There has been a kafuffle around this recently, prompted by the creation in Britain of an organisation, Independent Jewish Voices, by Jews who feel that their views - especially their criticisms of Israel - are not represented by mainstream Jewish leaders. Some dissenting Jews claim that Israel-critical Jews are actively silenced by powers-that-be. These latter claims elicit derision from Israel defenders who note the apparent freedom with which critics of Israel voice their opinions throughout the democratic West in left-leaning publications and internet sites and at public demonstrations.
So what is the truth of the matter?
Let us see what we can say with confidence:
1) Mainstream Jewish organisations are indeed uncritically pro-Israel. Given their weight, they are likely to convey to non-Jewish outsiders the impression that extreme pro-Israel views are shared by virtually all Jews. Dissenting Jews are thus right to look for new ways to make their voices audible to a wider public.
2) Mainstream Jewish organisations, and indeed many ordinary Jews, are extremely sensitive to criticism of Israel and quick to label such criticism anti-Semitic. Pro-Israel Jews are entitled to negative views about Jews who criticise Israel, but Israel-critical Jews are right to condemn the formers' easy resort to the anti-Semitism card. The profligate firing of the anti-Semitism accusation against critics of all types is, as a debating style, illiberal, intimidating and debate-foreclosing.
3) It is difficult to find a platform for serious criticism of Israel in mainstream media outlets, though much more difficult in the United States than, say, in Britain. The mass media, including newspapers, television and the film industry, especially those located in the US, almost invariably fail to convey the Arab viewpoint in an historically informed or informative way. They are painfully careful in the way they criticise Israel. Israel only gets a 'bad press' when engaged in some sensational, reporter-observed act of violence. The state's claims to being a legitimately established, modern and democratic state are almost never questioned; notions that it is colonialist, apartheid-like or premised on ethnic cleansing almost never given a hearing. The criticism of Israel decried by Zionist media-watchers rarely goes beyond advising the Jewish state to be a bit more flexible, sensitive and far-sighted in dealing with its Arab adversary. Mainstream media critiques of Arab behaviour are more fulsome, unapologetic, more fully incorporated into routine language, and more likely to take a campaigning form.
4) There is a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the one Western country that matters most in influencing Middle Eastern events, namely the US. This lobby consists mainly of Orthodox Jews and rightwing Christians. Its views about Israel are well to the right of the majority of Jews in the US, and it has become increasingly openly aligned with Israel's militaristic right. This lobby, thanks to its financial clout, media influence and supposed (but overestimated) ability to influence Jewish voters, is able to intimidate American politicians into refraining from even the gentlest criticism of Israel. Only 'elder statesman' like Brent Snowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Baker dare suggest that the US has a strategic interest in pressuring Israel to deal fairly with with the Palestinians.
5) Some straight muzzling of Israel's critics goes on too, once again especially in the US. This mainly takes the form of venues being denied, whether for talks or plays. Some intimidation goes on too - students being encouraged to report on Israel-critical lecturers, and the prosecution or refusal of visas to (Muslim) critics of Israel on tenuous grounds. Occasionally critics of Israel are subject to physical intimidation (I have experienced it personally in South Africa).
Still, I want to say this: in the democratic West speaking out against Israel is allowed and generally tolerated, and OTT claims about muzzling are no excuse for silence. We critics of Israel have much pro-Israel bias to contend with, and we Jewish critics of Israel need courage to face down community ostracism. But speak out we can, and must. There are Jews who, in the best spirit of Jewish universalism, care about the endless frustration and humiliation visited on Palestinians. Let the world know.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
My Stall
To begin, then.
An on and off journal writer since childhood, a university-based academic passionate about world affairs, a democratic socialist who enjoys a platform, I have decided, at last, to join the blogtide and share my thoughts with whoever out there cares to listen (or read).
