Rivero links to racism (?) at Palestinian-Intifada.com

Rivero linked to an article at intifada-palestine.com written by Khalid Amayreh.

An Epitome of the Israeli Jewish Society

The article starts with the despicable photos taken by the female Israeli military/prison warder, and moves to suggest it epitomises "Israeli Jewish Society".

Here's a definition of epitome:

a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class.

Here's the author, asserting that the vileness of those photos epitomises the entire jewish/israel society:

Well, I don’t know if the Gestapo behaved similarly with Jewish detainees in the course of the Second World War. What is sufficiently clear to me though is that this woman’s sick behavior, especially her invocation of Zionism as a justification for her brutal sadism, is by no means an isolated case in a society suffering from a deep collective psychosis.

This is why it is safe to assume that this type of behavior represents the modus operandi in the Israeli occupation army as well as throughout the Israeli Jewish society as a whole.

It is a society that has come to view the Palestinians as “objects for abuse” rather than “human beings.” This is what makes Israeli soldiers so callously and so nonchalantly and haphazardly murder innocent Palestinians in the streets, in schools, and playgrounds in Gaza.
SOURCE

Emphasis added.

Der Sturmer? Crikey. Of course Israelis are killing innocent children at playgrounds all the time.....aren't they? It's a matter of policy, isn't it? Sure. And who is actually being dehumanised in those paragraphs? The picture is of Israelis as some zombified military menace - Zio-drones? So who is being dehumanised here? And isn't this racism - at least anti-semitism? The writer specifically says An Epitome of Israeli-Jewish society.

Here's their own list of contributors:

Prominent Contributors:

Alan Hart
Alan Sabrosky
Anthony Lawson
Aijaz Zaka Syed
Debbie Menon
Frank Lamb
Hesham Tillawi
Jeff Gates
James Petras
Maidhc O Cathail
Paul Balles
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Tim King
Joe Mowrey
William A. Cook
Antoine Raffoul
Stuart Littlewood
Khalid Amayreh
Dr. Elias Akleh
Bishop Donald R. Corder
Dr. Lawrence Davidson


Also Featured Writers:

Allison Weir
Ali Abunimah
Ayman T. Qadar
Elias Akleh
Grant Smith
Richard Falk
Tammy Obeidallah
Jeffrey Blankfort
Juan Cole
Jonathan Cook
Justin Ramiando
John Trafficant
Mary Rizzo
Mohmed Khodr
Omar Barghouti
Philip Giraldi
Ramzy Baroud
Raymond Deane
Stuart Littlewood
Terry Arnold
Dr. Bouthaina Shabaan
Glenn Greenwald

If one takes a look here, it can be seen they are still using images known to be of highly questionable authenticity:


That image comes from a series (from Qana) and they are discussed here::

2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

This is where the Reuters scandal started: with bloggers noticing that some of the images showing the aftermath of the July 30 air raid on Qana looked fishy. There are by now dozens of different photographs from that day whose authenticity has been seriously questioned, so all I can present here is a small representative sample.

Marx and Rights

"In responding to Bauer, Marx makes one of the most enduring arguments from his early writings, by means of introducing a distinction between political emancipation — essentially the grant of liberal rights and liberties — and human emancipation. Marx's reply to Bauer is that political emancipation is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of religion, as the contemporary example of the United States demonstrates. However, pushing matters deeper, in an argument reinvented by innumerable critics of liberalism, Marx argues that not only is political emancipation insufficient to bring about human emancipation, it is in some sense also a barrier. Liberal rights and ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from other human beings. Therefore liberal rights are rights of separation, designed to protect us from such perceived threats. Freedom on such a view, is freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the possibility — for Marx, the fact — that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation. So insisting on a regime of rights encourages us to view each other in ways which undermine the possibility of the real freedom we may find in human emancipation. Now we should be clear that Marx does not oppose political emancipation, for he sees that liberalism is a great improvement on the systems of prejudice and discrimination which existed in the Germany of his day. Nevertheless, such politically emancipated liberalism must be transcended on the route to genuine human emancipation. Unfortunately, Marx never tells us what human emancipation is, although it is clear that it is closely related to the idea of non-alienated labour, which we will explore below ........"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

I think he was definitely onto something there.

