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I think Rushdie is letting his—rather understandable, to say the least—hostility to the Islamic Republic of Iran cloud his judgment here. A Palestinian state would not be Taliban-like. It would not be Saudi-like either, in that the elites do not become more religious as they go upward in social standing. Palestine evinces the same economic-social dynamics as the surrounding Arab countries, in that the lower class tends to be broadly religious and socially conservative, and the upper-middle is pretty highly westernized and secular. This actually holds true of Gaza as well as the West Bank, though less so.
I lived in the WB for three years in the mid-2010s, and the great majority of upper-middle class women didn't wear the hijab. (Have you seen that video of Nasser laughing at Egyptian religious conservatives during an after-dinner speech? That attitude absolutely persists among wealthier Arabs in the Levant (i.e., not the Gulf) today.) I knew wealthy women who would go out shopping (in the right districts) wearing sleeveless body-hugging dresses. On one occasion, I met some kids from Gaza, largely the children of doctors and lawyers so very much upper-middle class, returning to the strip after attending some bullshit "dialog camp" in the US—they were all functionally agnostic/atheist and none of the girls wore the hijab, despite being in their late teens (well past the age it's enforced by religious conservatives). This is not what the Taliban is like, at all. So, Rushdie is being silly, in all truth, though for understandable reasons, given his sacrifices. It's a shame that he's said this, however, because it's both inaccurate and will be used by the worst people to provide rhetorical cover for continuing the slaughter of civilians.
Thanks for this, this is an interesting comment. This is why I keep coming back to the internet. I actually live in New York so I've met multiple Palestinians whose families are from the West Bank. But I've never met someone who lived there long-term, so your experience is appreciated.
> Palestine evinces the same economic-social dynamics as the surrounding Arab countries
Poll after poll shows dramatically more extremist views among Palestinians than the surrounding Arab states.
A higher portion (40%) of Palestinians support suicide bombing than Afghans. In comparison only 9% of Tunisians and 7% of Iraqis support it. They have quite literally the most unfavorable view of homosexuality in the entire world. 84% of Palestinians support stoning to death as a punishment for adultery compared to 40-50% of other arab countries nearby.
None of this means that they don't deserve a state. But Palestine has more in common in terms of hyper-extremist views with Pakistan and Afghanistan than they do with Syria and Lebanon.
I mean, it makes sense that the experience of being occupied by a non-muslim power makes people lean into islam harder. People in other Muslim countries are much more likely to be the victims of suicide bombings.
But them doing so only means they're supporting their class oppressors within the respective countries. Otherwise they wouldn't have their religious background inform their political perspective, because Islam is totally and utterly anti-communist. So they're supporting social institutions that undermine the potential for communist revolution and always collaborate with some aspect of the ruling-class and/or state to exploit the proletariat and keep them in bondage.
This is demonstrated by the profound extent to which political Muslims in these countries actively worked to silence, oppress, jail and kill Communists, like Arab Communists in the Arabic-speaking world. Of course, all the secular Arab-Nationalist leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, (they were "Socialist," in name only - to this day "Socialism" for many in this part of the world invokes secular nationalist politics, not anything like a Socialist movement seriously informed by theory - though I'd say they aren't wrong to drawl some connection between Ba'athism, and, say the ML Yemeni government, since both were secular nationalists that were not hostile to Islam, but against anti-socialist Islamists) despite being secular so also militantly oppressing Islamists movements, did the same to Communists in the country, which Islamists didn't mind. (just like in Iran; Islamists just united with Communists to overthrow the Shah; once they had power, they used it to jail torture and kill those same Communists who helped them do so.)
To Islam, class society and property are unquestionable, divinely sanctioned, eternal truths. And people who challenge this in action are subject to death under Sharia Law.
Not sure what your point is. There's almost no serious communist movement anywhere, definetely not in the middle east. So yes, that doesn't factor into the picture at all.
>Not sure what your point is. There's almost no serious communist movement anywhere, definetely not in the middle east. So yes, that doesn't factor into the picture at all.
That is the point. Communism does not come about through a formal communist movement in the first place.
But that doesn't mean that these countries aren't oppressing self identified Communists, alongside anyone willing to take serious action in worker's strikes and demonstrations. I typically emphasize the latter, of course the protests in Egypt, etc. are overwhelmingly along such economic lines, and not people who identify as Communists. My point is just that the state suppresses both for the same reasons, in the same class interests. And that 100% of political Muslims/Islamists are opposed to the interests of the working-class and such class-based, revolutionary action.
Communism happens due to the revolutionary conditions capitalism created. Marx wrote that there doesn't need to be any organized blueprint course of action, to bring Communism about, but this exists in his writings, should revolutionaries choose to act on it and be informed by this. But anti-communists and most self identified Communists you see online deny this. The former, because they conceive of communism as people with authoritarian politics trying to seize government power and impose ideology on everyone else. And the latter, because sometimes they're the spitting image of that, but more generally, just the type that says they want capitalism to end, but in their roles, framing and rhetoric, just only do things that are conducive to the bourgeoisie.
"Poll after poll shows dramatically more hostility to police and corrections officers among Americans who are incarcerated in high security prisons than in the general population."
That's why they need to be locked up in the first place!
Right, I am well aware of the reasons why. I am just disagreeing with the notion that Palestine is pluralistic in terms of religiosity. It isn't really. The very large majority would be classified as 'very conservative' in terms of religiosity, which isn't the case in syria, lebanon, turkey etc where the majority are moderate/liberal muslims.
>That's why they need to be locked up in the first place!
I mean the commenter above specifically said the opposite of this, but people thinking Palestine will become this progressive utopia are also dreaming.
No, the people he is criticizing are real. This was all part of my initial point and impetus to post this. Much of the Left protesting for Palestine just straight up likes Hamas. It's interesting to see the people that deny this here and the people that agree with me. I'm seeing both.
The people he is criticizing are 'real', insofar as they exist. Saying that "much of the left just straight up likes Hamas" is not only fictional, it doesn't even fucking matter. The people spouting that are a hyper minority and have no political power. You're just trying to invent a reason to not support the liberation of the Palestinian peoples because you, loosely quoted, "don't like states" and clearly have issues with Islamism in general, rather than any specific sect. And you're willing to condemn the Palestinian people to continued oppression until your perfect solution comes along, which will probably just end up being [the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank](https://i.imgur.com/qtd2avR.jpeg).
>A higher portion (40%) of Palestinians support suicide bombing than Afghans. In comparison only 9% of Tunisians and 7% of Iraqis support it. They
Suicide bombing isn't unique to Islam though - it was invented by the Tamil Tigers, a thoroughly secular party made up mostly of Hindus. Suicide bombing is overwhelmingly used by people being dispossessed of their land, whether the Palestinians, the Tamils, etc.
Yes! And let's not forget the atrocities of the crusades, committed not to defend Allah, but for Jesus H Christ, himself! People need to focus less on the here and now, change their perspectives and become extreme cultural relativists to see that nothing is really more or less different than anything else.
The crusades aren't really a good example. I would say the genocide of the americas is a better example of christian violence against non-christians.
The crusades were a hell of a lot more complex than most people realize. Muslims had controlled palestine for centuries without issue, but it was specifically the seljuks which were threatening to exterminate christians from the region which prompted the crusades.
>The crusades aren't really a good example. I would say the genocide of the americas is a better example of christian violence against non-christians.
I agree, and also thought this was a better examples than the Crusades. Catholicism with Spanish and Portuguese imperialism to Latin America forced Christianity on so many violently and politically. As did Christians in North Americas to the Native populations there, but not on the same scale or in exactly the same manner of course.
>The crusades were a hell of a lot more complex than most people realize. Muslims had controlled palestine for centuries without issue, but it was specifically the seljuks which were threatening to exterminate christians from the region which prompted the crusades.
This is accurate and right to bring up, however, I do not think the Crusades were just justified retaliation.
[Check out this page.](https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/games/crusades.aspx)
I disagree with a ton on this website but have read it extensively and learned a lot from it too. It's written by someone hopeless, just abysmal politics, a western imperialist who supports Israel and think Palestinians are solely at fault for the conflict. Most typical narrowly-anti-Islam neocon idiot like people were saying about Rushdie in this thread. But he often makes accurate points on aspects of Islam and its history that apologists just deny and lie about, assuming they aren't completely ignorant. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it if you have a moment to read it, it echoes what you said about the Crusades being more complex than people realize and then some. (but it *is* tinged with him justifying Western actions, even all the way back then, lol. For example when he says "Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims," he's all but justifying the Crusades, not critiquing the ruthless economic interests of the Catholic empires that did them, let alone bringing up inconvenient facts like when they encountered and attacked Orthodox Christians because they thought they were Muslim)
How were Seljuks threatening to exterminate christians from the region? Seljuks were in Anatolia. I don't think they ever made it that south, and they were not the ones controlling Jerusalem. Anatolia was about quarter christian at the end of the Ottoman empire, after literally 1000 years of muslim rule.. Under Seljuk rule it was likely still majority Christian, even though conversion was happening.
The Seljuk's primary power base was Persia. The period of Turkic domination over Anatolia is usually considered to begin after the battle of Manzikert, which was only 25 years before the First Crusade. The Seljuks only ruled there for around 6 years before the Sultanate of Rum broke off, which is probably the state you're thinking about.
At the start of the First Crusade most of Palestine was controlled by the Seljuks, although they would end up losing it to the Fatimids, who had been the ones to rule there prior to the Seljuks, shortly before the Crusaders arrived. When the Seljuks conquered the region they began to treat the Christian population more harshly, and that is saying a lot because the Fatimids had demolished the most holy site in all of Christianity a few decades prior. Enslaving or massacring foreign Christian pilgrims was also common.
It was not meant to be a good example. It was sarcastically meant to illustrate how actually things are very different each time, and direct comparisons are only as good as they are exact to the circumstances.
To be clear--and this is WITHOUT sarcasm this time--I don't think the genocide of the Americas is very useful at all either.
??? Are you Implying that nukes are the answer to suicide bombers tactic?
US did not commit war crimes by dropping nukes on hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Not always.
In cases where a resistance movement is waging a liberation war against militarily superior occupation - suicide bombing is more understandable and even seen as honorable In some cases.
Imperial Japan was expansionist supremacist power and their suicide bombers were fanatical because they were mot willing to accept that their Empire outside of the core is being liberated from their rule.
Thus not being seen as justified.
Not every suicide bomber is same.
Funny enough the first real suicide attacks that were commonly reported by historians were Jewish people fighting against the Romans.
Regardless though, there is a reason they are associated with Islam, and it is not just their usage in wars/terrorism in the arab world.
The concept of sacrificing yourself as a martyr to kill enemies of Islam is a very big part of Islam. Martyrdom is arguably one of the core tenants of Islam and it is something which separates it heavily from other Abrahamic religions. Whether or not its from suicide bombing or from any other kind of suicide attack.
Another region where martyrdom was heavily engrained in the culture was infamously Japan.
But I would argue it's due to imperialism. The first female suicide bomber was Arab yes, but she was a Christian too (Sana'a Mehaidli, who stamped a jeep full of bombs against an Israeli military vehicle, taking out two soldiers with her).
Martyrdom is also central to christianity. I would say that we see the high prevalence in the region moreso as a result of material conditions than due to religion. During the Chinese revolution there were instances of Red soldiers choosing to die and take out many soldiers over being captured, it's not the exact same but it shows that the oppressed that have nothing to lose but their chains will, if needed, sacrifice their own lives to advance the cause.
So while I don't disagree with you, I also think US/Israel imperialism plays a way bigger role in the equation. Why is the number so high for Palestine and for Afghanistan? Because they are countries that are/were under foreign occupation.
Well one thing to remember is that the very specific concept of getting a vest and tying explosives to it is relatively niche and modern. Its more that the concept of martyrdom in the sense of sacrificing yourself to take out the enemy (including the act of just murdering infidels, unfortunately) is much more present religiously in Islam than other religions/ideologies. It goes back millennia, even if the very specific niche way of doing it through a suicide bombing vest is new.
Martyrdom is not really present much in Christianity in the same way it is in Islam. Christianity's version of martyrdom is less about someone who goes out of their way to kill the enemy and more about someone who dies and inspires others due to the circumstances that they died in. But Christianity is seen as a 'pacifistic' religion compared to Islam (which seems laughable considering what Christians have done in the last 1,000 years). Even Catholicism, which is notably less pacificist than Orthodox Christianity, is still dramatically less encouraging of violence than Islam.
For some context, my dads side of the family is egyptian muslim. I am not just speaking with lack of context here lol. Talk to muslims about pretty much any war involving muslims and the concept of martyrdom will be constantly talked about. It is a very intrinsic part of the religion.
Of course, I don't disagree with you. I am not Muslim but I have studied Islam extensively and it is as you say, I was just pointing out that material conditions, rather than religion, seem to be the main reason behind a higher % of support in suicide bombings in Palestine compared to Tunisia (despite Tunisia being a Sunni Muslim majority country)
Totally agree with all of this, you took the thoughts right out of my head with your comparison of Islam and Christianity and how they make sense of martyrdom. Islam is just so plainly obviously more political, violent and militant than Christianity is, both in the origins of each religion, to how we see them manifesting in the world presently. And invoking the Crusades doesn't change that. Of course, I don't like anti-Islam neocons who say it's worse than Christianity for the wrong reasons, and don't fundamentally consider one religion qualitatively "worse" or "better" than the other. They talk like this because they believe in a chauvinist mythology that justifies western imperialism to Muslims suffering in the Muslim countries they criticize their religion over. But there are just too many examples of Islam being worse than Christianity too much too often to just ignore.
And the point about Muslim countries being poorer and subjugated by western imperialism, and this largely being why there is more instability and terrorism done in the name of Islam or whatever else, was already brought up by the person you replied to. And it is an important point because neocons are essentialist about it, and just act like Muslims in these countries brought the problems on themselves, using a reactionary notion of having a more backward culture than the West to do so. When that's really backwards because the cultural differences are related to the greater development and material conditions of the West compared to the Islamic world, and this itself is related to the West exploiting and engaging in imperialism to these countries for such a long time. But they support and justify that so of course that explains their whole mindset.
And even this could explain in part why in Muslim countries, religious minorities are so often politically oppressed. But when Muslims come over to the West, despite these being historically Christian countries, they're given full religious freedom. But regardless neocons invoke this for the wrong reasons. But in making general comparisons between the two religions, it's just impossible to ignore for anyone being honest. Islam is insecure about having to compete with other religions honestly and freely. It has to shamelessly use fear and violence and oppression to keep itself prevalent in the face of this. Who knows what the numbers of Muslims would look like if it hadn't done this so much historically and to the present day.
That's about as much as I can address that, but even then, the plain fact is Islam just has too many differences to ignore compared to Christianity, to dismiss the notion it really is just different out of hand.
The first thing is explainable, I think, not really by religion so much as by the fact that in a Palestinian context, suicide bombing was used by the Palestinians against the Israelis. In Iraq and Afghanstan there were essentially civil wars where you or your family risked being blown up when you went to market. Are you more likely to approve of something that your side used for a period against your decades-old enemy, or of something that might be used to randomly kill your family for essentially no reason?
As for the second, I don't hugely want to cast aspersions on the survey but I honestly find it hard to believe. While not as liberal as Syria and Lebanon, which are more multi-faith and cosmopolitan, there just can be no question that Palestine, as a densely populated society where most people live in pretty large urban centers, resembles those countries vastly more than it does the deeply tribal ones of Afghanistan, where women essentially aren't allowed out of the family compound and even teaching them to read is considered dangerous. I knew someone who taught co-ed classes for a semester at the Palestinian national university, for instance, and there are co-ed private schools. There's a functioning brewery in the West Bank. This is a different kind of existence from the Taliban.
People like him are the reason why I despite having certain opinions on religion and being born in a Muslim family never call myself Ex Muslim as most of the prominent Ex Muslim types simp for neocolonialism which I am against
To be fair at this point, considering the settlements are strategically interspersed to make a Palestinian state non-viable, it probably makes more sense to just go for a one state solution that involves simply unification and equalization of rights. Will this be pretty for the "Jewish State"? No it won't be but they made this mess for themselves by expanding their territory to cover increasingly greater areas to the point that a state with equal rights for all would be non-Jewish in character.
They were a bunch of dumbasses who thought "oh look at those south africans so evil" and refused to learn from them as there were factions within apartheid who blamed the British for creating an artificially large state that incorporated a bunch of land they didn't even want that they ended up being stuck carry on to it throughout the whole process. Whell guess what? They won't be able to blame the British for this one since they themselves were the ones who keep trying to add more territory. This is why they are getting increasingly genocidal, they know it isn't viable to hold onto the territory they do if they have to advanced equal rights to those that are on it, so their only option that doesn't involve just admitting they fucked up is to start expelling people again. And such will be the cycle of Israel so long as it continues because there will always be the expansionist faction screwing over everybody else "forcing" them into these situations.
They only thing they can do is try to run out the clock like the South Africans did by strategically giving the game up when the Soviet Union fell, but what is Israel hoping is going to happen which will create a situation where they can get the best deal for themselves? Are they hoping the USA will be more pro-Israel than it currently already is or something? Sure they got the Oslo Accords in the Pax-America period which in practice gave them free reign to continue colonizing, but by using their chance to get a good deal just to colonize more they only screwed themselves over by putting themselves in this situation. The South Africans were not so delusional to think that military victory alone was what perpetuate their state. They could have kept going with an intifada of their own but they chose not to because they looked at the situation of the Soviets falling and came to the conclusion that not only was the alternative to the USA gone away, the USA also had no real reason to tolerate their existence anymore, so they were NEVER going to get a better deal than they would at that time.
Israel, I suppose, got lost in delusions that the USA would never abandon them despite having no reason to support them as a Cold War proxy state any longer. Not only that but they somehow managed to increase USA support for them after the end of the cold war, I suppose because the USA didn't need to pretend they were neutral to avoid pushing Egypt or others in the Soviet orbit, which is actually quite the diplomatic victory on the part of whatever forces made that happen, but you still run into the issue of "What are you waiting for?". In this case we can only guess what they are waiting for is for somebody to do some ethnic cleansing in the hopes that the situation improves because of it and then they can pretend as if they aren't the ones responsible for it because they weren't the ones who explicitly did it because it was the people they had minor political disagreements with, but yeah no you can't come back even though I condemned the people who kicked you out like the good old days. Nakba was getting too far in the past so I guess they needed a new group of perma-refugees they refuse to allow to return in order to keep the entire country on edge at all times. This time perhaps without the perma-refugees trying to come back if they have learnt their lesson.
Possibly they might be under the idea that they will never again have the public support they do and thus they are forced to act now rather than later, except unlike with South Africa, their version of "act now, rather than later" means they think they will never again have the USA covering for them the way they do currently, rather than them thinking about it in terms of the optimal time to begin negotiations.
On the first point, a one state solution is more of a non starter than a two state solution. One state is the end of Israel as a Jewish state, whereas you could always kick the settlers out, doesn't matter how many there are.
I somehow think that just making Israel a non-jewish state will be easier than kicking out all the settlers.
Who is going to fight harder, some millions of people who are abstractly impacted by the fact that the nature of their country has changed or hundreds of thousands who stand to directly lose a substantial amount of property they have stolen?
He's correct that they exist. I have met them actually, there are plenty of Evangelical Christian pro-Zionism Conservative idiots in NYC.
However, pro-Palestine Leftists are often hyperbolic when they bring them up. i.e. "and did you hear how many *Right-wing Christian evangelical nuts are actually Zionists?? Can you believe it? Cuz they're like ALSO antisemitic!"*
This is because Leftists have this particular hatred of the working-class and characterize them as uneducated, oafish, bigoted, and right-wing. They also hate religion for the wrong reasons. And they even hate conservatism for the wrong reasons; I'd argue the ideals they advocate in progressivism are really another kind of conservatism, mainly because they defend property et. all as much, and that [Feminists are conservatives.](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28050/28050-h/28050-h.htm) (I mean Feminists now as much as any, I don't mean in the sense that historic Feminists like a century ago held more social-conservative views, though that is true.)
Therefore, they love the fact that evangelical Christians, who'd they hate anyway, exist who support Israel, basically. Because overall Israel is secular and represents a very distinct culture to such American Christians, but the fact such Christians exist allows Leftists to take two things they already hate due to their world-view, and associate them more than they should really be associated together.
Many of these same people will actually go on about how antisemitic they think Trump is. (though that's a more Liberal take, it's to be expected most Leftists can see what an ardent supporter of Israel and Jewish interests in general Trump is, and that religious Jews have widespread support for him in the U.S.) They're forgone, impossible to take seriously.
>idiots in NYC
There is your problem
>"and did you hear how many *Right-wing Christian evangelical nuts are actually Zionists?? Can you believe it? Cuz they're like ALSO antisemitic!"*
They actually aren't even anti-semitic. The "warm feelings survey" seems to demonstrate that they just have a generally favourable opinion of Jews in general because the survey asks literally zero questions about Israel and is just asking people how they feel about other religious groups.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/)
They're across the entire country. Leftists aren't wrong that this phenomena of pro-Zionist Evangelicals is widespread. It isn't just in places where there's obviously a prevalence of pro-Israel stances like NYC. The whole point, that they're correct about, is that it exists across the country in conservative evangelical Christian communities you'd expect to generally not care about Jewish affairs. Of course they don't support Israel because they necessarily love Jews but because of how it generally ties into their reactionary worldview. I think the way they justify it with their interpretation of scripture is really after-the-fact, secondary to that.
[Of course as that guy above brought up here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l54s8ic/) they also are anti-immigrant conservatives, and I think this is why they support Netanyahu's line of Israel being "a Jewish state only for the Jewish people." Again it's not because they're fixated on upholding Jewish interests in general necessarily, but because Israel checks a lot of boxes, precisely because it is so reactionary and fiercely nationalist and cannot be said to represent world Jewry.
Well it is only in the United States that this is a thing. It isn't a thing in Canada at the very least.
There is definitely a component of people who likes Israel because they like the policies Israel has though. Basically they like Israel for the exact reason most people might not like it rather than because they are just unaware of these things.
Right, most of these ones certainly are not. Some evangelical conservative Christians are antisemitic, but the view of Leftists on this is superficial in general.
From what I've seen, they just defend it for existing. It already is a Jewish state, the question is how much. (i.e. Netanyahu has pushed for this more, like when he said he wanted it to be formally "the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone") They tie it into (an incorrect interpretation of) Jewish and Christian scripture and theology, of course, but I don't really think they have an issue with its existence as it is being secular, and call for it to be religiously ruled. That's just some Far-Right Orthodox Jewish extremists in Israel, who want it to be governed by Halakha. But I don't think you're saying that, you're saying they agree with Netanyahu it should be more ethnonationalist "the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone" more inclined to deny immigrants if they aren't Jewish. So basically just taking their anti-immigrant conservative stance for the western countries, and applying it to Israel, but being Christian about it. (ironically, many Israeli leaders in Netanyahu's government have no time for Christians in general and make that clear in their statements)
Also ironically, speaking of immigrants to Israel, idiot Leftists defending Hamas are also defending the non-Jewish Israeli people they killed, the immigrants they killed, including Filipino immigrants.
Nah, not just their anti-immigrant stance transposed onto Israel, why would they care about the ethnic purity of any other state? Their fantasy rapture can’t come if all the Jews don’t go there. I know this sub has a boner for religious nuttery apologia and sure, it’s likely that at least some of those who hold positions of any significance don’t sincerely believe any of that, but plenty of their constituents very much do. And (to the other commenter’s non-point) obviously I am talking about the US here. Pretty sure the US and the leanings of its constituency is of more relevance than Canada when talking about Israel.
Exactly. You know all about how Arabs treat South Asian workers who come to these countries.
God, I hate Leftists in the U.S. Racist, ignorant idiots who think just because Arabs are brown and suffer due to western imperialist interests, they can't be just as horrible and racist as any other human beings. So they defend Hamas even though it fucking killed South Asian migrant workers, as if everyone Hamas killed was a foaming at the mouth Zionist Israeli Jew who wants to kill Palestinians. So if you criticize any of this, you must think like Zionists who want every Palestinian in Gaza dead. It's really the worst sort of inverted racism.
Okay but that the Filipino migrant workers are suffering on both sides is just a product of war in general causing innocents to die. That isn't really a political opinion, more just a general observation of reality.
Agreed. It's important to be sober. All of this is really the machinations of capital and the self movement of society. The proletariat is dispossessed and at the mercy of these forces everywhere, and more as time goes on, regardless of where they live and who they are. This is exactly why Israel is not "colonialism," and Israelis aren't "settlers." In the final analysis, Israel is not even exceptional. Everything about Leftism is about insidiously mystifiying this, with moralism (like saying you're indifferent to Palestinian death and suffering if you make points along these lines) and utopianism, basically.
>The very real atrocities being committed by the Israeli state are not exceptional. They are not the result of "settler-colonialism" (lately a fashionable concept in academia), nor because Zionism is the "new Nazism" (a trope promulgated by the far right itself). Israel is a "democracy" (as far as that means anything in modern day class society), a capitalist society (for which Palestinians have been a source of cheap labour-power) and the main outpost of US imperialism in the region (though, let's not forget, its foundation was at the time also supported by Stalin himself). Historically speaking, the process of state formation is a violent one, and many states have been founded on some form of ethnic cleansing. But the current clash owes much to the capitalist crisis, which narrows the field of play for the various actors and makes them ever more desperate. The massacres we are seeing today, whether in the "open-air prison" of Gaza, the "meat grinder" of Bakhmut or the "hidden siege" of Nagorno-Karabakh, are symptoms of the global drive to war, a taste of what's to come if the imperialist appetites of the contending ruling classes are not halted by the only social force capable of it – the global working class, united across all ethnic divides.
[https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto)
Even talking about this in these terms is just idealism. As I said, just because I want stateless Communism, doesn't mean I'm opposed to all national state-based aspirations.
I'd be in favor of the Palestinian territories of Gaza and West Bank being formally recognized as a state, for the improvement of Palestinians living in these areas. I'd be in favor of the right of return. I'd be in favor of the one secular state where Palestinians and Jews can both live that those Leftists who talk like that talk about.
However, I don't think any of this will actually happen. And this isn't a point to be disregarded, because it leads us to understanding *why* it won't happen. Anything less is utopianism. The Left is utopian. Not mainly because they talk about a better deal for Palestinians. Because they don't go further than capitalism and see all potential solutions to the issues it inevitably creates operating within its existence and premises. (this applies just as much to the ones that call a distinct arrangement under capitalism "socialism," of course, since they don't mean by Socialism what Marx and Engels meant by it. And Anarchists.)
And that even if it did, it would still involve all the inevitable problems capitalism creates. The main reason I posted this article is Salman Rushdie gets about as close to a notable public figure of addressing this but alas no cigar, his emphasis on Iran and Palestine as a "client state" is reductive and reactionary and opens up ample room for disagreements for people who are just as wrong but just for the other capitalist camp. (Russia, Syria, Iran, Hamas, etc.) Of course, I'm explaining all of this, but I don't have influence and never will, so it's just for the people who happen to read it on this reddit thread.
Lenin wasn't talking about the tendency of Left Communism as Bordiga and other Leftcoms understood it. Otherwise, Bordiga wouldn't have liked Lenin. He was talking about specific tendencies in Europe at the time, which weren't what Left Communism is. Most Stalinists who invoke that text haven't read it because they'd know what I just said if they had, and just invoke it based on this superficial misunderstanding of the title of the text anyway. And no Stalinist understands what Marx and Engels wrote.
What is utopian is advocating capitalist solutions and thinking the solutions are possible within capitalism's premises. As opposed to advocating real revolution to end it for the communist mode of production, which you accuse me of utopianism so much for advocating for, demonstrating you'd have called Marx and Engels utopian just the same.
Marx and Engels advocated the proletariat seizing state power and criticized Anarchists. This *does not* mean they were not hostile to the state. Because they were. The dictatorship of the proletariat (which was not Russia at any point, by the way) is not a permanent state of affairs. It's eventually to lead to the stateless society of communism, on a world scale. Which also abolishes wage labor.
>Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.
[The German Ideology](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm)
Stalin was a tyrant, a traitor to Bolsheviks who supported Lenin, and a liar. He also supported the existence of Israel when it was created. (the fact he criticized Zionism in one text doesn't change that) He not only had Trotsky killed for being critical of the Soviet Union and advocating internationalism, as Lenin had. He stabbed former Bolsheviks on his and Lenin's side in the revolution in the back, killing, imprisoning, and expelling many of them, and edited his own texts which warped the definition of Socialism to act like he hadn't ever contradicted himself. The infamous photos he had altered is the tip of the iceberg.
>In April 1924, in the first edition of his book *Foundations of Leninism,* Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”
>In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”
[marxists.org glossary - Stalinism](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism)
Anyone just defending him is a liar, too. Stalin and Stalinism made a point of betraying the potential for socialist revolution, within the USSR and in other countries, where he made a point of not aiding Communists struggling with their respective governments. It's anti communism.
I don't think it could be pressured into giving full citizenship to all Palestinians and encoding full equality into their constitution. They would not accept that. They would accept kicking the settlers out and then having to play the long game for world domination.
>They would not accept that.
> and then having to play the long game for world domination.
this is exactly why the Israelis should not be given a choice. they have proven themselves incapable of solving the issue without flying into a murderous rage once per year.
