particular the Marxist Left, strives to overthrow the ruling classes and create the society of equality. There is no way to achieve it without a concerted anti-Jewish effort. If the Brahmins will be separated from the Kshatriya, Jews from the WASPs, the dawn of equality will draw closer. 'Sow discord among your enemies', - this is the first rule in the Chinese manual, The Art of War. Instead of proclaiming unity of the Jews with the rest of the ruling classes, the Left should promote strife among them. The sad developments in Palestine, the quagmire of the Iraqi War provide an opportunity for the Left. From this point of view, Lyndon La Rouche the Democrat and Buchanan the Republican should be supported in their fight against the Jewish Lobby.
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[1] July/August 2003 . Vol 3, No. 7 . Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Fascism By Nat Weinstein
[2] in his polemics with the Bund
[3] Collapse of the II International (1915)
[4] Speech at 8th congress of the Russian Communist Party.
-- Michael Pugliese
There were basically three forms of totalitarianism.... One was the various kinds of Fascism, the other was Bolshevism, and a third was corporate capitalism. Two are gone." -- Noam Chomsky
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