Liz Burbank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:18:03 -0800
Subject: A Life & Death Difference: Liberal Zionism [CP, Halper, Neumann]
vs. Palestinian National Self-Determination [DV, Gary Zatzman]
From: Liz Burbank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: liz Burbank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
editorial comment:
THERE CAN BE NO "PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE BETWEEN PALESTINIAN NATIONAL
LIBERATION & SELF-DETERMINATION and THE RACIST ISRAELI SETTLER STATE:
ZATZMAN, published by DV, HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: why won't CP
publish this to refute NEUMANN & HALPER's LIBERAL ZIONISM:
the two most crucial major opposing issues: [1] the inherent injustice &
illegality of the existence of imperialist created Israeli racist settler
'state' on Palestinian land
[2] the marriage of convenience between the u.s. & israeli agendas: the
geostrategic necessity of Israel to the U.S. global agenda to crush Arab
nations/nationalism and control ME oil/energy, the crucial leverage for
u.s. world domination --dovetailing with the zionist state's "greater/eretz
israel" agenda.
____________
"What are You Doing? What Have You Become?": Israel as an Extension of
American Empire
By JEFF HALPER
http://www.counterpunch.org/halper11072005.html
11/07/05
There are many tragic and self-destructive features of the Occupation for
Israel itself. Although the country was founded on the "original sin" of
exclusivity and the expulsion of the refugees, it nevertheless had (has?)
the potential to develop into a normal, even progressive society. Many of
the socialist principles that accompanied the Zionist program led in those
directions. Israel always talked of democracy, even extending citizenship to
its Arab population in 1948, even though the underlying concept of a "Jewish
democracy," coupled with a deep-based fear of demographics only exacerbated
by the Occupation, has emptied that of much of its content. It constituted
itself as a welfare state, only to see that largely dismantled as the
Israel-Palestine conflict gave dominance to the right whose agenda, together
with expansion, was anti-socialist and pro-privatization....
As an Israeli (and an immigrant to the country to boot), I write all this
with sadness and concern. For all the violence and injustice that
accompanied its birth, this was not the country it was intended to be. The
slogan of the Israeli peace movement, "occupation corrupts," has proven to
be true with a vengeance. Israel has become a Sparta, an aggressive country
with no moral brakes that endangers its neighbors, peoples of far-away land
and, in the end, its own population. The fact that Israel has become a
handmaiden (to choose a nice word) to American Empire, that it has
compounded the sins of occupation by joining forces with chauvinistic
neo-cons, corporations pursuing war profits, anti-Semitic fundamentalists
and other dubious forces subverting progressive civil society elements
around the world. This is the greatest betrayal, not only of what Israel
might have been had it sought accommodation and peace with the Palestinians
and its other neighbors but of the Jewish people as a whole, who have been
disproportionately represented among the progressive forces seeking to
spread universal human and civil rights, and who themselves have a
fundamental stake in such principles prevailing. The purpose of this paper
is not to "knock" Israel, but to shake it, to yell at its leaders and
citizens: "What are you doing? What have you become? Save yourselves!" If
not that, then at least to constrain it, as we must constrain American
Empire, for the sake of us all. [...]
...
"Optimism of the Will": Peretz or Bust?
By JEFF HALPER
http://www.counterpunch.org/halper11252005.html
November 25, 2005
Until November 10, my prognosis of the progress of apartheid in
Israel/Palestine was right on track. Sharon was on a tight time-table. With
a stable government that would last until the elections in November 2006, he
would move quickly to nail down the last elements of his life's work:
determining Israel's final borders (marked by the settlements and the route
of the "Separation Barrier" to the west and by the Jordan River and Dead Sea
to the east) and confining the Palestinians to a truncated mini-state
comprised of five or so cantons with no unsupervised borders. This would
have to be done unilaterally, since Israel has absolutely nothing to offer
the Palestinians that they could conceivably accept. Sharon had completed
his 28-year project of establishing irreversible "facts on the ground" in
the West Bank and "greater" Jerusalem. He enjoyed the support of the Bush
administration and, even more important, of both parties of both houses of
Congress which, in June, 2004, endorsed almost unanimously the Bush-Sharon
exchange of letters that recognized Israel's de facto annexation of its
major settlement blocs. The Road Map, the only diplomatic initiative that
could have salvaged the two-state solution, had become a dead letter. Within
six months, I predicted, apartheid would be a done deal. Israel would
officially expand to 85-90% of the country west of the Jordan, the
Palestinians would be granted their cantonized (Sharon's term) state on the
remaining 10-15% and Israel's version of the "two-state solution," shared by
Likud and Labour alike, would come to fruition. Sharon could retire to his
farm, having no more reason to run for a third term.