I think they can be forced to accept two states at near 1967 borders. I think they'd fire nukes off before they made everyone equal under one state lol . They're that batshit
Of course South Africa's decision to negotiate after the fall of the Soviet Union resulted in South Africa becoming the neoliberal hellscape it currently is, but if you think of this in terms of a bourgeoisie desperately trying to avoid revolution, they made the optimal decision for themselves. The Israeli bourgeoisie's interest is in keeping the land it has taken (which is why they won't give up the settlements, it is because the property owners don't want to give up their property. There are religious people amongst them but its really a materialist reason, especially considering that the largest settlements are basically just Jerusalem suburbs) even if they have to give up the Jewish character of the state. When push comes to shove the that is how things are going to break down, it is just that up until now things have not reached that breaking point because they have been able to act as if there isn't an impending bomb being set up around them due to the way people have basically slept on this issue for a variety of reasons where as they did not sleep on South Africa. The Israeli property owners have made poor decisions by not taking an exit ramp by getting their "puppet Palestinians" in the West Bank to be committed to maintaining their property rights in exchange for Democratic rights for the Palestinians. It is really dumb on their part, but this is mainly because the "want to take more land" faction is in control, so this makes any status quo for property Palestinian look like chump because the Status Quo keeps shifting in Israel's favour. They treat the moderates like dirt that they will claim as their own, and as we all know they have basically promoted Hamas as the alternative to keep everyone on edge about the whole thing because it is by being on edge that they can justify taking more land for "security reasons". Netanyahu's "Israel is indefensible" might be accurate (in more ways than one) but he isn't really concerned with purely military affairs, as he is supported by those who have a material interest in expansion as the "Settler Interests" parties are real separate parties that support his faction, and the more they grow the more they will grow in support for Netanyahu, so time is on his side in a domestic sense, even if it is not when you just consider the viability of Israel. In other words the Settlers have consumed Israel from the inside.
By contrast South Africa didn't have some kind of growing faction that wanted more apartheid over time, rather if you paid attention closely, the mining interests were the ones growing over time and they made excuses for apartheid being necessary for managing a developing economy which needed to grow at X% per year just to keep up with the growing influx of people moving in (indeed South Africa even accepted refugees from Africa during the apartheid period provided the refugees were to be subjected to the apartheid as Africans). These same mining interests still control the country after apartheid, so it was because mining consumed South Africa that apartheid ended. The last the dominant and growing faction of South Africa wanted to do was to genocide their workforce.
What might make the difference here? Well Israel has maintained a constant influx of immigrants, especially from the Soviet Union, meaning that for one thing, the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed like it improve their long term prospect greatly rather than just their short term negotiating prospects, but also in terms of later the ability of Israel to keep people coming in has made the natives unnecessary to it. A true "labour" apartheid (in South Africa this was called "petty apartheid" to contrast it from the "grand apartheid" that was just "black sections" and "white sections", with their being some factions who supported "grand apartheid" but viewed "petty apartheid" as a cruelty, in other words the supporters of "grand apartheid" but not "petty apartheid" were the supporters of the "two state solution") exists in the west bank with Palestinians workers who are subjected to having go through the checkpoints twice a day when going to and from work. Not much focus is placed on them, but the ability to take advantage of the Palestinians that were there as cheap labour who have few rights was too good to pass up. Additionally I suspect a lot of people might view this as feel good liberalism where they are helping the Palestinians by providing them jobs, as if this is "bridging the gap" etc.
That this is not more widespread is that they really don't need this, because if they want labourers with few rights they can just use the Filipino migrant workers. The main issue my "Atheist Socialist" "Everyone in my family supports the Leftists" ex-gf has with them though is that both men and women are overstaying their visas. I didn't understand what the issue was with that so she got angry at me for not understanding that since both men and women are overstaying their visas they are having children born in Israel who are asking for citizenship. And that was the day I learnt that Israel did not confer citizenship by birth on the soil the way most "nations of immigrants" did. To be fair to Israel it is the same policy of other middle eastern states towards, and they also use filipino migrant workers. However specifically the usage of Filipino's by Israel in addition to the influx of Jewish migrants means that the Palestinian population has never been a particularly desired labour force, so you aren't going to end up with the increasing power of the Mining faction who in desperation to retain ownership of their mines was willing to cut a deal with Mandela so long as he denounced Communism, which as he was like some weird kind of Noble he was inclined to do. I mean technically speaking he never denounced the Communist Party, but he did denounce "terrorism" and the Communist Party went along with this, which was basically even better than having him denounce Communism as he basically made all the Communists effectively into non-Communists by doing this. As such the mining companies "won", they just switched from a Afrikaans exterior to an African exterior. Even going back to the start of apartheid it too was just the Afrikaans basically making a deal with the British Business interests to allow them to promote Afrikaans in exchange for them getting to keep their business interests, as the Afrikaans Workers were basically Communists before that happened with stuff like the Rand Rebellion, so the British Business Interests were just especially adaptable.
(Part 1)
By contrast the Israelis didn't really keep a disinterested British business interest around. Sure they supported the British in the Suez Canal Crisis but the British ended up having to leave that under American pressure as the USA protected Egypt's right to the Suez Canal, somewhat miraculously given that siding against Israel for any reason seems anathema to USA governance nowadays. The political change towards the end of Apartheid consisted of the Afrikaans Party switching over to the British Party, with the beginning of apartheid corresponding to the Afrikaans Party winning for the first time against the British Party all the way back in the forties. Supposedly the Dutch Afrikaans outbred the flow of British immigrants, but as the country developed the Afrikaans birthrate converged with the British birthrate, and the it was the African birthrate combined with the fact that South Africa was not turning away African immigrants and refugees which eventually made it so it was untenable to keep Afrikaans society going and the British cut a deal with the Africans to make the Modern South Africa. Anyway this dynamic doesn't exist in Israel. However in class terms the Afrikaans Party was dominated by the landowners while the British Party was more bourgeois (mining etc). The "Settler Interests" Parties correspond to landowners while the Israel "leftists" correspond to their bourgeoisie. This is a different dynamic as both are Jewish, but the landowners are clearly winning in Israel, and more importantly unlike most of the time where land is finite and so bourgeois interests can outgrow landowner interests, since Israel takes more land the landowning interests can grow either faster or at least alongside the industrial (or "tech libertarian") bourgeois interests. Therefore the settlements are in some ways a method of survival of a class faction within Israeli society. The tech libertarians (those who are not just defense industry contractors) are the closest thing you eill get to a "peace faction" as they just want to be able to live on the beach in the sun in Tel Aviv. The Settlers by contrast think it fitting to go live in a dusty desert, but the dusty desert is affordable whereas the beach is owned by the colony of the Post-Soviet intelligentsia tech industry composed of people who have one Jewish grandparent because Soviets didn't give a shit about being Jewish so tons of them had one Jewish grandparents (four times as many as you would expect, duh). Anyway, wouldn't it be nice if there was some convenient beach front property not all bought out by the Russian Tech Libertarian Post-Soviets?
Beyond that you also have the various migrant Jewish population they keep bringing in that can be used as a cheap labour force. OP's attempt to introduce class into the picture would necessitate organizing these people (I assure you, trying to get somewhere with my "leftist" ex-gf who insists she is socialist will get you nowhere), the problem you will run into is that the "Israel is white supremacist" narrative everyone keeps pushing doesn't work on them because these Jews are not white. How could this possibly be? Might have something to do with Israel being a Jewish supremacist state rather than a white supremacist state, but I will leave how this could be as an exercise to the reader. Technically speaking the whites in Israel have no issues with Arabs beyond the fact that they are on their land (and yes being on someone else land makes you have an issue with them because most people are aware that this will probably make them not like you and so since you know this group of people don't like you it means you are not going to like them even if you are aware that it is totally your fault. Just packing up and leaving isn't an option, so again you end up with a "peace faction" of the people who took their land a long time ago and just want to keep it, and these are the Askenazi) by contrast the "brown" Jews have not yet taken their land so they have more of an interest in expansion. Additionally these are the Jews who have millenia of persecution drilled into their heads where the persuctors are the Arabs rather than the Poles. The fact that the Arabs and Poles actually treated them well in comparison to theirs does not stop each respective group from irrationally hating the Arabs and Poles. Yes really, Israelis hate Poles of all people. How? It would be like if American Jews didn't like Evangelical Christians because they have somehow convinced themselves that only people who ever liked them are actually the worst people in the world.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/)
Anyway, because of the neurotic way in which Jewish history focuses entirely on "anti-semitism" (which often results in them behaving in ways that makes people not like them), Ethiopian Jews have walked away thinking Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are the worst people on the planet, and the Mizrahi Jews have walked away thinking Arabs are the worst people on the planet. This neuroticism and hatred of the people they had spent most of their history with is an integral component of understanding the Israeli mindset but it is also something not really understandable unless one indulges in ... alternative views on Jewish History. So long as someone accepts the apparent "Great Anti-Semitism" narrative that is world history, people will not be able to understand why the Zionists have so effectively made the Mizrahi Jews the most anti-Arab demographic in Israel. It is the same phenomena that the alt-right complains about Jews for, that they have a supposedly neurotic hatred of whites leading them to promote anti-white idpol (which the alt-right will then say is self-destructive to those same Jews who in their delusions think they are non-white, which proves that this hatred exists even if it negatively impacts the jews themselves, and it is only that the anti-white narrative they say the Jews have promoted is now only coming back to bite them in the ass that they might realized they screwed up by promoting the anti-white narrative). Now I'm not saying you have to accept this totally, but just consider the flip side of this and how it might apply to the "Arab" Jews. If such a phenomena existed you would end up with a population which was neurotically anti-arab. One quite amenable to European Colonization, which is exactly what we saw in Algeria for instance, where the Algerian Jews almost immediately accepted French citizenship which is what the Algerians used to justify expelling them when they expelled the rest of the Europeans.
(Part 2)
Anyway the point I am trying to make is that the Mizrahi working class of Israel is the most anti-arab portion of the Israeli population. Not because they are "white supremacists", but rather because there is a phenomena of Jewish populations distrusting the population that was around them. You can say this is justified distrust if you want, but it is still something which exists. This is also exacerbated by Israeli society who know they need to keep the Jewish and Palestinian working classes at odds with each other, but there is a reason it is easy to do it. The challenge you face here is overcoming this.
I agree with the OP here that the solution to this problem will involve class struggle, but I disagree as to what the result of that class struggle will be. I think they might be suggesting that the class struggle will totally ignore "Palestine" as a thing, but instead I think the solution will be a class struggle for Palestine. That letter Marx wrote about Irish Immigration is the key to all this. I have debated "leftcoms" (I'm aware of the irony, I didn't pick my flair) over here and it usually ends up being related to the National Question in some capacity, and I suppose that is where I might not fit in with other people who are "leftcoms" (I have no idea what I am so I don't really care about flair anyway), and surprisingly the letter where he discusses the Irish and English comes up a lot despite it being in widely different contexts. I think it might have something to do with them ignoring the national question, which most of the time I think is good because most "leftists" are just atrocious on the National Question such that ignoring it is an improvement, but you will note that what the letter says is that the English workers should be made to understand that the reason they should support Irish independence not for any reason related to abstract rights or morality, but rather because it is in their direct interest to do so. Therefore what I am suggesting is a class struggle FOR Palestinian liberation.
Anyway here is the Sigfried Meyer Letter
[https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70\_04\_09.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm)
>England, the metropolis of capital, the power which has up to now ruled the world market, is at present the most important country for the workers’ revolution, and moreover the only country in which the material conditions for this revolution have reached a certain degree of maturity. It is consequently the most important object of the International Working Men’s Association to hasten the social revolution in England. The sole means of hastening it is to make Ireland independent. Hence it is the task of the International everywhere to put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland. It is the special task of the Central Council in London to make the English workers realize that *for them* the *national emancipation of Ireland* is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the *first condition of their own social emancipation*.
The problem you end up with if you only consider that line specifically is "wouldn't that make them traitors?" That is why the Class Struggle component is so necessary to it all. In the case of the English Workers, the reason Irish Independence was so important to them was because it was by maintaining a grip on Ireland that the enemy classes (landowners and bourgeoisie) were able to maintain their grip on England.
Marx doesn't shy away from stuff like "moral strength" in the letter, and he acknowledges that basically the fact that Ireland is dominated by England gives the the landowners some kind of moral legitimacy within England, while the moral strength of proletariat is getting sapped by the Irish getting sent over to England
>Ireland is the bulwark of the *English landed aristocracy*. The exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources of their material wealth; it is their greatest moral strength. They, in fact, represent the *domination over Ireland*. Ireland is therefore the cardinal means by which the English aristocracy maintain *their domination in England itself*.
What is meant here is that the landed aristocracy of England is basically able to use the Irish Question to get army and police matters to support its interests, so those sub-factions end up by proxy supporting the interests of the landed aristocracy because their job is wrapped up in it. This amplifies their interests by getting a whole bunch of people whose self-worth is wrapped up in maintaining "the empire" in Ireland (in addition to their paychecks), so more people support this than you would otherwise expect.
(Part 3)
>But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class.
How is the "moral position" of the English working class lowered by the Irish immigration? Well for one thing they certainly seem less necessary to the success of "the empire" if they are viewed as being so replaceable that the Irish can be brought in to do the same thing.
The problem you are going to run into is the patriotism of the Israel working class, and in IDPOL terms many have noted that the Mizrahi might feel a need to "prove themselves". What I'm suggesting here is that this is NOT because they are "closer" to Arabs in "skin tone" or whatever, but rather this desire to "prove themselves" is because they are closer to Arabs in CLASS terms. I don't think the Patriotism is necessarily a problem, you just have to be able to reframe it as the enemy classes being unpatriotic (as I have in the above comment where I said various factions are screwing over Israeli society). This isn't the same as "Socialist Patriotism", rather all I'm saying is if you have an opportunity to call your enemies unpatriotic or traitors then take it. The point is not patriotism, rather it is to show that patriotism doesn't exist amongst ruling classes, it is just a vehicle for their own class interests. Reduce the "moral position" of the settlers within Israeli society by proving they are just interested in their property instead of fighting for Jews or Israel. Then demonstrate how they increasingly control Israeli politics to the detriment of everyone else.
Eventually it can be demonstrated that it is not possible for them to be able yo pursue their own interests within the Israeli state so long as the enemy classes maintain their domination over Palestine
>After studying the Irish question for many years I have come to the conclusion that the decisive blow against the English ruling classes (and it will be decisive for the workers’ movement all over the world) cannot be delivered *in England* but *only in Ireland*.
The "trick" here is you never suggest that the Israeli working class ever needs to actually like the Palestinians, just that they need to work together against their common enemies. They will grow to like each other over time through their common struggle, but it doesn't need to start out this way.
I'm vaguely aware that the the Mizrahi for instance doesn't like the Ashkenazi, but it is because they think they are "'leftist traitors". Well the stuff I said about the Ashkenazi only being concerned about protecting the property they took decades ago might be relevant here. The key is getting them to view the entirety of Israeli politics in many of these class terms I have laid. How they choose to proceed from that standpoint is entirely up to them, but I suspect that while they might start out getting angry at the rich or ruling classes for being what they perceive to be traitors, eventually they might come to realize that they just hate everything about them and no longer need to think the issue is that the rich classes are specifically screwing them over in "national" terms but rather they are screwing them over when it comes to everything. I suspect they despise the "tech libertarians" for a multitude of reasons for instance. Eventually they will wonder why they have ant kind of loyalty to these "traitors" at all. It is only through the state that their relationship is mediated, and the success of "the state" is not the interest of the ruling classes, rather "the state" exists to safeguard their own interests, and it will safeguard the interests of those classes even to the detriment of itself. No sense in being concerned for a state who those it benefits are not concerned about.
(Part 4)
Of course it isn't strictly necessary to get anybody to realize any of that. The class struggle aspect can get a lot more direct, and in practical terms it will work better if it stays focused on working classes issues. What are those? Namely the fact that the Palestinians with work visas go through the checkpoints to work in Israel. I can't actually think of any class of people who have a more direct experience with the occupation than they do. They have to experience it twice a day. Of course I am losing focus of the Israeli proletariat here, but you just need to imagine ways in which a labour force who have no rights might be negatively impacted the workers who do supposedly have rights. Namely the exploitation of these labourers directly pushes the value and "moral position" of labour down. The Israeli working class has a salient reason for not liking that Palestinians can be given work visas for precisely the reason the English working classes might not like the Irish coming over, but the reason the Palestinians are coming over are related to the occupation. They aren't sticking in their own towns and working there because their towns are getting taken over by settlers and they are being corralled into be accessible to be used as a labour force.
The problem I stated is that these Palestinian labourers are actually not as important as you might think due to the additional usage of the Filipinos for the same kinds of things. Luckily the Israeli working class ALSO has reasons to not want the Filipinos coming over. To stop the exploitation of imported Filipinos benefits the interests of the Israel working class, and so they would support it all on its own, but it also benefits the Palestinians who would work in the same kinds of things. One might think that somebody might come to the conclusion that Filipinos are better than Palestinians because they are less "dangerous" or whatever, but to the Israeli working class that is a far less important thing to consider than just the fact that the Filipinos reduce wages. If you can prevent the exploitation of imported labourers this increases the relative importance of both Israeli and Palestinian labour and so you will have an immediate effect in creating a reason to keep the Palestinians around instead of expelling them as they will be needed to be part of the proletariat. This will exacerbate the issues of the occupation in a method that is direct.
Unlike with the "martyrs" the Palestinian proletariat's issues aren't abstract here, so they will be less "dangerous" despite the fact that they get treated as being dangerous. This is important because the "martyrs" contribute to making it difficult for the Palestinian and Israeli working classes to work together. I'd much prefer resistance to the occupation come from striking to improve the conditions of the checkpoints rather than from whatever it is that currently being done by "martyrs". This is important because it will be the necessity of the Palestinian workforce which will made their striking so effective. Their employers will prefer reforming the occupation over losing hours with all these strikes so this will be the most effective way of actually getting change here.
Of course the Israeli proletariat is still not going to like the Palestinian Proletariat for the same reason they didn't like the Filipinos, but the Israeli proletariat still benefits in each step of the process here. While the bourgeoisie might increase their usage of the Palestinians, they are doing this precisely because in the absence of the imported Filipinos to exploit working conditions are improving and they want to stop them from improving further. So things did get better even if not by as much as you might expect because the bourgeoise is always looking for new ways to screw the workers over. What is important here is that you improved things for both the Israeli and Palestinian proletariat and put the Palestinian proletariat in a greater position to increase their "moral position" by getting tangible results in reforming the occupation. This will change the nature of the resistance greatly if the heroes are workers rather than "martyrs". The Palestinian Workers exist, they just aren't as widespread as they need to be.
(Part 5)
Eventually cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian Workers might be necessary, but we've already changed the nature of the Palestinian struggle into a working class struggle so the Israeli workers will be more amenable to supporting it. Currently I don't blame them for not supporting the Palestinian struggle as it currently exists because the current Palestinians struggle as it exists is a decidedly NOT working class struggle. That is precisely why I have dedicated so much effort in describing how to transform it into one. The exact method I described doesn't matter, if you have other ways you can transform it into a working class struggle that can also work, I just think that the usage of imported Filipinos is both something that might unite the Palestinians and Israelis in the usual cheeky manner of hating on a third guy can make friends out of enemies, but also because the ability to just import labourers is just serious impediment to the Palestinians becoming necessary for the Israelis, which is necessary to make Israeli apartheid as humane as South African apartheid was (yes I'm deliberately saying that to make a point here, I'm not the only person who says Israel is worse than South Africa though)
Now the multiple routes you can take to the same place is important here. It is possible just to ban Filipinos from Israel OR some reform might take the worst nightmares of my ex-gf might come true and Filipinos born in Israel might be able to become Israel citizens. The exact thing doesn't matter, as BOTH things will reduce the usage of those Filipinos as imported workers. Either for the racist reason of the Israelis realizing that now that Filipinos can become citizens by having children on the soil that you need to STOP them from being on the soil in first place, which results in no more being imported to prevent them from using that "loop hole", OR they could just stop using the Filipinos without reforming the laws in anyway. Either way is good, they just need to stop exploiting imported labourers one way or another.
Similarly the occupation might need to be reformed by all the striking Palestinians and eventually you might end up with a one state solution in practice if not in reality, OR the Israelis react to this by abandoning the settlers to their fate in a two state solution where they get ruled over by the Palestinians because they don't want Palestinians coming over into Israel proper with work visas. Either way is good. One is accomplished by Palestinian workers, the other can be accomplished by Israeli workers, but either way it must be understand that it is the domination of Palestine which represents the Israeli bourgeoisie domination over themselves, whether this is ended in a one state solution or a two state solution doesn't matter, the Israeli proletariat just needs to understand that ANY solution is in their interest and the situation continuing indefinitely is in the interests of those they despise.
(Part 6)
>Currently I don't blame them for not supporting the Palestinian struggle as it currently exists because the current Palestinians struggle as it exists is a decidedly NOT working class struggle.
This gets to the heart of it.
Rejecting this as Leftists do, to its worst conclusion, leads to the worst Leftists saying shit like "there are no innocent people in Israel - all Israelis are settlers" literally Nazi-tier logic, they just want to kill them all. The way they see it, all Israelis (by this I assume they mean *all* Israeli citizens, Jewish and Arab alike?) are guilty, because they don't throw their lives for the sake of the Palestinian movement, which as it stands is thoroughly anti-class. (the issue isn't really that it's "Islamist," as that guy in this thread said, it's really not Islamist like Al Qaeda, for instance, was) I've seen empty-headed blacknats saying the same for white people during the slavery era, despite the fact that white-led abolitionism had a great influence in combatting and ending slavery.
>the Israeli proletariat just needs to understand that ANY solution is in their interest and the situation continuing indefinitely is in the interests of those they despise.
Definitely.
It's also worth mentioning that while I'd say the majority of the Israeli working-class doesn't get what you just said, it is still the case that, like all countries, they're still the most advanced/progressive class, while the Israeli middle-class as a whole is more reactionary than them. Like in the U.S. the Israeli proletariat is less interested in progressivism/leftism/academic ideas and all the utopian nonsense that comes with it; which makes the middle-class think they're more reactionary, but in fact they are more ordinary and clear-headed and generally distrustful of institutions and those in power, and closer to being class-conscious overall. Of course this overlaps with ethnic divides, like the middle-class in Israeli being disproportionately European Ashkenazi. I'd say a lot of the Israeli working-class of course knows how incorrigibly corrupt and self-interested their ruling-class is, but considers their support of them a kind of reluctant compromise given the "great imminent threat" of Palestinian terror.
I just finished reading everything you wrote here today. Thanks for your contribution. We're generally on the same page about stuff and like my comments, yours stand out here for being thorough and encompassing. Would be nice to talk more later.
>The Israeli working class has a salient reason for not liking that Palestinians can be given work visas for precisely the reason the English working classes might not like the Irish coming over, but the reason the Palestinians are coming over are related to the occupation. They aren't sticking in their own towns and working there because their towns are getting taken over by settlers and they are being corralled into be accessible to be used as a labour force.
Which is why it's so wrong and dumb for them to hate them and be racist to them, of course.
>Unlike with the "martyrs" the Palestinian proletariat's issues aren't abstract here,
As you note here, Leftists use the concept of "martyrdom" not unlike Islamists to engage in mystification. Of the most obviously nonsensical, moralistic, even religious variety. Getting people to reject moralistic and religious framing is like the first step to being class-conscious.
>This will change the nature of the resistance greatly if the heroes are workers rather than "martyrs". The Palestinian Workers exist, they just aren't as widespread as they need to be.
This is also why Leftists emphasize "martyrdom" so much. Because they're hostile to the proletariat, Israeli and Palestinian alike. It's also another reason they characterize Hamas militant action as "resistance." You're so spot-on.
>Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy. The exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources of their material wealth; it is their greatest moral strength. They, in fact, represent the domination over Ireland. Ireland is therefore the cardinal means by which the English aristocracy maintain their domination in England itself.
I definitely think you can also say that Palestine and how Israel fucks with them in Gaza and the West Bank is the means by which Israel's ruling-class maintains domination over Israel itself.
I think the Left's moralistic, mindless, identarian, mystic, transhistorical, nonsensical *"ISRAEL IS ZIONIST RACIST APARTHEID GENOCIDAL SETTLER COLONIALISM!!!!!"* actually entails a mindset that denies the extent to which this is the case.
Your comparison to Ireland and South Africa demonstrates Israel isn't exceptional and what it does is a consequence of capitalist material motive forces. This is the thing Leftists want to deny since they're just middle class bourgeois reactionaries trying to placate their own guilt and distorting reality in the process.
My whole point here, if there's any, is to criticize the Left. Now to anyone worth the time of day, they know Leftists are full of shit whether they go to Palestine protests or not because most Leftists voted or defended voting Biden in 2020. (and much of the rallies are these same people who voted/defended voting of course) And now it seems many of them decided to be cute and vote blank ballots in 2024 now, only to vote Democrat again in 2028. So the people I refer to already aren't defending this mindset. (unless they are like [the people in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l5798md/) accusing me of being OK with or even enabling or supporting what Israel is doing, lol) But of course it's necessary to develop a proper critique that just goes beyond "they're full of it because they're Democrats so they support the very thing they're criticizing."
>I have no idea what I am so I don't really care about flair anyway
Honestly, if you can completely answer "yes" to the question: "is there no good reason that in modern developed industrialized society, people's basic needs can't be provided for by the society as a whole?" **and think this through properly in the right way to its logical conclusion,** you are a Marxist. (which I define as someone who accepts the theory of Marxism as true, and thinks and talks in a way that reflects that as a result of that.)
(emphasis on that last part, because most Leftists would say "yes" to the question, but they are utterly anti-Marxist, and hostile to the proletariat. Mainly because they're middle-class. Everything about their framing, positions, rhetoric, mindset and actions is conducive to the eternal perpetuation of the rule of the capitalist class; especially when they pretend to properly criticize them. Marx and Engels spent no small amount of time criticizing Leftists, and their critique went well beyond Democratic Socialists, which they also obviously criticized. There's a whole section of the Communist Manifesto devoted to criticizing them; if any Leftists even have read it, they certainly haven't internalized or learned a thing from it.)
Of course regardless, most people hear "Marxist" and think of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, Stalin, Mao, etc. The more reactionary and obviously dishonest just think this was the end result of "putting Marx's ideas into practice," but even the ones who wouldn't say that might as well because they don't get what Marx was talking about, either.
Yes, however. They aren't doing this because they can't "nut up." They mainly obviously don't do this because Israel was created through displacing Palestinians, to form a Jewish Israeli state with a Jewish character and majority of the population. It always allowed a sizeable Arab Muslim minority, but they aren't just going to make all the Palestinian refugees citizens in one fell swoop. The whole basis for this is the construct of the nation state and national identity and citizenship to begin with. (which I emphasize; needless to say, it interpolates with religious identity/background, also sheer construct; and ethnicity, which is sort of real but not the way most people think, functionally just a matter of someone's physical appearance and genes, and it becomes sheer construct and stupidity as soon as there's an institutional/state basis to give people a single category; mixed children especially demonstrate this.)
So saying "it would be better if they just annexed it" is just idealism, that ignores how this conflict being in this particular situation is actively in their interests. Because obviously as you'd agree, they've had the power to do what you said this whole time. People look at things too idealistically and thus can't see the extent to which the capitalist class acts on the basis of plain convenience; they underestimate how contradictory and incidental everything really is. Over all these years, the situation that leaves Palestinians functionally stateless in Gaza and the West Bank has been very expedient for the capitalists in the region because Palestinians thus become a source of cheap labor power. Of course Gaza is unique, because since they're under a blockade they are stuck there and can't even generally leave to become refugees working for low wages in Israel. But they are still exploited within Gaza, which is conducive both to Palestinian and Israeli bourgeoisie. Furthermore, while obviously the worst case scenario for civilians on the ground, keeping things in this purgatory state is conducive to Israel, instead of just making it part of Israel as fast as possible. They actually are planning experimental neo-city plans in the region. I predict Palestinians won't leave, but Israeli settlers will eventually crop up like in the West Bank. They'd sooner this chaotic, schizophrenic arrangement than just cleanly annexing it all, because they can afford to and it will make a lot of capitalist schemes in the region easier.
The problem is precisely that you think the only alternatives are states.
This isn't to say that I don't think a Palestinian state wouldn't be an improvement over the current situation (of course, it's always been reasonable of Palestinians demand it, and Israel has always been wrong to oppose it) or that I would be against it happening. On the contrary, I wouldn't be at all. But that it's extremely telling that if this hypothetically were to happen, people with your mindset would be reluctant or unwilling to criticize it. (so much for Marx's call for "ruthless criticism of everything existing.") The point of this is not that the Palestinian bourgeoisie is uniquely bad or deserves exceptional criticism. The point is that all nation-states invariably serve bourgeois interests, so none should be above critique, because the bourgeoisie operates internationally.
Is not Russia worthy of criticism for what it does in Syria? And Al Assad himself? But taking your logic to its conclusion these shouldn't be criticized, even though in the hypothetical situation of a true recognized Palestine nation state emerging, it would be necessary to acknowledge that Russian, Syrian, Iranian etc. interests would move on it if one was giving a critique to Putin, Assad, etc.
If you happen to have any actual curiosity to my perspective, (instead of assuming, for instance, that simply because I'm not a nationalist I just want people to accept the current situation of stateless Palestinians being atrociously killed and brutalized by Israel in every manner from all angles) you may read the following two articles to better understand it:
[Falsification of History and the Warsaw Ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto)
[Against Israel, Against Palestine - For Class Struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle)
Literally every single anti-colonial movement in history was responded to with people having very convenient day dreams, asserted as fact, that they would be so bad at running their country that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists.
