Doug Henwood wrote:
> Put a cork in the insults.
>
> Look, while I can't follow Angelus into his stateless place of pure
> communism, he does have a point about nationalism. In fact, Israeli
> policy really crystallizes in pure form a lot of the trouble with
> that doctrine (and it's no accident, is it, that Zionism arose along
> with a lot of other reactionary nationalisms in the 19th century?):
> the denial of divisions within the national body, and the creation of
> external enemies against which the nation is defined. While Israel
> may be an extreme case, there are plenty of other instances. I
> remember from my visit to Australia in 2001 the paranoia about Asians
> overrunning the old white country (even Greeks are racialized as
> dusky, no?) - even an anxiety about foreign invaders overwhelming
> native marine life documented on a sign at the Hobart waterfront. And
> the USA, too - we're full of anxieties about external threats, and
> proclaiming the rightness of the Good American. I can't think of a
> practical way to get beyond the nation-state, but it is pleasing to
> dream about it.
But what is different about the Zionist state is that it would not exist in its present form without the collusion first of the Brits and then of the U.S. In other words, its autonomous image is a chimera, an illusion, guaranteed by the protection and subsidy of the most powerful and militarized nation state on earth.
Joanna