Press Action ::: Palestine and Hegemony

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Palestine and Hegemony

By Jordy Cummings

What is the most important issue in the world right now? The class struggle? The antiwar movement? There is a whole multitude of issues that are blurring into one another, but none so common to the entire megillah than Palestine. It is not that the left has forgotten Palestine, far be that from the case. It is, however, time to move to make the issue far more visible. Even more important than the antiwar movement, the Pro-Palestinian movement needs to adopt a variety of tactics to get its point across and is needed now more than ever, as Sharon’s psychotic behavior is going on every day, as I type this.

Hearing stories of Duke University’s Palestine Solidarity Conference, accompanied by dueling Zionist groups inviting Peace Now types and/or Daniel Pipes, enjoying his per diems while he grinningly calls for censorship, made me melancholy as I recall my days in the bustling carnivalesque atmosphere of Concordia University.

Of course, what I mean is that having a major university host such a conference means that, if all of us make sure of it, Palestine can again be hegemonic among left wing discourse and activism, among various blocs, not the least the bourgeois universities. As Alexander Cockburn points out in the current New Left Review, the Palestine Solidarity Movement is largely a movement of campuses, middle class churches (and synagogues and mosques), union hall basements, mainstream American life. Rachel Corrie could not be more All-American, in the most wonderful, soulful, even Emersonian way.

Activists on the left and in the Pro-Palestine movement are learning more and more to not necessarily adopt all the methods, but the rhetoric of the liberal-reaching-out-to Civil Rights and Anti-Apartheid movements. While some such ultra-radicals may believe that movements must be limited to those who, let us say, acknowledge the criminality of John Kerry and thus do not vote for him, are missing the point. Among the great “liberal” upsurge in America is an upsurge in the “liberalization”—the hegemony of Pro-Palestinian thought, from radical college towns to a large degree of the diplomatic and civil service, from management to labor, even again among at least half of American Jews. Of course, both political parties are indistinguishable on Palestine, with Kerry outhawking Bush on said issue, though most of the “think tanks” and even “liberal hawks” surrounding Kerry would probably push him on this issue.

In a word, whether or not “even Thomas Friedman,” as the cliché goes, succeeds in again criticizing Sharon on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, encouraging America to alter its approach, building the most mainstream support for peace, depends largely on a heterogeneous ability of the left to build coalitions on this issue, with many that they would not normally work with. This is perhaps the key issue on this planet right now, on too many levels to list here, and there is momentum for it growing exponentially. Even George Soros, hedge fund boogie man, has been critical of Sharon—why not attempt to get a few Pro-Palestinian voices into his well-funded think tanks? Would Alterman, Al Franken and Tom Friedman let it happen? As Labor Zionists make up much of the “liberal” intelligentsia in the press, they need to be pushed to remember that Soros himself, their hero, was quoted earlier this year as blaming the upsurge of European Judeophobia on Israel’s ongoing massacres of Palestinians. Soros is far more the respected voice among Bourgeois Jewry than Marty Peretz. Only a cynic would not celebrate such a thing.

As Gideon Levy recently pointed out in Ha’aretz, it is “no longer a big deal” for the IDF to kill Palestinian children. Of course, Palestinians have known this since the Nakhba. But it is now becoming more and more out in the open, and justified by not a few layers of Israelis, and their Neocon supporters in the Zionist lobby in America, the same folks who provoked even Yitzhak Rabin to openly criticize AIPAC who were insufficiently invested in Rabin and the Israeli bourgeoisie’s rational plans for “a New Middle East.” That much of the mainstream peace movement in Israel is the capitalist class is not surprising.

The Israeli bourgeoisie’s dream of peace with Arab Nations, gulf oil money and business deals with Dubai, have been replaced by Pinochet-style austerity, growth in the military industrial complex and the state sector, far less socialist than cronyist, and markets closing, deflation if not stagflation, and outright economic control by rich Americans who happen to be Jewish, hence an Israeli friend of mine, a tech-venture capitalist, says that America is using American Jewish fears of Arabs and Palestinians to destroy Israel’s economy and turn it into what in the future, he sees as just another neoliberal colony. This is not irrational.

As has long been acknowledged, the “human capital” and the tech know-how and diversity of Israeli industry, combined with Palestinian agricultural and cultural ingenuity, oil money and the resources of other Arab nations could be an economic and cultural powerhouse. Nothing, theoretically—whether the overall economy is capitalist, socialist, parecon, what have you—is more of a stronger incentive for a United States of the Middle East, than its variety of potential assets. Thus, it is in the interests of American and to a lesser extent, European capitalism, not to allow peace to break out, as it were.

