[lbo-talk] Adam Hanieh, "Canadian Union Takes Important Step against Israeli Apartheid"

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Thu Jun 1 05:36:16 PDT 2006


On 5/31/06, Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm old school ultra-left, Pannekoek, Gorter, Korsch,
> with some Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Postone tossed
> in.

That's been a minor current of leftists in the world, but even within that minor current, your opinion about Israel/Palestine would have to be a minority (of one?).

I'd say that Edward Said was the truer heir of Adorno than you can be -- he lived Adorno's philosophy, while you read him:

<blockquote>"[Theodore] Adorno says that in the 20th century the idea of home has been superseded. I suppose part of my critique of Zionism is that it attaches too much importance to home. Saying, we need a home. And we'll do anything to get a home, even if it means making others homeless.

"Why do you think I'm so interested in the binational state? Because I want a rich fabric of some sort, which no one can fully comprehend, and no one can fully own. I never understood the idea of this is my place, and you are out. I do not appreciate going back to the origin, to the pure. I believe the major political and intellectual disasters were caused by reductive movements that tried to simplify and purify. That said, we have to plant tents or kibbutz or army and start from scratch.

"I don't believe in all that. I wouldn't want it for myself. Even if I were a Jew. I'd fight against it. And it won't last. Take it from me, Ari. Take my word for it. I'm older than you. It won't even be remembered."

You sound very Jewish.

"Of course. I'm the last Jewish intellectual. You don't know anyone else. All your other Jewish intellectuals are now suburban squires.
>From Amos Oz to all these people here in America. So I'm the last
one. The only true follower of Adorno. Let me put it this way: I'm a Jewish-Palestinian."

(Ari Shavit, "My Right of Return," An Interview with Edward Said, Ha'aretz, 18 August 2000)</blockquote>


> The day the NPD and other neo-Nazi formations started
> taking a position of aggressive support for the
> Palestinian cause was the day I had to rethink all my
> assumptions about this issue. The emergence of the
> "Nouvelle Droite" in France and Germany should have
> rendered "national liberation" obsolete for all
> thinking communists.

Japanese imperialists developed the rhetoric of anti-colonial imperialism much earlier than today's European far right did: see, for instance, Gerald Horne's _Race War: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire_, <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814736416/104-2506790-0825550?v=glance&n=283155>.

To this day, the Japanese far right, the sort that drive around trucks mounted with sound systems blasting propaganda and annoying passers-by, are fond of railing against American imperialism. In both Japan and Europe today, though, the far right that seeks to employ anti-imperialist rhetoric is only a minuscule current. The main problem is the center right and left (in power alone or together) who are overtly (like the LDP in Japan) or covertly (like the SDP) supportive of Washington.

On 5/31/06, Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The deaths of Palestinians under Israeli occupation is
> inconsequential compared to the number of people
> killed in Latin America and Africa as the result of
> the normal functioning of the capital relationship.

Comparing Palestinian deaths due to the Israeli occupation with deaths by capitalism in the whole continent of Africa and Latin America goes beyond comparing apples and oranges -- it's like comparing sesames and ostrich eggs.

BTW, where does Israeli settler colonialism end and normal capitalism begin? They are by now well integrated: Efraim Davidi, "The Sewing Factory in Gaza, the Administration in Tel-Aviv, and the Owners in New York: Israeli Industrialists' Strategy in the Global Supply Chain," <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/davidi180506.html>.

-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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