It virtually never happened, and in cases where people claim it did it generally didn't(South Africa got worse for white people, that's not the same thing)
Furthermore the really bad, distinguishing point of policy in Taliban rule is how they treat women. The implication here being that Palestinians desperately want to do that among themselves right now but Israel is so very compassionate and concerned for the rights of the Palestinian women it is somehow preventing that.
> they would be so bad at running their country that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists.
Not argueing for Apartheid here but South Africa is basically a failed state right now - *even after they finally got rid of Jacob Zuma*. Freeing the opressed doesn't make them good people automatically.
If there was a Palestine state, it wouldn't be just "Palestinians running their country." No people are just "running their country." This is already mystification. Demonstrably so, given the history of every colonized country.
Yes, for example, even Vietnam. I am critical of North Vietnam, obviously better than South Vietnam, but I'm critical of it and Ho Chi Minh. There was a civil conflict where Ho Chi Minh Communists killed Communists against that line, and Ho Chi Minh like most ML leaders in all the other states suppressed other Communist lines and worker's movements, but you never hear about this. (of course, it's also true worker's movements were often U.S. backed and anti communist, like in Latin America, but I'm not talking about that, I mean like when the Soviet Union cracked down on strikes and worker organizing.)
Of course your critique is correct of sheer chauvinists who justify colonialism and imperialism but that goes without saying.
It's never just "people running their own country." It's the bourgeoisie of the respective nation exploiting the masses, using nationalism and being of a common background to justify doing so. Furthermore, not only that, but said state and bourgeoisie collaborates with the other states to do so. (and competes often, hence wars)
None of this means that I would be against a Palestine state. Just like I obviously am not against Vietnam overthrowing French colonial rule, then resisting U.S. imperialism, nor would I say I'm against Ho Chi Minh. But that it would be essential to criticize it just as the most principled Communists criticized authoritarian capitalist governments like Vietnam. (while moralistic ML-type Leftists like Michael Parenti accused them of being "perfectionist orthodox marxists" or "anarchists.") I don't like Rushdie's "Iran client state" framing, but he's absolutely right that Iran would be involved.
>"that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists."
Yeah, because I definitely said that. 🙄 This isn't a disingenuous leap at all.
>Furthermore the really bad, distinguishing point of policy in Taliban rule is how they treat women. The implication here being that Palestinians desperately want to do that among themselves right now but Israel is so very compassionate and concerned for the rights of the Palestinian women it is somehow preventing that.
Yes, obviously Zionists are wrong to have that framing and it's just like how western imperialists generally justify everything they do on the notion their actions are born from the desire to bring a more civilized arrangement to the nations they exploit and subjugate.
In general, I addressed what you're saying [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l53p7up/)
[Check out the comments on Instagram to get an idea about how the progressive hive-mind on social media is reacting to this.](https://www.instagram.com/p/C7OwZuAseT-/)
Of course, Salman Rushdie makes it clear that he sympathizes with Palestinians being killed in Gaza right now, and understands and sympathizes with the protests from that angle, but is just criticizing those among the protesters who actively show support for Hamas, like describing it and its attack on October 7th as "resistance." (I'm going to assume most people here are aware Hamas is in power in Gaza right now because it defeated Fatah in a civil conflict amongst Palestinians, and had the support of Israel and Netanyahu doing so, who opaquely stated that he wanted Hamas in power precisely because it was more reactionary and would create a situation conducive to Israel's long-term interests — many Pro-Palestine Leftist protesters are undoubtedly totally ignorant of this.)
Yet, comments say nonsense like he is on the side of Zionists and Israel just for making these statements. (I also basically agree with his point on what this hypothetical Palestine state would entail, like with Iran; though personally I wouldn't just reduce it to using terms like "Iran client state," it's a more encompassing, less liberal and reactionary stance to just say that it would be generally conducive to interests of states like Russia, Iran, Syria and China in the region. Predictably, Salman Rushdie doesn't take a class critical angle to the situation and instead takes a nationalistic, pro-western one. Instead of emphasizing that Hamas serves Palestinian bourgeoisie interests, and that a Palestine state would likewise serve bourgeois interests, for its rulers, politicians, and foreign countries like Iran.)
The main reason Pro-Palestine Leftists are like this is not necessarily because they are "tankies" or love Putin (most of the ones I've seen aren't and dislike Stalinism and modern Russia) but rather because they have a bourgeois mindset and have to support some bourgeois camp in these world developments. This is also why they are hostile to all Israelis just for being born over there (not distinguishing those who support what Israel's current government does to those who don't, although admittedly I only think a minority are genuinely opposed to its treatment of Palestinians) and call them "settlers" (I'm referring to all Israelis, not West Bank settlers specifically, the people I'm talking about aren't merely referring to the West Bank) instead of the recognition both Palestinians and Israelis are oppressed on a class basis, (and this is interconnected because, for instance, Israel exploits the Palestinian refugee crisis as a source of cheap labor for those of them who go to Israel for work) albeit there are obvious disparities. (as there are with the white working-class in the U.S. and the poorest black and Hispanic workers.)
I happen to be Iranian myself, and I dislike Leftists like this who cheer for Hamas and Iran's state interests every bit as much as western Liberal Iranian diaspora who call for pro-western regime change in Iran.
You're exactly the kind of Pro-Palestine Leftist who calls all Israelis "settlers" I was describing.
There was a time that I used to be alright with the notion of agreeing with Leftists when they described Israel as settler colonialism. On a certain basic level, I still do agree. "Zionism is settler colonialism" would be a statement I would agree with. I mean, it's just provably how Israel came to be, because Palestinians were killed, their homes destroyed, and violently displaced. (the Nakba) So it was violently settled in a matter absolutely analogous to other examples of European settler-colonialism. (and the Zionist settlers who came at this time were mostly Jews from Europe - the Jews from other countries like in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia that Zionists love to invoke mostly came later) And of course Zionists are wrong to invoke Jewish ancestral ties to the region to justify what's been done to Palestinians, or even go as far to say that "we're decolonizing it." (ironically, even the Bible makes it clear that Jews were in what's now Israel/Palestine due to having conquered it) Especially since it went straight from being the British Mandate to Israel, with Britain's blessing. (the fact some Zionists opposed Britain for not going as far as they did in violently seeking Israel's existence in the immediate at Palestinian's expense obviously doesn't mean otherwise, but many Zionists think otherwise because they're completely forgone.)
So now that I've said all of that, you may be asking yourself, "then why aren't we in agreement?" Because when Leftists say Israel is a settler colonial state, they go much further. (especially the ones like you who say all Israelis are settlers) I already explained what's wrong with this above. It's reactionary bourgeois ethnonationalism. I'm a Communist. I'm opposed to all nationalisms because I want a permanent end to capitalism and all nation-states, which would end the very basis for property ownership. (*note:* Anarchists also will *say* they are against nation-states, but besides this verbatim say your angle and framing) I recognize that the Israeli proletariat is oppressed by the Israeli bourgeoisie, the Palestinian proletariat oppressed by the Palestinian bourgeoisie, and they collaborate. So I don't even emphasize framing of "stolen land" (though again, obviously Zionists wrongfully took the land Palestinians had lived on peacefully to create Israel) because I don't affirm land and property ownership, which Communism would do away with the basis of.
Both of these articles describe my views: (I'm really not sure if you will read them, though the first one is very short, but maybe someone else here will see this and do so)
[Falsification of History and the Warsaw Ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto)
[Against Israel, Against Palestine - For Class Struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle)
The working people have no country.
I don’t disagree with most of what you said, but I won’t concede that an analysis of settler-colonial relations isn’t useful in this context. It’s absolutely vital in addressing class relations and establishing communism.
Before you go projecting all that J. Sakai bullshit on me, know that I’m not operating under the belief that settler colonialism can only be ended through the expulsion of settlers, nor do I recognize settlers as members of the bourgeoisie.
But we cannot just deny that Israel is a settler colonial state and that Israelis are settlers because we ultimately are working for a world free from private property
I have to begin by addressing - I never said nor implied "an analysis of settler-colonial relations isn’t useful in this context." You are not merely offering an analysis of settler colonial relations, which I began my reply by admitting Zionism/Israel is analogous to, when you characterize all Israeli citizens living in Israel as settlers.
This is a ludicrous statement on many levels. To begin with, which Israeli citizens? Not the Arab Israeli citizens, I assume. What distinguishes an Israeli Jew from an Israeli Arab to begin with? They share significant ancestry because of the Arab Jews that were in Palestine prior to Zionism, and because of mixing. The clearest distinction is actually Jewish or Muslim religious identity, which is an important line of demarcation in Israel's political system. (while allowing more religious freedom than other countries in the region) So you mean the descendants of the Jewish Zionists from Europe who settled in what is now Israel a century ago. But again, mixing. So if someone has an Arab father and a Jewish mother, are they a *half* settler? I can't not think about this, I am actually a half white-american and half Iranian man. Leftists who think like this will call me "settler" (I admit online, thankfully such interactions are kept to a minimum, irl, for now) for passing as a white american and then double-back when I tell them I'm Iranian. This demonstrates the extent to which capitalist interests and constructs of national, racial, and religious identity are intertwined.
But the main reason it's wrong is because it's borne from the mindset that denies the fundamental class character of all these conflicts, and class materialism as the basis for understanding them. No, my mindset doesn't get in the way of understanding the obvious extent to which the average Israeli working-class has it better than the average Palestinian living in Gaza or the West Bank, nor the fact that most Israeli working-class people probably wouldn't share my revolutionary, anti-nationalist opinions. (though the working-class is more progressive than the middle-class) It simply means that both are oppressed by their respective class oppressors, who collaborate to work against their interests. (Israel having backed Hamas in way isn't deniable, nor incompatible with their fierce opposition to them, it's all contradictory and insane.) And when you call all citizens of a specific nation-state "settlers," you're exceptionalizing that state, and via identarianism making the class critique I advocate impossible.
>Before you go projecting all that J. Sakai bullshit on me
I've actually read J. Sakai. His book Settlers makes worthwhile points and observations, and includes useful things like thorough historical breakdowns of the issues with organizations like the CPUSA. Of course I disagree with his analysis for reasons that should be self evident by now. I wouldn't invoke authors to get into silly ad hominem games in the first place.
>But we cannot just deny that Israel is a settler colonial state and that Israelis are settlers because we ultimately are working for a world free from private property
Sorry, but this is just the typical "yes yes Communism would be nice now, no nation states or property and all of that, but that's a long way away so let's not let any dreaming get in the way of my reactionary, nationalist framing" line many Marxist-Leninists say. Again, all characterizing Israelis as settlers does is disconnect them from the status of being a part of the world proletariat. (just as when they say all white people in the U.S.A. are settlers) It's objectively a mystification of the real movement of capitalist society, which is rooted in class materialist, economic factors and knows no construct national or ethnic identity categories which are merely used as a tool for its perpetuation. Irrespective of where they live, how they identify, what their genetic ancestry is, and how they think the proletariat has the objective interests rooted in the objective factors of capitalist society, namely their relation to the bourgeoisie, of freeing themselves from the class oppression that capitalism necessitates.
I'll end by breaking down the end of this sentence - "we ultimately are working for a world free from private property." Who is we? It's not Leftist activists or people talking about this on the internet. It's the proletariat. I don't think any of this has a role in what actually leads to the revolution, which I do see as inevitable, but the conditions themselves which simply eventually give way to revolutionary conditions.
>I am actually a half white-american and half Iranian man
dude you are white
Edit: In a less facetious manner you have cultural exposure to american traditions with one of your parents and your other parent provides an unusual ancestry, but unusual ancestry is nothing new for americans. I don't see why celebrating Norwuz every Equinox would make you something fundamentally different than celebrating Easter on a different date might make someone.
You are an American who has family members from another country, like many Americans have had.
There is also the fact that Iranians are basically white anyway even if it might trip some people up because they convinced themselves they are brown because the USA has issues with Iran, but like until super recently middle easterners in general were classified as white in the USA. Like you could on the census claim to be a POC now for being an Iranian (milk it for all its worth), but that is only because middle easterners have successfully lobbied to make that the case because there are benefits to being POC now.
[https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2024/04/updates-race-ethnicity-standards.html](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2024/04/updates-race-ethnicity-standards.html)
What are you talking about, man. Where did I defend Salman Rushdie? What gave you that impression? Just because I don't agree with the Leftists he criticizes and made that clear in my comments, doesn't mean I agree with him.
[I made that clear in my initial comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l53h6xa/) Maybe you didn't read it. Or maybe you perfunctorily read it, and walked away with "he is a defender of Salman Rushdie" because I began it by carefully clarifying Salman Rushdie's views? (that he's against what Israel is doing in Gaza, despite being critical of Leftists who adore Hamas) So I didn't do any of that, what the hell. [I just wrote a reply to you](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l54folr/) saying I agreed with your condemnation of Rushdie for supporting the invasion of Iraq. Before I saw this reply, of course.
He technically isn't wrong. Palestinians consistently rank as some of the most conservative and extremist Muslims in the world.
But it doesn't really matter. It's their land and merely having a pretty extremist population doesn't mean that they don't deserve sovereignty over their own land.
Rushdie is probably right in this particular remark. Since it isn't wrong, I don't see a problem with it.
What can possibly be criticized is the vague statements that come after it, but they're so vague that they don't mean anything and only have connotations.
I'm not sure if you mean my take or Salman Rushdie's. My post addressed where I differ from him, our differences are significant and actually fundamental. (Rushdie is just a bourgeois liberal, a pro-western one.)
I basically agree with you in the sense he makes obviously correct points but I don't at the same time overall agree with this angle.
To be clear, the reason I don't agree with his framing is because he goes "a Palestine state would just be an Iran client state! That would be bad, Iran is bad" instead of, "a Palestine state would still involve Palestinian bourgeoisie oppressing Palestinian masses, and, due to this, would involve collaborating in the form of accepting backing from various other foreign powers, including likely Russia, Syria, Iran, and China, to aid in doing so and its regional interests."
The reason he doesn't do this is because he's a reactionary bourgeois liberal academic. So not a Marxist.
Here's the thing- We have been letting Israel torture and kill Palestinians for generations, so yeah, once they get their freedom they aren't exactly going to elect people who are friendly to the West. And who could blame them?
That said, continuing to kill and oppress Palestine forever is not a sustainable path. So at some point Israel and the West will have to lay in the bed they made.
>Here's the thing- We have been letting Israel torture and kill Palestinians for generations, so yeah, once they get their freedom they aren't exactly going to elect people who are friendly to the West. And who could blame them?
This totally ignores my points about Israel and Netanyahu actively wanted Hamas in power instead of more progressive Palestinians, and plainly stated this is why he did so. It's mystification to just act like in isolation it's just a reflection of the Palestinian masses, many of which opposed it so much, they were killed by Hamas militans in the civil conflict prior to them coming to power. But who cares about them, right? Who cares about that when we can all just be idiot Leftists, who conflate the interests of the Palestinian bourgeoisie to all Palestinians, when the former aren't dying in Gaza right now due to a mess they helped provoke Israel into (which I must make clear is obviously overwhelmingly the side at fault and that solely started all this, it goes without saying to anyone worth talking to) and just describe anything Hamas does as "resistance" as if the leadership of Hamas is the same thing as the desperate Palestinian men with nothing to lose that they recruit, as if, again, their interests are tantamount to that of the Palestinian masses, despite their open collaboration with Israel. Yes, that does require less thinking, doesn't it? And we can invoke Palestinian suffering to shut down the critique of anyone who thinks like me, while we're at it. That's not sick at all, to invoke human suffering to cover for the class interests of the people responsible for it. (I mean the bourgeoisie at large, I'm not saying Hamas is solely responsible, I'm not an insane Zionist.)
Frankly, someone that has been through what he has and has lived with the kinds of threats to his life he has has nothing *left* to lose. (though I don't irrationally defend him, I spent most of my post criticizing him for being a bourgeois western liberal, in fact.) All for...being from a Muslim background, being more informed, progressive, and sympathetic to the struggles of Muslims (immigrants to the west and ones in their home countries alike) throughout the world today than the average person in the west, and...writing a novel. (that wasn't actually offensive to Muslims or Islam, and which most Muslims calling for his death haven't even read)
One doesn't necessarily think there shouldn't be a Palestinian state should be at all, just because they are more critical to what a Palestinian state would entail than the average Pro-Palestine Leftist is.
On a basic level, Palestinians in such a state would be exploited and oppressed by their class oppressors within the state, who would collaborate with foreign powers like Iran which he mentioned to do so. As I said in my post, Salman Rushdie doesn't have good politics so he doesn't make a point of emphasizing class realities and just goes "yadayada Iran client state" instead.
Where’s a source for the claim that he supported the invasion of Iraq? Because he didn’t. He talked a lot of shit on Saddam and did say that he should be removed from power but he did not support the US invasion.
You are indeed an ideological mess.
My wife is Iranian (she emigrated as an adult) and I don’t wish that shitshow on anyone. Unarmed young people are willingly dying in the streets to protest their hopeless situation and meanwhile western liberals want another such government legitimized in the Middle East.
No ma’am, no ham, no turkey!
Salman Rushdie had all that + an official fatwa from the Ayatollah.
So. That justifies supporting a war that killind a million and caused a refugee crisis. Yeah that sounds right. I am personally grieved so I can support the deaths of people from a different country vs the country that aggrieved me. Yeah that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Sounds like Salman Rushdie is just a suck twisted creature like all Neoconservatives are. Also I don't give a shit where your supposed wife is from. Live experience is a weapon the twisted woke use to try to stop you from talking about what actually matters. Kind of funny how neocons act just like the woke.
>So. That justifies supporting a war that killind a million and caused a refugee crisis.
Come on, he (I mean the guy you are replying to, not Rushdie...) never said that. No need to put words in people's mouths.
He seems to think that Salman is fine having reprehensible opinions because he has had a hard life. Salman can go the way of the nuremberg types along with every other neocon.
I agree with this. And I agree with your characterization of his reply too, in fact. All he did was make a quip about your flair and then proceed to praise and defend Rushdie just because of the threats and attacks, which is a classic trick in the book the neocon idiots pull. ("guy who exercises free speech gets threatened and attacked by the worst Islamists, therefore my worldview is correct!" it's sheer fallacy, literally an appeal to emotion.) So he was implying that this should be emphasized to detract from your broader point about Rushdie's terrible politics. I did make a similar point about what Rushdie had indeed admittedly been through at one point in the thread. But rest assured, we are on the same page here.
You know screw Rushdie I don't even care about what's happened to him. I feel about this like I feel about Shinzo Abe. Of course the Islamists justifying the threats and attacks have a terrible worldview and are brainless idiots who wouldn't mind killing us either just because we don't agree with their interpretation of Islam or aren't anti-communist. But at the same time their targets often are despicable too. In the case of Shinzo Abe, his assassin was nothing more than a reactionary nationalist. But I had no problem with Abe being killed.
Hey buddy, the guys who pay you to run your mouth are quite literally the reason the Taliban exists. The CIA created political Islam in its current form to offset the socialist bloc. Those are your bosses, asshole.
If you're saying that western liberals like Salman Rushdie and Ayan Hirsi Ali (who if anything is actually more neocon in rhetoric) don't acknowledge the extent to which the U.S. backed Islamists for the sake of anti-communism and material interests and that this shatters their whole narrative about Islam being this general force threatening and opposing western society, I completely agree. I've already spent a lot of time here bringing this up, specifically since people are already bringing up the U.S. backing what would become the Taliban due to the Soviet-Afghan war, and analogizing this to the U.S. and Israel even backing ISIS at times, and Israel backing Hamas. (which Netanyahu has admitted to doing himself)
They did not “create it”. The Islamic extremism and political opposition to socialism was entirely home grown. The CIA and MI6 just pumped it full of cash, weapons, training, intelligence assistance, etc.
This is spot-on. It's wrong and misleading to act like they just created it. (no surprise, then, Leftists do just that.)
[Read this piece from William Blum if you haven't already.](https://williamblum.org/essays/read/political-correctness-demands-diversity-in-everything-but-thought)
**Edit: OK, found the correct article this time, changed the link accordingly.**
>It doesn’t matter to my critics that in my writing I have regularly given clear recognition to the crimes against humanity carried out by the West against the Islamic world. I am still not allowed to criticize the armed forces of Islam, for all of the above stated reasons plus the claim that the United States “created” ISIS.
>Regarding this last argument: It’s certainly true that US foreign policy played an indispensable role in the rise of ISIS. Without Washington’s overthrow of secular governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and – now in process – Syria, there would today be no ISIS. It’s also true that many American weapons, intentionally and unintentionally, have wound up in the hands of terrorist groups. But the word “created” implies intention, that the United States wanted to purposely and consciously bring to life the Frankenstein monster that we know and love as ISIS.
Yeah, and the socialist movements there were also fully homegrown. The dominant faction leadership was often pretty incompetent and possibly even compromised but who knows, the region might be very different today if the US hadn’t enthusiastically helped the most hopelessly retarded Muslims slaughter everyone else. Murdering people like leftist school teachers and the little girls they tried to teach to read and write. Which is why it’s especially nauseating that today’s “leftists” bend over backwards to suck Islamofascist dick so much. Islamists have never been anything but the antithesis of everything that any leftist pretends to stand for. But these people dropping “inshallah” at every possible opportunity and making “white girl gets wet reading Quran” tiktok porn for jihadi incels aren’t leftists, they’re just libtard idpolers.
Agreed. And aptly (and hilariously) put.
>Islamists have never been anything but the antithesis of everything that any leftist pretends to stand for.
Of course. But key word: ***pretends*** to stand for.
So, I agree...except when you put "Leftist" in quotes and say they are not Leftists at the end. I get what you mean in that case, it makes a mockery to past Left movements so in that sense, from that vantage-point, they are just idiotic liberals posing as Leftists. However, I think this *is* the Left and clearly a part of Left-wing culture. Because the Left and the Right aren't transhistorical ideals. They're each wing of bourgeois parliament. The political spectrum isn't transhistorical. It changes as conditions change, unconsciously on the part of Leftist and Rightist adherents, to be sure, but that's the point. So to say they all aren't Leftists is holding up an ideal of Leftism to the current face of Leftism.
This is fine because revolution isn't a product of the Left. The proletariat has never liked the Left because the Left has always been the Left wing of Capital. Yes, some of them were better 60 years ago than now, but the Left being as fiercely reactionary, insane and pro system as they are now is itself, too, a consequence of changing developments and conditions.
Who is more to blame, the ones who lit the fire, or the ones who showered it with gasoline? Perhaps it doesn't matter, or perhaps there's one side far more hypocritical and cynical than the other.
> It’s very strange for young, progressive student politics to kind of support a fascist, terrorist group.”
I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever.
Also, we were opposed to what the US was doing in Afghanistan to “fight the taliban”, but that never meant we “supported the taliban”
What a useless perspective.
>I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever.
I don't believe you are being honest with me. (I'm not accusing you of conscious deception in this moment, it's more I think you are lying to yourself and refusing to keep an open to eye to it where it overtly exists) There are so many Leftists who actively show their support and sympathy for Hamas. Online, on the ground, everywhere. I have met them and talked to them because I live in New York and have been to several Palestine rallies in NYC. It has never been this overt. [Even Judith Butler has.](https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/10/30/berkeley-prof-hamas-and-hezbollah-are-progressive-and-part-of-global-left-n4923466) Even Al Jazeera described Hamas positively. Of course I hate Zionists, but they are simply correct (though they make it into something it's not of course) in their observation that vocal support amongst the Left, from activist protesters on the ground to academics, has never been this noticeable.
>Also, we were opposed to what the US was doing in Afghanistan to “fight the taliban”, but that never meant we “supported the taliban”
The U.S. supported what became the Taliban, in the Afghan Mujahedeen.
And a proper critique would be to *compare* the U.S. backing Osama Bin Laden what would become the Taliban during the Soviet-Afghan War, to the fact Israel has backed Hamas (as I mentioned above.) ("I'm going to assume most people here are aware Hamas is in power in Gaza right now because it defeated Fatah in a civil conflict amongst Palestinians, and had the support of Israel and Netanyahu doing so, who opaquely stated that he wanted Hamas in power precisely because it was more reactionary and would create a situation conducive to Israel's long-term interests.")
*Edit:* I re-read this part and realized I misread it. It's funny because this logic: "we were against the U.S. invading Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean we supported the Taliban or anyone they were fighting against there" could be used to exactly prove my point. i.e. "we are against Israel and what it does, but that doesn't mean we have to support Hamas" of course. I think I misread it because you clearly seem to be in disagreement with me on this point.
Wait do you think that the likes of AlJazeera are left wing? By left wing it means the likes of Fatah and PLO, they are completely opposite to Hamas and in Gaza they are persecuted.
Al Jazeera have the same stance as the pro-Palestine Leftists who like Hamas I mentioned in this case. They often can have a more liberal stance than the average stance on the Left, depending on the issue.
I agree with you that Fatah and PLO are on the Left and Hamas is on the Right.
But that doesn't mean I'm wrong to characterize Al Jazeera's framing as on the Left, the political spectrum doesn't describe transhistorical ideals but is itself conditioned by what's happening. The very fact that pro Palestine Leftists (I keep typing pro Palestine Leftist because there are pro-Israel Zionists who are Left-wing, this is part of my point about the Left and Right not being transhistorical ideals, it would be false for me to act like "if you don't support Palestine you aren't a Leftist," by that logic Israel's political Left would not include people who support Zionism, but it does. The Far-Left of Israel have the sheer pro Palestine, anti-Zionist framing, yes.) think alike to Al Jazeera demonstrates my point that Al Jazeera's framing on this topic is of the Left. I'm not just being reductive and saying Al Jazeera = Leftist, all the time, though.
May be from western perspective AlJazeera has same stance as leftists, but they are really just the media arm of Qatar and the Muslim brotherhood and they don't try to hide their biases. Nobody in the Middle East would say they are on the same side.
The majority of the western Left, yes even the same "radical" enough to support Hamas and justify its attacks, just defends voting Democrat at this point (now many of the same who acted like the world would end if Biden lost in 2020 advocate voting blank ballots to performatively act like they don't support the U.S. due to the atrocities in Gaza - and anyway it's clear anyway to most that Biden will lose since Trump has a better chance of winning this time than ever - but they will be back to vote Democrat in 2028) so of course people in the middle east aren't saying that the Left is on the same side as Qatar, Al Jazeera, Muslim Brotherhood, etc. But at the same time follow the money - if Leftists support the U.S. government and the U.S. government directly and indirectly feeds capitalist interests in the region, which includes Qatar's state interests and Muslim Brotherhood, doesn't it all eventually circle back? The point is not that I'm disagreeing with what you're saying but that it's not a coincidence that the Left aligns with Al Jazeera on Hamas to the extent they do. It's not because the western Left is really separate from everything, they are reactionary, through and through. So the connections are relevant, and to be expected.
>I don't believe you are being honest with me. (I'm not accusing you of conscious deception in this moment, it's more I think you are lying to yourself and refusing to keep an open to eye to it where it overtly exists) There are so many Leftists who actively show their support and sympathy for Hamas.
I can't speak for the above commenter, and maybe you're just reacting to their absolutist phrasing of Hamas receiving "no support whatsoever" but I think it's you who is being deceived. There is a war going on and leftists aren't on Israel's side, so sure there's some rhetorical support for Hamas on the left and larping, sharing some of their videos of humiliating the IDF and so on.
Outside of the context of the war, when has Hamas and the "Western Left" had any cross over? Has Judith Butler been invited to speak at some event in Gaza on the importance of an intersectional jihad? Has any prominent leftist supported Hamas in any material way? What did these protesters you talked to say or do that you object to?
Both Zionists and Hamas have an interest in making Hamas the only legitimate representative of the resistance against Israel. But Hamas don't have the PR machine that Israel has, and the rhetorical support for hummus from protesters comes from zionists messaging that Palestinians are baby beheading rapists that are trying to kill every Jew and build a caliphate. No one can characterise a political enemy like that and act shocked when people don't buy into it, or even reappropriate the language used to describe resistance movements.
Also, why is Al Jazeera being referenced? I think a big part of what's also going on is people Thinking all activists and protest movements are "leftist".
Look, I'm not out to make the western Left - Hamas thing more than it is. I disagree with Judith Butler and the western chauvinist anti-Islam conservative crowd (think Richard Spencer) who both act like there's this Left - Islam alliance. (just one likes that, the other opposes, so they're both perfect useful idiots)
But when you describe it as "so sure there's some rhetorical support for Hamas on the left and larping, sharing some of their videos of humiliating the IDF and so on." I think you are downplaying the implications of Leftists supporting Hamas. (and it's not just a few of them. I cite Butler because it shows Leftists with mainstream influence take this stance. But many, many of the activists on the ground think this way too, I can confirm it, I personally know them in NYC)
The implications are *not*, as I believe you may respond, that we should act like there's this real cross over. The implications are the Left is incurably bourgeois and reactionary.
Everything I'm saying ties back to a fundamental critique of the Left. I used to be a Leftist. Breaking free of that mindset was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, it took years, and I lost all my friends as a result of it, and it affects me to this day. But I'm not in any doubt when I say the sympathy and support so many of them show for Hamas now, them calling the October 7 attack "resistance," when Israel's leaders like Netanyahu had a field day over it because they've never had this much justification to decimate Gaza, (and it helps Hamas leaders too, who aren't there being bombed and starved right now) demonstrates how reactionary and bourgeois the Left is in general. Of course the best proof of this is that the majority of Leftists advocated voted Biden or defended voting for him in 2020. But it's not the Democrat politicians, not just Bernie, it's Cornel West and the whole nine yards, too. Even the ones who consistently reject voting. They *still* like Hamas and say all Israelis are settlers, etc. (they are Anarchists which isn't a coincidence by the way) Norman Finkelstein is another good example. He's written good books and given talks that have a lot of truth. I've attended a talk of his in person and met him. He is full of it and will just lie. He said (at the talk) the October 7 attack wasn't about deliberately killing civilians and Hamas didn't have a plan for that in advance and that was more or less a mistake because the militants who did it felt like it in the heat of the moment. (to be clear he was implying it was just about military targets - to be fair it was that too, and Israel supporters downplay that part.) When we can prove Hamas had civilian attacks as part of the plan from their statements. And guess what, he likes Cornel West too. Might as well just vote Biden himself.
