Jewish Israel is the key to its survival, not its end
By Ted Belman
Jerry Gordon writes Burg goes ballistic: paints Israel as “Zionist ghetto” because he said to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its endť. Others say the opposite, namely, that being Jewish is the key to its survival.
This is no small matter.
There is no question but that much demonization and slander of Israel has to do with it going against prevailing notions, except in the Muslim world, and insisting that it be a Jewish state first and multicultural second. Even in Israel this fight is waged by the left including the courts, media and academia. They support Israel as a state like any other state and argue it should be democratic first and Jewish second. In fact they agree with Burg.
I understand that this demonization is intended to bring about Israel’s destruction either conceptually or physically. It is not about the “poor Palestinians”ť or about civil rights.
But the Jewish left in Israel and the US have a different agenda. They really believe that there must be equality in both civil and political rights (although they also have an animus for religion in general and religious Jews in particular). A Jewish state flies in the face of this. It leaves Israel open to charges of racism. Furthermore, the left throughout the west, including the majority of Jews, continues to embrace multiculturalism. They are for dismantling their cultures on this alter and demanding Israel do the same.
Rabbi Andrew Davis, director of Arza, the Zionist wing of the Reform Movement, now the largest movement of Jews in North America underscores this
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“Now we need to move to the next level of Zionism, which is how to build a state of equality, justice and democracy.”
“Part of our Zionist agenda is not only to connect Reform Jews and Israel, but to impact Israeli society,”
“Our commitment to religious justice issues, to democracy, pluralism, are tremendously important values that need to be strengthened and supported more in Israeli society. Our aliya efforts are designed to put more troops on the ground to strengthen Israel in these ways.”
Sounds messianic doesn’t it. This is the religion of the Jewish left. They fight for the rights of others. For them this is what Judaism and being Jewish is all about.
Make no mistake about it, democracy and pluralism, will deny or sap the Jewish raison d’etre. It is easy to see how the principle of equality would hamstring Israel as a Jewish state.
We on the right fight for the opposite. We do not apologize for our culture but insist on it, both in America and in Israel. We believe that fighting for our culture and winning is necessary for our survival. We are also against discrimination and for equality but we believe that we have the right to protect our culture, to give it a favoured place in Israel and to advance the ingathering of the exiles. Judaism is more than universalism. If there is a conflict between being democratic and Jewish, so be it.
Previously I wrote two articles on the subject, It pays to be Jewish and Particularism Before Universalism
Recently the Supreme Court of Israel held that Israel can’t discriminate in allocating JNF land. If this decision is allowed to stand, where does it end. Does it mean that the Law of Return also falls to the same principle. If not why not? If Israel passed a law providing Arabs with financial incentives to emigrate, would the SC hold it to be discriminatory and require that it be offered to all citizens? In many western democracies, the laws of the land are sometimes trumped by the interests of national security. In Israel too. This concept must be extended to include the protection of Israel as a Jewish state.
On an aside I would point out that the JNF could have righted the situation regarding their land by cancelling the agreement with the ILA so that the JNF managed the land. The JNF is run by liberal Jews and it declined to do this. How sad and destructive.
One of the icons of the left is affirmative action which obviously denies equality. Affirmative action is seen as making up for years of discrimination and therefor worthy. If anyone or people are entitled to affirmative action, the Jews are. I look upon the Balfour Declaration as an act of affirmative action and the recognition of the State of Israel, after the Holocaust, as another act of affirmative action. In fact, the rationale for the creation of the Israel was the need to create a refuge for Jews in recognition of two thousand years of discrimination. Jews are entitled to this assistance or favouritism or protection whatever you may call it. We paid for it in blood.
Ted
You write: “We on the right fight for the opposite. We do not apologize for our culture but insist upon it, both in America and in Israel. We beleive that fighting for our culture and winning is necessary for our survival.”
This is very well spoken!! If we are going to continue with the current globalist/multicultural system, our culture MUST be respected. The problem is American and Western elites have, for the most part, never really believed in our culture enough to actually fight for it.
Multiculturalism. as practiced by the left, has come to mean that all cultures are to be respected except for the Judeo-Christian values that made Western culture great. As for Western culture, according to them it is to be denigrated.
In some instances Western business elites have compromised Western culture in order to make trade deals with non-Western nations. In other words, our cultural values have been compromised in order to enhance some people’s profit margin.
If we are to insist on the preservation of Western culture, there could be some economic costs, at least in the short to mid term, howeer, long range fighting for the preservation of our culture is the best thing we can do.
In spite of what it may cost us, in America, Israel, and in the West to preserve our culture we must do it. Doing that which is right is seldom easy, however, in the long range doing what is right is going to yield the best results.
There is nothing more precious than our Judeo-Christian culture. Fighting to preserve it truly is the key to the survival of our civilization.
Apologies for this being out of context…
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Burg is so out of touch with mainstream Israel,even out of touch with most who consider themselves on our political left. He has placed himself outside of Israel, outside of all but the most viral and vile Jewish self haters.This is his perogitive and choice and it his his alone. From ancient times till the present we have had our share of great Jews and our good share of Avram Burgs. The problem for us with Burg and his apparent desire to sell his book by creating controversy around it and himself is the effect it will have when all the anti semites in the world start to use Burg and his book as a weapon against Israel and world Jewery.Look for burg to be seen on BBC
The Israeli left or the Israeli wrong as I dubbed them in another post (though I will leave that for now), for so long as they do not stray from the general about believing in the equal and political rights of a nation’s people, both the left and the right are in agreement.
It is going to the particular from the general that the left and the right part company.
In seeking to have Israel identify herself as a state like any other state, the left implictly means like any other Western state, but still the left ignores a number of critical facts and circumstances or denies their significance, xome of which are:
1. While Western states have recharacterized themselves as democratic nations, the fact is that the predominant religion and culture is Christian. Everyone knows that. In particular in America, Christianity holds great sway in many aspects and on many levels of American society.
2. Jews, not be virtue of genetics, but by virtue of how they have been historically seen, related to and treated, are not like any other people in this world. If the Jews want to be just like the rest of the world, there are far too many, Christian, Muslim and other anti-semites in this world who are not going to let Jews be or even think that they are like the rest of the world.
3. There are only 14 million Jews in the world, 5 million of whom are in Israel. The state of Israel coming into being was the culmination of many centuries of Jewish prayer, “Next year in Jerusalem” and similar such prayers.
With only 14 million Jews left, almost any loss, even a small one is a blow to Judaism whereas 2.6 billion Christians and 1.4 billion Muslims would not even notice the loss of 14 million of there adherents.
The State of Israel as a state for the Jewish people is not just a home for the Jews, it is an essential symbol and mark of identity of Judaism, Jewish culutre, Jewish heritage and a Jewish future
that binds Israelis and diaspora Jews together;
4. Some Muslim states have a handful of Jews, they would sooner be rid of and most Muslim states have no Jews, either by virtue of their laws, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Jordan or both the governments and the people have made it be known that no Jews are allowed.
The Left seems oblivious that the world that Israel is in, is not just comprised of Western nations. Further they are oblivious to the significance that Israel is a tiny state comprising a speck on the map that shows the Islamic crescent spreading from Africa through the Middle East and all the way to Pakistan.
Little Israel is surrounded by Muslim neighbors who have tried 4 times in open wars to erase Israel from the map. Now, not that the left has noticed, those Muslim neighbors are using the Palestinians to try to achieve what they couldn’t achieve. Even with this new strategy for the elimination of Israel, that strategy could change in the blink of an eye if the Arabs suddenly decided to ally in a war with Israel or Iran which is threatening to do just that, acts towards that end and the Arabs join Iran in one more genocidal effort.
If the whole world was Democratic and Judeo-Christian culturally based, then maybe and that is a big maybe Jews could feel more secure in allowing their nation to be called a nation of her people without special status or identity as being a Jewish state. That could however only be so for so long as the Jews comprised the very substantial majority and like Western democratic nations today, they remained self assured as to their majority Jewish culture and did not feel the need to be called a Jewish nation and were not threatened by identifying themselves as a democratic nation.
The left simply has been unable or unwilling to wake up from its ideological stupor to see any of the foregoing.
Experience has shown that the left is impervious to objective reality and logical reasoned argument based on facts. Indeed they remain willfully blind to any fact or circumstance that does not fit their theoretical realities.
Perhaps the right should realize that talking to the left is like talking to the wall. The new strategy to best the left perhaps is to render them irrelevant. I will leave that task to those best and brightest to handle.
I want to thank you all for your valuable comments. I have amended the article to comment Zionism and affirmative action.
Ted, I agree with your article as well as the two you link above regarding Israel.
Israel should be a Jewish state under the authority of Torah. The world would see a beacon of light. Where justice and mercy would reign. This is my daily prayer for Israel that all Israel will commit to Torah and God will bless and protect all Jews in the world. There will be a day when Israel becomes a theocracy, when the Mashiach arrives.
