[lbo-talk] Benny Morris

[Travis Fast]

On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 14:52, Jim Farmelant wrote:
> On 11 Jan 2004 14:07:30 -0500 Travis Fast <tfast at yorku.ca> writes:
> > On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 13:31, Dennis Perrin wrote:
> > > > What that shows is that Benny Morris is at heart a rather old
> > > > fashion Labor Zionist.  Years ago, it was not uncommon
> > > > for Labor Zionists, at least privately,  to justify their 
> > treatment of
> > > > the
> > > > Palestinians, in language similar to Morris's.  Israel was
> > > > said to represent a a more advanced social formation
> > > > (i.e. a socialist democracy) which therefore had the
> > > > right to to use whatever means necessary for prevailing
> > > > over the less advanced , reactionary social formations like the
> > > > feudal monarchies of the Arab states.
> > > 
> > > > Jim F.
> > > 
> > > How in essence is this different from what the Bolshies did to 
> > peasants and
> > > workers who didn't agree with them? Weren't they guided by 
> > Superior Theory
> > > and Logic (as well as having Dame History on the arm), something 
> > that the
> > > backward, reactionary peasant class could only comprehend at 
> > gunpoint? Or
> > > are certain types of political elitism *truly* in the interests of 
> > humanity
> > > as a whole?
> > > 
> > > DP
> > > 
> > 
> > Interesting how a a thread that began with a discussion of Benny
> > Morris's unapologetic Zionist nationalism has turned into a forum 
> > for
> > everyone to purge and pillage the left of and for its past sins.
> 
> I think that is because Morris does come out of a political
> tradition, Labor Zionism, which has always regarded itself
> as being left-wing.  And the fact is, there is considerable
> precedent within socialist history, for the type of reasoning
> that Morris invokes for justifying Israeli treatment of the
> Palestinians.  The fact is that there is an element of
> social Darwinist type thinking within the socialist
> and Marxist traditions (which in part stems
> from the fact that peole like Kautsky and Plekhanov
> had been disciples of Darwin and Spencer before
> their becoming Marxists).
> 
> And since DP has cited the Boshies for us, it is interesting
> to note that back in the 1930s and 1940s, the Labor
> Zionists were debating the merits of the "transfer" of
> Palestinian Arabs, some of them cited the example
> of Comrade Stalin's "transfer" of the Crimean Tartars
> in order to justify the "progressiveness: of such a
> policy.  For that matter, David Ben Gurion back in
> the 1920s and 1930s was in the habit of invoking
> the names of Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin
> in public speeches.

Sure, and the same forms of legitimation can be seen in the rhetoric
legitimizing colonization. That is the point.  Regardless of the
rhetorical cover being invoked these are very different political
projects and problems.  That is, the Bolshevik attack on some peasants
and workers was not about legitimating the expansion of colonial rule it
was rather about consolidating the "revolution".  The rhetorical troupes
used to legitimate it by particular actors is beside the point.  Had
social Darwinism not existed other rhetorical troupes would have been
found to draw upon.  Morris was first and foremost a Zionist nationalist
and socialism, as for many who were drawn to labour, seemed to
articulate the right social structure for a Jewish state.  Part of the
slide in the power of labour in Israel, I would argue, has to do with
the defection of a chunk of its supporters from socialism but not from
Zionist nationalism as socialism became viewed as no longer the
appropriate (practicable) form of social relations for a contemporary
Jewish state.

Travis


> > I wonder if I started with an observation about Stalin's paranoia 
> > and
> > insularity if we would pull the thread all the way to the Bush white
> > house in the space of three posts.
> > 
> > In any case it would be an equally absurd equivocation.
> > 
> > Travis 
> > 
> > 
> > > 
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> > > 
> > 
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> 
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