The election of Amir Peretz to head to the Labour Party changed the
time-table; it remains to be seen whether it will really alter the
prognosis. Not because of Peretz himself. I have no doubt that he
understands the importance of a just peace for everyone concerned, the
working classes of Israel first and foremost....
Peretz's election has generated great hope among many Israelis of all
persuasions who have had to hunker down in sullenness over the past decade.
One overriding question is, however, if Peretz is too good to be true. He is
a breath of fresh air but in a party reeking of putrification...
Can he prevail over the system? It is doubtful, if only because of Israel's
proportional system of elections which disenfranchises voters and empowers
political parties to form coalition governments that frustrate, at times
even defy, the public will...
If Peretz loses or fails to form a stable government, Sharon's march to
apartheid will have suffered only a minor snag. Sharon might even return
with an enhanced mandate to impose a unilateral "peace." Just today he is
quoted in Ha'aretz as telling the first meeting of his new party that his
main goal would be "to lay the foundation for a peace in which we set the
permanent borders of the state, while insisting on the dismantling of the
terror organizations." He would offer the Palestinians "independence" while
rejecting the fundamental principle of the two-state solution since 1967:
land for peace. What does this mean? An expanded Israel incorporating the
settlement blocs and a "greater" Jerusalem; the Palestinians locked into a
truncated, non-viable, semi-sovereign Bantustan. The two-state solution
will, in my view, have been dealt a death blow. At that stage the
international civil society will have to reevaluate the nature of its
struggle for a just peace in Israel/Palestine, shifting its efforts from a
campaign to end the Occupation (which Sharon will claim he has ended by
granting the Palestinians independence) to an anti-apartheid campaign. Since
we have defeated one apartheid regime, the "optimism of the will" should
sustain us in the dark times we may be about to enter.
Peretz, indeed, or bust.
Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=======
The Notion of the ³Jewish State² as an ³Apartheid Regime²
is a Liberal-Zionist One
by Gary Zatzman
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Zatzman1121.htm
November 21, 2005
The cause of Palestine consists of the restoration of the national rights of
the Palestinian people and enabling the Palestinians to exercise their right
of self-determination in their own territory. Theirs is the territory
illegally mandated to Great Britain by the League of Nations in 1920-21 and
subsequently "partitioned" by the United Nations in 1947 to establish a
so-called "Jewish state" enclave for the Zionist movement. Enabling the
Palestinians to exercise their right of self-determination in their own
territory means implementing the Palestinians' right to return to their
lands and to be restored in the property/properties that were taken from
them in the course of acts of conquest by the Zionist movement, and in clear
cut violation of international law, during 1947-48 and again in June 1967.
Many activists in this highly just cause have been drawing comparisons
between the regimen of bantustans and separate laws imposed on the native
population by the tiny apartheid white-racist minority's regime in South
Africa between 1948 and 1991 and the "legal" regime by which the
Zionists' regulatory authorities at all levels -- up to the
Knesset/legislature and the Cabinet/executive, as well as throughout the
armed forces -- have continued to secure their own presence and dominance by
extending their control over every possible aspect of Palestinians' lives.
Although not identical, the colonialist and racist pedigrees and impacts of
each system of oppression are structurally comparable. However, whereas the
solution in South Africa always turned upon finding some new form of state
in which majority rule would prevail and white-racist privilege be finally
extirpated, the cause of Palestine entails eliminating the Zionist junta's
so-called "Jewish state" of European-American colonialist privilege and
restoring to the Palestinians what the Zionists stole. How does disabling
the racist provisions of the laws and regulations of the State of Israel,
and reforming the "Jewish-only" element to become fully inclusive of the
entire population, bring the Palestinians any closer to restoring what the
Zionists stole?
