Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Division

Was just reading an article saying about how other articles are appearing saying that Al-Qaida is under attack from resisting insurgents (because of unnecessary civilian deaths attributed to Al Qaida) and that US strategists have been fomenting this division for some time now. No kidding. Anyway, it had me pause for thought.

No twentieth century "divide and conquer" exercise could be more successful then the rift plotted between Israel and Palestine. So successful has it been that many on the left have bought the bait hook line and sinking plumbline and have become by consequence the greatest ally imperialism could ever have hoped for. Israel was a sticky problem from the start, and not just because of all the usual stickiness tossed up around middle eastern politics - it was a sticky prob because no-one in the "free" world could afford to deny Zion and risk looking like little Hitlers (a name I can't say I have ever uttered out loud). Because of the shock everyone was still suffering after the bad publicity around Europe's deathcamps, no-one in the free (no point using inverted comers, the irony is too tiring to bother) world of capitalism could afford to knock Israel - and yet Israel was a socialist state practicing communism and full of politically aware laborers, the antithesis of capitalism. If Israel became successful as a communist state it would pose a threat to anti-communist capitalist propaganda post WWII. Think 1950's redscare and paranoia - a new state founded on communist principles and recognised globally for having been founded on those principles could only prove a counterpoint to anti-communist material being pumped out by the Joseph McCarthys of that time.

Meanwhile, in the 1950's, no-one (no-one much anyway) in the world espousing communality and socialist principle could afford to endorse Israel, because while Israel was founded on communal and social principles it veered away from the mantra "nothing to kill or do for and no religion too" by being a communist and religious state. Both at the same time. In apparent paradox, according to marxist doctrine. While the new Russian plutocracy was busy exiling and incarcerating all it's Christians and Jews (one spirit good, holy spirits bad) it could hardly be seen to support a whole country full of the practicing faithful. But like western capitalists, Soviet opportunists couldn't at that point afford to look like Hitlers either. So mostly, at that point, the USSR just pretended Israel didn't exist and withdrew assistance, having little more to do with the place except to send out spies, in case Trotsky was hiding out nearby in Jordan or something (until things started hotting up in the 60's and everyone who was anyone had some sort of militant spoke in the wheel).

In the end, the commercial world's hawks seized on the ideological division between Zionist communism and the rest of the other communists and sought to chafe sensitivities by providing money. Which Israel took, having none, being a country populated by people with little on their backs other then the rags they survived Europe's camps in and with no money forthcoming from their other non-religious communally inclined brothers and sisters. It's a miserable fact but not even Osama questions where his money comes from. Or Hezbollah. Or Hamas. Nobody does, if money is forthcoming and people are desperate they generally take it. And so the seeds were sewn and the divisions increased and the same old fearmongers intent on wiping out Judaism come out with the same old arguments. And still do. "Jews are rich" (they live off world bank fat). "Jews are gold-diggers" (check their teeth). "Jews steal" (land, homes). And even "Jews torture their own babies" (yes this too, anathema but people still buy it).

Oh what a feat in divisivity. Zion can never be socialism's poster child now, not a hope in hell, the kibbutz will never spread throughout the Mid East and into Europe, oil merchants can relax, Israel is cornered by war and that's all that matters.

UPDATE: I realise this was a contentious post, and I did it on purpose. The truth about Zion is hard for some left land intellectuals to accept. No I don't think war is the answer, yes I do think it's a tragedy what has happened in Israelistan/Palasrael - but let's get one thing straight, Israelis were provoked and they fought back. If socialists want to do some big rah-rah for Palestine by implying that Palestinians were provoked and have the right to fight for their homes then it's imperative to understand that fighting Israelis are doing exactly the same thing as fighting Palestinians for exactly the same reasons (and that Israel as a state actually sprung up to some extent out of socialism). I oppose the idea that some wars are wronger then others - they're all wrong to me, all armies (whether state or "peoples") are all fighting for the same thing and all army recruitment drives use the same propaganda (defend your land, your homes, your people). Someone suggested there might be less war and the world might be a better place if everyone critiqued their respective home lands. But I have no home land to critique. Unlike a Chompsky, who might for example choose to criticise just Israel, or a Faiza who might choose to just criticise Egypt, I am in the unfortunate position of having no real land to call my home or to criticise. This is why I sometimes criticise communists - I have no especial allegiance to soil to make my criticism seem especially powerful but I did grow up with alternative party voting parents. I grew up in a world with comparatively few borders (no Noam, you can't claim responsibility for fewer borders, the blurred borders I grew up with are a direct result of depressed economies, war and subsequent migration). This is why my generation do outrageously conservative and straight forward things like tell a Baathist when he is being a dork. Because he is. And why we also know that Bush is a dimwitted third rate pawn. We are unfortunately almost impossible to brainwash and infuriatingly naive in our simpleminded belief that people could share if they tried hard enough but first stop bossing us around ok - otherwise we will go and chat with the rightwingers.

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