Ted, I can hear the passion in your writing, because this is morally right. Jews are entitled because “GOD SAID, you will have assistance or favoritism or protection. It was by Devine decree that you have the birthrite. And it was by HIS hand that Jews were brought back into the land.
It is my opinion that by Israel Jews embracing their Jewish heritage and culture they are holding their heads high. Not ashamed to be the children of the Living God. The world will spit and gnash their teeth but it is HaShem who watches over and protects his children. HaShem says “Never Again”.
Bill, I just can’t let this quote slide by without comment.
The muslims would cheer the loss of 14 million as martyrs and especially so if they died trying to kill Jews. Christians on the other hand are pro-life. We consider life to be sacred. The loss of 14 million would be noticed and mourned.
Renee, point taken. Nonetheless Christianity would not be the least imperiled by such a loss of their flock.
Ted,
I largely agree with what you wrote, with the following reservation: affirmative action is the granting of a privilege; what the Jews got upon the rebirth of Israel was a recognition of rights. And so, I do not believe the Jews requested or got any special grant through affirmative action. This distinction is quite apparent in the Third Preamble of the Mandate of Palestine:
The other issue that seems to irritate the Left is that Israel is a nation-state while their so-called “progressive” views have all but banned nation-states and have been relentless in turning them into multicultural states. This is what happened in Europe after WWII, perhaps to erase their bloody history of competing nationalisms. But what the Left does not realize is their shameless selectivity in condemning Israel while they all support artificially created states in Africa.
Avraham Burg is just one despicable example of Jewish anti-Zionism (self-rejection of one’s political aspirations). He is in the dubious company of academics like Ilan Pappe and journalists like Gideon Levy and his Haaretz clique. I suggest that none of these people have got a grasp on Zionism and its compatibility with democracy (please see “Jews: a People, a Nation, a State” )
The Avrom Burg stunt in al-Haaretz had strange properties. It appeared three days ago in three different but simultaneous “interviews”. The longest and most revealing of them was taken off yesterday morning. It contained Burg’s Euro-Theology where he presents the European Union as the fulfilment of a Biblical promise. It is obvious from what he says that Burg is severely mentally disturbed. The shame is that the imams of al-Haaretz take advantage of his condition and exploit it politically and commercially to what they believe is their advantage.
Post-Zionism:
The world is obsessed with Israel. There is no country so small with so few people and so little economic impact that generates so much interest. So obviously, if it has no real material value, it must all be about symbolism. And for all of recorded human history, no people have held as much per-capita symbolic value as the Jews.
And today, Israel has come to represent the Jews in the eyes of the world (except for the “infinitely powerful Jewish lobby in America” that now apparently controls the world as the latest incarnation of the “Elders of Zion”, the International Communists” and the “Rothschilds and Jewish bankers”).
Accordingly, Mr. Burg and the evolution of his views have great symbolic value (at least at this moment). The left points out that he wears a skullcap (and isn’t that a horrible word with anti-Semitic connotations?). Their implication is that at least one “religious” Jew has come to see the leftist truth that Israel is a racist-colonialist entity because it is composed of reactionary white Europeans who still hold to the outdated notions of individual nations and particularistic religion.
Mr. Burg’s “evolution” to post-Zionism now brings him into the leftist view that Israel is illegitimate because there is no longer any place in the leftist universe for particularistic nations (and most of all if they are composed of white people who “should know better”.) He uses as his model the European Union, where the countries that started out as racist white guys have now agreed to give up their national sovereignties and form a United States of Europe. And to atone for their sin of racism, they have voluntarily stopped having children, and are inviting all the third world countries to emigrate there and permanently dilute out the racist white element.
Ironically, his rejection of Israel’s legitimacy on leftist racist grounds brings him in line with ultra-orthodox rejection of Israel’s legitimacy on religious grounds. The ultra-orthodox have been poisoned by Christian theology. They hold that when the Jews last lived in Israel 2,000 years ago, their sins accumulated to such a point that God had no choice but to punish them by sending them into permanent exile, where they are doomed to wait in gloom and despair in neverending atonement for their sins until God finally relents and sends the Davidic messiah to miraculously save them.
So both Mr. Burg and the ultra-orthodox are in favor of ending Israel and returning to the Disapora model, where Jews live in groups in countries where they have no definite power, as one group among other groups, all of which are theoretically politically equal.
I’ve examined these arguments and obviously reject them. I have decided that the Jewish return to Israel after 2,000 years is a divinely inspired miracle. I reject the leftist view that all values in this world are relative. I hold that there are absolute values, and they include Torah and the presence of a Torah State in the Land of Israel.
The group that shares this view with me are the National Religious Party in Israel. They originally had a large right wing and a small left wing. Mr. Burg started out in the left wing. Like all left wingers, their rejection of the legitimacy of nationalism has led him to reject Israel and become one more self-hating Jew.
1. If you accept the idea that God created the universe and that the culmination of this creation was the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai to the Jewish nation, then your decisions become clearer.
2. If you are a rightist who doesn’t believe in God, but instead clings to the idea of Jewish nationalism and ethnic Jewish culture, I doubt you will survive in the long run.
3. If you are a Jewish leftist, you are already lost to the Jewish people. This is no real loss, except for the tendency of new converts to turn on their origins so hatefully, and for Jewish leftists and post-Zionist Israelis to be so virulent in their demand for the destruction of Israel.
Here’s a case in point as reported by JPOST today.
“Rabbi Andrew Davis, director of Arza, the Zionist wing of the Reform Movement, now the largest movement of Jews in North America said
“Now we need to move to the next level of Zionism, which is how to build a state of equality, justice and democracy.”
Though only a small percentage of North American aliya comes out of the Reform Movement, Davis is hoping Reform Jews, with their commitment to religious pluralism, will be part of the process of shaping a future Israel.
And while no one is expecting the numbers of Reform olim to drastically rise in the next few years, noticeable changes in the thinking about aliya, and recent efforts to mobilize the Reform Movement, may open the doors for more of America’s “liberal” Jews to make a deeper commitment to Israel.
Like their Orthodox counterparts, who comprise the large majority of olim from North America and have greatly influenced Israel, Reform Jews are intent on making their own imprint on Israel.
“Part of our Zionist agenda is not only to connect Reform Jews and Israel, but to impact Israeli society,”
“Our commitment to religious justice issues, to democracy, pluralism, are tremendously important values that need to be strengthened and supported more in Israeli society. Our aliya efforts are designed to put more troops on the ground to strengthen Israel in these ways.”
For most Jews in the west Jewish history begins and ends with the Shoah. Not only has most of western Jewry not educated their youth in Jewish History,Traditions and customs,the Hebrew language,Torah,Talmud,Jewish writings The Rambam, Rashi, the Ranban etc. Then they turn around to educated believing Jews and they demand equality and plurality with same. This may work to some extent in the galut(diaspera) but not in a Jewish State. In Israel only a minority reject absolutely Jewish traditions and those that do would feel pretty comfortable with Burgs current diatribes.
The question which to this day has yet to be settled here is: Is Israel to be a Jewish State or a State of Jews? The religious say a Jewish State meaning Torah Law is Supreme and non Rel: want a State of the Jews where Democracy replaces Torah.
Christian concepts of equality, and Human rights prevail as cannon and elevated to level of supreme Ideal. One of the problems we have with this view is that it leads to the next concept of all citizens being equal under the law, which might sound right to American and other western ears but for us has a built in time bomb for eventual self destruction: What if Arabs, (TO MAKE ONE EXAMPLE) either gain a majority or near majority or parity with Jewish pop. Democratically they can control the Jewish State that will by then cease to exist.
With our Parlimentary System even with out majority say with 30% of our parliament they can control the govt. or at least destablize the country much more than it is today. In order for Israel to protect itself from this future possibility Israels policies become subjucated to protecting democracy and some concept of jewishness by making decisions and concessions to our sworn enemies at the expense of security for our jewish citizens. For these people the ideals of democracy and maintaining Jewish majority trumps security. Defense trumps offense,and of course the acceptance of Israel by her enemies become supreme ideals in and of them selves. Peace for these people and I must include the Ultra religious in these catagories trumps self defense.
When the spiritual leader of Shas party says that Peace trumps land in Eretz Yisrael I have to wonder which Torah version he reads? If the concept of Pikuach Nefesh trumps fighting for Eretz Yisrael than I must reject this thinking as well for it is self defeating. By this stupid reasoning all adherents to this quack should leave Israel at once for to live here is to put ones life and family at risk. What few gentiles and most Jews unfamiliar with Torah dont`t know is there are a hundred faces to the Torah and there is agreement by concensus. first by Torah scholars and finally by the people who give these scholars the respect of final arbiters.