Most of what I think and write about politically these days gells under the following headings:
(1) Real Liberal Internationism
I call myself a real liberal internationalist to distinguish my position sharply from that of the neocons who have recently appropriated the liberal internationalist mantle as well as from the anti-imperialist left. I believe that external military intervention in the affairs of sovereign states in order to prevent human rights violations is sometimes justified, but only provided that certain yardsticks are satisfied and constraints respected. War being bad in itself, its weapons must be used sparingly. Military intervention in internal state conflicts should be contemplated only in cases of moral ememergency (such as ongoing or imminent massacres) and only for the purpose of protecting people (e.g. through safe havens), not regime change. It should be conducted as far as possible within a multilateral, law-governed framework. By contrast the neocons advocate the unilateral use of American power to transform regimes into prowestern capitalist democracies; and the anti-imperialist left opposes all uses of Western power for interventionist purposes, even in cases of moral emergency and even where it operates in a multilateral context.
The Iraq invasion, premised on deceit, the arrogant dismissal of multilateral institutions, a dangerous new doctrine of long-term preemption and double standards in dealing with the Middle East, and seeking to impose from without a pro-Western, pro-Israeli, market-fundamentalist regime, is exactly the sort of intervention real liberal internationalists oppose.
(2) Via Jerusalem
I identify deeply with the cause of the Palestinians, who are victims, in my view, of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. As a South African who has witnessed and opposed his country's pre-1994 racial order, I am wholly in agreement with Jimmy Carter concerning the resemblance between Israel and apartheid (see my own "Apartheid and Zionism: A Moral Comparison" in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol 26, no 3, 2003). I also subscribe to a version of the linkage theory, so hated by the neocons, according to which a just peace in Israel-Palestine will help to unlock doors to all sorts of good things in the Middle East, including home-grown democratisation, the isolation of terrorists and religious extremists, and secularisation, in the sense of separation of mosque and state. I hold this view notwithstanding my Jewish background. (I am a Jew of the Atheist denomination.)
(3) For a War on the Causes of Terror.
I oppose on principle all acts of violence that target civilians; such violence is properly termed terrorist. Even in just wars, humane rules must be observed, paradoxical as that may seem. On this account al Qaeda is terrorist, along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I nevertheless consider the WOT misconceived for its insistence on a purely military response to terrorism and its failure to address, simultaneously and with urgency, the political root causes of terror. I reject the thesis that to explain terrorism is (necessarily) to justify it; agree with those who argue that explanation is a prerequisite to rational action against terror. Some terrorists have grievances that can never be addressed, because they are unreasonable. But some of the grievances upon which terrorists feed are well founded. The refusal to address them, the insistence instead on an exclusively military riposte, is not only unjust in itself but (in the case of the fight against Islamist terror) an invitation to a wholly avoidable generation-long 'clash of civilisations'.
Who are these people, I find myself asking, who would now gear up for decades of bitter hatred and conflict rather than address the legitimate demands of Palestinians, Chechnians, Kasmiris?
(4) Down with the European Central Bank
Having lost the idea of a society beyond capitalism, I nevertheless remain an ethical egalitarian who wishes to see the market subject to democratic regulation and harnessed to social purposes - including the purpose of creating a more equal society, one in which citizens enjoy a rough equality of material means to pursue their diverse, self-determined ends. Some kind of left-inflected social democracy strikes me as the most 'realistic' vehicle for realising these values.
While European social democracy falls short of being that, I rush to its defence against those who want to ditch it for American-style capitalism. A case for the defence must explain the relative stagnation of Europe recently, and here I take the view that Europe has been suffering not from too much socialism but from a quarter-century-long deflationary regime imposed first by national central bankers, and now, of course, by the European Central Bank. European states have also been too restricted in their capacity to engage in deficit spending, while talk of rolling back the welfare state has aggravated economic insecurity. The result is dampened domestic consumption, slow growth and high unemployment, with such economic growth as there is dependent on exports. I considered starting a website dedicated exclusively to the ECB's replacement by a democratic monetary regime. That, of course, would require a more democratic European Union generally than the one currently in place.
(5) South Africa: Beyond the ANC?