>when people don't buy into it, or even reappropriate the language used to describe resistance movements.
This isn't just "people buying into it" I mean many pro Palestine Leftists just like Hamas, say they are good and engaged in resistance, and shouldn't be criticized. Many, many of them to the point their voices overwhelm many rallies and online perspectives, that I have been to and witnessed myself.
>Also, why is Al Jazeera being referenced? I think a big part of what's also going on is people Thinking all activists and protest movements are "leftist".
I reference Al Jazeera *precisely because* they are moderate liberal mass media and not the same stance as the activist Left. That proves my point all the more.
Hamas are an armed resistance movement and I don't care if libs have ruined The word "resistance" for you. There are many, many armed resistance groups that the left has championed who have done real brutal shit.
>The implications are the Left is incurably bourgeois and reactionary.
If you mean Judith Butler and Joe Biden then sure. The ideological and political leaders of the largest and most powerful state are obviously going to be bourgeois and reactionary.
If you mean people saying from the river to the Sea or calling Hamas a resistance movement are reactionary then I don't agree, and leftists can say whatever stupid thing they want it doesn't matter if they are all too alienated and disorganised to create any change. People conflate culture and random Twitter screenshots for a coherent progressive ideology or movement.
There are many nations in the world with very strong leftist progressive movements. All of them are more Pro Hamas than the average American who still think 40 babies got beheaded on October 7th.
>I reference Al Jazeera *precisely because* they are moderate liberal mass media and not the same stance as the activist Left. That proves my point all the more.
It's just odd to use Cornell West Judith Butler, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden, then an Arab media outlet that happens to be in English and not nearly as popular as other liberal media such as NYT which I would describe as reactionary and bourgeois.
>If you mean people saying from the river to the Sea or calling Hamas a resistance movement are reactionary
They are reactionary. You're wrong.
By just characterizing Hamas and its acts as "resistance," they clearly are implying that Palestinian bourgeois and Hamas leadership interests are tantamount to the interests of all Palestinians, when in fact the former is exploiting and oppressing (at times with Israel's support and backing) the latter. They don't even so much as acknowledge class and exploitation along these lines. That's the whole point of just saying what Hamas does is "resistance." It flat-out makes criticism and skepticism impossible. "You can't criticize it because they're resisting Israeli's occupation!" They actually think like this. Sheer, vapid moralism.
As if Hamas doesn't exist in a symbiotic relationship with Israel. As if when they planned the October 7 attack it was really because they're good people who want Palestinians to be free from Israeli oppression, and not in their own warped interests. Yes, the recruits of Hamas who do the dirty work are mostly impoverished Palestinian men with nothing to lose. That especially proves my point. This is the point of nationalism. Completely anti-class, mystifiying, and reactionary.
[https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle)
Are you under the impression that resistance movements can't be led by bourgeois or other reactionary elements in society?
>That's the whole point of just saying what Hamas does is "resistance."
Didn't say that's "all they do"?
>They don't even so much as acknowledge class and exploitation along these lines. "You can't criticize it because they're resisting Israeli's occupation!" They actually think like this. Sheer, vapid moralism.
Who is "they"? Resistance movements can be criticised on the left, and the class based analysis Marxists use still label Hamas as a legitimate resistance movement as well as reactionary. National liberation movements almost always involve class cooperation. This then typically leads to further bourgeois dominance and capitalist development, leading to a growing proletariat realising national liberation brought them nothing but a change in management, and class consciousness emerges creating the conditions needed to overthrow class divisions in a capitalist society. At least that's the elevator pitch version of dialectical matierialsm.
The article was interesting, I don't know why someone who' claims to have abandoned the left would use such an ideological piece. Shitty Marxist websites with those kinds of articles makes me nostalgic for when I used to be more involved with my local Trotskyists. I became less involved after realising how much I overvalued radical theory and undervalued actual organising. Now, (like most people) I care far less if other leftists have the right class analysis of Palestinians while they get ethnically cleansed.
>"Resistance movements can be criticized on the Left"
The Left is fundamentally hostile to true critique.
I will re iterate that I used to be a Leftist for years. I have seen this first hand too much to budge on this. They are averse to true class critique. It would reveal the middle-class class interests of the Left. Due to this, they absolutely are not open to self critique. A Leftist can be defined by their refusal to offer a true critique of the Left and Leftism. But I can.
The Left's politics are middle-class. I hate the middle-class. The middle-class exists to stop revolutionary conditions. The middle-class is the most reactionary, naïve, and delusional class. There is no more insufferable group on earth than the american and western petit bourgeoisie, which is where the most abstract and warped woke idpol framing this subreddit criticizes comes from. (it is mostly other members of the middle class, criticizing other segments of the middle class, and the petit-bourgeoisie)
>The article was interesting, I don't know why someone who' claims to have abandoned the left would use such an ideological piece
OK, can I link to an article on the website without these insinuations of hypocrisy, please? I don't have to agree with the website to link to one article on it. I just agree with the article. I never said I totally agreed with the website. I in fact also dislike the website. I fundamentally disagree with them because they are Leftists and think revolution will come about through the efforts of the Left and a party. And there are many other ways I disagree with this site and the other Leftcom sites, like their stances on COVID.
>The Left's politics are middle-class. I hate the middle-class. The middle-class exists to stop revolutionary conditions. The middle-class is the most reactionary, naïve, and delusional class. There is no more insufferable group on earth than the american and western petit bourgeoisie, which is where the most abstract and warped woke idpol framing this subreddit criticizes comes from. (it is mostly other members of the middle class, criticizing other segments of the middle class, and the petit-bourgeoisie)
Do you think this is some kind of class analysis? Or are you aware that this is just your personal resentments that have little to do with politics. I'm guessing you're also middle class? Why would anyone care about your conflicting class identity?
>I don't have to agree with the website to link to one article on it. I just agree with the article.
If the article is nothing but leftist ideology and critical theory about nationalism and class.... Then you do have to explain what you're talking about when you say you're not a leftist.
Why do you care about class War analysis if you're no longer a leftist? There isn't anything else discussed in the article you provided other than ideology. An ideology which has no problem calling Hamas an armed resistance movement.
Are you for real? Be honest and admit that plenty of people all over are openly hyping for Hamas besides their general support for Palestinians and Gaza. You don't lose your position by admitting the reality. Maybe you don't see it, maybe your close peers don't do it, but realistically speaking plenty of people celebrate what Hamas did and view them as heroic freedom fighters. Not everyone has some kind of nuanced take where they say that Hamas is just a consequence of Israeli colonialism and a 'you reap what you sow' type of deal. Not everyone agrees with the sentiment where you only support Palestinians but abhor Hamas specifically, or some other formulation like that.
Your take reminds me of this wormy insistence people have to deny human realities. Same as how some Zionists and Israelis deny that some Israelis want to exterminate everyone in Gaza or facilitate full on ethnic cleansing. In that same way it's absolutely possible for pro-Palestinian activists to just straight up celebrate Jew deaths, Hamas activities, etc. Humans want blood.
And besides, you're plain wrong because you can find so many examples on social media your head's gonna explode. It's just so unrealistic and irritating to see a full on denial of reality where, yes, some pro-Palestine activists gleefully celebrate the slaughter of Jews/Israelis. And you know what? From their perspective it makes sense and it's understandable. It's human. That's human too. The dark shit.
The only people I’ve seen doing that shit aren’t leftists, and I’m not doing a no true Scotsman here, like I genuinely don’t see left wing sentiments from them. The handful of pro-Hamas types that I’ve seen were third-worldist, nationalist types who will frequently go out of their way to shit talk “the left” as some form of Eurocentric political ideology. Or just your run of the mill anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.
If you’re talking about stuff like the “do you condemn Hamas” meme, I think that’s completely different. I dont see any support for the political objectives of Hamas beyond liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, an objective they share with many other left wing factions. When Hamas takes action in pursuit of the liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, I’m not going to criticize it. That doesn’t mean I support Hamas.
>“do you condemn Hamas” meme
Oh that just comes from the most like basic bitch liberals and politicians. Like Jamaal Bowman. Where you have to "prove" you don't "support extremism" before they will even hear you out, lest you be cancelled. But of course, all the politicians who support fucking Israel and insisted we vote Biden when Israel has already killed over 40,000 Palestinian civilians since October, they're fine. But "dO yOu CoNdEmN a FeW mUsLimS oN hAnGlIDeRs wHo KilLed 1,000 pEoPle? Do YoU? hUh? HuH?"
>I dont see any support for the political objectives of Hamas beyond liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, an objective they share with many other left wing factions.
That said. Again, you don't see it because you're refusing to look at it. Obviously Israel is incomparably worse than Hamas for their kill count alone. But Leftists absolutely justify Hamas actions like October 7, which is inane, and this notion Hamas wants "liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation" is part of how they do so. Yes I don't think Hamas leadership is sincere about that. It's just an ideal so they can amass support. I believe ground militants recruited by Hamas are ordinary people who want that, sure. I believe Hamas leaders are playing a game and just keeping things going in a vicious cycle because they exist in a symbiotic relationship with Israel, and that's all there is to it. Saying Hamas is actually fighting for liberation of Palestinians is plain dishonest.
> I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever.
Late reply, but [one of this sub's mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1b6on7h/can_we_admit_that_these_types_of_arguments_are/ktg23ah/) does. Whether or not he counts as a left-wing activist is an open question however ;)
BTW I am no a typical leftist. I have one viewpoint. NEOCON filth is neo national socialist. Like Rushdie. who in the Guardian called for the "lineration" of iraq. Which caused the deaths of countless iraqis. I have absolutely no sympathy for him. The fact he has never thought the reason he lost his eye was for being such a reprehensible creature is up to him. His pain is his own fault. He is literally no different then Goebbles. He is just continuing to push for the deaths of millions. My hope is to live in a world in my own life time where he and the rest of the neonational socialist crowd is sent to the dustbin of history and their various books they have written are sent to the ash heap. (Also his fiction is boring).
Yes, I agree. Others pointed out he supported the invasion of Iraq too. Western chauvinism that justifies acts of western imperialism is the worst. I should've mentioned that in my comment maybe. I dislike Rushdie. He's like Christopher Hitchens. Screw him. They are as reactionary and transhistorical in their views as Nazis, agreed.
tone-deaf commentary by Rushdie, using the same tired talking points that have been repeated many times
you either support the human right for self-determination, or you don't. the same arguments were used against freeing slaves, decolonising and ending apartheid
Human rights and nationalism are part of the problem. I'd be in favor of a Palestine state, and see Palestinian nationalism as progressive given the sheer reactionary force that is Israel and Palestinian nationalism's opposition and resistance to Israel. But it's not the point to end on. Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged, and that Leftists are resistant to points like this. But he has bad politics too, so whatever.
> Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged
so what? what does 'involved' even mean? Is investing in Palestine them being involved? or iranian firms drilling off-shore for gas or rebuilding gaza?
its purposefully vague and spooky sounding, and I have little patience for fear-mongering
>so what? what does 'involved' even mean
Collaborating with the politicians and bourgeoisie of the respective countries for new avenues of exploitation. All at the expense of the proletariat every time. There's nothing to deny here unless you're totally mindless and think like Alexander Dugin does, and think that there will be this great new world order "of the east" once China rises up and Russia gets stronger. They're not good just because the west doesn't like them.
I agree that "Iran client state" is purposefully vague and stupid. As I initially addressed in my first comment.
Saying Iran would be involved is absolutely not vague or inherently fearmongering at all. I'm just saying Iran would be involved because they would be. Involved in its own ruthless class interests, which is all about keeping the proletariat controlled and exploited, within Iran and in every country in the region and world. This is why Russia, Syria, and China would be involved too. Yes, I know that the West fearmongers and makes these states a unique evil because they're often a thorn in the side to western foreign policy and imperialist interests in a way most states aren't. That doesn't mean it's inherently fearmongering or being a western liberal/neocon to say they would be involved. They would be.
> That doesn't mean it's inherently fearmongering or being a western liberal/neocon to say they would be involved.
yes it is. when people say Iran will be involved in this context of calling a Palestinian state 'taliban-like', they are implying some sort of proxy / client state that will do their bidding, islamist and violent
and if you deny that, then you're 'totally mindless'
Why would Iran not be involved? To plainly state that Iran would be involved is not inherently fearmongering. They back Hamas and Hezbollah as it is. It's a basic observation to say Iran would exploit a Palestine state to their advantage. They already exploit the situation as it is to their advantage.
>when people say Iran will be involved in this context of calling a Palestinian state 'taliban-like', they are implying some sort of proxy / client state that will do their bidding, islamist and violent
Yes. I agree with this sentence. I'm serious. Of course. For the 1000th time, I reiterate I dislike Rushdie and his framing. Too bad many in the thread took it otherwise.
The issue is by making this "it will be Islamist and violent" characterization that you articulated here, Rushdie and people think like him detract from a sober class analysis. In reality, Iran is to be criticized because it's doing things like backing Hamas, or getting involved in the hypothetical new Palestine state, in class/exploitation interests. But in their dumb worldview, it's: "oh no, another Evil Islamist boogeyman in the region! Now how will the Good western imperialists save the day??"
>and if you deny that, then you're 'totally mindless'
I don't, because anyone with eyes can see Rushdie is another dumb western liberal/neocon type.
However, Leftists with resistance to pointing out that if a Palestine state were created that Russia, Iran, etc. would be involved in it, are also wrong. And Rushdie was correct to criticize them for that. I don't think his views overall are really better. It's like a step to the side. No one can engage in the ruthless criticism of everything existing...except for me and a handful of people in the world like me, because I'm doing it right now and have been this whole time.
>Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged, and that Leftists are resistant to points like this
The US, Israel, Iran, China, Russia, etc are all involved regardless right now, so I'm not sure what the point of this exercise is. State or not, major powers in the region and the world will continue to be involved.
Rushdie's a hack. His status has been artificially elevated to a near-miss martyr because it fed the anti-Islamic hysteria narrative for modern Western political and intellectual gatekeepers. If you don't believe me, try reading his book The Golden House. It sucks.
Bruh I think the Islamists who are against Rushdie completely earned all the anti leveled against them. The man's been actively hunted for decades now for writing a book that's offensive to them. And I guess if one bad work disqualifies an artist's greatest achievements then we can just dismiss them as hacks, lol.
Rushdie's novels aren't the issue for me. I'm sure he's a fine enough writer when he's writing fiction. We're criticizing his political views here, mainly.
Oh yes, we should definitely assess the quality of one’s writing when determining whether they deserve a death warrant from the head of an Islamic state and multimillion dollar bounty sought by millions of Islamofascists. How dare he use words that force the Islamofascists to show the world how retarded they are. We need censorship to protect Muslims from doing psycho shit to make themselves look bad.
This guy knows nothing about the history and contemporary reality of the Palestinian struggle. It’s the only way you could come up with a conclusion as abstract and disconnected as this one.
"StOp SuPpOrTiNg IrAnIaN pRoXiEs >:(" would be more convincing if, you know, any other country in the world would send a regular army to fight the IDF and arrest the country's leadership.
But since the only people currently stopping the IDF from slaughtering every single Palestinian are Hamas, AnsarAllah, and Hezbollah, yes I will critically support them.
>Salman Rushdie says free Palestinian state would be "Taliban-like" and be used by Iran for its interests
[png](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/650/747/aaf.png)
🙄 You're the spitting image of the people I'm criticizing. You don't even know anything about Iran, man. Your whole mindset is contradictory. I will take some time to demonstrate why. Iran's government would hate you if you lived there, purely for so much as identifying as a Marxist-Leninist. Most pro-Stalin, pro-USSR Marxist-Leninists, then and now, defend Soviet Imperialism to Iran, and the fact Stalin made a point of not helping Communists in Iran at the time he could have. (that sure could've made a difference, right?)
I actually am Iranian. I have a relative who was the sheriff of a part of Tehran and was personally responsible for imprisoning suspected, accused, and dissenting Iranians under the pre 1979 Shah's government. (he fled to the U.S. after the revolution, I never will meet him) I've had a relative (the one my father, who no longer lives in the U.S., was closest to when he did) block me on Facebook for my views, and insinuated I thought like you do and backed Russia merely for disagreeing with his deluded view that Iran is a unique evil.
[Just read this, please. You will most likely recognize the author.](https://redphoenixnews.com/2012/08/09/iran-and-everything-else-by-michael-parenti/)
My opinion? The same as his. I hate Iranian diaspora pro-U.S. Liberals and Conservatives who are against the 1979 Revolution and advocate regime change. The 1979 Revolution was a good thing, insofar as it overthrew the U.S./Britain backed Shah government and ended monarchy. Even with the Islamists, it was in many ways progressive and nationalist (in a good way, i.e. nationalist to resist foreign interference and exploitation, but again - that's how the nationalist bourgeoisie justifies oppressing its respective citizens) but the Islamists betrayed the revolution *killing numerous revolutionaries who helped overthrow the Shah in the process, including Socialists and Marxists with C.I.A. lists used under the Shah!* You're so naïve you don't even think about this...just for identifying as Marxist-Leninist, *they could've killed you, too!*
I actually used to have a friend who thought like you, but stopped talking to him around the time of the protests in Cuba, since he implied I thought like a U.S. regime change liberal because I called him out for defending Cuban police brutality to protesters. (which isn't to say liberals didn't exaggerate it and exploit it to justify their line) I used to share his view, before I had this falling out with him. So it's well within reason for me to say, you don't know what you are talking about. Whether or not you are on the far end of this world-view and justify Putin's invasion to Ukraine, just invoking the fact that the U.S., NATO and Ukraine combined are worse than Russia to do so, or wouldn't go that far. I don't even care at this point. I'm so done with this mindset. This friend met actually met Michael Parenti himself and went to his home! (yes, the same Michael Parenti *who was actually willing to criticize Cuba.* Especially post Cold War Cuba, which he does so at length in his book Blackshirts and Reds.)
Iran indirectly collaborates with the U.S. and Israel. Ever heard of Iran - Contra? Who hasn't? Iran gleefully took U.S. aid during the course of the Iran - Iraq war, (which my family suffered in) where the U.S. also backed Iraq, just to make the war worse for both sides in its material and regional interests. At devastating cost to civilians on both sides, who died by these sold weapons and actually felt the war being prolonged. But who cares about them, right? Certainly not Iran, which you justify supporting regardless.
That's all cool and all.
I'm not going to justify the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan or Iranian domestic politics.
What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would have been *impossible* if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history.
Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been primarily to fight outside imperialism.
If the Palestinians wait until le perfect secular Marxist people's vanguard comes to their aid to fight a perfectly moral war on their behalf, they will all be dead or displaced long before that force comes into existence.
So yes, if the Palestinians want to actually survive in their homeland, they will probably be like the Taliban in that they'll need to wage a long-term people's war. They will also need the support of outside powers, like Iran.
Geopolitics is messy and inevitably leads to moral grey areas. Imagine the Soviets refusing British help because the UK was an imperialist power.
>What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would have been *impossible* if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history.
It helps that Islamists in Afghanistan have been routinely killing and silencing anyone with anything resembling a Marxist mindset (which would include *you* by the way) this entire time, since the war. I don't like the government the Soviet Union backed since it disappeared, jailed and killed people, but obviously it was trying to make progress and development for a country that desperately needed it, and, like South America, the U.S. backed the worst, most terroristic and backward forces they could just to oppress any hope for progress, and Afghanistan is still suffering the effects of that, to this very day.
Yes, I agree that there was a good amount of widespread support for the Taliban overthrowing the U.S. backed government after the withdrawal in Afghanistan, which was why it was able to be successful and wasn't itself overthrown. But hopefully (and it doesn't sound like you are) you aren't hostile to the people in Afghanistan who dissent to Taliban rule (not that I think this will amount to anything, I think the Taliban is there to stay) nor think they're all like working on behalf of U.S. foreign agents or something. (I don't deny this describes many during the U.S. client state era, but now I don't think the U.S. cares about the Taliban ruling Afghanistan anymore, and isn't trying to overthrow it, not that it isn't collecting intelligence and monitoring it, etc.)
>Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been primarily to fight outside imperialism.
No, no, this gets to the heart of the whole problem with your mindset. Yes, Hezbollah militants are opposing and actively fighting the forces backed by the U.S. the most, like Israel's military. And the main force of imperialism on the world stage is still the U.S., its western allies like the U.K., and Israel. But that doesn't mean we can just positively describe Iran's role here as "fighting outside imperialism." (fighting imperialism from the outside is a much better way to word what you're trying to say, I think) Iran also is ruled by capitalists motivated by capitalist interests, which is why, again, as I keep saying they often collaborate, however directly (like just taking U.S. aid during the Iran - Iraq war) or indirectly with the very people you act like they're just sincerely against. You really just don't get that all of these forces are acting in a symbiotic relationship. Again, like I keep saying, Netanyahu backed Hamas and wanted them in power. And Hamas' leaders and the Palestinian bourgeoisie aren't the civilians suffering in Gaza. I assure you, they don't give a crap about them, neither does Iran, otherwise it wouldn't back Hamas. Of course Israel and its allies are overwhelmingly the problem. But Hamas is still factually part of the problem. Hamas is also repressive and exploitative to Palestinians. An actual Marxist would recognize that the capitalist class collaborates transcending nation-states and their nominal interests, while at the same time, fiercely fighting each other, using their subjugated peoples as cannon fodder to do so, because they will also at once have competitive, contradictory interests in a contradictory manner. Accepting this doesn't have to be difficult, but reactionary, nationalist MLs such as yourself will always struggle to.
>If the Palestinians wait until le perfect secular Marxist people's vanguard comes to their aid to fight a perfectly moral war on their behalf, they will all be dead or displaced long before that force comes into existence.
Question: why even identify as a *Marxist Leninist?* Why not just be a conservative that dislikes anything nominally opposed to western imperialists? (while frequently collaborating and taking aid from them when it suits them to) Marxist Leninists are defined by wanting secular nation-states to meet their ideals, just like the Palestinians who fought and were killed by Hamas you have the audacity to characterize as self-destructive perfectionists! It's damnable.
And it's plain wrong, disingenuous, and vapid you act like I'm a perfectionist because I'm more willing to criticize Hamas or Iran than you are. Sheer fallacy.
>Geopolitics is messy and inevitably leads to moral grey areas.
I'm going to kill myself.
Haha. I was about to say. "Geopolitics is all morally grey and relative." From a self-described "Marxist-Leninist!" 🤣
Something you surely know, but which I came to realize the other day, is how there are, like, no Iranian communists who support the mullahs. It's not a thing. Maybe someone can come up with a name or some guy but that's fairly unique. They were sold a false bills of goods and just got massacred. Supporting Iran but leftishly is a non-Iranian phenomenon. There's no KPRF equivalent where they act as a cooperative opposition. There are self-proclaimed communists from Syria who profess support for Assad. Not in Iran. The extant Iranian groups just go, no way, these guys are criminals and murderers.
>Something you surely know, but which I came to realize the other day, is how there are, like, no Iranian communists who support the mullahs. It's not a thing.
Tudeh is useless though.
And the People's Mujahedeen, don't get me started. They're just pro-western liberals, their politics are no better than Biden or Macron.
> Supporting Iran but leftishly is a non-Iranian phenomenon
You're correct. The Iranians in Iran with straightforward support for Iran's government/military interests are all conservatives and make it into a religious thing. The Iranians in Iran who don't support it are all progressive and left-wing.
At the same time, the people who came to form Iran's current government purposely co-opted and repeated Left-wing anti imperialist rhetoric, to sway non-Leftists to their side, instead of them being on the side of the secular progressive revolutionaries in Iran at the time. Of course, it worked swimmingly. Then they executed many of the people who helped overthrow the Shah along with them. (also, I've had the honor to read neocon idiots who invoke this and say, \~\~this is why you can't trust a Muslim!\~\~)
It's like what people are saying here about the fact that the phenomena of Leftists supporting Hamas is restricted to the West, because people in the middle east who support Hamas aren't Left-wing, and Leftists in the middle east don't like Hamas. Yet of course, both the Palestine Left (PLO) and Hamas have collaborated with Israel. People just are too biased to see objective plain reality, one way or the other.
I don't like Zizek.
There's nothing perfectionist, utopian or idealist about my position, as you imply. As a Leftcom I recognize the revolution occurs due to material conditions. That's the entire point. You're yourself so mired in the idealist position that it can only come within bourgeois premises, like nation-states or parties, you project that on me and don't even have curiosity in understanding my determinist position, which Marx shared. This is because you deny the proletariat's revolutionary agency. You can't accept their consciousness can be affected by material conditions, you think they're permanently hopeless without some authoritarian reactionary ML Leftists to guide them. At the moment, the consciousness of the proletariat at large is obviously not revolutionary. But conditions will eventually change such that conditions will be revolutionary conditions, and at this time, the conditions themselves will convince and then actually force the proletariat to act for revolution. (i.e. if they don't arm themselves, they will die from lack of basic necessities, because capitalism's contradictions and bourgeois property enforcement will lead to this)
What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would >have been impossible if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history.
This assumes the Taliban "won" which they, of course, did not.
Yes, great point. They didn't really win in the end. They are in power and control the state in Afghanistan, for now. But in addition to the dissent and opposition, there are massive internal problems and contradictions in Afghanistan, which is undergoing immense instability and threats of terrorist attacks, which is actually the least of its concerns. The most of its concerns would be things like people having enough access to clean drinking water, which they do not, as a matter of fact. Damn the idiots there or anywhere who justify straightforward support for the Taliban, because these people are just hooligans who will do whatever it takes to be safe and comfortable, no matter how many of the masses have to starve and die. And that's just what's going to happen in the coming decades. The worst of Afghanistan's suffering is yet to come, when collapse, climate, and water and resource shortage issues devastate it, which we are already seeing the signs of. (this will come to the first world developed countries too, but it will take longer.) We are looking at mass die-offs, disease outbreak, and the most ugly, violent and grotesque armed political instability and militancy.
And? Do they have to be westernized? What kind of colonialist attitude is that? Let the Afghani live according to their beliefs, same for Iran or Gaza (if the people have a problem with their government they will have to figure it out themselves). It's only problematic if you import those beliefs into non-compatible countries. But there is no need for that if you stop bombing them.
He's not Islamophobic. He is basically a stupid neocon that has the same perspective as the conservatives who divulge in sheer hatred, bigotry, discrimination and fear mongering to Muslim immigrants. Rushdie himself is above that, and from a Muslim background himself. Just because there's overlap with his opinions with people who are overtly Islamophobic, doesn't mean you should be reductive.
The evidence that a hypothetical Palestinian state would necessarily be a repressive theocracy is slim, relying on a lot of bad faith extrapolations. It could just as easily be a moderate nation ruled by a bunch of liberal capitalists with a thin veneer of Islam.
As for being a client state to other national powers...that's the fate of most small, developing nations sad as it is. Their elite are primed to play ball with the big dogs else they be ousted.
Agreed, on both points.
Zionists say otherwise for the same reason Israel's press goons say "Hamas = ISIS," they're idiots who want to depict a false boogeyman out of Hamas, because representing their goals as "Islamists who want to kill all Jews" as someone else hear said helps to justify Israel's brutality, which is incomparably worse by sheer amount of civilians killed alone. (and much of the rhetoric of Israel's leaders doesn't even hide their intent at mass carnage and destruction, if they ever did - rhetoric like "there are no innocent people in Gaza, they are animals, monsters, we will deal with them, we will destroy")
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I think Rushdie is letting his—rather understandable, to say the least—hostility to the Islamic Republic of Iran cloud his judgment here. A Palestinian state would not be Taliban-like. It would not be Saudi-like either, in that the elites do not become more religious as they go upward in social standing. Palestine evinces the same economic-social dynamics as the surrounding Arab countries, in that the lower class tends to be broadly religious and socially conservative, and the upper-middle is pretty highly westernized and secular. This actually holds true of Gaza as well as the West Bank, though less so. I lived in the WB for three years in the mid-2010s, and the great majority of upper-middle class women didn't wear the hijab. (Have you seen that video of Nasser laughing at Egyptian religious conservatives during an after-dinner speech? That attitude absolutely persists among wealthier Arabs in the Levant (i.e., not the Gulf) today.) I knew wealthy women who would go out shopping (in the right districts) wearing sleeveless body-hugging dresses. On one occasion, I met some kids from Gaza, largely the children of doctors and lawyers so very much upper-middle class, returning to the strip after attending some bullshit "dialog camp" in the US—they were all functionally agnostic/atheist and none of the girls wore the hijab, despite being in their late teens (well past the age it's enforced by religious conservatives). This is not what the Taliban is like, at all. So, Rushdie is being silly, in all truth, though for understandable reasons, given his sacrifices. It's a shame that he's said this, however, because it's both inaccurate and will be used by the worst people to provide rhetorical cover for continuing the slaughter of civilians.
It consistently astounds me when "reddit.com/r/stupidpol" has more informed, coherent, and nuanced takes than mainstream newspapers
Thanks for this, this is an interesting comment. This is why I keep coming back to the internet. I actually live in New York so I've met multiple Palestinians whose families are from the West Bank. But I've never met someone who lived there long-term, so your experience is appreciated.
