Re: <nettime> Statement by Miriam Margolyes on Israels conduct of the war in Gaza

[Joseph Rabie via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Dear Allen,

A long, long time ago, when I was younger and less foolish than I am now, I stood outside Menahem Begin's Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, and as loudly as I could, I voiced my opinion on him and his politics. It was late at night and I was probably stoned. The police guarding the place just glared at me. Those were different times.

So surprise, Allen, I actually do know who Menahem Begin was, and what he represented (Trick question: Who signed a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel?), and I certainly do not need you Leftsplaining me that “Perhaps some historical research might be worth your time and improve your understanding of the current conflict.”

If you look through the Nettime archives at my previous posts, you will see that I have always taken an uncompromising position insofar as the acts of the Israeli government are concerned. Simply, unlike you, I consider that the Palestinians are equally responsible for the current situation. And that it is patronising to treat them as helpless victims. But then, (stupid me), how do I not see that the malevolent, colonialist, fascist (almost forgot that one) Zionist entity is at the root of all the shit that's gone down? I have even heard claims that Jesus was Palestinian, that it was the Zionists who nailed him to the cross.

What I find so tiresome with Keith's, and your, and other peoples’ positions, is that you see things in such simplistic, Manichean terms. One has the impression that your branch of the left lacks the intellectual acuity required to engage with complex issues.

Indeed, it reminds of the sheep in Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Joe.



> Le 11 avr. 2024 à 18:43, allan siegel via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> a écrit :
> 
> Hello Joseph,
> Perhaps you should recall that Begin was a leader in the Irgun - a lifelong dedicated Zionist - and later a Prime Minister of Israel. To suggest that because there is no specifically Zionist party is disingenuous especially when the most fascistic aspects of Zionist ideology are guiding the objectives of the war in Gaza. 
> Furthermore, what precisely does co-existence mean when the leaders of Israel deny the existence of Palestinians as a viable political entity? Amply reinforced by Israel’s enablers in Washington & the UK.
> 
> Did the allies look for co-existence with Hitler or Mussolini?
> 
> Perhaps some historical research might be worth your time and improve your understanding of the current conflict.
> 
> Allan
> 
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2024, at 17:57, Joseph Rabie via nettime-l wrote:
>> Herut (the Hebrew name) was the successor of the Irgun terrorist movement that was responsible for the massacre at Deir Yassin.
>> 
>> As an independent political party, it never governed Israel.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Le 11 avr. 2024 à 17:26, Keith Sanborn via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> a écrit :
>>> 
>>> Apparently you choose to ignore the letter Einstein and Arendt wrote to the New York Times comparing the tactics of the Liberty party to those of the Fascists. 
>>> 
>>>> On Apr 11, 2024, at 11:20 AM, Joseph Rabie via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Letter from Albert Einstein to Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, June 13, 1947 :
>>>> 
>>>> "Long before the emergence of Hitler I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong....The Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimized and hounded as a people, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has...Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination. Through the return to the land to which they were bound by close historic ties...Jews sought to abolish their pariah status among peoples... The advent of Hitler underscored with a savage logic all the disastrous implications contained in the abnormal situation in which Jews found themselves. Millions of Jews perished... because there was no spot on the globe where they could find sanctuary...The Jewish survivors demand the right to dwell amid brothers, on the ancient soil of their fathers.” — Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, June 13, 1947
>>>> 
>>>> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein#:~:text=Einstein was a prominent supporter,Jews the sense of community. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein#:~:text=Einstein%20was%20a%20prominent%20supporter,Jews%20the%20sense%20of%20community.>)
>>>> 
>>>> -
>>>> 
>>>> “(...) The attempts to use Arendt—uses that are always highly selective—to support contemporary positions vis-à-vis Israel almost always get her wrong. And yet to parse her views on Zionism is important. Most of the things she cared (and worried) about—nationalism, sovereignty, resistance, collaboration, freedom, justice, judgment—are entwined with her writings on Zionism, the Shoah, and Israel.
>>>> 
>>>> "Arendt wrestled with Zionism, and then with Israel, for over three decades: with force and passion, respect and scorn. She wrote hundreds of thousands of words, scores of articles and essays, and, most famously, the book Eichmann in Jerusalem. She derided Jewish political sovereignty yet argued fervently for a Jewish army and Jewish self-defense, the Jewish right to Palestine, and the creation of a specifically Jewish politics and a specifically Jewish world. (“A people can be a minority somewhere only if they are a majority elsewhere,” she observed.) Arendt was a scathing opponent of assimilation and an ardent admirer of Zionist accomplishments—economic, political, intellectual, and social—in Palestine and, later, in Israel, though she also expressed disgust at actually-existing Zionism. She opposed the partition of Palestine and became a critic of Israel after the state was founded, though she unambiguously supported Israel in the 1967 and 1973 wars. In short, her attitudes toward Zionism oscillated: not only between months or years or decades, but within them. These attitudes cannot be whittled down to “pro” or “anti,” despite the efforts of reductionists to do so. (...)”
>>>> 
>>>> (Susie Linfield, https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/07/13/hannah-arendt-on-zionism/)
>>>> 
>>>> -
>>>> 
>>>> So Keith, kindly refrain from instrumentalising major Jewish figures by attempting to shoehorn them into your antisemitic worldview.
>>>> 
>>>> Which does not mean that Israel has not gone sorely astray. But only useful critique, in the name of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, is of any worth.
>>>> 
>>>> Joe.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Le 10 avr. 2024 à 20:07, Keith Sanborn via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> a écrit :
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is a beautiful sentiment, but…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ask Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein, this is not a shift in values, but the triumph of some of the worst values at the earliest formation of the Israeli nation state. Of course, there are other values of righteous compassion at the core, but like the US, there is a history of genocide and indifference to the indigenous and the other.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>> 
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