Some in Israel say we need to reformulate the ancient Sanhedrin. Some want to rebuild the Temple.(Need to get rid of Mosques on Temple Mount First).I can`t see Reform Jews entering into this kind of debate with mainstream Israelis.They still are by and large anti-zionist pro galut. Most don’t believe in god or at least not the god of our fathers. In Israel we have low intermarriage rate, all children are taught Hebrew, 80% or more have mazzuezas on all their doors, 90% of all male infants are circumsised by a Mohel, 90% or more are buried in accordance with Jewish Law and custom,over 80% are married according to Dat Moshe.(LAWS OF MOSES). All Israel students secular and rel; study Tanach in school. Most Israeli Jews attend a passover Seder (Over 75%) all celebrate Purim and Chanuka.
Point is that even are secular minority is more Jewish with the effort than most Jews in the galut. We welcome all to this internal debate it has broad and deep consequences for our future not only for Israel and its Jews but for Jews where ever they live. Israel today is the center of world Jewry, we have also for the first time in over 2000 years reached the point of having a majority of Jews living on her ancient soil. God willing more will come .
The great paradox of Jewish history is that for most Jews here they did not make the choice of living here willingly. Just think about this: eventually all Jews will return to their ancient homeland. They can make the choice willingly, or sometime down the road the choice will be made for them or their children or their children’s children; but in the end they will all come back its only a matter of when, how and degree of suffering and pain they will endure beforehand. After the 6 day war the great grandaughter of Dreyfus came on aliyah. here we closed one circle. Last year the remains of Herzel’s children were brought here to be buried, another circle closed. There are hundred and thousands of similar stories here..
All this Burg and his like have turned their backs on us We wish him well and good fortune . (NO WE DONT).
I forgot: the name Abraham, Avrum for short in hebrew which means to cross over to the other side. Our father Abraham left his family his town, his country and his belief system and literly and spiritually crossed over to the other side. So too burg and all Jewish self haters, they have crossed over to the other side. Jewishness rquires seperation, the Shabbat from the other 6 days, meat from dairy, Jews need community of at least ten males. As long as Jews remained in the ghettos of europe and the middle east they remained loyal to their traditions once removed from ghettos we have lost more jews to assimilation than all the pogroms and shoas and inquisitions combined. Seems there is a steep price to be paid for living in a democratic, pluralistic society. On the other side of the coin we took in here all the jewish remnants of Babylonia, Yemem,Ethopia,India,Egypt,The magreb of N. Africa, Afganistan,Most of remnants of E.Europe even Over a hundred thousand from N America. Most were traditional and practicing Jews and certainly not of the reformed variety. Most remained true to the covenant under at times impossible abhorant conditions They were not socialists, or communists or humanists or liberals etc. they were just committed Jews. If we jews are to continue as a nation and jewery is a nation, then we need the seperation. The country of Israel offers the Jews a chance to be seperate and a chance to live as jews in extended community . we also have the most important difference here we have the means to defend ourselves as jews and as a nation which has been absent for past 2000 years.
Yamit writes above:
Let me first place forward in very abridged form my own views on the issue.
The Jews were made the universal scapegoat for all the ills of society, at least since the Romans this was connected to the existence of class society.
The Jews after the Roman genocides were hounded and persecuted for 2000 years. Yet they maintained this hope of a return to Zion. This means the Jewish struggle as well as being religious in its Judaic content is also a national struggle, in fact a national liberation struggle, older by far than the Irish, than the Scots, the Welsh etc. It is antisemitism in action then for the Irish et al to deny this national struggle of the Jews.
I seriously your characterisation of these ISM types as “Left” in any way…renegades from socialism, traitors to Israel etc is more truthful.
But then some of you may have an agenda of discrediting revolutionary socialism…I suspect that very strongly, and believe me such prejudice does not lead to a fruitful exploration of reality.
To Yamits remark above:
He is right of course Israel is the centre of world Jewry.
In another sense he is incomplete. Because of that history of antisemitism I mentioned above Israel is also at the centre of the liberation of all nations.
Consequently while the liberation of the Jews in their nation must be the work of the Jews, they must not work alone, or they will be defeated.
This aspect is ignored by most of the above I am afraid to say.
Many of the comments also are an attack on secularism. But secularism is one of the great gains of the French revolution and the Enlightenment.
The idea that in a state it does not matter what God or none that you worship should never be a bar to advancement etc. It is very important as far as the state is concerned that religion becomes a private matter.
I am totally opposed to some of the suggestions that Israel should become a theocracy.
This is not necessary to preserve Judaism and it would indeed only do harm.
It is only on a revolutionary socialist programme that the youth of Israel can be won and a necessary requirement in educating the youth is that they are outward looking, not inward looking. You may disagree with the former, that is Ok, but try disagreeing with the latter.
The whole history of Judaism can very definitely stand on its own and can be approached from a dialectical historical standpoint and appreciated in its scientific truth.
I will remind readers of Israpundit that the site was co-founded by Joseph Alexander Norland, who like myself (who joined it at a very early stage) is a confirmed atheist. This is a help not a hindtrance to us understanding that Judaism is a very old culture cum religion, a national movement which is a great asset to humanity.
As set up at the present time the, what people call the Jewish right, is insular and indeed opportunist in its approach to political life in this world.
We have Ted here, the editor, who constantly argues that it is possible for a person like Oliver Kamm to support the creation of an Islamist State in Kosovo, a direct attack on the sovereignty of the Serbian nation, and still at the same time be a good friend of Israel.
I have no time for these mental gymnastics which are based in a crass opportunism.
Just because I support the right of the Jews to their nation state in Israel does not mean that I support every aspect of this movement.
The present struggle of the Jews is a political struggle in its essence, to create a leadership which is based on principle.
Jewish people claim they are a light unto the nations. Why not cast some light then on the recent Bush support for the creation of an Islamist state in Kosovo. Why not as a matter of principle give total support to this wonderful Serb people in their struggle to defend their nationhood and not let the centre of their culture and religion be robbed from them.
It is easy to talk in platitudes but when the discussion is brought down to the basic questions of this real material world we live in I always find there tends to be a separation, the sheep from the goats to coin a phrase
I would like to address another part of Yamit’s comment above:
In case there is the slightest misunderstanding on what I wrote above about “secularism and outward looking” thoughts I want to add and affirm most strongly with yamit on the need for separation.
But this is not really the doing of the Jews. It is the doing of the rest of humanity which for its own ends made the Jews into the universal scapegoat.
In this I blame very strongly the other two religions, Christianity and Islam, which realized they had used the Jewish faith in their foundation and therefore set about separating themselves. The Christians under Paul began this process and the “Holy Fathers” continued this as they sucked up to the Romans, and after that to every despot going.
Because of this world antisemitism now being spearheaded by the forces of Islam, and for its own reasons the forces behind the present Bush regime, Israel is in that sense a defence against this antisemitism.
It therefore becomes of great importance to return to basic principles in this regard, which is the first plan to solve this horrific state of affairs by establishing a jewish Homeland (Balfour and the League of Nations)
The idea was to create a refuge as well as to fulfil the nation state ambitions of the Jewish people.
This is the real type of education that has to be conducted with the youth of Israel today. But it must not stop there because remember I emphasised above that antisemitism is a worldwide phenomenon. in order to be free all youth in every country needs to absorb this history. In the final analysis this also applies to the Arabs and the Muslim masses but that must be down the road considerably.
There is no chance of this happening under the confines of what Trotsky called “rotting capitalism”. And it is indeed rotting.
For example how could Bush go along that road, the idea is actually laughable, when his very government is promoting Fascist Islamic antisemitic states everywhere they can, especially in their efforts to destabilise and surround Russia, China and perhaps also Hindu India.
To my mind Yamit is right on the money. For the first time in a long time Jews have a state which they can defend. And they must.
The first task they must carry out is prepare to destroy the Iranian centrefuges because miracles do not happen, or they would surely have happened in 1933 to 1945, but they did not, so Jews have to rely on their own intelligence and practice. Especially now that the US has told them all that Iran will have the bomb.
But yamit is only half right, though it is a very good half!
By the very fact of setting up Israel and also bringing all these Jews into Israel you can say that as well as being able to defend themselves through that nation state, the Jews are also again being rounded up inside a trap and this is the very well understood strategy of the Islam Fascist enemy.
And as we all know there is a big section of the US ruling class who see Israel now as a mere nuisance factor in their relations with the Arabs.
This side of things is very rarely faced up to by any of these pundits on this site.
There is in fact only one real and final answer. It lies in an understanding that Jewish people are not an island in this world. They really do depend on the rest of humanity to come to their assistance.
But as long as capitalism (rotting capitalism) remains, the Jews of Israel are going to be in ever greater danger from that source. Francisco Gil White is not a socialist revolutionary, yet everything he writes confirms that that is indeed the case.