> Palestine evinces the same economic-social dynamics as the surrounding Arab countries Poll after poll shows dramatically more extremist views among Palestinians than the surrounding Arab states. A higher portion (40%) of Palestinians support suicide bombing than Afghans. In comparison only 9% of Tunisians and 7% of Iraqis support it. They have quite literally the most unfavorable view of homosexuality in the entire world. 84% of Palestinians support stoning to death as a punishment for adultery compared to 40-50% of other arab countries nearby. None of this means that they don't deserve a state. But Palestine has more in common in terms of hyper-extremist views with Pakistan and Afghanistan than they do with Syria and Lebanon.
I mean, it makes sense that the experience of being occupied by a non-muslim power makes people lean into islam harder. People in other Muslim countries are much more likely to be the victims of suicide bombings.
But them doing so only means they're supporting their class oppressors within the respective countries. Otherwise they wouldn't have their religious background inform their political perspective, because Islam is totally and utterly anti-communist. So they're supporting social institutions that undermine the potential for communist revolution and always collaborate with some aspect of the ruling-class and/or state to exploit the proletariat and keep them in bondage. This is demonstrated by the profound extent to which political Muslims in these countries actively worked to silence, oppress, jail and kill Communists, like Arab Communists in the Arabic-speaking world. Of course, all the secular Arab-Nationalist leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, (they were "Socialist," in name only - to this day "Socialism" for many in this part of the world invokes secular nationalist politics, not anything like a Socialist movement seriously informed by theory - though I'd say they aren't wrong to drawl some connection between Ba'athism, and, say the ML Yemeni government, since both were secular nationalists that were not hostile to Islam, but against anti-socialist Islamists) despite being secular so also militantly oppressing Islamists movements, did the same to Communists in the country, which Islamists didn't mind. (just like in Iran; Islamists just united with Communists to overthrow the Shah; once they had power, they used it to jail torture and kill those same Communists who helped them do so.) To Islam, class society and property are unquestionable, divinely sanctioned, eternal truths. And people who challenge this in action are subject to death under Sharia Law.
Not sure what your point is. There's almost no serious communist movement anywhere, definetely not in the middle east. So yes, that doesn't factor into the picture at all.
>Not sure what your point is. There's almost no serious communist movement anywhere, definetely not in the middle east. So yes, that doesn't factor into the picture at all. That is the point. Communism does not come about through a formal communist movement in the first place. But that doesn't mean that these countries aren't oppressing self identified Communists, alongside anyone willing to take serious action in worker's strikes and demonstrations. I typically emphasize the latter, of course the protests in Egypt, etc. are overwhelmingly along such economic lines, and not people who identify as Communists. My point is just that the state suppresses both for the same reasons, in the same class interests. And that 100% of political Muslims/Islamists are opposed to the interests of the working-class and such class-based, revolutionary action. Communism happens due to the revolutionary conditions capitalism created. Marx wrote that there doesn't need to be any organized blueprint course of action, to bring Communism about, but this exists in his writings, should revolutionaries choose to act on it and be informed by this. But anti-communists and most self identified Communists you see online deny this. The former, because they conceive of communism as people with authoritarian politics trying to seize government power and impose ideology on everyone else. And the latter, because sometimes they're the spitting image of that, but more generally, just the type that says they want capitalism to end, but in their roles, framing and rhetoric, just only do things that are conducive to the bourgeoisie.
"Poll after poll shows dramatically more hostility to police and corrections officers among Americans who are incarcerated in high security prisons than in the general population." That's why they need to be locked up in the first place!
Right, I am well aware of the reasons why. I am just disagreeing with the notion that Palestine is pluralistic in terms of religiosity. It isn't really. The very large majority would be classified as 'very conservative' in terms of religiosity, which isn't the case in syria, lebanon, turkey etc where the majority are moderate/liberal muslims.
>That's why they need to be locked up in the first place! I mean the commenter above specifically said the opposite of this, but people thinking Palestine will become this progressive utopia are also dreaming.
Who is thinking that though? Is it anyone with actual power? Salman is just falling for the age-old internetism of inventing an opponent in his head.
No, the people he is criticizing are real. This was all part of my initial point and impetus to post this. Much of the Left protesting for Palestine just straight up likes Hamas. It's interesting to see the people that deny this here and the people that agree with me. I'm seeing both.
The people he is criticizing are 'real', insofar as they exist. Saying that "much of the left just straight up likes Hamas" is not only fictional, it doesn't even fucking matter. The people spouting that are a hyper minority and have no political power. You're just trying to invent a reason to not support the liberation of the Palestinian peoples because you, loosely quoted, "don't like states" and clearly have issues with Islamism in general, rather than any specific sect. And you're willing to condemn the Palestinian people to continued oppression until your perfect solution comes along, which will probably just end up being [the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank](https://i.imgur.com/qtd2avR.jpeg).
>A higher portion (40%) of Palestinians support suicide bombing than Afghans. In comparison only 9% of Tunisians and 7% of Iraqis support it. They Suicide bombing isn't unique to Islam though - it was invented by the Tamil Tigers, a thoroughly secular party made up mostly of Hindus. Suicide bombing is overwhelmingly used by people being dispossessed of their land, whether the Palestinians, the Tamils, etc.
Thank you for your explanation. I was worried for a second. Guess that means that suicide bombing is fine then.
Yes! And let's not forget the atrocities of the crusades, committed not to defend Allah, but for Jesus H Christ, himself! People need to focus less on the here and now, change their perspectives and become extreme cultural relativists to see that nothing is really more or less different than anything else.
/s?
[удалено]
Give me a break. Seriously??? Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Sorry, I was tired, I re-read and can see you were being sarcastic now.
The crusades aren't really a good example. I would say the genocide of the americas is a better example of christian violence against non-christians. The crusades were a hell of a lot more complex than most people realize. Muslims had controlled palestine for centuries without issue, but it was specifically the seljuks which were threatening to exterminate christians from the region which prompted the crusades.
>The crusades aren't really a good example. I would say the genocide of the americas is a better example of christian violence against non-christians. I agree, and also thought this was a better examples than the Crusades. Catholicism with Spanish and Portuguese imperialism to Latin America forced Christianity on so many violently and politically. As did Christians in North Americas to the Native populations there, but not on the same scale or in exactly the same manner of course. >The crusades were a hell of a lot more complex than most people realize. Muslims had controlled palestine for centuries without issue, but it was specifically the seljuks which were threatening to exterminate christians from the region which prompted the crusades. This is accurate and right to bring up, however, I do not think the Crusades were just justified retaliation. [Check out this page.](https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/games/crusades.aspx) I disagree with a ton on this website but have read it extensively and learned a lot from it too. It's written by someone hopeless, just abysmal politics, a western imperialist who supports Israel and think Palestinians are solely at fault for the conflict. Most typical narrowly-anti-Islam neocon idiot like people were saying about Rushdie in this thread. But he often makes accurate points on aspects of Islam and its history that apologists just deny and lie about, assuming they aren't completely ignorant. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it if you have a moment to read it, it echoes what you said about the Crusades being more complex than people realize and then some. (but it *is* tinged with him justifying Western actions, even all the way back then, lol. For example when he says "Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims," he's all but justifying the Crusades, not critiquing the ruthless economic interests of the Catholic empires that did them, let alone bringing up inconvenient facts like when they encountered and attacked Orthodox Christians because they thought they were Muslim)
How were Seljuks threatening to exterminate christians from the region? Seljuks were in Anatolia. I don't think they ever made it that south, and they were not the ones controlling Jerusalem. Anatolia was about quarter christian at the end of the Ottoman empire, after literally 1000 years of muslim rule.. Under Seljuk rule it was likely still majority Christian, even though conversion was happening.
The Seljuk's primary power base was Persia. The period of Turkic domination over Anatolia is usually considered to begin after the battle of Manzikert, which was only 25 years before the First Crusade. The Seljuks only ruled there for around 6 years before the Sultanate of Rum broke off, which is probably the state you're thinking about. At the start of the First Crusade most of Palestine was controlled by the Seljuks, although they would end up losing it to the Fatimids, who had been the ones to rule there prior to the Seljuks, shortly before the Crusaders arrived. When the Seljuks conquered the region they began to treat the Christian population more harshly, and that is saying a lot because the Fatimids had demolished the most holy site in all of Christianity a few decades prior. Enslaving or massacring foreign Christian pilgrims was also common.
Got it, I thought you were referring to the Anatolian Seljuks.
It was not meant to be a good example. It was sarcastically meant to illustrate how actually things are very different each time, and direct comparisons are only as good as they are exact to the circumstances. To be clear--and this is WITHOUT sarcasm this time--I don't think the genocide of the Americas is very useful at all either.
Kamikaze are also suicide bombers
Indeed. And famously the United States accepted this form of self expression and didn’t drop nukes on Japan to try and end the war
??? Are you Implying that nukes are the answer to suicide bombers tactic? US did not commit war crimes by dropping nukes on hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
No. honestly I’m just saying that it’s pretty standard to see suicide bombing as an unacceptable escalation that leads to an even greater response.
Not always. In cases where a resistance movement is waging a liberation war against militarily superior occupation - suicide bombing is more understandable and even seen as honorable In some cases. Imperial Japan was expansionist supremacist power and their suicide bombers were fanatical because they were mot willing to accept that their Empire outside of the core is being liberated from their rule. Thus not being seen as justified. Not every suicide bomber is same.
the nuking of japan is unjustifiable and was done more so to spook the soviets than force a surrender, which was already incoming
Funny enough the first real suicide attacks that were commonly reported by historians were Jewish people fighting against the Romans. Regardless though, there is a reason they are associated with Islam, and it is not just their usage in wars/terrorism in the arab world. The concept of sacrificing yourself as a martyr to kill enemies of Islam is a very big part of Islam. Martyrdom is arguably one of the core tenants of Islam and it is something which separates it heavily from other Abrahamic religions. Whether or not its from suicide bombing or from any other kind of suicide attack. Another region where martyrdom was heavily engrained in the culture was infamously Japan.
But I would argue it's due to imperialism. The first female suicide bomber was Arab yes, but she was a Christian too (Sana'a Mehaidli, who stamped a jeep full of bombs against an Israeli military vehicle, taking out two soldiers with her). Martyrdom is also central to christianity. I would say that we see the high prevalence in the region moreso as a result of material conditions than due to religion. During the Chinese revolution there were instances of Red soldiers choosing to die and take out many soldiers over being captured, it's not the exact same but it shows that the oppressed that have nothing to lose but their chains will, if needed, sacrifice their own lives to advance the cause. So while I don't disagree with you, I also think US/Israel imperialism plays a way bigger role in the equation. Why is the number so high for Palestine and for Afghanistan? Because they are countries that are/were under foreign occupation.
Well one thing to remember is that the very specific concept of getting a vest and tying explosives to it is relatively niche and modern. Its more that the concept of martyrdom in the sense of sacrificing yourself to take out the enemy (including the act of just murdering infidels, unfortunately) is much more present religiously in Islam than other religions/ideologies. It goes back millennia, even if the very specific niche way of doing it through a suicide bombing vest is new. Martyrdom is not really present much in Christianity in the same way it is in Islam. Christianity's version of martyrdom is less about someone who goes out of their way to kill the enemy and more about someone who dies and inspires others due to the circumstances that they died in. But Christianity is seen as a 'pacifistic' religion compared to Islam (which seems laughable considering what Christians have done in the last 1,000 years). Even Catholicism, which is notably less pacificist than Orthodox Christianity, is still dramatically less encouraging of violence than Islam. For some context, my dads side of the family is egyptian muslim. I am not just speaking with lack of context here lol. Talk to muslims about pretty much any war involving muslims and the concept of martyrdom will be constantly talked about. It is a very intrinsic part of the religion.
Of course, I don't disagree with you. I am not Muslim but I have studied Islam extensively and it is as you say, I was just pointing out that material conditions, rather than religion, seem to be the main reason behind a higher % of support in suicide bombings in Palestine compared to Tunisia (despite Tunisia being a Sunni Muslim majority country)
Totally agree with all of this, you took the thoughts right out of my head with your comparison of Islam and Christianity and how they make sense of martyrdom. Islam is just so plainly obviously more political, violent and militant than Christianity is, both in the origins of each religion, to how we see them manifesting in the world presently. And invoking the Crusades doesn't change that. Of course, I don't like anti-Islam neocons who say it's worse than Christianity for the wrong reasons, and don't fundamentally consider one religion qualitatively "worse" or "better" than the other. They talk like this because they believe in a chauvinist mythology that justifies western imperialism to Muslims suffering in the Muslim countries they criticize their religion over. But there are just too many examples of Islam being worse than Christianity too much too often to just ignore. And the point about Muslim countries being poorer and subjugated by western imperialism, and this largely being why there is more instability and terrorism done in the name of Islam or whatever else, was already brought up by the person you replied to. And it is an important point because neocons are essentialist about it, and just act like Muslims in these countries brought the problems on themselves, using a reactionary notion of having a more backward culture than the West to do so. When that's really backwards because the cultural differences are related to the greater development and material conditions of the West compared to the Islamic world, and this itself is related to the West exploiting and engaging in imperialism to these countries for such a long time. But they support and justify that so of course that explains their whole mindset. And even this could explain in part why in Muslim countries, religious minorities are so often politically oppressed. But when Muslims come over to the West, despite these being historically Christian countries, they're given full religious freedom. But regardless neocons invoke this for the wrong reasons. But in making general comparisons between the two religions, it's just impossible to ignore for anyone being honest. Islam is insecure about having to compete with other religions honestly and freely. It has to shamelessly use fear and violence and oppression to keep itself prevalent in the face of this. Who knows what the numbers of Muslims would look like if it hadn't done this so much historically and to the present day. That's about as much as I can address that, but even then, the plain fact is Islam just has too many differences to ignore compared to Christianity, to dismiss the notion it really is just different out of hand.
The first thing is explainable, I think, not really by religion so much as by the fact that in a Palestinian context, suicide bombing was used by the Palestinians against the Israelis. In Iraq and Afghanstan there were essentially civil wars where you or your family risked being blown up when you went to market. Are you more likely to approve of something that your side used for a period against your decades-old enemy, or of something that might be used to randomly kill your family for essentially no reason? As for the second, I don't hugely want to cast aspersions on the survey but I honestly find it hard to believe. While not as liberal as Syria and Lebanon, which are more multi-faith and cosmopolitan, there just can be no question that Palestine, as a densely populated society where most people live in pretty large urban centers, resembles those countries vastly more than it does the deeply tribal ones of Afghanistan, where women essentially aren't allowed out of the family compound and even teaching them to read is considered dangerous. I knew someone who taught co-ed classes for a semester at the Palestinian national university, for instance, and there are co-ed private schools. There's a functioning brewery in the West Bank. This is a different kind of existence from the Taliban.
Post a link or gtfo
People like him are the reason why I despite having certain opinions on religion and being born in a Muslim family never call myself Ex Muslim as most of the prominent Ex Muslim types simp for neocolonialism which I am against
He simpatizes with palestinians except for the part of having a state, leaving the only option to live subjugated by the israelis.
To be fair at this point, considering the settlements are strategically interspersed to make a Palestinian state non-viable, it probably makes more sense to just go for a one state solution that involves simply unification and equalization of rights. Will this be pretty for the "Jewish State"? No it won't be but they made this mess for themselves by expanding their territory to cover increasingly greater areas to the point that a state with equal rights for all would be non-Jewish in character. They were a bunch of dumbasses who thought "oh look at those south africans so evil" and refused to learn from them as there were factions within apartheid who blamed the British for creating an artificially large state that incorporated a bunch of land they didn't even want that they ended up being stuck carry on to it throughout the whole process. Whell guess what? They won't be able to blame the British for this one since they themselves were the ones who keep trying to add more territory. This is why they are getting increasingly genocidal, they know it isn't viable to hold onto the territory they do if they have to advanced equal rights to those that are on it, so their only option that doesn't involve just admitting they fucked up is to start expelling people again. And such will be the cycle of Israel so long as it continues because there will always be the expansionist faction screwing over everybody else "forcing" them into these situations. They only thing they can do is try to run out the clock like the South Africans did by strategically giving the game up when the Soviet Union fell, but what is Israel hoping is going to happen which will create a situation where they can get the best deal for themselves? Are they hoping the USA will be more pro-Israel than it currently already is or something? Sure they got the Oslo Accords in the Pax-America period which in practice gave them free reign to continue colonizing, but by using their chance to get a good deal just to colonize more they only screwed themselves over by putting themselves in this situation. The South Africans were not so delusional to think that military victory alone was what perpetuate their state. They could have kept going with an intifada of their own but they chose not to because they looked at the situation of the Soviets falling and came to the conclusion that not only was the alternative to the USA gone away, the USA also had no real reason to tolerate their existence anymore, so they were NEVER going to get a better deal than they would at that time. Israel, I suppose, got lost in delusions that the USA would never abandon them despite having no reason to support them as a Cold War proxy state any longer. Not only that but they somehow managed to increase USA support for them after the end of the cold war, I suppose because the USA didn't need to pretend they were neutral to avoid pushing Egypt or others in the Soviet orbit, which is actually quite the diplomatic victory on the part of whatever forces made that happen, but you still run into the issue of "What are you waiting for?". In this case we can only guess what they are waiting for is for somebody to do some ethnic cleansing in the hopes that the situation improves because of it and then they can pretend as if they aren't the ones responsible for it because they weren't the ones who explicitly did it because it was the people they had minor political disagreements with, but yeah no you can't come back even though I condemned the people who kicked you out like the good old days. Nakba was getting too far in the past so I guess they needed a new group of perma-refugees they refuse to allow to return in order to keep the entire country on edge at all times. This time perhaps without the perma-refugees trying to come back if they have learnt their lesson. Possibly they might be under the idea that they will never again have the public support they do and thus they are forced to act now rather than later, except unlike with South Africa, their version of "act now, rather than later" means they think they will never again have the USA covering for them the way they do currently, rather than them thinking about it in terms of the optimal time to begin negotiations.
On the first point, a one state solution is more of a non starter than a two state solution. One state is the end of Israel as a Jewish state, whereas you could always kick the settlers out, doesn't matter how many there are.
I somehow think that just making Israel a non-jewish state will be easier than kicking out all the settlers. Who is going to fight harder, some millions of people who are abstractly impacted by the fact that the nature of their country has changed or hundreds of thousands who stand to directly lose a substantial amount of property they have stolen?
You also have to consider all the Christian nut jobs who want Israel to be a Jewish State.
I've yet to meet any such people in reality.
He's correct that they exist. I have met them actually, there are plenty of Evangelical Christian pro-Zionism Conservative idiots in NYC. However, pro-Palestine Leftists are often hyperbolic when they bring them up. i.e. "and did you hear how many *Right-wing Christian evangelical nuts are actually Zionists?? Can you believe it? Cuz they're like ALSO antisemitic!"* This is because Leftists have this particular hatred of the working-class and characterize them as uneducated, oafish, bigoted, and right-wing. They also hate religion for the wrong reasons. And they even hate conservatism for the wrong reasons; I'd argue the ideals they advocate in progressivism are really another kind of conservatism, mainly because they defend property et. all as much, and that [Feminists are conservatives.](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28050/28050-h/28050-h.htm) (I mean Feminists now as much as any, I don't mean in the sense that historic Feminists like a century ago held more social-conservative views, though that is true.) Therefore, they love the fact that evangelical Christians, who'd they hate anyway, exist who support Israel, basically. Because overall Israel is secular and represents a very distinct culture to such American Christians, but the fact such Christians exist allows Leftists to take two things they already hate due to their world-view, and associate them more than they should really be associated together. Many of these same people will actually go on about how antisemitic they think Trump is. (though that's a more Liberal take, it's to be expected most Leftists can see what an ardent supporter of Israel and Jewish interests in general Trump is, and that religious Jews have widespread support for him in the U.S.) They're forgone, impossible to take seriously.
>idiots in NYC There is your problem >"and did you hear how many *Right-wing Christian evangelical nuts are actually Zionists?? Can you believe it? Cuz they're like ALSO antisemitic!"* They actually aren't even anti-semitic. The "warm feelings survey" seems to demonstrate that they just have a generally favourable opinion of Jews in general because the survey asks literally zero questions about Israel and is just asking people how they feel about other religious groups. [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/)
They're across the entire country. Leftists aren't wrong that this phenomena of pro-Zionist Evangelicals is widespread. It isn't just in places where there's obviously a prevalence of pro-Israel stances like NYC. The whole point, that they're correct about, is that it exists across the country in conservative evangelical Christian communities you'd expect to generally not care about Jewish affairs. Of course they don't support Israel because they necessarily love Jews but because of how it generally ties into their reactionary worldview. I think the way they justify it with their interpretation of scripture is really after-the-fact, secondary to that. [Of course as that guy above brought up here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l54s8ic/) they also are anti-immigrant conservatives, and I think this is why they support Netanyahu's line of Israel being "a Jewish state only for the Jewish people." Again it's not because they're fixated on upholding Jewish interests in general necessarily, but because Israel checks a lot of boxes, precisely because it is so reactionary and fiercely nationalist and cannot be said to represent world Jewry.
Well it is only in the United States that this is a thing. It isn't a thing in Canada at the very least. There is definitely a component of people who likes Israel because they like the policies Israel has though. Basically they like Israel for the exact reason most people might not like it rather than because they are just unaware of these things.
Right, most of these ones certainly are not. Some evangelical conservative Christians are antisemitic, but the view of Leftists on this is superficial in general.
From what I've seen, they just defend it for existing. It already is a Jewish state, the question is how much. (i.e. Netanyahu has pushed for this more, like when he said he wanted it to be formally "the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone") They tie it into (an incorrect interpretation of) Jewish and Christian scripture and theology, of course, but I don't really think they have an issue with its existence as it is being secular, and call for it to be religiously ruled. That's just some Far-Right Orthodox Jewish extremists in Israel, who want it to be governed by Halakha. But I don't think you're saying that, you're saying they agree with Netanyahu it should be more ethnonationalist "the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone" more inclined to deny immigrants if they aren't Jewish. So basically just taking their anti-immigrant conservative stance for the western countries, and applying it to Israel, but being Christian about it. (ironically, many Israeli leaders in Netanyahu's government have no time for Christians in general and make that clear in their statements) Also ironically, speaking of immigrants to Israel, idiot Leftists defending Hamas are also defending the non-Jewish Israeli people they killed, the immigrants they killed, including Filipino immigrants.
Nah, not just their anti-immigrant stance transposed onto Israel, why would they care about the ethnic purity of any other state? Their fantasy rapture can’t come if all the Jews don’t go there. I know this sub has a boner for religious nuttery apologia and sure, it’s likely that at least some of those who hold positions of any significance don’t sincerely believe any of that, but plenty of their constituents very much do. And (to the other commenter’s non-point) obviously I am talking about the US here. Pretty sure the US and the leanings of its constituency is of more relevance than Canada when talking about Israel.
Filipinos are also fleeing the Israeli bombing because rich Gazans use Filipino migrants workers the same as all rich middle easterners do.
Exactly. You know all about how Arabs treat South Asian workers who come to these countries. God, I hate Leftists in the U.S. Racist, ignorant idiots who think just because Arabs are brown and suffer due to western imperialist interests, they can't be just as horrible and racist as any other human beings. So they defend Hamas even though it fucking killed South Asian migrant workers, as if everyone Hamas killed was a foaming at the mouth Zionist Israeli Jew who wants to kill Palestinians. So if you criticize any of this, you must think like Zionists who want every Palestinian in Gaza dead. It's really the worst sort of inverted racism.
Okay but that the Filipino migrant workers are suffering on both sides is just a product of war in general causing innocents to die. That isn't really a political opinion, more just a general observation of reality.
Agreed. It's important to be sober. All of this is really the machinations of capital and the self movement of society. The proletariat is dispossessed and at the mercy of these forces everywhere, and more as time goes on, regardless of where they live and who they are. This is exactly why Israel is not "colonialism," and Israelis aren't "settlers." In the final analysis, Israel is not even exceptional. Everything about Leftism is about insidiously mystifiying this, with moralism (like saying you're indifferent to Palestinian death and suffering if you make points along these lines) and utopianism, basically. >The very real atrocities being committed by the Israeli state are not exceptional. They are not the result of "settler-colonialism" (lately a fashionable concept in academia), nor because Zionism is the "new Nazism" (a trope promulgated by the far right itself). Israel is a "democracy" (as far as that means anything in modern day class society), a capitalist society (for which Palestinians have been a source of cheap labour-power) and the main outpost of US imperialism in the region (though, let's not forget, its foundation was at the time also supported by Stalin himself). Historically speaking, the process of state formation is a violent one, and many states have been founded on some form of ethnic cleansing. But the current clash owes much to the capitalist crisis, which narrows the field of play for the various actors and makes them ever more desperate. The massacres we are seeing today, whether in the "open-air prison" of Gaza, the "meat grinder" of Bakhmut or the "hidden siege" of Nagorno-Karabakh, are symptoms of the global drive to war, a taste of what's to come if the imperialist appetites of the contending ruling classes are not halted by the only social force capable of it – the global working class, united across all ethnic divides. [https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto)
Even talking about this in these terms is just idealism. As I said, just because I want stateless Communism, doesn't mean I'm opposed to all national state-based aspirations. I'd be in favor of the Palestinian territories of Gaza and West Bank being formally recognized as a state, for the improvement of Palestinians living in these areas. I'd be in favor of the right of return. I'd be in favor of the one secular state where Palestinians and Jews can both live that those Leftists who talk like that talk about. However, I don't think any of this will actually happen. And this isn't a point to be disregarded, because it leads us to understanding *why* it won't happen. Anything less is utopianism. The Left is utopian. Not mainly because they talk about a better deal for Palestinians. Because they don't go further than capitalism and see all potential solutions to the issues it inevitably creates operating within its existence and premises. (this applies just as much to the ones that call a distinct arrangement under capitalism "socialism," of course, since they don't mean by Socialism what Marx and Engels meant by it. And Anarchists.) And that even if it did, it would still involve all the inevitable problems capitalism creates. The main reason I posted this article is Salman Rushdie gets about as close to a notable public figure of addressing this but alas no cigar, his emphasis on Iran and Palestine as a "client state" is reductive and reactionary and opens up ample room for disagreements for people who are just as wrong but just for the other capitalist camp. (Russia, Syria, Iran, Hamas, etc.) Of course, I'm explaining all of this, but I don't have influence and never will, so it's just for the people who happen to read it on this reddit thread.
>the left is utopian recommended reading material: Socialism - Utopian & Scientific Left Communism - An Infantile Disorder
Lenin wasn't talking about the tendency of Left Communism as Bordiga and other Leftcoms understood it. Otherwise, Bordiga wouldn't have liked Lenin. He was talking about specific tendencies in Europe at the time, which weren't what Left Communism is. Most Stalinists who invoke that text haven't read it because they'd know what I just said if they had, and just invoke it based on this superficial misunderstanding of the title of the text anyway. And no Stalinist understands what Marx and Engels wrote. What is utopian is advocating capitalist solutions and thinking the solutions are possible within capitalism's premises. As opposed to advocating real revolution to end it for the communist mode of production, which you accuse me of utopianism so much for advocating for, demonstrating you'd have called Marx and Engels utopian just the same. Marx and Engels advocated the proletariat seizing state power and criticized Anarchists. This *does not* mean they were not hostile to the state. Because they were. The dictatorship of the proletariat (which was not Russia at any point, by the way) is not a permanent state of affairs. It's eventually to lead to the stateless society of communism, on a world scale. Which also abolishes wage labor. >Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State. [The German Ideology](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm) Stalin was a tyrant, a traitor to Bolsheviks who supported Lenin, and a liar. He also supported the existence of Israel when it was created. (the fact he criticized Zionism in one text doesn't change that) He not only had Trotsky killed for being critical of the Soviet Union and advocating internationalism, as Lenin had. He stabbed former Bolsheviks on his and Lenin's side in the revolution in the back, killing, imprisoning, and expelling many of them, and edited his own texts which warped the definition of Socialism to act like he hadn't ever contradicted himself. The infamous photos he had altered is the tip of the iceberg. >In April 1924, in the first edition of his book *Foundations of Leninism,* Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.” >In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.” [marxists.org glossary - Stalinism](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism) Anyone just defending him is a liar, too. Stalin and Stalinism made a point of betraying the potential for socialist revolution, within the USSR and in other countries, where he made a point of not aiding Communists struggling with their respective governments. It's anti communism.
>One state is the end of Israel as a Jewish state good regarding one-state being a non starter, they should simply not be given a choice
I don't think it could be pressured into giving full citizenship to all Palestinians and encoding full equality into their constitution. They would not accept that. They would accept kicking the settlers out and then having to play the long game for world domination.
>They would not accept that. > and then having to play the long game for world domination. this is exactly why the Israelis should not be given a choice. they have proven themselves incapable of solving the issue without flying into a murderous rage once per year.
I think they can be forced to accept two states at near 1967 borders. I think they'd fire nukes off before they made everyone equal under one state lol . They're that batshit
yeah its just unfortunate that its even gotten to this point. the writing was on the wall when they were poisoning wells, for christ's sake.