If the United States, Europe, or the United Nations, were to attempt to impose such a solution, they really would be welcomed with the figurative chocolates and roses that Chalabi promised from Iraqis, from a wide variety of Israelis, including the establishment. Whether or not they do, depends on the growth of such movements and conferences, here in the “belly of the beast” such as took place this past weekend at Duke. What to ask for, what to push, are often thorny issues, but the very visibility and acknowledgement of Palestinian aspirations, based on elementary appeals to morality and reason, accompanied by specific arguments for audiences, need to grow and grow.

Part of this, as noted, is the importance of the campus movements, and more importantly, for Jewish students to have the courage to take a prominent role in these movements. I wish I could say that I did; my radicalization took place more passively, though in my last semester I became quite the gadfly. However, the success of the movement at Concordia depended a great deal on brave Jewish students, willing to put up with the slings and arrows of fortune, as I myself learned in many ways. Most importantly, beyond the realpolitik inoculation against the charge of Judeophobia, Jews feel a very real, very Jewish sense of responsibility for what is committed in their name, and are thus paradoxically the most important base, beyond Palestinians and Arab Americans to recruit spokespeople and activists for these movements. The very presence of Jews who are aware of how to speak to each other, to the community at large, is as important as Christians who push their church for divestment and Muslims who hold fundraisers at their Mosque, not to mention New Agers holding om sessions against the occupation. America is a very religious culture, and “faith-based” Pro Palestinian appeals get to the heart of the matter, no pun intended.

Before Sharon and the IDF provoked the Intifada, before Barak’s intentional balking (a point agreed upon even by pro-Israel Dennis Ross,) there was a building microcosm of Palestine becoming the central issue among not just “The left” but among everyday college kids. In turn, most Jews, like myself—and even the Oslo types who controlled Zionist organizations at the time—either naturally absorbed the left-anti-imperialist argument or at the very least, in the case of the true-blue Zionists (not me) were at pains to distance themselves from previous Israeli crimes, reading Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim, even discovering Edward Said. A few years of Intifada have increased the larger Pro-Palestine movement in Europe and North America, but many Jews have abandoned their positions, or at least feel uncomfortable and confused with them. However, currents are starting to flow back in the opposite direction.

I publish a weblog, Pure Polemics, and my infamy among the Canadian Jewish community has won me readers across the political spectrum. A few years back, I received nothing but hate mail, at best I was told I was misguided. More and more people, even not a few people who one year ago were crazy about Bush, Sharon and the Neocons, have recently told me that “I was right all along.” Now when I write about Palestine, feature articles about Palestine on my website, the only quibbles I get from my Jewish readers are very minor ones, such as in they agree with where I am coming from, but my language is a little harsh. Perhaps my harsh language was what attracted them in the first place, but they cannot yet acknowledge that. When I do receive outright criticism and threats from other Jews, it is now an exception, not a rule.

So Jews are suddenly turning around on the issue, readers may say, “what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that the base of support for the spooks and traitors, Imperialists and criminals of the AIPAC-Likud-Neocon nexus is being eroded to a point where it is well-neigh mainstream to joke about AIPAC’s highfalutin language, and for those from other Jewish groups to distance themselves from AIPAC. Things could certainly take a turn for the worse, if one of the bonesmen decides that it is worth it to attack Iran, for political and military-Keynesian reasons. However, this truly does not seem likely, given the intensity of diplomacy particularly by Russians, and the closeness between Putin, who has endorsed George Bush, and Iran.

This besides the fact that as no one better than Robert Dreyfuss has repeatedly pointed out, there are deep connections, at the very least, between Israeli and Iranian industry. Many argue that Iran and Israel have a tacit agreement to criticize each other in public, for American and domestic audiences, while cooperating against Arab nations. Even if such an attack were to take place, furthermore, there would probably be a State Department Putsch if there wasn’t an immediate Palestine-Israel settlement imposed.

What is needed is for pressure to be laid on all sources, in all areas, to again make Palestine the hegemonic discourse. It has the benefit of not only being in the name of justice, reason and morality, but also national—and international—security. Can a disconnected multitude of principled public (CIA, Foggy Bottom) servants, people of faith, liberal and left activists and Israeli academics and tech capitalists save the world? The answer is yes. We only need to start working toward that goal.

Jordy Cummings, editor of Pure Polemics, lives in Toronto and can be reached at yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca.

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