So some of you bloggers on this site have recently turned your noses up at the prospect of exploring the life and ideas of the great Russian socialist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
I wish finally to affirm that trotsky as he discussed the Jewish issue in the 30s was very firm in the idea of a Jewish state as a refuge, and it seems to me he was advocating separation of Yamit when he talked about the movement of Arabs away from the Jews. becausehe understood the deep antisemitism inside Arab Imperialism.
Revolutionary socialism and politically correct multiculturalism are different concepts, in fact they are opposites as the merest cursory reading of trotsky in the 30s will afirm.
I doubt if many on this site will reach for this. I think it will take a new generation centred on the Israeli youth who may do so.
Many on this site are so immersed in their own way of thinking change is an impossibility, which is why in essence those wonderful Jewish Serbian youth were sent packing from this site in rather quick ordera few months ago.
That is not a message of despair but of reality.
Felix
Israpundit was very receptive to the idea that the Serbs were unfairly blamed and attacked and must be viewed as an example of what might happen to Israel.
I deny that “those wonderful Jewish Serbian youth were sent packing from this site in rather quick order a few months ago.”
Not one was sent packing.
Ted
The issue centres on how you see the issue.
Of course nathan and Pete could have remained, and you can argue should have, so what you say is true, but it is not as simple as that because the very hostile reception to their research by important strands tell us a lot about our present difficulties and about this discussion on this thread.
Without repeating myself I maintain that it is impossible to support US Imperialism in the creation of an Islamist state in Kosovo, and all the rest of the horrific actions of the US, the British, the EU in general, the Media in the complete emasculation of the Serbs and the destruction of Yugoslavia and yet claim to support Israel.
It is not either just a matter of learning the lessons from Yugoslavia and applying them in Israel, that in itself is a reactionary nationalist position to take and is opposed to internationalism, which is what the Jewish movement to survive has to become. Be a light unto thre nations, the bible meeting revolutionary international socialism.
That was the central issue in the huge debate which happened here.
It centred on the person of Oliver Kamm and you have continually stated that Kamm is a friend of Israel, and you have stated so is Lieberman.
This is what the issue was about.
It was quite possible I suppose, but they thought impossible for Nathan and Peter and also Shlomo to remain under those conditions.
The issue is still very much alive because there has to be built a leadership in Israel which is based on principles.
If you follow my second answer to Yamit. The setting up of Israel was a great achievement but it has had consequences, one of these is the existence of world antisemitism which is clearly not going to accept the existence of a Jewish state.
I support the right of Israel to use any force against its enemies who seek to destroy Israel. And I agreed with Yamit that Israel has provided that defence.
But unfortunately it does not end there. As leon Trotsky stated so presciently in an off the cuff interview, Israel could not be at peace inside the context of rotting capitalism. He did not say Israel, of course, as it was the Thirties but he had in mind a sovereign Jewish state inside the confines of rotting capitalism.
In that he ended up to be more far seeing than Herzl had been.
Of course the jewish Serbian lads could have remained but the abuse they met was fierce, for example Bill Narvey said in so many words Get the hell off this site, did he not, and you yourself supported this enemy of the Serbs and maintainer and propagator of the Big Lie of Srebrenica, the horrific Oliver kamm, as a supporter of the Jews against nathan.
I raise this because the above contributions on this thread are positing as the answer to the Jewish people what is an inward ideology, even as far as one blogger calling for a theocracy in israel.
I maintain that the way Yugoslavia was approached and is approached by a large section of the American jewish blogging establishment is disgraceful.
You yourself to give you credit are a total exception in this regard because you were very open and moved a long way.
Problem is there is still a long long way to go and as Buish visit to Albania shows the plans of the US Establishment to create Islam, to build up reactionary Islam, to rule in this material world with the aid of Islam, is very far advanced.
In my post above I refer to a posting on Frontpage Magazine by its deputy editor which is one of the most disgraceful attacks on the Serb people ever written, and this has never been qualifie dby that site or organization, because it is an organization, and it knows exactly the positions it takes up.
In short you cannot support the reactionaries of this world in one place on the globe and yet remain true to your principles. My firm position Ted.
Prof Paul Eidelberg wrote:
Ted:
I’ve read Shavit’s discussion with Burg. But note well the following.
Last month, while I was in California , I read three books by Michael Savage, including Liberalism is a Mental Disorder. If you want a medical assessment of Burg (and of contemporary as opposed to classical liberals), allow me to recommend the first few pages of chapter 5 of my book Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise of Democracy, attached herewith. In my opinion, we are dealing with a world-historical sickness rooted in the basic principles of democracy, namely, freedom and equality—principles devoid of rational and ethical constraints. But to comprehend the psychological consequences of these principles, especially the latter, one should study Ignacio Matte-Blanco analysis of schizophrenia, which I apply to contemporary Israel .
Paul
Alex Eisenberg writes,
If you allow me, I think you and Bill Narvey are biting an already old (but still very effective) CIA bait. Christopher Simpson – who has documented US corporate and governmental participation in the Holocaust (his book Blowback is a must-read) – has published a great book in 2004 named Science of Coercion – Communication Research and Psychological Warfare 1945-1960. Among other things, one of the amazing achievements of governmental sponsorship of communication studies in the US was precisely changing the original meaning of the terms “left and right” in politics. One of the very sad results of it is the amount of people (many Jews included) who have been convinced that leftist ideology is anti-Israel and rightist ideology is pro-Israel.
The problem came into being when government-sponsored pseudo-social scientists began research in “communication studies” after WW2. Add to that the provisions of the 1947 National Security Act and the way was paved for the success of massive propaganda campaigns in the US and elsewhere under US sponsorship, aimed not only at establishing who the good and bad guys were, but extending its tentacles deep into academia, where new concepts were created. It was enough to pay for publishing articles in the mass media (firstly papers, later TV as well) in which new concepts, or the inversion or distortion of previously clear concepts would gradually become the rule. Jews were particularly targeted because of their intelligence and potential for revolutionary activities. This is how so many Jews ended up lured into believing that right-wing ideology is pro-Israel while left-wing ideology is anti-Israel, as if Marxism were the only leftist ideology ever to have occurred to Western minds. As the generation of my grandparents died, a lot of original political concepts of Judaism died with them.
Now, whenever a Jew is thusly ideologically manipulated (and there is a terrible domino effect when that Jew is convinced by another Jew) and lends himself to unwittingly spread the disease, the damage is huge and may cause the destruction of Israel. Jews are extremely weak when it comes to secular leadership. They are always so much moved by the dream of having ‘collective’ friends in other peoples – because the Torah teaches morality – who might accept them as ‘the nice other’ that they can’t think politically as a state on the face of the real Earth. This is obviously the seed of defeat.
When a Jew is somehow convinced that left wing ideology is anti-Israel and right wing ideology is pro-Israel, he is just a step away from believing that anti-Zionism is the other face of the anti-Americanism coin. This is how the American elite has been able to create the absurd America-is-Israel’s-only-ally myth, thus shrewdly moving the Jewish intellectual trigger from its direction towards “the left”, that is, “the left” as their social scientists and communication experts came to define it. By doing this, the American elite has been able to lure Jews into collaborating with the destruction of their own state and culture. The power of the American propaganda machine is so great that even the most extreme US anti-Israel diplomacy (such as forcing Israel to relinquish Gaza and even the control of its borders, among other diplomatic jewels) is seen not only by American Jewish leaders but even by most Israelis as “necessary in order to keep Israel’s only ally on its side” – as if giving up Israel’s own basic defense were – by using some divine, extra-terrestrial logic – a legitimate demand from an ally, or might secure a guarantee of US military shield in case Israel’s Arab neighbors, “for some unheard of reason”, decided to explore Israel’s vulnerabilities! After all, why should Israel worry about Arab attacks? Arab leaders have been so nice to the US oil elite, who are nice Israel-loving Judeo-Christians (to use the fashionable term). Why should it be a problem for Israel to lose some hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers in case its Arab neighbors decide to ‘interpret’ Israel’s real vulnerabilities (as demanded by Condi Rice) as real vulnerabilities and again try to throw the Jews into the Mediterranean and re-Islamize the Land of Israel?
The complete inversion of normal political thinking that has taken so many Jews over in the US and Israel is arguably the most significant success in the history of post-WW2 American intelligence. No wonder it was shaped by Nazi Americans and Germans, as documented by Christopher Simpson in Blowback.
My best wishes,
Felix Quigley may be correct about the virtues of the classical left (Trotsky, Blum, Jaurès, etc.). In today’s world, we have different characters: Castro, Chavez, Ortega, all of them embracing Ahmadinejad profusely. This is what the new Left has become, when they allied themselves with Palestianism and Islamic fascism. It is hard to imagine Israel seeking the support of this kind of Left. As for the European Left, now in sharp decline, it hasn’t fared much better in the past decades. I am sure Felix will concur.
Alex Eisenberg decries the right-wing conspiracies in U.S. politics and the disastrous initiatives peddled by President Bush and Condoleezza Rice on Israel. But the previous left wing administration of Bill Clinton during the Oslo process was not any better, let alone the latest insane interventions of Jimmy Carter.