The questions of justice involved -- of compensation for damages inflicted,
including restitution of what was illegally taken, destroyed or disabled --
are very different in the two cases. For all its serious and undoubted evils
and the numerous crimes against humanity committed in its name, including
physical slaughters, South African white-racist apartheid was not premised
on committing genocide. Zionism, on the other hand, has been committed to
dissolving the social, cultural, political and economic integrity of the
Palestinian people, i.e., genocide, from the outset, at least as early as
Theodor Herzl's injunction in his diaries that the "transfer" of the
Palestinian "penniless population" elsewhere be conducted "discreetly and
circumspectly." The fact that the present day heirs of his outlook practice
this genocidal policy in ongoing slow motion, so to speak, over decades
rather than in one fell swoop, and that their assault on the Palestinians'
identity as a people is not confined to acts of physical extermination, does
not make their practice any the less genocidal.
Strategically speaking, all those compelled to fight for their
self-determination against imperialist oppression must rely on organizing
and waging the struggle of their own people first and foremost. Utilizing
contradictions among their enemies may become tactically highly important at
very specific moments of these struggles. At such moments, the forces waging
the internal struggle may indeed organize their own external front of
support. However, actually to orient one's strategy according to what use
can be made of such contradictions is a waste of time that can even become
fatal for people's movements in our day. The world has already long been
witness to what befell the momentum for national liberation in South Africa
after international finance capital assembled a black-majority successor
regime to white-racist apartheid behind a façade fronted by Nelson Mandela
after 1991. The path to this betrayal was paved in the 1980s by the
excessive focus on the role of international boycotts and other activities
external to South Africa and -- most importantly -- beyond the control of
the forces actually fighting for national liberation (the most effective
were precisely those few actually organized by the fighting forces and their
representatives).
Today, it is increasingly seen how many of those active in the cause of
Palestine who have been eliciting or repeating the comparison of Zionist
rule with white-racist apartheid rule are also advocating boycotts and
similar methods in the name of "strengthening the external front of
solidarity," etc. Professor Ilan Pappe, for example, who has been supporting
some forms of academic boycott of Israeli universities, has bluntly declared
that the reason to pursue the route of building such external pressure is
that the road of building such pressure "peacefully" within Palestine itself
has come to an end! If, however, the road of building such pressure
peacefully within Palestine itself has indeed come to an end, why not just
as reasonably conclude that the time has come to ramp up the struggle for
Palestinians' national liberation by better utilizing illegal alongside all
remaining legal opportunities to advance this struggle? The issue is neither
"peaceful" versus "violent" methods of struggle, nor the form of struggle
organized as external support (divestment, boycotts, etc.), but purely and
simply: what force organizes?
The line of freelance organization of external "support" for the cause of
Palestine is liberal Zionism at its most diabolical: it is liberal Zionism
at work plotting to seize control of the Palestinian movement for national
liberation on one of its most vital points. Organization of external
"support" for the cause of Palestine is a matter for those actually waging
the struggle for national liberation within Palestine to tackle, to give the
direction and designate organizations and individuals to do it.
Interestingly, the comparison of Zionist oppression with white-racist South
African apartheid no longer passes muster with Archbishop Desmond Tutu or
other prominent leaders of the ANC-led struggle against apartheid. The
archbishop explicitly commented that what he was been able to witness and
learn about daily life under Zionist occupation in the West Bank alone is
already many times worse than anything he experienced during apartheid. If
such a determinedly non-revolutionary activist has already seen through the
falsehood of the analogy, the time would seem to have ripened to set this
analogy aside once and for all and remain clear-eyed about, as well as
vigilant against, the liberal Zionists' aim and presence in the cause of
Palestine.
Gary Zatzman is co-editor of Dossier on Palestine. He can be reached at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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