Re: <nettime> silence on Palestine?

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Thanks Andrew, for launching this thread, and also to Dan for saying so
many true things.

First, I believe that when people are dispossessed, held in an open-air
prison and murdered arbitrarily, that adds up to profound injustice and
leads to deep hatred.  It is a condition that I do not know intimately, yet
it has been sustained militarily by the United States throughout my life.
To that extent, I am involved as a citizen in a situation where I think my
country is fundamentally wrong. I consistently disapprove and protest both
this specific injustice, and the broad imperial strategy that underlies it.
And I have said this publicly, including on nettime, for decades.

So what, I can add, echoing Dan again.

But talking about it does matter. In the New York Times today, a
commentator says that this war is yet another sign that we have left the
postwar US-led hegemony behind and entered a multipolar world (1). This can
be verified in many ways. To me it has been clear since the moment that
China expressed its qualified support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In this situation of hegemonic breakdown or transition, no conflict is
simply regional. Each of the countries in which we live will do its part to
influence the outcome of those conflicts, and thereby help shape a new
pattern of international relations. In the meantime, chaos will reign,
under the continual threat of wider war. In the situation of chaos it is
important, not only to state one's own beliefs, but to actually listen to
others. The debates within civil society, and the formation of public
opinion, do exert some influence over the behavior of states. If
left/progressive voices are not heard, well, that's our fault, we need to
be more convincing.

Many commentators have pointed to the not-yet-signed treaty between Israel
and Saudi Arabia as the reason for the Hamas attack. This treaty would have
represented a major advance for the US version of global security. It would
have forged an alliance between two US client states: the world's major oil
supplier and the major military power of the Middle East. Obviously, Saudi
Arabia is an extremely conservative state, opposed to any grassroots
movement or challenge to existing governments in the region. For Hamas, the
argument goes - and for Iran, as some add - the Israel-Saudi alliance would
represent an existential threat. Some additionally claim that the Saudis
would have supported the Palestinian Authority over Hamas, placing the
entire region on a pathway toward peace. I am unable to evaluate the claim.
Of course it is meaningless under present conditions, which have already
plunged into horrifying violence. However, it may again become important in
the future.

A multipolar world is not yet a world order. Its first phase could be world
war, or a multiplication of proxy wars, by which I mean regional conflicts
overdetermined by the strategic aims of larger powers. There are now two
proxy wars going on, as well as a vast reorganization of global alliance
systems driven by Chinese ambition and relative US decline.  I do not see
this as a situation where I can "support the Chinese" or "stand with Hamas"
or say "death to imperialism." No, those kinds of statements are idiotic.
We do not need the language of the 1960s in the face of today's reality.

I think that the Euro-American attempts to maintain the terms of the
post-WWII world order, and of its neoliberal reboot, are now doomed to
fail. The kinds of injustice exemplified by the inhumane conditions of Gaza
are too widespread. They do not primarily involve outright repression and
the reduction of entire populations to the status of prisoners. They do
primarily involve the maintenance of highly unequal economic exchanges
under the continual threat of coercion (which could be military action,
sanctions, financial disruptions, etc). The only way for the Western
countries to exert a positive influence is to replace an imperial strategy
aimed at securing Western advantage with strategies aiming at the provision
of global collective goods in the face of onrushing climate change. In the
absence of any such change in grand strategy, world war is increasingly
likely.

There is no reason to believe that a simple breakdown of the Euro-American
hegemony is positive in and of itself. But the world has embarked on a
bloody political transformation, under the shadow of catastrophic
earth-system changes. What individual states do, actually matters. We
currently have no language to speak about the chaotic conditions of an
emergent multipolar world. But it's urgent to develop that language - and
to do it with open ears and an open heart.

best to all, Brian

(1).  David Leonhardt, "The Global Context of the Hamas-Israel War." New
York Times, Oct. 9,
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/briefing/hamas-israel-war.html.