It is always helpful to subject theories to emprical tests.
One part of my family, was related to the late DAVID DUBINSKY,(founder of needle workers union in Canada) another part were much to the left of socialists and were anarchists: echoes of Lieb and Leopold and were not granted American citizenship for may years due to their ties. My maternal grandfather was a member in good standing in local Workman Circle.But in spite of these ties of commitment?Or I could say to large extent convenience, they all remained committed Jews and gave their children a Jewish education who in turn gave their children a Jewish education.
When I was growing up in America Jewish Divorce was almost unheard of. The biggest conflict of the Jews was 2 fold First: was overcoming impediments in America to Jews in social and economic social advancement.The Jews wanted to belong and the only way they believed to accomplish this challenge was to reject their Jewishness, emulate to greater and lesser extents american christian trappings and while doing this to change the concept of being Jewish. It became a religeon same as all rel. not better not worse, synogogues were mad and built as temples traditional Jewish practices were discarded to emulate the Christian form of worship and our rabbi`s were mostly academics with shallow level of real jewish knowledge and learning. Rabbis in a traditional Jewish sense were respected and revered because of their knowledge and ability to pass on that knowledge their students.Some were nice and good hearted people others not but their knowledge of Torah and what they were able to transmit to future generations was key.
I think that when most young Jews reject the Jewish faith, and people- hood, it is because they are bright and see little relevance and difference between Jewishness and other creeds.More Jews today convert to Buddism than to Christianity.
It dosent matter for us today what Trotski of Jabotinski,thought or believed. They are dead and neither affected sufficient influence in their time to either change the world or have any major influence in it living or dead. Both should be considered in their own individual way as failures in their own time.
In 1967,The Young Socialist Alliance or League I forget which was in the Vanguard of all the student movement against our involvement in Vietnam. They were so anti Israel that I realized upon reading Lies and real antisemetic diatribes no worse the the Protocals of the Elders of Zion and backing poor arab blood in matzos and well poisoning. I realized then that this group sponsored and part of world socialist movement were my enemies and I hold that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least temporarily. I lived under socialism here for over 10 years, I lived on a Kibbutz for over 2 years, Idealism aside. I can tell at least from personal experience that it does not work and can`t work and maybe it shouldn’t`.You just can`t change human nature.
In Judaism because it is a faith based belief system negatives of human nature are tempered. Fear of God and social criticism try to temper these negative traits in human kind. THE GREAT CHALLENGE OF JUDAISM IS: How can a good person live in an evil world. Committed and believing Jews hold that Judaism is the way or path. For system of Democracy is only a tool of governance. If it works or works better keep it if not change it, modify it or try another its not HOLY WRIT! Some of us here want A return to Kingdom, with reinstituting Monarchy (with limited powers) and rebuilding national institutions such as Temple and Sanhedren, the Priesthood (Cohens) etc. although very alien to me I lack the knowledge as I have living all my life with some form of liberal western democracy. It seems like they are lunies but then again a lot of once though lunie ideas are today accepted as though they have always been dominant ideas.The intellectual Left has always been antisemetic except most of them deny it and seek to cloak their animosity of Jews in acceptable wrappers. The right is divided by classical narrow and Religeous Jew hatred and those who believe that their salvation depends on Jewish survival at least until they believe Jesus returns. 40-60 million of these friends. So we Jews are not alone we have at least for now another Belief based group of people that are more right wing Zionist than majority of the people living in Israel not to mention out side of Israel. (the Jews of America might learn a thing or two from them)
As for CIA conspiracies and all such enlightening ideas, I can only say that having been born and raised in America and having been active both as a student and in American Service, I can say with personal first hand experiences that Jew hatred and mistrust of Jews permeates all levels of American society, Israel has aided American Jews in a very important aspect we have allowed anti-Jewish elements to direct their hatred to the Jewish State instead of directly against the indigenous Jewish population of America.
The French Jews aren’t stupid most feel uncomfortable and thousands are either exploring possibility of coming to live here in the future and thousands have purchased apartments and homes for future adverse contingencies. Its curious that Jewish advertising companies can sell soap and coke Jewish movie makers and studios can make billions making and selling movies some of largest and successful PR companies are Jewish etc. but they can’t run a successful counter campaign against all anti-Jewish and Israeli groups?
Salomon
You must be joking! You place Trotsky and Blum together. You probably along with Steven Plaut, a foremost Jewish blogger, have no idea of the real political positions which Leon Trotsky fought for in the Thirties. (I found that out within about ten seconds of conversing with him on a blog) And if you have no idea then what are you talking about?
Yamit
You say that you cannot change human nature.
I disagree with you there rather strongly. You see I know something about this argument because the catholics believe that whole business of original sin etc, which is related. A long time ago I stopped believing in that hogwash.
In fact human beings are changing every second of recorded time.
There is nothing immutable about what is called human nature at all. People are a result of their experiences, what they have read, what they have been taught.
And if they were not then what on earth is the point of Israpundit!!!
This kind of immutable human nature stuff should be kicked into touch by every thinking human being without ceremony.
On a separate matter, who the hell are these Young Socialist Alliance, in that they are so important that you base your whole political analysis of Trotsky upon.
Tell me more abnout them!
something is going on here that none of the contributors to this blog and most others seem to overlook: Our existence as a people and as a nation is an historical process that is still being played out with the final scenes yet to be written.The Romans did not invade Judea they were invited in by the Jewish rulers. If there had not been a civil war between the Jews at that time Rome might just have been defeated.
In short it has always been Jewish disunity that has allowed our enemies to defeat us not our innate abilities. Must be something in the Genes? But lets put for the moment aside the communist dialectic and CIA conspiracies which may or may not be true, I dont know! What I do know is because groups of young Pali. Jewish youth (Sabras) defied the logical wisdom of Jewish Leadership and settled the Hula and Jezzreal Valley and established settlements against the orders and wishes of the Jewish Establishment and today they are part of the State of Israel. I do know that most of the Jewish leadership of the European Jews told their people not to leave that all would pass and most didnt and it did not pass. I include especially the Rabbis and Admores in this group.
The Six day War had an additional consequence aside from increasing Israels Territory X 4. That was the emotional impact it had on world Jewry especially the Jews of USSR that had been written of by most Jews and within5-6 years the hold by Russia was loosened and then we received an extra 1.3 million people, that had been discounted before.
This was all precursor in my opinion to the fall of USSR, reunification of Germany the re establishment of independent E. European Countries. The elevation of Israel to a hi-tec Giant amongst the nations and maybe even the insured the continuence of a viable Jewish State. Some of the comments disregard Jewish almost blind support for the Democratic Part regardless of who they nominate (SINCE FDR). Even when history has show FDR to be less a Friend of the Jews than was believed not much has changed and You cant blame CIA for this neurosis. This 6 day war was also a catalyst in awakening Evangelitical Christians to our side. We serve the Russian desire to regain their place in the sun as a super power without having to confront America directly. The Chinese are ambivelent about us as we are too small to threaten China.Without the consequences of 6 Day War would the world look as it does today? would Israel be considerd mini Super Power in the ME? Up till 67 most Jews could only dream of visiting their Holy sites .
Now all that belongs to history and the Jewish and National Mission is to preserve our National Control. So more than new ideologies whether one calls them communism, socialism,humanism, liberalism,etc. in the context of history they arise have their days in the sun and are replaced with other pop ideas and concepts when they have run their historical courses. The Jewish people are an historic people our history and beliefs are our national narrative. Even our God is the God of History. When Moses spoke with God and God identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isach, and Jacob, He was giving the Historical context to Jewish existence and when Moses ask to whom should he tell Pharaho had sent him he said tell him “I AM sent you to him”.Wow what a concept! 3500 years before Marx, Engles and all the rest.
In the end one could make a good argument for Just Wars and Wars of no choice.! One cannot say that they dont change the course of History and who can say that the consequences of war will not have positive effects and not in the end be good for the Jews?
Gil-White looks at history to discern what he calls “anthropological truths”. Are not such truths a reflection of human nature.
History records the ebb and flow of events. Is any progress discernible? Or is man doomed to the fate of Sisyphus?
Fukuyama, in The End of History writes, “The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.” and continues,
“THE NOTION of the end of history is not an original one. Its best known propagator was Karl Marx, who believed that the direction of historical development was a purposeful one determined by the interplay of material forces, and would come to an end only with the achievement of a communist utopia that would finally resolve all prior contradictions. But the concept of history as a dialectical process with a beginning, a middle, and an end was borrowed by Marx from his great German predecessor, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Subsequent events delivered a setback to his theory or perhaps even a mortal blow.
In the famous correspondence between Einstein and Freud, Einstein asked “Is there a way to free people from the spectre of war?”.