South Africa post-1994 is, constitutionally speaking, an admirably progressive liberal democracy - press freedom is guaranteed, you need only 0.25% of the national vote to get into parliament and the Bill of Rights entrenches economic and gay rights. So far the ruling ANC has respected the constitution, but it has become increasingly problematic as a custodian of democratic and progressive values. Reflecting its Leninist and radical-nationalist past, the ANC's conception of democratic inclusivity essentially involves gathering everybody together in a big ANC-dominated tent (even Zulu tribalists and former Nats are welcome), but its leaders hate adversarial opposition. Against it, whether it issues from the conservative-liberal right or trade-union or Communist Left our President, Thabo Mbeki, employs the 'race card' - ie he dismisses his opponents as racists (as either white racists or their as their useful black idiots). The ANC has instituted some genuinely pro-poor welfare measures, but a neo-liberal monetary, fiscal and trade trade regime in the later 1990s hammered many working and poor people, whose experience of democracy thus far has been dominated by stagnating wages and unemployment. Only now, belatedly, is the government making a serious push for growth and public investment. Meanwhile a new black elite has risen to the top, joining white capital in the conspicuous display of obsecene wealth and going beyond it in its contempt for the black poor. Amongst the social pasthologies that thrive in this environment is one of the world's highest crime rates, aggravated by the shocking example of our increasingly venal governing class. Mbeki's AIDS denialism is of course an international scandal. So is, or should be, his cosying up with Mugabe's lunatic regime in Zimbabwe and, more recently, with the Burmese Junta.
So what am I saying? I'm saying that South Africa's rulers need to be subject to principled left-social democratic scrutiny. And I'm saying we need to work towards the creation of a left social democratic (or democratic-socialist) alternative to the ANC. The alternatives currently on offer are unattractive: within the ruling alliance, Zuma's opportunistic coalition of Zulu tribalists and unreconstructed Stalinists, outside it an array that includes assorted post-ideological one-person shows, Zulu tribalists (again), Thatcherite liberals and anachronistic leftists. There are some good people though, principled democratic socialists of various degrees of radicalism, to be found in the ruling alliance and in civil society. So there are germs of hope.
***
So these are the five main issues I want to explore. There's much more to be said in respect of all of them, of course. But this will do as an introduction.
An on and off journal writer since childhood, a university-based academic passionate about world affairs, a democratic socialist who enjoys a platform, I have decided, at last, to join the blogtide and share my thoughts with whoever out there cares to listen (or read).
Most of what I think and write about politically these days gells under the following headings:
(1) Real Liberal Internationism
I call myself a real liberal internationalist to distinguish my position sharply from that of the neocons who have recently appropriated the liberal internationalist mantle as well as from the anti-imperialist left. I believe that external military intervention in the affairs of sovereign states in order to prevent human rights violations is sometimes justified, but only provided that certain yardsticks are satisfied and constraints respected. War being bad in itself, its weapons must be used sparingly. Military intervention in internal state conflicts should be contemplated only in cases of moral ememergency (such as ongoing or imminent massacres) and only for the purpose of protecting people (e.g. through safe havens), not regime change. It should be conducted as far as possible within a multilateral, law-governed framework. By contrast the neocons advocate the unilateral use of American power to transform regimes into prowestern capitalist democracies; and the anti-imperialist left opposes all uses of Western power for interventionist purposes, even in cases of moral emergency and even where it operates in a multilateral context.
The Iraq invasion, premised on deceit, the arrogant dismissal of multilateral institutions, a dangerous new doctrine of long-term preemption and double standards in dealing with the Middle East, and seeking to impose from without a pro-Western, pro-Israeli, market-fundamentalist regime, is exactly the sort of intervention real liberal internationalists oppose.
(2) Via Jerusalem
I identify deeply with the cause of the Palestinians, who are victims, in my view, of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. As a South African who has witnessed and opposed his country's pre-1994 racial order, I am wholly in agreement with Jimmy Carter concerning the resemblance between Israel and apartheid (see my own "Apartheid and Zionism: A Moral Comparison" in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol 26, no 3, 2003). I also subscribe to a version of the linkage theory, so hated by the neocons, according to which a just peace in Israel-Palestine will help to unlock doors to all sorts of good things in the Middle East, including home-grown democratisation, the isolation of terrorists and religious extremists, and secularisation, in the sense of separation of mosque and state. I hold this view notwithstanding my Jewish background. (I am a Jew of the Atheist denomination.)
(3) For a War on the Causes of Terror.