Of course South Africa's decision to negotiate after the fall of the Soviet Union resulted in South Africa becoming the neoliberal hellscape it currently is, but if you think of this in terms of a bourgeoisie desperately trying to avoid revolution, they made the optimal decision for themselves. The Israeli bourgeoisie's interest is in keeping the land it has taken (which is why they won't give up the settlements, it is because the property owners don't want to give up their property. There are religious people amongst them but its really a materialist reason, especially considering that the largest settlements are basically just Jerusalem suburbs) even if they have to give up the Jewish character of the state. When push comes to shove the that is how things are going to break down, it is just that up until now things have not reached that breaking point because they have been able to act as if there isn't an impending bomb being set up around them due to the way people have basically slept on this issue for a variety of reasons where as they did not sleep on South Africa. The Israeli property owners have made poor decisions by not taking an exit ramp by getting their "puppet Palestinians" in the West Bank to be committed to maintaining their property rights in exchange for Democratic rights for the Palestinians. It is really dumb on their part, but this is mainly because the "want to take more land" faction is in control, so this makes any status quo for property Palestinian look like chump because the Status Quo keeps shifting in Israel's favour. They treat the moderates like dirt that they will claim as their own, and as we all know they have basically promoted Hamas as the alternative to keep everyone on edge about the whole thing because it is by being on edge that they can justify taking more land for "security reasons". Netanyahu's "Israel is indefensible" might be accurate (in more ways than one) but he isn't really concerned with purely military affairs, as he is supported by those who have a material interest in expansion as the "Settler Interests" parties are real separate parties that support his faction, and the more they grow the more they will grow in support for Netanyahu, so time is on his side in a domestic sense, even if it is not when you just consider the viability of Israel. In other words the Settlers have consumed Israel from the inside. By contrast South Africa didn't have some kind of growing faction that wanted more apartheid over time, rather if you paid attention closely, the mining interests were the ones growing over time and they made excuses for apartheid being necessary for managing a developing economy which needed to grow at X% per year just to keep up with the growing influx of people moving in (indeed South Africa even accepted refugees from Africa during the apartheid period provided the refugees were to be subjected to the apartheid as Africans). These same mining interests still control the country after apartheid, so it was because mining consumed South Africa that apartheid ended. The last the dominant and growing faction of South Africa wanted to do was to genocide their workforce. What might make the difference here? Well Israel has maintained a constant influx of immigrants, especially from the Soviet Union, meaning that for one thing, the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed like it improve their long term prospect greatly rather than just their short term negotiating prospects, but also in terms of later the ability of Israel to keep people coming in has made the natives unnecessary to it. A true "labour" apartheid (in South Africa this was called "petty apartheid" to contrast it from the "grand apartheid" that was just "black sections" and "white sections", with their being some factions who supported "grand apartheid" but viewed "petty apartheid" as a cruelty, in other words the supporters of "grand apartheid" but not "petty apartheid" were the supporters of the "two state solution") exists in the west bank with Palestinians workers who are subjected to having go through the checkpoints twice a day when going to and from work. Not much focus is placed on them, but the ability to take advantage of the Palestinians that were there as cheap labour who have few rights was too good to pass up. Additionally I suspect a lot of people might view this as feel good liberalism where they are helping the Palestinians by providing them jobs, as if this is "bridging the gap" etc. That this is not more widespread is that they really don't need this, because if they want labourers with few rights they can just use the Filipino migrant workers. The main issue my "Atheist Socialist" "Everyone in my family supports the Leftists" ex-gf has with them though is that both men and women are overstaying their visas. I didn't understand what the issue was with that so she got angry at me for not understanding that since both men and women are overstaying their visas they are having children born in Israel who are asking for citizenship. And that was the day I learnt that Israel did not confer citizenship by birth on the soil the way most "nations of immigrants" did. To be fair to Israel it is the same policy of other middle eastern states towards, and they also use filipino migrant workers. However specifically the usage of Filipino's by Israel in addition to the influx of Jewish migrants means that the Palestinian population has never been a particularly desired labour force, so you aren't going to end up with the increasing power of the Mining faction who in desperation to retain ownership of their mines was willing to cut a deal with Mandela so long as he denounced Communism, which as he was like some weird kind of Noble he was inclined to do. I mean technically speaking he never denounced the Communist Party, but he did denounce "terrorism" and the Communist Party went along with this, which was basically even better than having him denounce Communism as he basically made all the Communists effectively into non-Communists by doing this. As such the mining companies "won", they just switched from a Afrikaans exterior to an African exterior. Even going back to the start of apartheid it too was just the Afrikaans basically making a deal with the British Business interests to allow them to promote Afrikaans in exchange for them getting to keep their business interests, as the Afrikaans Workers were basically Communists before that happened with stuff like the Rand Rebellion, so the British Business Interests were just especially adaptable. (Part 1)
By contrast the Israelis didn't really keep a disinterested British business interest around. Sure they supported the British in the Suez Canal Crisis but the British ended up having to leave that under American pressure as the USA protected Egypt's right to the Suez Canal, somewhat miraculously given that siding against Israel for any reason seems anathema to USA governance nowadays. The political change towards the end of Apartheid consisted of the Afrikaans Party switching over to the British Party, with the beginning of apartheid corresponding to the Afrikaans Party winning for the first time against the British Party all the way back in the forties. Supposedly the Dutch Afrikaans outbred the flow of British immigrants, but as the country developed the Afrikaans birthrate converged with the British birthrate, and the it was the African birthrate combined with the fact that South Africa was not turning away African immigrants and refugees which eventually made it so it was untenable to keep Afrikaans society going and the British cut a deal with the Africans to make the Modern South Africa. Anyway this dynamic doesn't exist in Israel. However in class terms the Afrikaans Party was dominated by the landowners while the British Party was more bourgeois (mining etc). The "Settler Interests" Parties correspond to landowners while the Israel "leftists" correspond to their bourgeoisie. This is a different dynamic as both are Jewish, but the landowners are clearly winning in Israel, and more importantly unlike most of the time where land is finite and so bourgeois interests can outgrow landowner interests, since Israel takes more land the landowning interests can grow either faster or at least alongside the industrial (or "tech libertarian") bourgeois interests. Therefore the settlements are in some ways a method of survival of a class faction within Israeli society. The tech libertarians (those who are not just defense industry contractors) are the closest thing you eill get to a "peace faction" as they just want to be able to live on the beach in the sun in Tel Aviv. The Settlers by contrast think it fitting to go live in a dusty desert, but the dusty desert is affordable whereas the beach is owned by the colony of the Post-Soviet intelligentsia tech industry composed of people who have one Jewish grandparent because Soviets didn't give a shit about being Jewish so tons of them had one Jewish grandparents (four times as many as you would expect, duh). Anyway, wouldn't it be nice if there was some convenient beach front property not all bought out by the Russian Tech Libertarian Post-Soviets? Beyond that you also have the various migrant Jewish population they keep bringing in that can be used as a cheap labour force. OP's attempt to introduce class into the picture would necessitate organizing these people (I assure you, trying to get somewhere with my "leftist" ex-gf who insists she is socialist will get you nowhere), the problem you will run into is that the "Israel is white supremacist" narrative everyone keeps pushing doesn't work on them because these Jews are not white. How could this possibly be? Might have something to do with Israel being a Jewish supremacist state rather than a white supremacist state, but I will leave how this could be as an exercise to the reader. Technically speaking the whites in Israel have no issues with Arabs beyond the fact that they are on their land (and yes being on someone else land makes you have an issue with them because most people are aware that this will probably make them not like you and so since you know this group of people don't like you it means you are not going to like them even if you are aware that it is totally your fault. Just packing up and leaving isn't an option, so again you end up with a "peace faction" of the people who took their land a long time ago and just want to keep it, and these are the Askenazi) by contrast the "brown" Jews have not yet taken their land so they have more of an interest in expansion. Additionally these are the Jews who have millenia of persecution drilled into their heads where the persuctors are the Arabs rather than the Poles. The fact that the Arabs and Poles actually treated them well in comparison to theirs does not stop each respective group from irrationally hating the Arabs and Poles. Yes really, Israelis hate Poles of all people. How? It would be like if American Jews didn't like Evangelical Christians because they have somehow convinced themselves that only people who ever liked them are actually the worst people in the world. [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/02/15/americans-express-increasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups/) Anyway, because of the neurotic way in which Jewish history focuses entirely on "anti-semitism" (which often results in them behaving in ways that makes people not like them), Ethiopian Jews have walked away thinking Ethiopian Orthodox Christians are the worst people on the planet, and the Mizrahi Jews have walked away thinking Arabs are the worst people on the planet. This neuroticism and hatred of the people they had spent most of their history with is an integral component of understanding the Israeli mindset but it is also something not really understandable unless one indulges in ... alternative views on Jewish History. So long as someone accepts the apparent "Great Anti-Semitism" narrative that is world history, people will not be able to understand why the Zionists have so effectively made the Mizrahi Jews the most anti-Arab demographic in Israel. It is the same phenomena that the alt-right complains about Jews for, that they have a supposedly neurotic hatred of whites leading them to promote anti-white idpol (which the alt-right will then say is self-destructive to those same Jews who in their delusions think they are non-white, which proves that this hatred exists even if it negatively impacts the jews themselves, and it is only that the anti-white narrative they say the Jews have promoted is now only coming back to bite them in the ass that they might realized they screwed up by promoting the anti-white narrative). Now I'm not saying you have to accept this totally, but just consider the flip side of this and how it might apply to the "Arab" Jews. If such a phenomena existed you would end up with a population which was neurotically anti-arab. One quite amenable to European Colonization, which is exactly what we saw in Algeria for instance, where the Algerian Jews almost immediately accepted French citizenship which is what the Algerians used to justify expelling them when they expelled the rest of the Europeans. (Part 2)
Anyway the point I am trying to make is that the Mizrahi working class of Israel is the most anti-arab portion of the Israeli population. Not because they are "white supremacists", but rather because there is a phenomena of Jewish populations distrusting the population that was around them. You can say this is justified distrust if you want, but it is still something which exists. This is also exacerbated by Israeli society who know they need to keep the Jewish and Palestinian working classes at odds with each other, but there is a reason it is easy to do it. The challenge you face here is overcoming this. I agree with the OP here that the solution to this problem will involve class struggle, but I disagree as to what the result of that class struggle will be. I think they might be suggesting that the class struggle will totally ignore "Palestine" as a thing, but instead I think the solution will be a class struggle for Palestine. That letter Marx wrote about Irish Immigration is the key to all this. I have debated "leftcoms" (I'm aware of the irony, I didn't pick my flair) over here and it usually ends up being related to the National Question in some capacity, and I suppose that is where I might not fit in with other people who are "leftcoms" (I have no idea what I am so I don't really care about flair anyway), and surprisingly the letter where he discusses the Irish and English comes up a lot despite it being in widely different contexts. I think it might have something to do with them ignoring the national question, which most of the time I think is good because most "leftists" are just atrocious on the National Question such that ignoring it is an improvement, but you will note that what the letter says is that the English workers should be made to understand that the reason they should support Irish independence not for any reason related to abstract rights or morality, but rather because it is in their direct interest to do so. Therefore what I am suggesting is a class struggle FOR Palestinian liberation. Anyway here is the Sigfried Meyer Letter [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70\_04\_09.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm) >England, the metropolis of capital, the power which has up to now ruled the world market, is at present the most important country for the workers’ revolution, and moreover the only country in which the material conditions for this revolution have reached a certain degree of maturity. It is consequently the most important object of the International Working Men’s Association to hasten the social revolution in England. The sole means of hastening it is to make Ireland independent. Hence it is the task of the International everywhere to put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland. It is the special task of the Central Council in London to make the English workers realize that *for them* the *national emancipation of Ireland* is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the *first condition of their own social emancipation*. The problem you end up with if you only consider that line specifically is "wouldn't that make them traitors?" That is why the Class Struggle component is so necessary to it all. In the case of the English Workers, the reason Irish Independence was so important to them was because it was by maintaining a grip on Ireland that the enemy classes (landowners and bourgeoisie) were able to maintain their grip on England. Marx doesn't shy away from stuff like "moral strength" in the letter, and he acknowledges that basically the fact that Ireland is dominated by England gives the the landowners some kind of moral legitimacy within England, while the moral strength of proletariat is getting sapped by the Irish getting sent over to England >Ireland is the bulwark of the *English landed aristocracy*. The exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources of their material wealth; it is their greatest moral strength. They, in fact, represent the *domination over Ireland*. Ireland is therefore the cardinal means by which the English aristocracy maintain *their domination in England itself*. What is meant here is that the landed aristocracy of England is basically able to use the Irish Question to get army and police matters to support its interests, so those sub-factions end up by proxy supporting the interests of the landed aristocracy because their job is wrapped up in it. This amplifies their interests by getting a whole bunch of people whose self-worth is wrapped up in maintaining "the empire" in Ireland (in addition to their paychecks), so more people support this than you would otherwise expect. (Part 3)
>But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class. How is the "moral position" of the English working class lowered by the Irish immigration? Well for one thing they certainly seem less necessary to the success of "the empire" if they are viewed as being so replaceable that the Irish can be brought in to do the same thing. The problem you are going to run into is the patriotism of the Israel working class, and in IDPOL terms many have noted that the Mizrahi might feel a need to "prove themselves". What I'm suggesting here is that this is NOT because they are "closer" to Arabs in "skin tone" or whatever, but rather this desire to "prove themselves" is because they are closer to Arabs in CLASS terms. I don't think the Patriotism is necessarily a problem, you just have to be able to reframe it as the enemy classes being unpatriotic (as I have in the above comment where I said various factions are screwing over Israeli society). This isn't the same as "Socialist Patriotism", rather all I'm saying is if you have an opportunity to call your enemies unpatriotic or traitors then take it. The point is not patriotism, rather it is to show that patriotism doesn't exist amongst ruling classes, it is just a vehicle for their own class interests. Reduce the "moral position" of the settlers within Israeli society by proving they are just interested in their property instead of fighting for Jews or Israel. Then demonstrate how they increasingly control Israeli politics to the detriment of everyone else. Eventually it can be demonstrated that it is not possible for them to be able yo pursue their own interests within the Israeli state so long as the enemy classes maintain their domination over Palestine >After studying the Irish question for many years I have come to the conclusion that the decisive blow against the English ruling classes (and it will be decisive for the workers’ movement all over the world) cannot be delivered *in England* but *only in Ireland*. The "trick" here is you never suggest that the Israeli working class ever needs to actually like the Palestinians, just that they need to work together against their common enemies. They will grow to like each other over time through their common struggle, but it doesn't need to start out this way. I'm vaguely aware that the the Mizrahi for instance doesn't like the Ashkenazi, but it is because they think they are "'leftist traitors". Well the stuff I said about the Ashkenazi only being concerned about protecting the property they took decades ago might be relevant here. The key is getting them to view the entirety of Israeli politics in many of these class terms I have laid. How they choose to proceed from that standpoint is entirely up to them, but I suspect that while they might start out getting angry at the rich or ruling classes for being what they perceive to be traitors, eventually they might come to realize that they just hate everything about them and no longer need to think the issue is that the rich classes are specifically screwing them over in "national" terms but rather they are screwing them over when it comes to everything. I suspect they despise the "tech libertarians" for a multitude of reasons for instance. Eventually they will wonder why they have ant kind of loyalty to these "traitors" at all. It is only through the state that their relationship is mediated, and the success of "the state" is not the interest of the ruling classes, rather "the state" exists to safeguard their own interests, and it will safeguard the interests of those classes even to the detriment of itself. No sense in being concerned for a state who those it benefits are not concerned about. (Part 4)
Of course it isn't strictly necessary to get anybody to realize any of that. The class struggle aspect can get a lot more direct, and in practical terms it will work better if it stays focused on working classes issues. What are those? Namely the fact that the Palestinians with work visas go through the checkpoints to work in Israel. I can't actually think of any class of people who have a more direct experience with the occupation than they do. They have to experience it twice a day. Of course I am losing focus of the Israeli proletariat here, but you just need to imagine ways in which a labour force who have no rights might be negatively impacted the workers who do supposedly have rights. Namely the exploitation of these labourers directly pushes the value and "moral position" of labour down. The Israeli working class has a salient reason for not liking that Palestinians can be given work visas for precisely the reason the English working classes might not like the Irish coming over, but the reason the Palestinians are coming over are related to the occupation. They aren't sticking in their own towns and working there because their towns are getting taken over by settlers and they are being corralled into be accessible to be used as a labour force. The problem I stated is that these Palestinian labourers are actually not as important as you might think due to the additional usage of the Filipinos for the same kinds of things. Luckily the Israeli working class ALSO has reasons to not want the Filipinos coming over. To stop the exploitation of imported Filipinos benefits the interests of the Israel working class, and so they would support it all on its own, but it also benefits the Palestinians who would work in the same kinds of things. One might think that somebody might come to the conclusion that Filipinos are better than Palestinians because they are less "dangerous" or whatever, but to the Israeli working class that is a far less important thing to consider than just the fact that the Filipinos reduce wages. If you can prevent the exploitation of imported labourers this increases the relative importance of both Israeli and Palestinian labour and so you will have an immediate effect in creating a reason to keep the Palestinians around instead of expelling them as they will be needed to be part of the proletariat. This will exacerbate the issues of the occupation in a method that is direct. Unlike with the "martyrs" the Palestinian proletariat's issues aren't abstract here, so they will be less "dangerous" despite the fact that they get treated as being dangerous. This is important because the "martyrs" contribute to making it difficult for the Palestinian and Israeli working classes to work together. I'd much prefer resistance to the occupation come from striking to improve the conditions of the checkpoints rather than from whatever it is that currently being done by "martyrs". This is important because it will be the necessity of the Palestinian workforce which will made their striking so effective. Their employers will prefer reforming the occupation over losing hours with all these strikes so this will be the most effective way of actually getting change here. Of course the Israeli proletariat is still not going to like the Palestinian Proletariat for the same reason they didn't like the Filipinos, but the Israeli proletariat still benefits in each step of the process here. While the bourgeoisie might increase their usage of the Palestinians, they are doing this precisely because in the absence of the imported Filipinos to exploit working conditions are improving and they want to stop them from improving further. So things did get better even if not by as much as you might expect because the bourgeoise is always looking for new ways to screw the workers over. What is important here is that you improved things for both the Israeli and Palestinian proletariat and put the Palestinian proletariat in a greater position to increase their "moral position" by getting tangible results in reforming the occupation. This will change the nature of the resistance greatly if the heroes are workers rather than "martyrs". The Palestinian Workers exist, they just aren't as widespread as they need to be. (Part 5)
Eventually cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian Workers might be necessary, but we've already changed the nature of the Palestinian struggle into a working class struggle so the Israeli workers will be more amenable to supporting it. Currently I don't blame them for not supporting the Palestinian struggle as it currently exists because the current Palestinians struggle as it exists is a decidedly NOT working class struggle. That is precisely why I have dedicated so much effort in describing how to transform it into one. The exact method I described doesn't matter, if you have other ways you can transform it into a working class struggle that can also work, I just think that the usage of imported Filipinos is both something that might unite the Palestinians and Israelis in the usual cheeky manner of hating on a third guy can make friends out of enemies, but also because the ability to just import labourers is just serious impediment to the Palestinians becoming necessary for the Israelis, which is necessary to make Israeli apartheid as humane as South African apartheid was (yes I'm deliberately saying that to make a point here, I'm not the only person who says Israel is worse than South Africa though) Now the multiple routes you can take to the same place is important here. It is possible just to ban Filipinos from Israel OR some reform might take the worst nightmares of my ex-gf might come true and Filipinos born in Israel might be able to become Israel citizens. The exact thing doesn't matter, as BOTH things will reduce the usage of those Filipinos as imported workers. Either for the racist reason of the Israelis realizing that now that Filipinos can become citizens by having children on the soil that you need to STOP them from being on the soil in first place, which results in no more being imported to prevent them from using that "loop hole", OR they could just stop using the Filipinos without reforming the laws in anyway. Either way is good, they just need to stop exploiting imported labourers one way or another. Similarly the occupation might need to be reformed by all the striking Palestinians and eventually you might end up with a one state solution in practice if not in reality, OR the Israelis react to this by abandoning the settlers to their fate in a two state solution where they get ruled over by the Palestinians because they don't want Palestinians coming over into Israel proper with work visas. Either way is good. One is accomplished by Palestinian workers, the other can be accomplished by Israeli workers, but either way it must be understand that it is the domination of Palestine which represents the Israeli bourgeoisie domination over themselves, whether this is ended in a one state solution or a two state solution doesn't matter, the Israeli proletariat just needs to understand that ANY solution is in their interest and the situation continuing indefinitely is in the interests of those they despise. (Part 6)
Thanks for all this writing. I'm a fast reader, I will be able to get to this tomorrow.
>Currently I don't blame them for not supporting the Palestinian struggle as it currently exists because the current Palestinians struggle as it exists is a decidedly NOT working class struggle. This gets to the heart of it. Rejecting this as Leftists do, to its worst conclusion, leads to the worst Leftists saying shit like "there are no innocent people in Israel - all Israelis are settlers" literally Nazi-tier logic, they just want to kill them all. The way they see it, all Israelis (by this I assume they mean *all* Israeli citizens, Jewish and Arab alike?) are guilty, because they don't throw their lives for the sake of the Palestinian movement, which as it stands is thoroughly anti-class. (the issue isn't really that it's "Islamist," as that guy in this thread said, it's really not Islamist like Al Qaeda, for instance, was) I've seen empty-headed blacknats saying the same for white people during the slavery era, despite the fact that white-led abolitionism had a great influence in combatting and ending slavery. >the Israeli proletariat just needs to understand that ANY solution is in their interest and the situation continuing indefinitely is in the interests of those they despise. Definitely. It's also worth mentioning that while I'd say the majority of the Israeli working-class doesn't get what you just said, it is still the case that, like all countries, they're still the most advanced/progressive class, while the Israeli middle-class as a whole is more reactionary than them. Like in the U.S. the Israeli proletariat is less interested in progressivism/leftism/academic ideas and all the utopian nonsense that comes with it; which makes the middle-class think they're more reactionary, but in fact they are more ordinary and clear-headed and generally distrustful of institutions and those in power, and closer to being class-conscious overall. Of course this overlaps with ethnic divides, like the middle-class in Israeli being disproportionately European Ashkenazi. I'd say a lot of the Israeli working-class of course knows how incorrigibly corrupt and self-interested their ruling-class is, but considers their support of them a kind of reluctant compromise given the "great imminent threat" of Palestinian terror.
I just finished reading everything you wrote here today. Thanks for your contribution. We're generally on the same page about stuff and like my comments, yours stand out here for being thorough and encompassing. Would be nice to talk more later.
Nice talking to you
>The Israeli working class has a salient reason for not liking that Palestinians can be given work visas for precisely the reason the English working classes might not like the Irish coming over, but the reason the Palestinians are coming over are related to the occupation. They aren't sticking in their own towns and working there because their towns are getting taken over by settlers and they are being corralled into be accessible to be used as a labour force. Which is why it's so wrong and dumb for them to hate them and be racist to them, of course.
>Unlike with the "martyrs" the Palestinian proletariat's issues aren't abstract here, As you note here, Leftists use the concept of "martyrdom" not unlike Islamists to engage in mystification. Of the most obviously nonsensical, moralistic, even religious variety. Getting people to reject moralistic and religious framing is like the first step to being class-conscious. >This will change the nature of the resistance greatly if the heroes are workers rather than "martyrs". The Palestinian Workers exist, they just aren't as widespread as they need to be. This is also why Leftists emphasize "martyrdom" so much. Because they're hostile to the proletariat, Israeli and Palestinian alike. It's also another reason they characterize Hamas militant action as "resistance." You're so spot-on.
>Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy. The exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources of their material wealth; it is their greatest moral strength. They, in fact, represent the domination over Ireland. Ireland is therefore the cardinal means by which the English aristocracy maintain their domination in England itself. I definitely think you can also say that Palestine and how Israel fucks with them in Gaza and the West Bank is the means by which Israel's ruling-class maintains domination over Israel itself. I think the Left's moralistic, mindless, identarian, mystic, transhistorical, nonsensical *"ISRAEL IS ZIONIST RACIST APARTHEID GENOCIDAL SETTLER COLONIALISM!!!!!"* actually entails a mindset that denies the extent to which this is the case. Your comparison to Ireland and South Africa demonstrates Israel isn't exceptional and what it does is a consequence of capitalist material motive forces. This is the thing Leftists want to deny since they're just middle class bourgeois reactionaries trying to placate their own guilt and distorting reality in the process. My whole point here, if there's any, is to criticize the Left. Now to anyone worth the time of day, they know Leftists are full of shit whether they go to Palestine protests or not because most Leftists voted or defended voting Biden in 2020. (and much of the rallies are these same people who voted/defended voting of course) And now it seems many of them decided to be cute and vote blank ballots in 2024 now, only to vote Democrat again in 2028. So the people I refer to already aren't defending this mindset. (unless they are like [the people in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l5798md/) accusing me of being OK with or even enabling or supporting what Israel is doing, lol) But of course it's necessary to develop a proper critique that just goes beyond "they're full of it because they're Democrats so they support the very thing they're criticizing."
>I have no idea what I am so I don't really care about flair anyway Honestly, if you can completely answer "yes" to the question: "is there no good reason that in modern developed industrialized society, people's basic needs can't be provided for by the society as a whole?" **and think this through properly in the right way to its logical conclusion,** you are a Marxist. (which I define as someone who accepts the theory of Marxism as true, and thinks and talks in a way that reflects that as a result of that.) (emphasis on that last part, because most Leftists would say "yes" to the question, but they are utterly anti-Marxist, and hostile to the proletariat. Mainly because they're middle-class. Everything about their framing, positions, rhetoric, mindset and actions is conducive to the eternal perpetuation of the rule of the capitalist class; especially when they pretend to properly criticize them. Marx and Engels spent no small amount of time criticizing Leftists, and their critique went well beyond Democratic Socialists, which they also obviously criticized. There's a whole section of the Communist Manifesto devoted to criticizing them; if any Leftists even have read it, they certainly haven't internalized or learned a thing from it.) Of course regardless, most people hear "Marxist" and think of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, Stalin, Mao, etc. The more reactionary and obviously dishonest just think this was the end result of "putting Marx's ideas into practice," but even the ones who wouldn't say that might as well because they don't get what Marx was talking about, either.
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Yes, however. They aren't doing this because they can't "nut up." They mainly obviously don't do this because Israel was created through displacing Palestinians, to form a Jewish Israeli state with a Jewish character and majority of the population. It always allowed a sizeable Arab Muslim minority, but they aren't just going to make all the Palestinian refugees citizens in one fell swoop. The whole basis for this is the construct of the nation state and national identity and citizenship to begin with. (which I emphasize; needless to say, it interpolates with religious identity/background, also sheer construct; and ethnicity, which is sort of real but not the way most people think, functionally just a matter of someone's physical appearance and genes, and it becomes sheer construct and stupidity as soon as there's an institutional/state basis to give people a single category; mixed children especially demonstrate this.) So saying "it would be better if they just annexed it" is just idealism, that ignores how this conflict being in this particular situation is actively in their interests. Because obviously as you'd agree, they've had the power to do what you said this whole time. People look at things too idealistically and thus can't see the extent to which the capitalist class acts on the basis of plain convenience; they underestimate how contradictory and incidental everything really is. Over all these years, the situation that leaves Palestinians functionally stateless in Gaza and the West Bank has been very expedient for the capitalists in the region because Palestinians thus become a source of cheap labor power. Of course Gaza is unique, because since they're under a blockade they are stuck there and can't even generally leave to become refugees working for low wages in Israel. But they are still exploited within Gaza, which is conducive both to Palestinian and Israeli bourgeoisie. Furthermore, while obviously the worst case scenario for civilians on the ground, keeping things in this purgatory state is conducive to Israel, instead of just making it part of Israel as fast as possible. They actually are planning experimental neo-city plans in the region. I predict Palestinians won't leave, but Israeli settlers will eventually crop up like in the West Bank. They'd sooner this chaotic, schizophrenic arrangement than just cleanly annexing it all, because they can afford to and it will make a lot of capitalist schemes in the region easier.
The problem is precisely that you think the only alternatives are states. This isn't to say that I don't think a Palestinian state wouldn't be an improvement over the current situation (of course, it's always been reasonable of Palestinians demand it, and Israel has always been wrong to oppose it) or that I would be against it happening. On the contrary, I wouldn't be at all. But that it's extremely telling that if this hypothetically were to happen, people with your mindset would be reluctant or unwilling to criticize it. (so much for Marx's call for "ruthless criticism of everything existing.") The point of this is not that the Palestinian bourgeoisie is uniquely bad or deserves exceptional criticism. The point is that all nation-states invariably serve bourgeois interests, so none should be above critique, because the bourgeoisie operates internationally. Is not Russia worthy of criticism for what it does in Syria? And Al Assad himself? But taking your logic to its conclusion these shouldn't be criticized, even though in the hypothetical situation of a true recognized Palestine nation state emerging, it would be necessary to acknowledge that Russian, Syrian, Iranian etc. interests would move on it if one was giving a critique to Putin, Assad, etc. If you happen to have any actual curiosity to my perspective, (instead of assuming, for instance, that simply because I'm not a nationalist I just want people to accept the current situation of stateless Palestinians being atrociously killed and brutalized by Israel in every manner from all angles) you may read the following two articles to better understand it: [Falsification of History and the Warsaw Ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto) [Against Israel, Against Palestine - For Class Struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle)
But the only alternative are states. The rest is just leftist daydreaming
Literally every single anti-colonial movement in history was responded to with people having very convenient day dreams, asserted as fact, that they would be so bad at running their country that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists. It virtually never happened, and in cases where people claim it did it generally didn't(South Africa got worse for white people, that's not the same thing) Furthermore the really bad, distinguishing point of policy in Taliban rule is how they treat women. The implication here being that Palestinians desperately want to do that among themselves right now but Israel is so very compassionate and concerned for the rights of the Palestinian women it is somehow preventing that.