Freud in recognizing that violence is part of human nature and that wars of aggrandizement can be for good or bad wrote
. They recognized that the League of Nations which had been created for this purpose was failing. The UN which has the same mandate is also failing.
They both felt that only world government can end war. But is world government attainable. Will it result, if attained, in unintended consequences?
Felix we agree on many things I believe but your pursuit of dead horses leaves me with a few questions: Name one successful socialist enterprise that has proven itself over time, meaning more than 20-30 years. You say Human nature can be changed? Opinions can change, input can change peoples thinking and to some extent when envirnmental influences are determinate some changes can occur with regard to behavior but here I will give you first hand impericle evidence. The Israeli experiment in communes the Kibbutz movement began from its russian roots. born and conceived from Its Russian influence back in the 20s in Israel and even before in the States. The smart ones alway dominate the dumb ones, the more ambitious, always find ways of skirting the social norms to get what the want, One person was given a radio, so all had to have radios, then small cube refrigerators in their small living quarters, one got the kibbutz had to supply all. then somebody got B&W tv, so all got TVs, then motor scooters, stereos, trips out of the country, larger more attractive living quarters for young singles and young married couples, in order to keep the kids on the Kibbutz and not lose them to the cities and even to those leaving the country. For many years most of the jewish intermarriage rate was tied to the kibbutzim as thousands of volunteers arrived every year and most were not jewish. This provided virtual slave labor for the kibbutzim as the lazy kibbutzim sat back and bossed it over this free source of labor but eventully the kibbutzim found that only by capitalism could any survive and provide a high enough standard of living to compete with the towns and cities. In doing this most went into excessive debt. and went bankrupt. The govt. of israel or it capitalistic tax payers paid the banks close to5-6 billion dollars to bail these crooks out. And then only because they still maintained political influence in the mechanizims of israeli power. Same principle with USSR their system of Govt. could not support both Guns and Butter policy and they imploded, Largely thanks to Reagan. As European countries for some time now have negative population growth and more and more people relying on social services and early pension age with less money being paid in Every socialist govt. in Europe is looking for ways to reduce and eliminate social benifit packages as they cant fund them. EU has a third more people than america but their GNP is 40% less and their productivity is half of Americas . So Europe finds it difficult to compete in global market place where china and third world countries produce cheap low tech necessities and america produces high end hi tec and advanced consumer services. Human nature means that most people will opt for a more comfortable life if he has the choice. most people will work hard and use their intelligence and abilities if they have the motivation to do so. Socialismas I have experience rewards lazyness, waste, is more not less prone to corruption than capitalism as the state is the Boss and show me any really effective clean non corrupt political system in the world, but at least with capitalism (private and corporate ) there is higher degree of transparency than enterprises run by political incompetint hacks who get their positions more than not through political connections and influence than not. If keeping all people poor and not having a wealthly class and a upper middle class with some poor. Is the socialist ideal it has proven itself in every country where some form of socialism exists or existed. If you are talking about an abstract theory that has yet to be implimented what is it exactly you want. There are many kinds of concepts of equality and egalitarianism, but all fall shot of idealistic goal due to what I call human nature that those with kener intelligence will dominate those with lesser levels of intelligence and those with power will make those without subserviant, the more power- full will dominate the weaker and the desire to have more and better than ones neighbor will reign supreme.Add to all this the lack of real ethics and morality and the corrupt will corrupt the uncorrupted.
Felix, since you have touched on old disputes with me as if you were somehow on the side of right and I on the side of wrong, I will repeat, you were wrong then and you are wrong now.
In reliance of Gil-White, Jared Israel and perhaps others, you have an absolute conviction that the West has conspired with the Muslims of the former Yugoslavia and others in the Muslim world to perpetuate a lie that it was the Serbs who were the villains in the Serb-Muslim wars of the former Yugoslavia.
That conviction results in your inability to countenance anyone who questions you or raises questions on even collateral issues that are related to but quite distinct from your central beliefs. The same can be said for others who some months ago, joined you in seeking to villify me for disagreeing with you on a collateral issue. I defended my stance then and all that did was send you and others into apoplectic anger.
The collateral issue I raised had nothing to do with what you were advocating about the Serb-Muslim war, but rather, the way you were going about advocating it.
You were defaming people and in particular as I recall, O.Kamm, J. Lieberman and T. Lantos for not only believing in the lie you claimed the West had perpetrated, but for their active support of it. I did not share your angry and defamatory views regarding the 3 aforementioned people and I strenuously objected to your using Israpundit as a launching pad for your defamatory accusations.
You were in the wrong then.
You again are wrong to raise this matter and again suggest that you were on the side of right. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Alex Eisenberg wrongly figures that I believe everything about the left is wrong and everything about the right is right and then goes on to wrongly surmise that I am:
First, I never heard of such bait, so I could hardly have bitten on it.
Secondly, when I speak of the left being wrong, I am not speaking generally, but specifically and only in relation to the specific issues I address expressly or by implication.
If Alex Eisenberg wishes to engage me in discussion in this regard, let him raise specific issues and I will be happy to oblige him.
Bill
If only it was not for the small matter remaining of the Yugoslavian hodgepodge which is Kosovo, surely there has been no clearer example of plain theft of a nation’s soul and birthright, sold for what and to whom? to the Islamists who went about beheading Serbs and who will do exactly the same to the Jews of Israel and indeed to any Jews anywhere they can get their hands on.
As to Lieberman if only life were so simple “Sorry mate I made a mistake there. lets move on to the next project ie my “support” of Israel”.
It does not work like that. Lieberman supported the Islamists of Bosnia and the Islamist gangsters in Kosovo and it impossible in politics to move on and forget the past without a reckoning being made. On Yugoslavia as regards Lieberman I do not think he will ever do so.
How come that it is people like Shlomo who provide the facts, verifiable, and it is the Kamms of this world who obscure the facts and character assasinate.
I repeat to you Bill Kosovo and Yugoslavia are Israel, they are the same issue, and are all tied in with the foreign policy and political programme of the US Government and the EU Reactionaries. Time will tell.
Yamit
This is a philosophical issue, very difficult if not impossible to settle. I am a dialectical materialist. I do not believe in a God or a Creator, I believe in what to me is a wonderful idea of matter in motion, except that I grow older which I am not overly fond of, but still I want every human to have the freedom to believe in and practice their religion etc so long as they do not tie it up with the state. I had that in the Irish educational system and it is not healthy.
I see the beginnings of mankind probably arising out of as I understand it the work done in Kenya and Ethiopia by Richard Leakey (the whole Leakey family actually) and Don Johannson, the latter discovering an apelike creature (Lucy) which also was walking upright as good as you or I, but who or which had the brain of an ape. The history of the human species is a long one and has had many false starts etc. I place the Jewish nation in that overall context, I do not separate it really from my own Irish nation, but the Jewish is much older and they were the first people to write down their own history. They have been unfairly treated by the rest of humanity. It is a vital part of the development of man. It is beyond my comprehension to grasp the idea of man being a fixed entity, it seems to me so obvious he is evolving, and subject to change, that I cannot see the opposite. But there have been many false starts in nature and man too can go down the tubes. I would be very wary of this Kibbutz idea, it is a kind of utopianism, the idea that you can develop something like that outside of the world market, perhaps they were Jewish hippies.
I am more concerned with the issue of Israel today, and on issues such as how Israel will manage to defend itself as a nation when it is being attacked from all sides, and when Bush for example has let it be known that the US will allow the Iranian Fascists to have the Nuclear Bomb, which to me is pure unadulterated antisemitism on the part of Bush and his Government, because how after Ahmadinejad has made at least 20 threats to destroy Israel could anybody expect Jews to live in Israel under that threat.
I think the answer to the question you pose at the end of comment 22 is very simple:
Those coke sellers cannot run a campaign against antisemitism because they are too busy selling coke! That is the truth of the matter. Making fortunes is an all-consuming process.
Even Anne Frank’s Father Otto was very loath to leave his business until it was almost too late.
The issue of antisemitism on that level is not dissimilar to all the other issues faced by humanity, in order to understand any issue it has to be seriously studied, and not everybody will take the time or even has the time to do so.
That problem reminds me in the same way to my experience with Steven Plaut, the noted Jewish blogger, a month or so ago. Plaut had felt himself free to sound off in a big mouth kind of way about Leon Trotsky. He made a “joke” about manure and the difference between a Trotskyist and a Trotskyite, what he told his students etc. He made another “joke” about the use of aspirin, as he showed the bandaged head of Trotsky after he had been struck down by Mercader. He also stated that there was no difference between Trotsky and Stalin. All at that sort of level. Until I called him and then it was clear he did not have any clue about the policies and programme fought for by Trotsky especially against Nazism when he drew very close to the Jewish people, facts which have been well hidden by the present FascistLeft, obviously not, when he claimed Trotsky and Stalin to be similar.