On Mon, Oct 9, 2023 at 12:47 PM Dan S Wang via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Dear Nettime,
>
> I am not at all surprised by the lack of commentary regarding this latest
> paroxysm of violence. And I do not read it as "silence" in a
> self-censorship sense. Given the political tendencies of list members
> combined with people's baseline intellectual sophistication, I don't
> perceive a lack of commentary as a repressive effect of pro-Israeli
> intimidation, fears of being tarred as anti-Semitic and similar
> speciousness. This is indeed the dynamic in other spheres--political,
> commercial media, etc. But not so much here in our peculiar online niche.
>
> Rather, and I put myself as an example, many leftists simply are without
> much new to say. The Hamas offensive was only surprising in its level of
> organization, not in the attack itself. For anybody who's paid attention,
> we knew that Israeli forces had exacted quite a price in lives over the
> last eight or ten months, including the egregious killings of totally
> innocent children and young people, over and above the everyday collective
> punitive treatment Palestinians suffer. The ground level provocations have
> been building over this year, with boiling points exceeded at the Al-Aqsa
> Mosque at least a couple of times. The Israeli aggression seemed to rise in
> parallel with the controversies regarding the Israeli judiciary, a
> conservative religious power grab that if carried through, from the
> Palestinian point of view, portends turbocharged legalized ethnic cleansing
> and dispossession.
>
> So when Netanyahu "declared war," my first thought was, what does that
> make the attacks of the last half year, "special military operations"???
>
> No, not much to say because it's all playing out according to a narrative
> that remains in broad strokes familiar even a full generation after the
> first Intifada. Whatever retaliation Israel takes, it will be ruthless,
> everybody knew this. Grim-faced Netanyau warning Palestinians confined in
> Gaza to "leave now," as if that were in any way possible, sounds to me like
> a preemptive blaming of the victim for their own soon-to-be massacre. But
> A) Hamas isn't totally suicidal; abducting dozens of Israelis to be used as
> bargaining chips speaks to their desperate belief in a future, almost a
> resignation to their own persistence, since B) as the Israelis know better
> than most anyone, stamping out an entire people is damn near impossible in
> any event.
>
> Finally, I might as well share my knee-jerk response to the question "Why
> the silence?" Which is a variation on the phrasing I consider all-too
> familiar: "Why are we not talking about [fill in blank with your choice of
> urgent issue]??" I see this kind of objection to a presumed complacency a
> lot these days, and each time and in regards to whatever issue is being
> raised, there is in the asking of the question a whiff of shaming. The
> question is asked as if "talking about" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
> helps to solve it. But we know this is not true--I stand by my arguments
> and condemnations of disproportionate Israeli violence and land theft that
> I've made over the years publicly, semi-publicly, and in private, but
> nothing has changed. Not even the opinions of the people I've addressed. So
> what good is the talking for?? In the resorting to the question "Why the
> silence?" there is an ultimate and maybe only definite presumed effect:
> that those of us raising the issues and taking the right sides (with--as is
> mandatory in my lefty circles--a sensitivity to the legitimate grievances
> of ALL sides) *purify* ourselves. So there is a kernel of understood
> (neo?)liberal values at the heart of the question: that our own personal
> displays of virtue are the solution to the problem.
>
> The BDS movement sought to turn this talk into action, into a material
> consequence for Israel. And we've seen how moves to enact BDS in any
> de-personalized and/or institutional way, even on the smallest, almost
> merely symbolic level, have been repressed. But, sure, let's keep
> talking....
>
> So with this response, I've broken my own silence. To which I will now
> return--not out of a discomfort regarding the topic (clearly), but rather
> because I believe "noble silence" is the less disingenuous path when public
> discourse has been so thoroughly degraded of its formerly meaningful role
> in decisions of state, that we are left with only the neoliberal vulgate.
>
> All that said, the geopolitical implications are where I have questions.
> The Saudi/Iran fault line seems like a key dynamic here, with Palestinians
> and their legit resistance being used by neighboring powers yet again.
> Despite the timing of the Hamas incursions to launch near the 50th
> anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, the regional balance of power is quite
> different from the post-Soviet era, to say nothing of the pre-Arab Spring
> era, and now, in shadows cast by the Ukraine War. I'm sure the Iranian
> regime is asking itself whether a hot war would help Iran's ruling regime
> consolidate its authority over its restive young people, and at what cost.
> These are the kinds of wider possibilities that I *do* believe are worth
> discussing, mainly because pooling info and perspectives would help (me, at
> least) think through the reverberations of the current conflict--not
> because I'd expect the conversation to affect anything.
>
> Signing off with hope (believe it or not),
>
> Dan W.
>
> Late Postscript: Kudos to all who contributed to the smooth re-boot of
> Nettime. Been here since the late 90s, still ready to add something when
> pricked just so.
>
>
> --
>
> Resident Artist, 18th Street Arts Center
> @type_rounds_1968
> @nowtime_asianamerica
> danswang.xyz
>
>
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Sunday, October 8th, 2023 at 10:35 AM, Andrew Ross via nettime-l <
> nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
>
>
> > At this moment, as on many past occasions, I have been struck by the
> > silence, on this list, about the topic of Palestine. I expect there are
> > quite a few nettimers who fit the profile of "progressive except on
> > Palestine," but there are surely many others who do not observe that
> > exception and who are otherwise outspoken on the topic. So why the
> silence?
> > I ask, not to provoke, but because, at the very least, it is a question
> > about the behavior of online communities--a topic about which
> > nettimers have often been very eloquent.
> >
> > Andrew Ross
> >
> > https://andrewtross.com
> > --
> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> >
> > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> >
> > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> > # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: ProtonMail
>
> wsBzBAEBCAAnBYJlJDxmCZDHV00RC45L9BYhBPBs+IKoA58P0NiiBsdXTREL
> jkv0AAADKQf9FB/1Ug/FUVDRNhVLNq3nWxLECT/Svheo0pikn8H24dLnA1tc
> jyKu/7oiey7rESyg40R19fA8bE3Udxs/mDR4RSTP5dl96sfmrr1vh23+Gw3T
> cTQI4q8/GL3ckNM/l4g792lQMhDz+GxI7bkPDaIeqX7QBdaw8W66YEPG9NRJ
> A1h3fETEVkKu8MinjtJll0EL4Ss2sxRL6QnlHhBVv64p9frb+tjq7dnRKCkc
> 3q7ulY3Hw2TCk5CgQVEEjkGQfiOaWNRRjmKpzN1ixvoqEU+eH+FQSC7TCAfz
> rL6+my6btnBReDKeEKJ6fnQgrwF+PHIfSSVtVrkNU9j6tNWh1a/K3g==
> =9Iz6
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> --
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
-- 
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org