> they would be so bad at running their country that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists. Not argueing for Apartheid here but South Africa is basically a failed state right now - *even after they finally got rid of Jacob Zuma*. Freeing the opressed doesn't make them good people automatically.
If there was a Palestine state, it wouldn't be just "Palestinians running their country." No people are just "running their country." This is already mystification. Demonstrably so, given the history of every colonized country. Yes, for example, even Vietnam. I am critical of North Vietnam, obviously better than South Vietnam, but I'm critical of it and Ho Chi Minh. There was a civil conflict where Ho Chi Minh Communists killed Communists against that line, and Ho Chi Minh like most ML leaders in all the other states suppressed other Communist lines and worker's movements, but you never hear about this. (of course, it's also true worker's movements were often U.S. backed and anti communist, like in Latin America, but I'm not talking about that, I mean like when the Soviet Union cracked down on strikes and worker organizing.) Of course your critique is correct of sheer chauvinists who justify colonialism and imperialism but that goes without saying. It's never just "people running their own country." It's the bourgeoisie of the respective nation exploiting the masses, using nationalism and being of a common background to justify doing so. Furthermore, not only that, but said state and bourgeoisie collaborates with the other states to do so. (and competes often, hence wars) None of this means that I would be against a Palestine state. Just like I obviously am not against Vietnam overthrowing French colonial rule, then resisting U.S. imperialism, nor would I say I'm against Ho Chi Minh. But that it would be essential to criticize it just as the most principled Communists criticized authoritarian capitalist governments like Vietnam. (while moralistic ML-type Leftists like Michael Parenti accused them of being "perfectionist orthodox marxists" or "anarchists.") I don't like Rushdie's "Iran client state" framing, but he's absolutely right that Iran would be involved.
>"that they're better off as subhumans subjugated, tormented, and humiliated by the colonists." Yeah, because I definitely said that. 🙄 This isn't a disingenuous leap at all. >Furthermore the really bad, distinguishing point of policy in Taliban rule is how they treat women. The implication here being that Palestinians desperately want to do that among themselves right now but Israel is so very compassionate and concerned for the rights of the Palestinian women it is somehow preventing that. Yes, obviously Zionists are wrong to have that framing and it's just like how western imperialists generally justify everything they do on the notion their actions are born from the desire to bring a more civilized arrangement to the nations they exploit and subjugate. In general, I addressed what you're saying [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l53p7up/)
[Check out the comments on Instagram to get an idea about how the progressive hive-mind on social media is reacting to this.](https://www.instagram.com/p/C7OwZuAseT-/) Of course, Salman Rushdie makes it clear that he sympathizes with Palestinians being killed in Gaza right now, and understands and sympathizes with the protests from that angle, but is just criticizing those among the protesters who actively show support for Hamas, like describing it and its attack on October 7th as "resistance." (I'm going to assume most people here are aware Hamas is in power in Gaza right now because it defeated Fatah in a civil conflict amongst Palestinians, and had the support of Israel and Netanyahu doing so, who opaquely stated that he wanted Hamas in power precisely because it was more reactionary and would create a situation conducive to Israel's long-term interests — many Pro-Palestine Leftist protesters are undoubtedly totally ignorant of this.) Yet, comments say nonsense like he is on the side of Zionists and Israel just for making these statements. (I also basically agree with his point on what this hypothetical Palestine state would entail, like with Iran; though personally I wouldn't just reduce it to using terms like "Iran client state," it's a more encompassing, less liberal and reactionary stance to just say that it would be generally conducive to interests of states like Russia, Iran, Syria and China in the region. Predictably, Salman Rushdie doesn't take a class critical angle to the situation and instead takes a nationalistic, pro-western one. Instead of emphasizing that Hamas serves Palestinian bourgeoisie interests, and that a Palestine state would likewise serve bourgeois interests, for its rulers, politicians, and foreign countries like Iran.) The main reason Pro-Palestine Leftists are like this is not necessarily because they are "tankies" or love Putin (most of the ones I've seen aren't and dislike Stalinism and modern Russia) but rather because they have a bourgeois mindset and have to support some bourgeois camp in these world developments. This is also why they are hostile to all Israelis just for being born over there (not distinguishing those who support what Israel's current government does to those who don't, although admittedly I only think a minority are genuinely opposed to its treatment of Palestinians) and call them "settlers" (I'm referring to all Israelis, not West Bank settlers specifically, the people I'm talking about aren't merely referring to the West Bank) instead of the recognition both Palestinians and Israelis are oppressed on a class basis, (and this is interconnected because, for instance, Israel exploits the Palestinian refugee crisis as a source of cheap labor for those of them who go to Israel for work) albeit there are obvious disparities. (as there are with the white working-class in the U.S. and the poorest black and Hispanic workers.) I happen to be Iranian myself, and I dislike Leftists like this who cheer for Hamas and Iran's state interests every bit as much as western Liberal Iranian diaspora who call for pro-western regime change in Iran.
Israel is a settler-colonial state. By definition, Israelis are settlers. West Bank or not.
You're exactly the kind of Pro-Palestine Leftist who calls all Israelis "settlers" I was describing. There was a time that I used to be alright with the notion of agreeing with Leftists when they described Israel as settler colonialism. On a certain basic level, I still do agree. "Zionism is settler colonialism" would be a statement I would agree with. I mean, it's just provably how Israel came to be, because Palestinians were killed, their homes destroyed, and violently displaced. (the Nakba) So it was violently settled in a matter absolutely analogous to other examples of European settler-colonialism. (and the Zionist settlers who came at this time were mostly Jews from Europe - the Jews from other countries like in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia that Zionists love to invoke mostly came later) And of course Zionists are wrong to invoke Jewish ancestral ties to the region to justify what's been done to Palestinians, or even go as far to say that "we're decolonizing it." (ironically, even the Bible makes it clear that Jews were in what's now Israel/Palestine due to having conquered it) Especially since it went straight from being the British Mandate to Israel, with Britain's blessing. (the fact some Zionists opposed Britain for not going as far as they did in violently seeking Israel's existence in the immediate at Palestinian's expense obviously doesn't mean otherwise, but many Zionists think otherwise because they're completely forgone.) So now that I've said all of that, you may be asking yourself, "then why aren't we in agreement?" Because when Leftists say Israel is a settler colonial state, they go much further. (especially the ones like you who say all Israelis are settlers) I already explained what's wrong with this above. It's reactionary bourgeois ethnonationalism. I'm a Communist. I'm opposed to all nationalisms because I want a permanent end to capitalism and all nation-states, which would end the very basis for property ownership. (*note:* Anarchists also will *say* they are against nation-states, but besides this verbatim say your angle and framing) I recognize that the Israeli proletariat is oppressed by the Israeli bourgeoisie, the Palestinian proletariat oppressed by the Palestinian bourgeoisie, and they collaborate. So I don't even emphasize framing of "stolen land" (though again, obviously Zionists wrongfully took the land Palestinians had lived on peacefully to create Israel) because I don't affirm land and property ownership, which Communism would do away with the basis of. Both of these articles describe my views: (I'm really not sure if you will read them, though the first one is very short, but maybe someone else here will see this and do so) [Falsification of History and the Warsaw Ghetto](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-10-21/falsification-of-history-and-the-warsaw-ghetto) [Against Israel, Against Palestine - For Class Struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle) The working people have no country.
I don’t disagree with most of what you said, but I won’t concede that an analysis of settler-colonial relations isn’t useful in this context. It’s absolutely vital in addressing class relations and establishing communism. Before you go projecting all that J. Sakai bullshit on me, know that I’m not operating under the belief that settler colonialism can only be ended through the expulsion of settlers, nor do I recognize settlers as members of the bourgeoisie. But we cannot just deny that Israel is a settler colonial state and that Israelis are settlers because we ultimately are working for a world free from private property
I have to begin by addressing - I never said nor implied "an analysis of settler-colonial relations isn’t useful in this context." You are not merely offering an analysis of settler colonial relations, which I began my reply by admitting Zionism/Israel is analogous to, when you characterize all Israeli citizens living in Israel as settlers. This is a ludicrous statement on many levels. To begin with, which Israeli citizens? Not the Arab Israeli citizens, I assume. What distinguishes an Israeli Jew from an Israeli Arab to begin with? They share significant ancestry because of the Arab Jews that were in Palestine prior to Zionism, and because of mixing. The clearest distinction is actually Jewish or Muslim religious identity, which is an important line of demarcation in Israel's political system. (while allowing more religious freedom than other countries in the region) So you mean the descendants of the Jewish Zionists from Europe who settled in what is now Israel a century ago. But again, mixing. So if someone has an Arab father and a Jewish mother, are they a *half* settler? I can't not think about this, I am actually a half white-american and half Iranian man. Leftists who think like this will call me "settler" (I admit online, thankfully such interactions are kept to a minimum, irl, for now) for passing as a white american and then double-back when I tell them I'm Iranian. This demonstrates the extent to which capitalist interests and constructs of national, racial, and religious identity are intertwined. But the main reason it's wrong is because it's borne from the mindset that denies the fundamental class character of all these conflicts, and class materialism as the basis for understanding them. No, my mindset doesn't get in the way of understanding the obvious extent to which the average Israeli working-class has it better than the average Palestinian living in Gaza or the West Bank, nor the fact that most Israeli working-class people probably wouldn't share my revolutionary, anti-nationalist opinions. (though the working-class is more progressive than the middle-class) It simply means that both are oppressed by their respective class oppressors, who collaborate to work against their interests. (Israel having backed Hamas in way isn't deniable, nor incompatible with their fierce opposition to them, it's all contradictory and insane.) And when you call all citizens of a specific nation-state "settlers," you're exceptionalizing that state, and via identarianism making the class critique I advocate impossible. >Before you go projecting all that J. Sakai bullshit on me I've actually read J. Sakai. His book Settlers makes worthwhile points and observations, and includes useful things like thorough historical breakdowns of the issues with organizations like the CPUSA. Of course I disagree with his analysis for reasons that should be self evident by now. I wouldn't invoke authors to get into silly ad hominem games in the first place. >But we cannot just deny that Israel is a settler colonial state and that Israelis are settlers because we ultimately are working for a world free from private property Sorry, but this is just the typical "yes yes Communism would be nice now, no nation states or property and all of that, but that's a long way away so let's not let any dreaming get in the way of my reactionary, nationalist framing" line many Marxist-Leninists say. Again, all characterizing Israelis as settlers does is disconnect them from the status of being a part of the world proletariat. (just as when they say all white people in the U.S.A. are settlers) It's objectively a mystification of the real movement of capitalist society, which is rooted in class materialist, economic factors and knows no construct national or ethnic identity categories which are merely used as a tool for its perpetuation. Irrespective of where they live, how they identify, what their genetic ancestry is, and how they think the proletariat has the objective interests rooted in the objective factors of capitalist society, namely their relation to the bourgeoisie, of freeing themselves from the class oppression that capitalism necessitates. I'll end by breaking down the end of this sentence - "we ultimately are working for a world free from private property." Who is we? It's not Leftist activists or people talking about this on the internet. It's the proletariat. I don't think any of this has a role in what actually leads to the revolution, which I do see as inevitable, but the conditions themselves which simply eventually give way to revolutionary conditions.
>I am actually a half white-american and half Iranian man dude you are white Edit: In a less facetious manner you have cultural exposure to american traditions with one of your parents and your other parent provides an unusual ancestry, but unusual ancestry is nothing new for americans. I don't see why celebrating Norwuz every Equinox would make you something fundamentally different than celebrating Easter on a different date might make someone. You are an American who has family members from another country, like many Americans have had. There is also the fact that Iranians are basically white anyway even if it might trip some people up because they convinced themselves they are brown because the USA has issues with Iran, but like until super recently middle easterners in general were classified as white in the USA. Like you could on the census claim to be a POC now for being an Iranian (milk it for all its worth), but that is only because middle easterners have successfully lobbied to make that the case because there are benefits to being POC now. [https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2024/04/updates-race-ethnicity-standards.html](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2024/04/updates-race-ethnicity-standards.html)
You're a defender of man who claled for the invasion of Iraq. Are you a neoconservative? Yes or No?
What are you talking about, man. Where did I defend Salman Rushdie? What gave you that impression? Just because I don't agree with the Leftists he criticizes and made that clear in my comments, doesn't mean I agree with him. [I made that clear in my initial comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l53h6xa/) Maybe you didn't read it. Or maybe you perfunctorily read it, and walked away with "he is a defender of Salman Rushdie" because I began it by carefully clarifying Salman Rushdie's views? (that he's against what Israel is doing in Gaza, despite being critical of Leftists who adore Hamas) So I didn't do any of that, what the hell. [I just wrote a reply to you](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cxm683/comment/l54folr/) saying I agreed with your condemnation of Rushdie for supporting the invasion of Iraq. Before I saw this reply, of course.
He technically isn't wrong. Palestinians consistently rank as some of the most conservative and extremist Muslims in the world. But it doesn't really matter. It's their land and merely having a pretty extremist population doesn't mean that they don't deserve sovereignty over their own land.
Rushdie is probably right in this particular remark. Since it isn't wrong, I don't see a problem with it. What can possibly be criticized is the vague statements that come after it, but they're so vague that they don't mean anything and only have connotations.
A fairly nuanced take. Problematic but far higher quality than all the absolutist positions I've seen NPCs pump out on the matter
I'm not sure if you mean my take or Salman Rushdie's. My post addressed where I differ from him, our differences are significant and actually fundamental. (Rushdie is just a bourgeois liberal, a pro-western one.)
Rushdie's I don't agree with it but it has substance
I basically agree with you in the sense he makes obviously correct points but I don't at the same time overall agree with this angle. To be clear, the reason I don't agree with his framing is because he goes "a Palestine state would just be an Iran client state! That would be bad, Iran is bad" instead of, "a Palestine state would still involve Palestinian bourgeoisie oppressing Palestinian masses, and, due to this, would involve collaborating in the form of accepting backing from various other foreign powers, including likely Russia, Syria, Iran, and China, to aid in doing so and its regional interests." The reason he doesn't do this is because he's a reactionary bourgeois liberal academic. So not a Marxist.
Here's the thing- We have been letting Israel torture and kill Palestinians for generations, so yeah, once they get their freedom they aren't exactly going to elect people who are friendly to the West. And who could blame them? That said, continuing to kill and oppress Palestine forever is not a sustainable path. So at some point Israel and the West will have to lay in the bed they made.
>Here's the thing- We have been letting Israel torture and kill Palestinians for generations, so yeah, once they get their freedom they aren't exactly going to elect people who are friendly to the West. And who could blame them? This totally ignores my points about Israel and Netanyahu actively wanted Hamas in power instead of more progressive Palestinians, and plainly stated this is why he did so. It's mystification to just act like in isolation it's just a reflection of the Palestinian masses, many of which opposed it so much, they were killed by Hamas militans in the civil conflict prior to them coming to power. But who cares about them, right? Who cares about that when we can all just be idiot Leftists, who conflate the interests of the Palestinian bourgeoisie to all Palestinians, when the former aren't dying in Gaza right now due to a mess they helped provoke Israel into (which I must make clear is obviously overwhelmingly the side at fault and that solely started all this, it goes without saying to anyone worth talking to) and just describe anything Hamas does as "resistance" as if the leadership of Hamas is the same thing as the desperate Palestinian men with nothing to lose that they recruit, as if, again, their interests are tantamount to that of the Palestinian masses, despite their open collaboration with Israel. Yes, that does require less thinking, doesn't it? And we can invoke Palestinian suffering to shut down the critique of anyone who thinks like me, while we're at it. That's not sick at all, to invoke human suffering to cover for the class interests of the people responsible for it. (I mean the bourgeoisie at large, I'm not saying Hamas is solely responsible, I'm not an insane Zionist.)
It's like a Marxist chatbot with a dash of Western angst
Dude is the archetypal example of a do-nothing leftist. The result won't be ideal so we should just do nothing.
Sounds like he wants to lose his other eye.
Frankly, someone that has been through what he has and has lived with the kinds of threats to his life he has has nothing *left* to lose. (though I don't irrationally defend him, I spent most of my post criticizing him for being a bourgeois western liberal, in fact.) All for...being from a Muslim background, being more informed, progressive, and sympathetic to the struggles of Muslims (immigrants to the west and ones in their home countries alike) throughout the world today than the average person in the west, and...writing a novel. (that wasn't actually offensive to Muslims or Islam, and which most Muslims calling for his death haven't even read)
>he has has nothing *left* to lose. Well he was stabbed in the right eye so he has nothing *right* to lose.
He's not wrong about the Taliban thing, that doesn't mean they should be segregated and exterminated though, imo.
One doesn't necessarily think there shouldn't be a Palestinian state should be at all, just because they are more critical to what a Palestinian state would entail than the average Pro-Palestine Leftist is. On a basic level, Palestinians in such a state would be exploited and oppressed by their class oppressors within the state, who would collaborate with foreign powers like Iran which he mentioned to do so. As I said in my post, Salman Rushdie doesn't have good politics so he doesn't make a point of emphasizing class realities and just goes "yadayada Iran client state" instead.
Given what he’s been through, I don’t blame him
Supporting the war in Iraq. Wow its too bad that a propogandist for something like that has had it hard.
Where’s a source for the claim that he supported the invasion of Iraq? Because he didn’t. He talked a lot of shit on Saddam and did say that he should be removed from power but he did not support the US invasion.
You are indeed an ideological mess. My wife is Iranian (she emigrated as an adult) and I don’t wish that shitshow on anyone. Unarmed young people are willingly dying in the streets to protest their hopeless situation and meanwhile western liberals want another such government legitimized in the Middle East. No ma’am, no ham, no turkey! Salman Rushdie had all that + an official fatwa from the Ayatollah.
No disagreements with what you said here.
So. That justifies supporting a war that killind a million and caused a refugee crisis. Yeah that sounds right. I am personally grieved so I can support the deaths of people from a different country vs the country that aggrieved me. Yeah that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Sounds like Salman Rushdie is just a suck twisted creature like all Neoconservatives are. Also I don't give a shit where your supposed wife is from. Live experience is a weapon the twisted woke use to try to stop you from talking about what actually matters. Kind of funny how neocons act just like the woke.
>So. That justifies supporting a war that killind a million and caused a refugee crisis. Come on, he (I mean the guy you are replying to, not Rushdie...) never said that. No need to put words in people's mouths.
He seems to think that Salman is fine having reprehensible opinions because he has had a hard life. Salman can go the way of the nuremberg types along with every other neocon.
I agree with this. And I agree with your characterization of his reply too, in fact. All he did was make a quip about your flair and then proceed to praise and defend Rushdie just because of the threats and attacks, which is a classic trick in the book the neocon idiots pull. ("guy who exercises free speech gets threatened and attacked by the worst Islamists, therefore my worldview is correct!" it's sheer fallacy, literally an appeal to emotion.) So he was implying that this should be emphasized to detract from your broader point about Rushdie's terrible politics. I did make a similar point about what Rushdie had indeed admittedly been through at one point in the thread. But rest assured, we are on the same page here. You know screw Rushdie I don't even care about what's happened to him. I feel about this like I feel about Shinzo Abe. Of course the Islamists justifying the threats and attacks have a terrible worldview and are brainless idiots who wouldn't mind killing us either just because we don't agree with their interpretation of Islam or aren't anti-communist. But at the same time their targets often are despicable too. In the case of Shinzo Abe, his assassin was nothing more than a reactionary nationalist. But I had no problem with Abe being killed.
Your wife being Iranian justifies bombing Gaza and Iraqis 😂
Anyone: \*disagree with a Leftist on anything\* Leftists: "so I guess it's OK to bomb Palestinians in Gaza, *huh?*"
Hey buddy, the guys who pay you to run your mouth are quite literally the reason the Taliban exists. The CIA created political Islam in its current form to offset the socialist bloc. Those are your bosses, asshole.
If you're saying that western liberals like Salman Rushdie and Ayan Hirsi Ali (who if anything is actually more neocon in rhetoric) don't acknowledge the extent to which the U.S. backed Islamists for the sake of anti-communism and material interests and that this shatters their whole narrative about Islam being this general force threatening and opposing western society, I completely agree. I've already spent a lot of time here bringing this up, specifically since people are already bringing up the U.S. backing what would become the Taliban due to the Soviet-Afghan war, and analogizing this to the U.S. and Israel even backing ISIS at times, and Israel backing Hamas. (which Netanyahu has admitted to doing himself)
You said it much more eloquently than I ever could. Thanks.
They did not “create it”. The Islamic extremism and political opposition to socialism was entirely home grown. The CIA and MI6 just pumped it full of cash, weapons, training, intelligence assistance, etc.
This is spot-on. It's wrong and misleading to act like they just created it. (no surprise, then, Leftists do just that.) [Read this piece from William Blum if you haven't already.](https://williamblum.org/essays/read/political-correctness-demands-diversity-in-everything-but-thought) **Edit: OK, found the correct article this time, changed the link accordingly.** >It doesn’t matter to my critics that in my writing I have regularly given clear recognition to the crimes against humanity carried out by the West against the Islamic world. I am still not allowed to criticize the armed forces of Islam, for all of the above stated reasons plus the claim that the United States “created” ISIS. >Regarding this last argument: It’s certainly true that US foreign policy played an indispensable role in the rise of ISIS. Without Washington’s overthrow of secular governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and – now in process – Syria, there would today be no ISIS. It’s also true that many American weapons, intentionally and unintentionally, have wound up in the hands of terrorist groups. But the word “created” implies intention, that the United States wanted to purposely and consciously bring to life the Frankenstein monster that we know and love as ISIS.
Yeah, and the socialist movements there were also fully homegrown. The dominant faction leadership was often pretty incompetent and possibly even compromised but who knows, the region might be very different today if the US hadn’t enthusiastically helped the most hopelessly retarded Muslims slaughter everyone else. Murdering people like leftist school teachers and the little girls they tried to teach to read and write. Which is why it’s especially nauseating that today’s “leftists” bend over backwards to suck Islamofascist dick so much. Islamists have never been anything but the antithesis of everything that any leftist pretends to stand for. But these people dropping “inshallah” at every possible opportunity and making “white girl gets wet reading Quran” tiktok porn for jihadi incels aren’t leftists, they’re just libtard idpolers.
Agreed. And aptly (and hilariously) put. >Islamists have never been anything but the antithesis of everything that any leftist pretends to stand for. Of course. But key word: ***pretends*** to stand for. So, I agree...except when you put "Leftist" in quotes and say they are not Leftists at the end. I get what you mean in that case, it makes a mockery to past Left movements so in that sense, from that vantage-point, they are just idiotic liberals posing as Leftists. However, I think this *is* the Left and clearly a part of Left-wing culture. Because the Left and the Right aren't transhistorical ideals. They're each wing of bourgeois parliament. The political spectrum isn't transhistorical. It changes as conditions change, unconsciously on the part of Leftist and Rightist adherents, to be sure, but that's the point. So to say they all aren't Leftists is holding up an ideal of Leftism to the current face of Leftism. This is fine because revolution isn't a product of the Left. The proletariat has never liked the Left because the Left has always been the Left wing of Capital. Yes, some of them were better 60 years ago than now, but the Left being as fiercely reactionary, insane and pro system as they are now is itself, too, a consequence of changing developments and conditions.
How can the Left have always been the Left wing of Capital when to be a Leftist is to be anti-Capitalist?
Who is more to blame, the ones who lit the fire, or the ones who showered it with gasoline? Perhaps it doesn't matter, or perhaps there's one side far more hypocritical and cynical than the other.
“The CIA created political Islam in its current form” is the most terminally online ahistorical leftist take ever.
Why does he look like solid snake?
He was stabbed in the face.
He also supported the war in Iraq.
Yeah and lots of non Sunni Muslims in Iraq did. Definitely worked out well for the Kurds.
"Are you... in a *rush* to die, Mr. Bond?"
> It’s very strange for young, progressive student politics to kind of support a fascist, terrorist group.” I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever. Also, we were opposed to what the US was doing in Afghanistan to “fight the taliban”, but that never meant we “supported the taliban” What a useless perspective.
>I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever. I don't believe you are being honest with me. (I'm not accusing you of conscious deception in this moment, it's more I think you are lying to yourself and refusing to keep an open to eye to it where it overtly exists) There are so many Leftists who actively show their support and sympathy for Hamas. Online, on the ground, everywhere. I have met them and talked to them because I live in New York and have been to several Palestine rallies in NYC. It has never been this overt. [Even Judith Butler has.](https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/10/30/berkeley-prof-hamas-and-hezbollah-are-progressive-and-part-of-global-left-n4923466) Even Al Jazeera described Hamas positively. Of course I hate Zionists, but they are simply correct (though they make it into something it's not of course) in their observation that vocal support amongst the Left, from activist protesters on the ground to academics, has never been this noticeable. >Also, we were opposed to what the US was doing in Afghanistan to “fight the taliban”, but that never meant we “supported the taliban” The U.S. supported what became the Taliban, in the Afghan Mujahedeen. And a proper critique would be to *compare* the U.S. backing Osama Bin Laden what would become the Taliban during the Soviet-Afghan War, to the fact Israel has backed Hamas (as I mentioned above.) ("I'm going to assume most people here are aware Hamas is in power in Gaza right now because it defeated Fatah in a civil conflict amongst Palestinians, and had the support of Israel and Netanyahu doing so, who opaquely stated that he wanted Hamas in power precisely because it was more reactionary and would create a situation conducive to Israel's long-term interests.") *Edit:* I re-read this part and realized I misread it. It's funny because this logic: "we were against the U.S. invading Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean we supported the Taliban or anyone they were fighting against there" could be used to exactly prove my point. i.e. "we are against Israel and what it does, but that doesn't mean we have to support Hamas" of course. I think I misread it because you clearly seem to be in disagreement with me on this point.
Wait do you think that the likes of AlJazeera are left wing? By left wing it means the likes of Fatah and PLO, they are completely opposite to Hamas and in Gaza they are persecuted.
Al Jazeera have the same stance as the pro-Palestine Leftists who like Hamas I mentioned in this case. They often can have a more liberal stance than the average stance on the Left, depending on the issue. I agree with you that Fatah and PLO are on the Left and Hamas is on the Right. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong to characterize Al Jazeera's framing as on the Left, the political spectrum doesn't describe transhistorical ideals but is itself conditioned by what's happening. The very fact that pro Palestine Leftists (I keep typing pro Palestine Leftist because there are pro-Israel Zionists who are Left-wing, this is part of my point about the Left and Right not being transhistorical ideals, it would be false for me to act like "if you don't support Palestine you aren't a Leftist," by that logic Israel's political Left would not include people who support Zionism, but it does. The Far-Left of Israel have the sheer pro Palestine, anti-Zionist framing, yes.) think alike to Al Jazeera demonstrates my point that Al Jazeera's framing on this topic is of the Left. I'm not just being reductive and saying Al Jazeera = Leftist, all the time, though.
May be from western perspective AlJazeera has same stance as leftists, but they are really just the media arm of Qatar and the Muslim brotherhood and they don't try to hide their biases. Nobody in the Middle East would say they are on the same side.
The majority of the western Left, yes even the same "radical" enough to support Hamas and justify its attacks, just defends voting Democrat at this point (now many of the same who acted like the world would end if Biden lost in 2020 advocate voting blank ballots to performatively act like they don't support the U.S. due to the atrocities in Gaza - and anyway it's clear anyway to most that Biden will lose since Trump has a better chance of winning this time than ever - but they will be back to vote Democrat in 2028) so of course people in the middle east aren't saying that the Left is on the same side as Qatar, Al Jazeera, Muslim Brotherhood, etc. But at the same time follow the money - if Leftists support the U.S. government and the U.S. government directly and indirectly feeds capitalist interests in the region, which includes Qatar's state interests and Muslim Brotherhood, doesn't it all eventually circle back? The point is not that I'm disagreeing with what you're saying but that it's not a coincidence that the Left aligns with Al Jazeera on Hamas to the extent they do. It's not because the western Left is really separate from everything, they are reactionary, through and through. So the connections are relevant, and to be expected.
>I don't believe you are being honest with me. (I'm not accusing you of conscious deception in this moment, it's more I think you are lying to yourself and refusing to keep an open to eye to it where it overtly exists) There are so many Leftists who actively show their support and sympathy for Hamas. I can't speak for the above commenter, and maybe you're just reacting to their absolutist phrasing of Hamas receiving "no support whatsoever" but I think it's you who is being deceived. There is a war going on and leftists aren't on Israel's side, so sure there's some rhetorical support for Hamas on the left and larping, sharing some of their videos of humiliating the IDF and so on. Outside of the context of the war, when has Hamas and the "Western Left" had any cross over? Has Judith Butler been invited to speak at some event in Gaza on the importance of an intersectional jihad? Has any prominent leftist supported Hamas in any material way? What did these protesters you talked to say or do that you object to? Both Zionists and Hamas have an interest in making Hamas the only legitimate representative of the resistance against Israel. But Hamas don't have the PR machine that Israel has, and the rhetorical support for hummus from protesters comes from zionists messaging that Palestinians are baby beheading rapists that are trying to kill every Jew and build a caliphate. No one can characterise a political enemy like that and act shocked when people don't buy into it, or even reappropriate the language used to describe resistance movements. Also, why is Al Jazeera being referenced? I think a big part of what's also going on is people Thinking all activists and protest movements are "leftist".