The world is full of big mouths who talk about things and they do not know what they are talking about, for the simple reason they have not studied them. They are guided by bias, a deep cynicism mixed up with prejudice…which is in fact another definition of antisemitism.
This was an issue that was understood by Marx and Engels, and these issues of consciousness and types of consciousness were certainly well understood by Lenin, and also Trotsky, and many others in that Russian early movement like Plekhanov. In his book “What is to be done?” Lenin beginning of course with the Marxist thesis of the class nature of society, laid down the classic truth that the dominant ideas in the working class consciousness are in fact the ideas that are put there by the ruling dominant class. (Which answers a previous Keelie point about his experience of workers in Canada) It seems obvious but the implications are huge. The reality about the world, or scientific truth, needs to be struggled for somehow outside of that context, and brought into the working class and fought for against the dominant bourgeois ideas that were and are prevalent. Lenin thought this must be done first of all not by workers but by intellectuals who had the time and space perhaps to do so. That in essence was his idea of the party.
It holds true in Israel today even if I stretch the analogy a little in that in Israel I talk only of a national struggle and not socialism. As I have said before most people in Israel are very tied up in earning a living, relaxing, just existing. But having said that they are a revolutionary nation for the reason that the objective conditions give them no other alternative but be revolutionary.
We saw therefore that when Olmert of all people decided to respond to the Hezbullah attack and kidnapping, that the Israelis as a mass moved forward in very definite form behind the IDF, so much so that the whole of the Peacenik reactionary elements were isolated in a matter of hours. These are the kinds of movements that make a revolution possible. But of course the masses soon realized that Olmert was not serious, and the army leadership were ill-prepared, that Peretz and Livni were doing deals with the enemy even as the IDF youth fought that enemy. And so the masses pulled back again, perplexed and frustrated. That kind of thing can only happen so often, and then the counter revolution gets the upper hand. That is what Francisco Gil White’s articles are all about. The ordinary person only can take so many disappointments. Fatalism and lethargy can then become dominant. We are not at that stage yet. As Caroline Glick wrote, the problem is not the people, the problem is the leadership.
The counter revolution in the case of Israel being a number of factors…the diabolical plans of the US Government in the region, the Nazis in the Arab movement, Islam, the traitors in the Israeli movement with people like Amira Hass and papers like Haaretz. They sell out the people and there is every danger of a Holocaust.
So we have already showed that in Israel there is a mass movement. Everything literally depends on the kind of leadership that is provided for that mass movement.
This is where everybody writing on Israpundit, representing different political tendencies, should put their cards on the table and let us know what kind of a leadership is necessary in the Israeli situation today. And what immediately needs to be done.
Are they proposing a theocracy? Some kind of priestly Judaic leadership based on the reading of the Bible? Why?
Do we need a revolutionary socialist leadership that will fight for world socialist revolution? Why?
Will the ending of PR and the election of “true Jews” do it? Why?
What is the political programme of Eltad? When I google his name I find very little information about programme and political tactics.
I myself agree with Trotsky that as long as capitalism exists then the Jews will have no peace from antisemitism. In the end it is a revolutionary question to end antisemitism because it is rooted deep within class society. That is my argument. Combat that argument.
But what to do now? To have a socialist revolution you need to have a party to lead it and that we do not have. So what now?
I say that Israel is a nation at war and it has to acquire a leadership which can fight a war.
The first thing to understand is that that leadership has to give instructions to the IDF to save Israel from its enemies. Without the existence of Israel all talk is superfluous.
So the military running of the army should be handed over to…surprise surprise…the army! Why should politicians who know nothing about military affairs be meddling.
After the last Lebanon War it emerged that the army leadership had indeed come forward to the politicians months before war broke out with a blueprint, which would have been a blueprint for victory. It involved moving in along the Laetani river basin, isolating the Hezbullah from the North, and destroying them. The PR battle could have been helped, if not won, by carefully offering Arab civilians an exit. Then it would be their own fault. The blueprint was turned down by the politicians.
So the need is for a committee of people to lead the country. Along with giving the army its freedom also these people must as a priority be prepared to stand up to and oppose, exposing the US Government in front of the American working class, who are really the 60 million religious Christians who Yamit refers to. Christian may be the form, the content is really the ideas of freedom and individualism that underpinned the American Revolution.
This needs to be worked out in concrete terms. The form is not so important as the content. Perhaps an election will produce such a cabinet based on the best of Likud, only so long as a complete break is made with Sharon and Kadima.
The newly formed Russian workers state in November 1917 began to be attacked by the bourgeois world, they sent in total 14 different armies to end its existence, first Japan, then Britain and America, all involved. It is recognized that Trotsky spearheaded the fight against that incredible situation and huge odds, and the creation of the Red Army is to his name. But in a recent book, Trotsky, The eternal revolutionary by Dmitri Volkogonov, it emerges that Trotsky did not ever take one military decision. That was not his job. He was not qualified in military affairs. The job he carried out was political leadership of the Red Army. Every soldier in that army knew exactly what was the cause that they were fighting for. These guys were aware of Cromwell and they drew lessons to the way the New Model Army was underpinned by the then revolutionary bourgeois spirit of parliamentarianism, and of course Puritanism. These lessons from history were brought in by Trotsky in his speeches and criss-crossing the vast land and explained to ordinary peasant soldiers who could not even read or write.
The reason the likes of Olmert meddled is because he is not a revolutionary Jewish person, and he has no confidence in the youth in the IDF who do the fighting.
But we do need revolutionmary Jewish people in the leadership of the state. A state at war cannot have a spirit if people who say they are religious do not serve in the army. Also they cannot have a revolutionary army if there is a fifth column of Israeli Arabs who are exempt at the rear. I am certain that the religious Jews would be only too willing to serve in the army for Israel. The Arab Israelis should be given the option, fight for your country and fight against Islam Fascism or leave the country. A people and an army at war has never been able to indulge itself with the luxury of a Fifth Column, especially so in the case of Israel which faces so many enemies on so many fronts, especially from the Iranian Nuclear Bomb.
And other issues of leadership in the Jewish state will concern the fight against the pro-Islam policies and programme of US Imperialism. Here we need leaders who will take the international, as well as the Israeli, lessons into the Israeli people and into the American body politic as well. If Bush is creating an Islamist state in Kosovo then every Israeli youth needs to know about it, and ask the question why, as well as informing the Israeli youth of the record of the Palestinian hit man and Nazi, Hajj Amin el Huissein, and the role he played in the Balkans in the Holocaust of Serbs and Jews. This will lead on without any question to the Israeli youth beginning to understand the role of certain US politicians and websites, in particular Jewish American politicians and websites. The name of one Joseph Lieberman springs for some reason to my mind (Bill Narvey or no Bill Narvey!) in this regard.
So as the IDF fights the good fight on behalf of all Jews then there is much, much political work that needs to be done. People have to be found but before that can possibly happen there must be a political programme. The political programme comes first and here Israpundit must not pull back from the most ruthless discussion of political ideas connected with programme.
This is not the socialist revolution in Israel, not at all, but this is the way that the Jewish people can be saved, and any socialist revolutionary worth his salt not just in Israel but anywhere in the world will strive to ensure that this long-lived and very rich in culture nation can survive and prosper.
The issue of the FascistLeft is another matter and must be raised and dealt with. The psychological thinking of Alex here is valuable but I think the real key lies in the historical destruction of the Left by Stalin and Stalinism, both a physical and an ideological destruction.