I oppose on principle all acts of violence that target civilians; such violence is properly termed terrorist. Even in just wars, humane rules must be observed, paradoxical as that may seem. On this account al Qaeda is terrorist, along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. I nevertheless consider the WOT misconceived for its insistence on a purely military response to terrorism and its failure to address, simultaneously and with urgency, the political root causes of terror. I reject the thesis that to explain terrorism is (necessarily) to justify it; agree with those who argue that explanation is a prerequisite to rational action against terror. Some terrorists have grievances that can never be addressed, because they are unreasonable. But some of the grievances upon which terrorists feed are well founded. The refusal to address them, the insistence instead on an exclusively military riposte, is not only unjust in itself but (in the case of the fight against Islamist terror) an invitation to a wholly avoidable generation-long 'clash of civilisations'.
Who are these people, I find myself asking, who would now gear up for decades of bitter hatred and conflict rather than address the legitimate demands of Palestinians, Chechnians, Kasmiris?
(4) Down with the European Central Bank
Having lost the idea of a society beyond capitalism, I nevertheless remain an ethical egalitarian who wishes to see the market subject to democratic regulation and harnessed to social purposes - including the purpose of creating a more equal society, one in which citizens enjoy a rough equality of material means to pursue their diverse, self-determined ends. Some kind of left-inflected social democracy strikes me as the most 'realistic' vehicle for realising these values.
While European social democracy falls short of being that, I rush to its defence against those who want to ditch it for American-style capitalism. A case for the defence must explain the relative stagnation of Europe recently, and here I take the view that Europe has been suffering not from too much socialism but from a quarter-century-long deflationary regime imposed first by national central bankers, and now, of course, by the European Central Bank. European states have also been too restricted in their capacity to engage in deficit spending, while talk of rolling back the welfare state has aggravated economic insecurity. The result is dampened domestic consumption, slow growth and high unemployment, with such economic growth as there is dependent on exports. I considered starting a website dedicated exclusively to the ECB's replacement by a democratic monetary regime. That, of course, would require a more democratic European Union generally than the one currently in place.
(5) South Africa: Beyond the ANC?
South Africa post-1994 is, constitutionally speaking, an admirably progressive liberal democracy - press freedom is guaranteed, you need only 0.25% of the national vote to get into parliament and the Bill of Rights entrenches economic and gay rights. So far the ruling ANC has respected the constitution, but it has become increasingly problematic as a custodian of democratic and progressive values. Reflecting its Leninist and radical-nationalist past, the ANC's conception of democratic inclusivity essentially involves gathering everybody together in a big ANC-dominated tent (even Zulu tribalists and former Nats are welcome), but its leaders hate adversarial opposition. Against it, whether it issues from the conservative-liberal right or trade-union or Communist Left our President, Thabo Mbeki, employs the 'race card' - ie he dismisses his opponents as racists (as either white racists or their as their useful black idiots). The ANC has instituted some genuinely pro-poor welfare measures, but a neo-liberal monetary, fiscal and trade trade regime in the later 1990s hammered many working and poor people, whose experience of democracy thus far has been dominated by stagnating wages and unemployment. Only now, belatedly, is the government making a serious push for growth and public investment. Meanwhile a new black elite has risen to the top, joining white capital in the conspicuous display of obsecene wealth and going beyond it in its contempt for the black poor. Amongst the social pasthologies that thrive in this environment is one of the world's highest crime rates, aggravated by the shocking example of our increasingly venal governing class. Mbeki's AIDS denialism is of course an international scandal. So is, or should be, his cosying up with Mugabe's lunatic regime in Zimbabwe and, more recently, with the Burmese Junta.
So what am I saying? I'm saying that South Africa's rulers need to be subject to principled left-social democratic scrutiny. And I'm saying we need to work towards the creation of a left social democratic (or democratic-socialist) alternative to the ANC. The alternatives currently on offer are unattractive: within the ruling alliance, Zuma's opportunistic coalition of Zulu tribalists and unreconstructed Stalinists, outside it an array that includes assorted post-ideological one-person shows, Zulu tribalists (again), Thatcherite liberals and anachronistic leftists. There are some good people though, principled democratic socialists of various degrees of radicalism, to be found in the ruling alliance and in civil society. So there are germs of hope.
***
So these are the five main issues I want to explore. There's much more to be said in respect of all of them, of course. But this will do as an introduction.
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