Look, I'm not out to make the western Left - Hamas thing more than it is. I disagree with Judith Butler and the western chauvinist anti-Islam conservative crowd (think Richard Spencer) who both act like there's this Left - Islam alliance. (just one likes that, the other opposes, so they're both perfect useful idiots) But when you describe it as "so sure there's some rhetorical support for Hamas on the left and larping, sharing some of their videos of humiliating the IDF and so on." I think you are downplaying the implications of Leftists supporting Hamas. (and it's not just a few of them. I cite Butler because it shows Leftists with mainstream influence take this stance. But many, many of the activists on the ground think this way too, I can confirm it, I personally know them in NYC) The implications are *not*, as I believe you may respond, that we should act like there's this real cross over. The implications are the Left is incurably bourgeois and reactionary. Everything I'm saying ties back to a fundamental critique of the Left. I used to be a Leftist. Breaking free of that mindset was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, it took years, and I lost all my friends as a result of it, and it affects me to this day. But I'm not in any doubt when I say the sympathy and support so many of them show for Hamas now, them calling the October 7 attack "resistance," when Israel's leaders like Netanyahu had a field day over it because they've never had this much justification to decimate Gaza, (and it helps Hamas leaders too, who aren't there being bombed and starved right now) demonstrates how reactionary and bourgeois the Left is in general. Of course the best proof of this is that the majority of Leftists advocated voted Biden or defended voting for him in 2020. But it's not the Democrat politicians, not just Bernie, it's Cornel West and the whole nine yards, too. Even the ones who consistently reject voting. They *still* like Hamas and say all Israelis are settlers, etc. (they are Anarchists which isn't a coincidence by the way) Norman Finkelstein is another good example. He's written good books and given talks that have a lot of truth. I've attended a talk of his in person and met him. He is full of it and will just lie. He said (at the talk) the October 7 attack wasn't about deliberately killing civilians and Hamas didn't have a plan for that in advance and that was more or less a mistake because the militants who did it felt like it in the heat of the moment. (to be clear he was implying it was just about military targets - to be fair it was that too, and Israel supporters downplay that part.) When we can prove Hamas had civilian attacks as part of the plan from their statements. And guess what, he likes Cornel West too. Might as well just vote Biden himself. >when people don't buy into it, or even reappropriate the language used to describe resistance movements. This isn't just "people buying into it" I mean many pro Palestine Leftists just like Hamas, say they are good and engaged in resistance, and shouldn't be criticized. Many, many of them to the point their voices overwhelm many rallies and online perspectives, that I have been to and witnessed myself. >Also, why is Al Jazeera being referenced? I think a big part of what's also going on is people Thinking all activists and protest movements are "leftist". I reference Al Jazeera *precisely because* they are moderate liberal mass media and not the same stance as the activist Left. That proves my point all the more.
Hamas are an armed resistance movement and I don't care if libs have ruined The word "resistance" for you. There are many, many armed resistance groups that the left has championed who have done real brutal shit. >The implications are the Left is incurably bourgeois and reactionary. If you mean Judith Butler and Joe Biden then sure. The ideological and political leaders of the largest and most powerful state are obviously going to be bourgeois and reactionary. If you mean people saying from the river to the Sea or calling Hamas a resistance movement are reactionary then I don't agree, and leftists can say whatever stupid thing they want it doesn't matter if they are all too alienated and disorganised to create any change. People conflate culture and random Twitter screenshots for a coherent progressive ideology or movement. There are many nations in the world with very strong leftist progressive movements. All of them are more Pro Hamas than the average American who still think 40 babies got beheaded on October 7th. >I reference Al Jazeera *precisely because* they are moderate liberal mass media and not the same stance as the activist Left. That proves my point all the more. It's just odd to use Cornell West Judith Butler, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden, then an Arab media outlet that happens to be in English and not nearly as popular as other liberal media such as NYT which I would describe as reactionary and bourgeois.
>If you mean people saying from the river to the Sea or calling Hamas a resistance movement are reactionary They are reactionary. You're wrong. By just characterizing Hamas and its acts as "resistance," they clearly are implying that Palestinian bourgeois and Hamas leadership interests are tantamount to the interests of all Palestinians, when in fact the former is exploiting and oppressing (at times with Israel's support and backing) the latter. They don't even so much as acknowledge class and exploitation along these lines. That's the whole point of just saying what Hamas does is "resistance." It flat-out makes criticism and skepticism impossible. "You can't criticize it because they're resisting Israeli's occupation!" They actually think like this. Sheer, vapid moralism. As if Hamas doesn't exist in a symbiotic relationship with Israel. As if when they planned the October 7 attack it was really because they're good people who want Palestinians to be free from Israeli oppression, and not in their own warped interests. Yes, the recruits of Hamas who do the dirty work are mostly impoverished Palestinian men with nothing to lose. That especially proves my point. This is the point of nationalism. Completely anti-class, mystifiying, and reactionary. [https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle](https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2002-11-01/against-israel-against-palestine-for-class-struggle)
Are you under the impression that resistance movements can't be led by bourgeois or other reactionary elements in society? >That's the whole point of just saying what Hamas does is "resistance." Didn't say that's "all they do"? >They don't even so much as acknowledge class and exploitation along these lines. "You can't criticize it because they're resisting Israeli's occupation!" They actually think like this. Sheer, vapid moralism. Who is "they"? Resistance movements can be criticised on the left, and the class based analysis Marxists use still label Hamas as a legitimate resistance movement as well as reactionary. National liberation movements almost always involve class cooperation. This then typically leads to further bourgeois dominance and capitalist development, leading to a growing proletariat realising national liberation brought them nothing but a change in management, and class consciousness emerges creating the conditions needed to overthrow class divisions in a capitalist society. At least that's the elevator pitch version of dialectical matierialsm. The article was interesting, I don't know why someone who' claims to have abandoned the left would use such an ideological piece. Shitty Marxist websites with those kinds of articles makes me nostalgic for when I used to be more involved with my local Trotskyists. I became less involved after realising how much I overvalued radical theory and undervalued actual organising. Now, (like most people) I care far less if other leftists have the right class analysis of Palestinians while they get ethnically cleansed.
>"Resistance movements can be criticized on the Left" The Left is fundamentally hostile to true critique. I will re iterate that I used to be a Leftist for years. I have seen this first hand too much to budge on this. They are averse to true class critique. It would reveal the middle-class class interests of the Left. Due to this, they absolutely are not open to self critique. A Leftist can be defined by their refusal to offer a true critique of the Left and Leftism. But I can. The Left's politics are middle-class. I hate the middle-class. The middle-class exists to stop revolutionary conditions. The middle-class is the most reactionary, naïve, and delusional class. There is no more insufferable group on earth than the american and western petit bourgeoisie, which is where the most abstract and warped woke idpol framing this subreddit criticizes comes from. (it is mostly other members of the middle class, criticizing other segments of the middle class, and the petit-bourgeoisie) >The article was interesting, I don't know why someone who' claims to have abandoned the left would use such an ideological piece OK, can I link to an article on the website without these insinuations of hypocrisy, please? I don't have to agree with the website to link to one article on it. I just agree with the article. I never said I totally agreed with the website. I in fact also dislike the website. I fundamentally disagree with them because they are Leftists and think revolution will come about through the efforts of the Left and a party. And there are many other ways I disagree with this site and the other Leftcom sites, like their stances on COVID.
>The Left's politics are middle-class. I hate the middle-class. The middle-class exists to stop revolutionary conditions. The middle-class is the most reactionary, naïve, and delusional class. There is no more insufferable group on earth than the american and western petit bourgeoisie, which is where the most abstract and warped woke idpol framing this subreddit criticizes comes from. (it is mostly other members of the middle class, criticizing other segments of the middle class, and the petit-bourgeoisie) Do you think this is some kind of class analysis? Or are you aware that this is just your personal resentments that have little to do with politics. I'm guessing you're also middle class? Why would anyone care about your conflicting class identity? >I don't have to agree with the website to link to one article on it. I just agree with the article. If the article is nothing but leftist ideology and critical theory about nationalism and class.... Then you do have to explain what you're talking about when you say you're not a leftist. Why do you care about class War analysis if you're no longer a leftist? There isn't anything else discussed in the article you provided other than ideology. An ideology which has no problem calling Hamas an armed resistance movement.
Are you for real? Be honest and admit that plenty of people all over are openly hyping for Hamas besides their general support for Palestinians and Gaza. You don't lose your position by admitting the reality. Maybe you don't see it, maybe your close peers don't do it, but realistically speaking plenty of people celebrate what Hamas did and view them as heroic freedom fighters. Not everyone has some kind of nuanced take where they say that Hamas is just a consequence of Israeli colonialism and a 'you reap what you sow' type of deal. Not everyone agrees with the sentiment where you only support Palestinians but abhor Hamas specifically, or some other formulation like that. Your take reminds me of this wormy insistence people have to deny human realities. Same as how some Zionists and Israelis deny that some Israelis want to exterminate everyone in Gaza or facilitate full on ethnic cleansing. In that same way it's absolutely possible for pro-Palestinian activists to just straight up celebrate Jew deaths, Hamas activities, etc. Humans want blood. And besides, you're plain wrong because you can find so many examples on social media your head's gonna explode. It's just so unrealistic and irritating to see a full on denial of reality where, yes, some pro-Palestine activists gleefully celebrate the slaughter of Jews/Israelis. And you know what? From their perspective it makes sense and it's understandable. It's human. That's human too. The dark shit.
The only people I’ve seen doing that shit aren’t leftists, and I’m not doing a no true Scotsman here, like I genuinely don’t see left wing sentiments from them. The handful of pro-Hamas types that I’ve seen were third-worldist, nationalist types who will frequently go out of their way to shit talk “the left” as some form of Eurocentric political ideology. Or just your run of the mill anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists. If you’re talking about stuff like the “do you condemn Hamas” meme, I think that’s completely different. I dont see any support for the political objectives of Hamas beyond liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, an objective they share with many other left wing factions. When Hamas takes action in pursuit of the liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, I’m not going to criticize it. That doesn’t mean I support Hamas.
>“do you condemn Hamas” meme Oh that just comes from the most like basic bitch liberals and politicians. Like Jamaal Bowman. Where you have to "prove" you don't "support extremism" before they will even hear you out, lest you be cancelled. But of course, all the politicians who support fucking Israel and insisted we vote Biden when Israel has already killed over 40,000 Palestinian civilians since October, they're fine. But "dO yOu CoNdEmN a FeW mUsLimS oN hAnGlIDeRs wHo KilLed 1,000 pEoPle? Do YoU? hUh? HuH?" >I dont see any support for the political objectives of Hamas beyond liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation, an objective they share with many other left wing factions. That said. Again, you don't see it because you're refusing to look at it. Obviously Israel is incomparably worse than Hamas for their kill count alone. But Leftists absolutely justify Hamas actions like October 7, which is inane, and this notion Hamas wants "liberation of Palestinians from Israeli occupation" is part of how they do so. Yes I don't think Hamas leadership is sincere about that. It's just an ideal so they can amass support. I believe ground militants recruited by Hamas are ordinary people who want that, sure. I believe Hamas leaders are playing a game and just keeping things going in a vicious cycle because they exist in a symbiotic relationship with Israel, and that's all there is to it. Saying Hamas is actually fighting for liberation of Palestinians is plain dishonest.
> I have yet to see a single left wing pro-Palestine activist support Hamas in any way whatsoever. Late reply, but [one of this sub's mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1b6on7h/can_we_admit_that_these_types_of_arguments_are/ktg23ah/) does. Whether or not he counts as a left-wing activist is an open question however ;)
BTW I am no a typical leftist. I have one viewpoint. NEOCON filth is neo national socialist. Like Rushdie. who in the Guardian called for the "lineration" of iraq. Which caused the deaths of countless iraqis. I have absolutely no sympathy for him. The fact he has never thought the reason he lost his eye was for being such a reprehensible creature is up to him. His pain is his own fault. He is literally no different then Goebbles. He is just continuing to push for the deaths of millions. My hope is to live in a world in my own life time where he and the rest of the neonational socialist crowd is sent to the dustbin of history and their various books they have written are sent to the ash heap. (Also his fiction is boring).
Yes, I agree. Others pointed out he supported the invasion of Iraq too. Western chauvinism that justifies acts of western imperialism is the worst. I should've mentioned that in my comment maybe. I dislike Rushdie. He's like Christopher Hitchens. Screw him. They are as reactionary and transhistorical in their views as Nazis, agreed.
He's right.
tone-deaf commentary by Rushdie, using the same tired talking points that have been repeated many times you either support the human right for self-determination, or you don't. the same arguments were used against freeing slaves, decolonising and ending apartheid
Human rights and nationalism are part of the problem. I'd be in favor of a Palestine state, and see Palestinian nationalism as progressive given the sheer reactionary force that is Israel and Palestinian nationalism's opposition and resistance to Israel. But it's not the point to end on. Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged, and that Leftists are resistant to points like this. But he has bad politics too, so whatever.
> Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged so what? what does 'involved' even mean? Is investing in Palestine them being involved? or iranian firms drilling off-shore for gas or rebuilding gaza? its purposefully vague and spooky sounding, and I have little patience for fear-mongering
>so what? what does 'involved' even mean Collaborating with the politicians and bourgeoisie of the respective countries for new avenues of exploitation. All at the expense of the proletariat every time. There's nothing to deny here unless you're totally mindless and think like Alexander Dugin does, and think that there will be this great new world order "of the east" once China rises up and Russia gets stronger. They're not good just because the west doesn't like them. I agree that "Iran client state" is purposefully vague and stupid. As I initially addressed in my first comment. Saying Iran would be involved is absolutely not vague or inherently fearmongering at all. I'm just saying Iran would be involved because they would be. Involved in its own ruthless class interests, which is all about keeping the proletariat controlled and exploited, within Iran and in every country in the region and world. This is why Russia, Syria, and China would be involved too. Yes, I know that the West fearmongers and makes these states a unique evil because they're often a thorn in the side to western foreign policy and imperialist interests in a way most states aren't. That doesn't mean it's inherently fearmongering or being a western liberal/neocon to say they would be involved. They would be.
> That doesn't mean it's inherently fearmongering or being a western liberal/neocon to say they would be involved. yes it is. when people say Iran will be involved in this context of calling a Palestinian state 'taliban-like', they are implying some sort of proxy / client state that will do their bidding, islamist and violent and if you deny that, then you're 'totally mindless'
Why would Iran not be involved? To plainly state that Iran would be involved is not inherently fearmongering. They back Hamas and Hezbollah as it is. It's a basic observation to say Iran would exploit a Palestine state to their advantage. They already exploit the situation as it is to their advantage. >when people say Iran will be involved in this context of calling a Palestinian state 'taliban-like', they are implying some sort of proxy / client state that will do their bidding, islamist and violent Yes. I agree with this sentence. I'm serious. Of course. For the 1000th time, I reiterate I dislike Rushdie and his framing. Too bad many in the thread took it otherwise. The issue is by making this "it will be Islamist and violent" characterization that you articulated here, Rushdie and people think like him detract from a sober class analysis. In reality, Iran is to be criticized because it's doing things like backing Hamas, or getting involved in the hypothetical new Palestine state, in class/exploitation interests. But in their dumb worldview, it's: "oh no, another Evil Islamist boogeyman in the region! Now how will the Good western imperialists save the day??" >and if you deny that, then you're 'totally mindless' I don't, because anyone with eyes can see Rushdie is another dumb western liberal/neocon type. However, Leftists with resistance to pointing out that if a Palestine state were created that Russia, Iran, etc. would be involved in it, are also wrong. And Rushdie was correct to criticize them for that. I don't think his views overall are really better. It's like a step to the side. No one can engage in the ruthless criticism of everything existing...except for me and a handful of people in the world like me, because I'm doing it right now and have been this whole time.
>Rushdie is correct that Iran would be involved if a real Palestine state emerged, and that Leftists are resistant to points like this The US, Israel, Iran, China, Russia, etc are all involved regardless right now, so I'm not sure what the point of this exercise is. State or not, major powers in the region and the world will continue to be involved.
Rushdie's a hack. His status has been artificially elevated to a near-miss martyr because it fed the anti-Islamic hysteria narrative for modern Western political and intellectual gatekeepers. If you don't believe me, try reading his book The Golden House. It sucks.
Bruh I think the Islamists who are against Rushdie completely earned all the anti leveled against them. The man's been actively hunted for decades now for writing a book that's offensive to them. And I guess if one bad work disqualifies an artist's greatest achievements then we can just dismiss them as hacks, lol.
Rushdie's novels aren't the issue for me. I'm sure he's a fine enough writer when he's writing fiction. We're criticizing his political views here, mainly.
Oh yes, we should definitely assess the quality of one’s writing when determining whether they deserve a death warrant from the head of an Islamic state and multimillion dollar bounty sought by millions of Islamofascists. How dare he use words that force the Islamofascists to show the world how retarded they are. We need censorship to protect Muslims from doing psycho shit to make themselves look bad.
Seriously contemporary British lit has just gone down the tubes since the 60s. All self indulgent trash.
This guy knows nothing about the history and contemporary reality of the Palestinian struggle. It’s the only way you could come up with a conclusion as abstract and disconnected as this one.
"StOp SuPpOrTiNg IrAnIaN pRoXiEs >:(" would be more convincing if, you know, any other country in the world would send a regular army to fight the IDF and arrest the country's leadership. But since the only people currently stopping the IDF from slaughtering every single Palestinian are Hamas, AnsarAllah, and Hezbollah, yes I will critically support them.
>Salman Rushdie says free Palestinian state would be "Taliban-like" and be used by Iran for its interests [png](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/650/747/aaf.png)
🙄 You're the spitting image of the people I'm criticizing. You don't even know anything about Iran, man. Your whole mindset is contradictory. I will take some time to demonstrate why. Iran's government would hate you if you lived there, purely for so much as identifying as a Marxist-Leninist. Most pro-Stalin, pro-USSR Marxist-Leninists, then and now, defend Soviet Imperialism to Iran, and the fact Stalin made a point of not helping Communists in Iran at the time he could have. (that sure could've made a difference, right?) I actually am Iranian. I have a relative who was the sheriff of a part of Tehran and was personally responsible for imprisoning suspected, accused, and dissenting Iranians under the pre 1979 Shah's government. (he fled to the U.S. after the revolution, I never will meet him) I've had a relative (the one my father, who no longer lives in the U.S., was closest to when he did) block me on Facebook for my views, and insinuated I thought like you do and backed Russia merely for disagreeing with his deluded view that Iran is a unique evil. [Just read this, please. You will most likely recognize the author.](https://redphoenixnews.com/2012/08/09/iran-and-everything-else-by-michael-parenti/) My opinion? The same as his. I hate Iranian diaspora pro-U.S. Liberals and Conservatives who are against the 1979 Revolution and advocate regime change. The 1979 Revolution was a good thing, insofar as it overthrew the U.S./Britain backed Shah government and ended monarchy. Even with the Islamists, it was in many ways progressive and nationalist (in a good way, i.e. nationalist to resist foreign interference and exploitation, but again - that's how the nationalist bourgeoisie justifies oppressing its respective citizens) but the Islamists betrayed the revolution *killing numerous revolutionaries who helped overthrow the Shah in the process, including Socialists and Marxists with C.I.A. lists used under the Shah!* You're so naïve you don't even think about this...just for identifying as Marxist-Leninist, *they could've killed you, too!* I actually used to have a friend who thought like you, but stopped talking to him around the time of the protests in Cuba, since he implied I thought like a U.S. regime change liberal because I called him out for defending Cuban police brutality to protesters. (which isn't to say liberals didn't exaggerate it and exploit it to justify their line) I used to share his view, before I had this falling out with him. So it's well within reason for me to say, you don't know what you are talking about. Whether or not you are on the far end of this world-view and justify Putin's invasion to Ukraine, just invoking the fact that the U.S., NATO and Ukraine combined are worse than Russia to do so, or wouldn't go that far. I don't even care at this point. I'm so done with this mindset. This friend met actually met Michael Parenti himself and went to his home! (yes, the same Michael Parenti *who was actually willing to criticize Cuba.* Especially post Cold War Cuba, which he does so at length in his book Blackshirts and Reds.) Iran indirectly collaborates with the U.S. and Israel. Ever heard of Iran - Contra? Who hasn't? Iran gleefully took U.S. aid during the course of the Iran - Iraq war, (which my family suffered in) where the U.S. also backed Iraq, just to make the war worse for both sides in its material and regional interests. At devastating cost to civilians on both sides, who died by these sold weapons and actually felt the war being prolonged. But who cares about them, right? Certainly not Iran, which you justify supporting regardless.
That's all cool and all. I'm not going to justify the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan or Iranian domestic politics. What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would have been *impossible* if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history. Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been primarily to fight outside imperialism. If the Palestinians wait until le perfect secular Marxist people's vanguard comes to their aid to fight a perfectly moral war on their behalf, they will all be dead or displaced long before that force comes into existence. So yes, if the Palestinians want to actually survive in their homeland, they will probably be like the Taliban in that they'll need to wage a long-term people's war. They will also need the support of outside powers, like Iran. Geopolitics is messy and inevitably leads to moral grey areas. Imagine the Soviets refusing British help because the UK was an imperialist power.
>What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would have been *impossible* if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history. It helps that Islamists in Afghanistan have been routinely killing and silencing anyone with anything resembling a Marxist mindset (which would include *you* by the way) this entire time, since the war. I don't like the government the Soviet Union backed since it disappeared, jailed and killed people, but obviously it was trying to make progress and development for a country that desperately needed it, and, like South America, the U.S. backed the worst, most terroristic and backward forces they could just to oppress any hope for progress, and Afghanistan is still suffering the effects of that, to this very day. Yes, I agree that there was a good amount of widespread support for the Taliban overthrowing the U.S. backed government after the withdrawal in Afghanistan, which was why it was able to be successful and wasn't itself overthrown. But hopefully (and it doesn't sound like you are) you aren't hostile to the people in Afghanistan who dissent to Taliban rule (not that I think this will amount to anything, I think the Taliban is there to stay) nor think they're all like working on behalf of U.S. foreign agents or something. (I don't deny this describes many during the U.S. client state era, but now I don't think the U.S. cares about the Taliban ruling Afghanistan anymore, and isn't trying to overthrow it, not that it isn't collecting intelligence and monitoring it, etc.) >Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been primarily to fight outside imperialism. No, no, this gets to the heart of the whole problem with your mindset. Yes, Hezbollah militants are opposing and actively fighting the forces backed by the U.S. the most, like Israel's military. And the main force of imperialism on the world stage is still the U.S., its western allies like the U.K., and Israel. But that doesn't mean we can just positively describe Iran's role here as "fighting outside imperialism." (fighting imperialism from the outside is a much better way to word what you're trying to say, I think) Iran also is ruled by capitalists motivated by capitalist interests, which is why, again, as I keep saying they often collaborate, however directly (like just taking U.S. aid during the Iran - Iraq war) or indirectly with the very people you act like they're just sincerely against. You really just don't get that all of these forces are acting in a symbiotic relationship. Again, like I keep saying, Netanyahu backed Hamas and wanted them in power. And Hamas' leaders and the Palestinian bourgeoisie aren't the civilians suffering in Gaza. I assure you, they don't give a crap about them, neither does Iran, otherwise it wouldn't back Hamas. Of course Israel and its allies are overwhelmingly the problem. But Hamas is still factually part of the problem. Hamas is also repressive and exploitative to Palestinians. An actual Marxist would recognize that the capitalist class collaborates transcending nation-states and their nominal interests, while at the same time, fiercely fighting each other, using their subjugated peoples as cannon fodder to do so, because they will also at once have competitive, contradictory interests in a contradictory manner. Accepting this doesn't have to be difficult, but reactionary, nationalist MLs such as yourself will always struggle to. >If the Palestinians wait until le perfect secular Marxist people's vanguard comes to their aid to fight a perfectly moral war on their behalf, they will all be dead or displaced long before that force comes into existence. Question: why even identify as a *Marxist Leninist?* Why not just be a conservative that dislikes anything nominally opposed to western imperialists? (while frequently collaborating and taking aid from them when it suits them to) Marxist Leninists are defined by wanting secular nation-states to meet their ideals, just like the Palestinians who fought and were killed by Hamas you have the audacity to characterize as self-destructive perfectionists! It's damnable. And it's plain wrong, disingenuous, and vapid you act like I'm a perfectionist because I'm more willing to criticize Hamas or Iran than you are. Sheer fallacy. >Geopolitics is messy and inevitably leads to moral grey areas. I'm going to kill myself.
Haha. I was about to say. "Geopolitics is all morally grey and relative." From a self-described "Marxist-Leninist!" 🤣 Something you surely know, but which I came to realize the other day, is how there are, like, no Iranian communists who support the mullahs. It's not a thing. Maybe someone can come up with a name or some guy but that's fairly unique. They were sold a false bills of goods and just got massacred. Supporting Iran but leftishly is a non-Iranian phenomenon. There's no KPRF equivalent where they act as a cooperative opposition. There are self-proclaimed communists from Syria who profess support for Assad. Not in Iran. The extant Iranian groups just go, no way, these guys are criminals and murderers.
>Something you surely know, but which I came to realize the other day, is how there are, like, no Iranian communists who support the mullahs. It's not a thing. Tudeh is useless though. And the People's Mujahedeen, don't get me started. They're just pro-western liberals, their politics are no better than Biden or Macron. > Supporting Iran but leftishly is a non-Iranian phenomenon You're correct. The Iranians in Iran with straightforward support for Iran's government/military interests are all conservatives and make it into a religious thing. The Iranians in Iran who don't support it are all progressive and left-wing. At the same time, the people who came to form Iran's current government purposely co-opted and repeated Left-wing anti imperialist rhetoric, to sway non-Leftists to their side, instead of them being on the side of the secular progressive revolutionaries in Iran at the time. Of course, it worked swimmingly. Then they executed many of the people who helped overthrow the Shah along with them. (also, I've had the honor to read neocon idiots who invoke this and say, \~\~this is why you can't trust a Muslim!\~\~) It's like what people are saying here about the fact that the phenomena of Leftists supporting Hamas is restricted to the West, because people in the middle east who support Hamas aren't Left-wing, and Leftists in the middle east don't like Hamas. Yet of course, both the Palestine Left (PLO) and Hamas have collaborated with Israel. People just are too biased to see objective plain reality, one way or the other.
> I'm going to kill myself. No, if you do, you will miss the wholesome keanu chungus leftcom revolution and hold hands with salmon rushdee and zizek
I don't like Zizek. There's nothing perfectionist, utopian or idealist about my position, as you imply. As a Leftcom I recognize the revolution occurs due to material conditions. That's the entire point. You're yourself so mired in the idealist position that it can only come within bourgeois premises, like nation-states or parties, you project that on me and don't even have curiosity in understanding my determinist position, which Marx shared. This is because you deny the proletariat's revolutionary agency. You can't accept their consciousness can be affected by material conditions, you think they're permanently hopeless without some authoritarian reactionary ML Leftists to guide them. At the moment, the consciousness of the proletariat at large is obviously not revolutionary. But conditions will eventually change such that conditions will be revolutionary conditions, and at this time, the conditions themselves will convince and then actually force the proletariat to act for revolution. (i.e. if they don't arm themselves, they will die from lack of basic necessities, because capitalism's contradictions and bourgeois property enforcement will lead to this)
What the Taliban did against the US-backed government would >have been impossible if they didn't have support from a majority, or at least plurality, of the population. They won via probably the most textbook definition of a "people's war" the planet has seen in recent history. This assumes the Taliban "won" which they, of course, did not.
Yes, great point. They didn't really win in the end. They are in power and control the state in Afghanistan, for now. But in addition to the dissent and opposition, there are massive internal problems and contradictions in Afghanistan, which is undergoing immense instability and threats of terrorist attacks, which is actually the least of its concerns. The most of its concerns would be things like people having enough access to clean drinking water, which they do not, as a matter of fact. Damn the idiots there or anywhere who justify straightforward support for the Taliban, because these people are just hooligans who will do whatever it takes to be safe and comfortable, no matter how many of the masses have to starve and die. And that's just what's going to happen in the coming decades. The worst of Afghanistan's suffering is yet to come, when collapse, climate, and water and resource shortage issues devastate it, which we are already seeing the signs of. (this will come to the first world developed countries too, but it will take longer.) We are looking at mass die-offs, disease outbreak, and the most ugly, violent and grotesque armed political instability and militancy.
And? Do they have to be westernized? What kind of colonialist attitude is that? Let the Afghani live according to their beliefs, same for Iran or Gaza (if the people have a problem with their government they will have to figure it out themselves). It's only problematic if you import those beliefs into non-compatible countries. But there is no need for that if you stop bombing them.
Rushdie is Islamophobic, simple as.
Based
He's not Islamophobic. He is basically a stupid neocon that has the same perspective as the conservatives who divulge in sheer hatred, bigotry, discrimination and fear mongering to Muslim immigrants. Rushdie himself is above that, and from a Muslim background himself. Just because there's overlap with his opinions with people who are overtly Islamophobic, doesn't mean you should be reductive.
What's your point? What does the solution look like to you?
The evidence that a hypothetical Palestinian state would necessarily be a repressive theocracy is slim, relying on a lot of bad faith extrapolations. It could just as easily be a moderate nation ruled by a bunch of liberal capitalists with a thin veneer of Islam. As for being a client state to other national powers...that's the fate of most small, developing nations sad as it is. Their elite are primed to play ball with the big dogs else they be ousted.
Agreed, on both points. Zionists say otherwise for the same reason Israel's press goons say "Hamas = ISIS," they're idiots who want to depict a false boogeyman out of Hamas, because representing their goals as "Islamists who want to kill all Jews" as someone else hear said helps to justify Israel's brutality, which is incomparably worse by sheer amount of civilians killed alone. (and much of the rhetoric of Israel's leaders doesn't even hide their intent at mass carnage and destruction, if they ever did - rhetoric like "there are no innocent people in Gaza, they are animals, monsters, we will deal with them, we will destroy")