Felix: Israel is aproduct of a revolutionary war for independence which is still ongoing.When I speak of my socialist experience I speak of the middle and early 60s. I havent kept up for the last 40 years except when I came to Israel in 67 volunteerd to the IDF for 16 months went through 4 months of basic and seargents course, was assigned to the Nachal( youth and pioneering groups in the IDF) these army groups were used to begin new settlements until civillians would take over. My group established the first nachal on the Golan called at the time nachal golan later to become the settlement of merom golan. I say this to give backround. I experienced living under Israeli socialist Govt. of Levi eshkol, then Golda then Rabin, then peres. Two things I hated the system and I respected them in so far as they knew how to govern and build a country. All dictatorships are more efficient than non dictatorships when doing the same thing..Mapai with its socialist partners nd commie prtners and mafdal rel zionist ran the country from it anticedents till 1977 when Begin suprised all the pundits. Problem with Begin is he had a vision but didnt know how to impliment it, didnt know how to govern, didnt have the people in placr to govern and all of Israels institutions and civil service were packed with long time Mapai party hacks who fought begin tooth and nail but they were entrenched and no qualified Begin people to replace them so they remained in place some to this very day. Thats what happens with revolutionary idealistic movements, They invariably become corrupt whose sole function is to continue at the expense of all else. They become arrogant as well. The old adage THAT POWER CORRUPT AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTLY fits our past and even present govnt, as it does almost every place else, lets not be too critical and nieve.Toynbee characterized history of western civilization as a series of challenges and responses. This is more to my liking than socialism dialectiv imperative. In college I rember I once wrote a paper giving a critigue of Communism and I concluded that what may have been correct or seemingly correct in middle to late 19th century and early twentieth century was not later on due to following: IT was neve envisaged by Engles to take hold in primary agricultural societies like Russia but in the Newly industrialized countries like England and Germany, USA etc. 2nd- Neither Marx,Engles or Lenen envisaged the rise of Labor Unions in the West. These unions and later their amalgamation into super Unions became at least as powerful if not more than their Capitalist Employers. In the West Labor unions are on the wane with the rise in modern Hi-tech. Does or should I say Can any Communist would have a wet dream over conditions microsoft, google and thousands of other companies aford their employees today because capitalist have discoverd the economic worth of happy and productive work force and individual or personel contract have replaced regressive unions. 3- Twentieth Century modern economics has discoverd that labor mobility aids the worker and job security offerd by Unions was for many if not most a trap where to move to a better position would mean loss of seniority and a lot of money especially pension time. So for job security and seniority perks a lot of unhappy people remained at their jobs with subsequent results which were all negative both for worker and employer.I dont think it correct to think of social and economic imperatives in a world subject to such rapid changes and dynamics. Jewish Power:
The 6 day War set a precedent for the future: The Israeli and Jewish people used the verbal threat by the Arabs of genocide against the Jewish people living in Israel AS A CASUS BELLI to pre- empt and fire the first shots. This is now an embedded principle of any Israeli government left or right . Leaders come leaders go. In the end our situation will create the leader for the right moment and then and then we will remove him for another. We did it with BG and England did same with Churchill. Ny advise is always be concerned but always be optimistic. There is a Jewish Saying: (MAN MAKES PLANS AND GOD LAUGHS ) I forgot you dont believe in God. Thats ok have faith anyway.
Yamit
Your experiences are interesting and very useful and we need more of them. Most of the biographies etc are slanted and tell what they want to tell. The more we can get people who were on the ground the better.
The Herzl idea of returning and helping to establish Jewish nationhood firmly in a state was super, was 2000 years in the waiting, and every socialist should have supported it fully. The socialists at the time did not because they were filled with Marxist dogma. Marx at one point was so fed up with his followers using his writings as a dogma that he exploded and declared to whoever was listening “I am not a “Marxist” ” (Marx himself showed dogma and prejudice towards Jews his own forefathers at least early in his life when he wrote Capital) He meant that theory is only theory and is only that, invaluable as a start but no more, so our ideas are being enriched by the kind of living reality your experiences (which are living) can bring.
In coming into Palestine the early settlers bring with them what they had, some of these ideas were out of the Russian experience. I was interested to read Moshe Dayan on his mother, who as a young woman was not so much influenced by Lenin as by Tolstoy, with all Tolstoy’s ideas about living off the land, being whole with nature, loving everybody etc. Tolstoy himself was a bit of a hippy actually, but then those Jews who set up the Kibbutz were motivated by a return to the land of their forefathers, which had been passed down through endless generations. So they were very special kinds of people and Dayan’s Father learned how to be a labourer, working to clear land long before he became involved ina Kibbutz. The idea of the Kibbutz was utopian etc, cut off from the market of the real capitalist world, and had to meet its Waterloo sooner or later, and of course it did. But still those early pioneers must be part of the proud Jewish experience of today. I do not think that Jewish youth should reject any of that, rather they should understand it in its historical setting and taking it on board transend it, moving on to something qualitatively better. What to move on to is the issue.
It was clear at the time of Gaza that the Israeli political set-up was transformed into a brutal dictatorship against religious Jews, of Gaza and the settlements. I think that is the fundamental issue to confront and I think the key to answering it is in some things that you wrote above, concerning the politics of Mapai, a front for the Stalinist Communist Party, and also along with stalinism and working side by side the role of the Trade Unions Bureaucracies.
What many Jews do not understand is that this whole issue of reformist labour and stalinism is not new to many of us, many of us have studied this and have followed it in great detail. Not exactly in Israel which we know little of the history because it has not been written, rather obscured, but internationally.
If you take the year 1933 the pivotal year that allowed Hitler to make his breakthrough the forces of the German working class were totally betrayed in that year by labour reformism and by stalinism. The workers wanted to destroy the Nazis but could not because they were hamstrung, betrayed by their leaders and no revolutionary socialist party had been built to take the lead. If there had believe me the Holocaust would not and could not have happened in central Europe and that is a certain fact. As an aside to that even after that defeat the Nazis could never make inroads into the working class vote. Even when they had dictatorial power in their hands. Some people confuse lumpen proletariat, that declassed section, with the working class.
B”H
It is as simple as the Torah…. Remember The Sin of the Spies? What else is there to discuss about ? May we ask for HaShem, G-d for His Strength, His Hope and His Salvation during these trying times ahead of Israel and Her people and supporters…. May we see the advent of a new era – a Jewish Israel- Yisrael , a Israel with a Yod
I hope and pray that all of you may make Aliyah from the exile to make this world a brighter place – To be a Light Unto the Nations …
G-d bless each and every one of , surely and mightily with His outstreched Right Hand – Even today!
B”H
The problem with socialism is that it inevitability consolidates power and becomes corrupt. Regardless of any benevolent motives that some may possess, they will meet the same end as Trotsky. When power to govern is consolidated to the point necessary to run a socialist system, the most ruthless and corrupt rise to the top.
To embrace socialism is to embrace the eventual bondage of the people and corruption of the government, even if intentions and motives are well intended. It is the nature of the beast.
Sorry Felix: Istill think you are beating a ded horse. For better or for worse we have a system that most people are content with any very few if any that I know would welcome change especially the revolutionary kind. Many people would want the system to be more responsive to their personal needs and problems this is more subjective than objective. In Israel we have a form of national health service that could be better but every man woman and child is included. While some services may not be covered and some drugs also not included it is fair to say almost 100% of Israelis have health care that is better than almost 100% of the world. 2- under our capitalistic or semi capitalistic system it would be fair to say that except for the very old and infirm anyone who wants to work can find work. we have still over HALF MILLION FOREIGN WORKERS HERE> some legal most not.Our middle Class which represents the majority of Israelis are living on a pretty high standrd of living compared to most in W. Europe. In 1967 our mil. expd. was about 30% of GDP today it is less than 5% of GDP with the Defense budget running close to 40 billion shekls or 10 billion dollars. If we were to put Israel in EU without the Mil. portion of our expenditures Israel would jump to top of the wealthy nations list. Last Summers month war only cost us about 1/2 % of yeary GDP. and our economy hardly missed a beat and our stock market hit records and is still climbing.
Any form of state ownership translates into inefficiency, redundancy, lack of risk taking, lots of bureacracy (which strangles smooth and timely decision making. Those at the top will be less qualified as likely as not they will be political appointees,who owe their jobs to the party in power not the workers and certainly not any shareholders if there still are those. In a global economy where you must compete against the world, having a better more innovative and cost effective product wins the marketplace along with modern marketing practices.
In economics 101 you learn the following mantra: Governments should not indulge in any enterprise where the private sector can do a better job. In some cases a nation feels a need for a service that the private sector rejects then by all means have the government step in to this void. As part of our socialist experiences here we have still many government companies and concerns that still have not been sold off mainly due to political opposition, as parties in power use these companies to pad political supporters.The workers in the Israeli electric company and its management are the highest paid workers in Israel due to it being a monopoly same for All government monopolies including port workers. When government monopoly of telephone services were run as a government monopoly the waiting period for phone installation could be -3-5 years when the monopoly was broken and opened to competition the wait can be a matter of 2 hours. now we have 5-6 different companies competing in the same market all have profits in hundreds of millions of dollars annually and there is room for more. Our telephone bills have fallen 2000% vs. state monopoly and all have to kiss the consumers rear end not the other way around.
In every instance I can think of were state companies become privatized and opened up to competition not only have the choices, services become better but the prices and our cost of use and procurement have been reduced at least by hundreds of %. All of this privatization, has created not only more jobs (a lot of jobs) but much better paying jobs as workers gain a market valve in the work marketplace and demand and receive good and or better wages than beforehand. Most people don`t like government and consider them to be a necessary evil me included.I don`t like regulation per se and especially over regulation. I don`t need big brother controlling my life: just provide the infrastructure, opportunities(equal)The defense establishment and police., or any other public service that governments are best suited for. Another critical area for government is in the realm of social services to those who really cannot do without help but these are nowhere near official statistics. Much of our poor is self inflicted meaning they have chosen directly or indirectly to be poor. Like the Haredim and the Arab Sectors.
Most utopian theories remain just that they can never be put into practice as most people will reject them and none that I have seen or experienced first hand could ever live up to it`s proponents expectations. The X factor always ruins the dream(people).Capitalism with a social conscience is my idea of the right mix. only history and hind site will determine who was right Marx or Adam Smith. I like personally Milton Friedman