A friend's Welsh Holiday - with a great soundtrack......haha

Trotsky on the national question

I find this very difficult. I'm not sure I get much out of it atm. I'm most interested in the fusion of nationalisms which he mentions as being essentially Bolshevik. I'm very sympathetic to such positions and also like how he notes the right - not duty! - of nations to independence.

In two countries of pre-war Europe the national question was of exceptional political significance: in Tsarist Russia and in Hapsburg Austria-Hungary. In each of these the workers' party, created its own school. In the sphere of theory, the Austrian Social-Democracy, in the persons of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, considered nationality independent of territory, economy and class, transforming it into a species of abstraction limited by so-called “national character.”

In the field of national policy, as for that matter in all other fields, it did not venture beyond a corrective status quo. Fearing the very thought of dismembering the monarchy, the Austrian Social-Democracy strove to adapt its national programme to the borders of the patchwork state.

The programme of so-called “national cultural autonomy” required that the citizens of one and the same nationality, irrespective of their dispersal over the territory of Austria-Hungary and irrespective of the administrative divisions of the state should be united, on the basis of purely personal attributes, into one community for the solution of their “cultural” tasks (the theatre, the church, the school, and the like). That programme was artificial and utopian, in so far as it attempted to separate culture from territory and economy in a society torn apart by social contradictions; it was at the same time reactionary, in so far as it led to a forced disunion into various nationalities of the workers of one and the same state, undermining their class strength.

Lenin’s position was the direct opposite. Regarding nationality as unseverably connected with territory, economy and class structure, he refused at the same time to regard the historical state, the borders of which cut across the living body of the nations, as a sacrosanct and inviolate category.

He demanded recognition of the right to secession and independent existence for each national portion of the state.

In so far as the various nationalities, voluntarily or through force of necessity, coexist within the borders of one state, their cultural interests must find the highest possible satisfaction within the framework of the broadest regional (and consequently, territorial) autonomy, including statutory guarantees of the rights of each minority. At the same time, Lenin deemed it the incontrovertible duty of all the workers of a given state, irrespective of nationality, to unite in one and the same class organisations.

The national problem was particularly acute in Poland, aggravated by the historical fate of that country. The so-called PPS (Polish Socialist Party), headed by Josef Pilsudski, came out ardently for Polish independence; the “socialism” of the PPS was no more than a vague appendage of its militant nationalism. On the other hand, the Polish Social-Democracy, whose leader was Rosa Luxemburg, counterposed to the slogan of Polish independence the demand for the autonomy of the Polish region as a constituent part of democratic Russia. Luxemburg proceeded from the consideration that in the epoch of imperialism the separation of Poland from Russia was economically infeasible and in the epoch of socialism — unnecessary.

Abstraction

She looked upon “the right of self-determination” as an empty abstraction. The polemic on that question lasted for years. Lenin insisted that imperialism did not reign similarly or equably in all countries, regions and spheres of life; that the heritage of the past represented an accumulation and interpenetration of various historical epochs; that although monopolistic capitalism towers above everything, it does not supersede everything; that, notwithstanding the domination of imperialism, the numerous national problems retained their full force and that, contingent upon the internal and world conjunctures, Poland might become independent even in the epoch of imperialism.

It was Lenin’s view that the right of self-determination was merely an application of the principles of bourgeois democracy in the sphere of national relations. A real, full-bodied, all-sided democracy under capitalism was unrealisable; in that sense the national independence of small and weak peoples was likewise “unrealisable”. However, even under imperialism, the working class did not refuse to fight for democratic rights, including among them the right of each nation to its independent existence.

Moreover, in certain portions of our planet it was imperialism itself that invested the slogan of national self-determination with extraordinary significance. Although Western and Central Europe have somehow managed to solve their national problems in the course of the nineteenth century, in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America the epoch of national democratic movements had not really begun to unfold until the twentieth century. To deny the right of nations to self-determination is tantamount in effect to offering aid and comfort to the imperialists against their colonies and generally against all oppress, ed nationalities.

The problem of nationalities was considerably aggravated in Russia during the period of reaction. “The wave of militant nationalism,” wrote Stalin, “called attention from above to numerous acts of repressions by those in power, who wreaked their vengeance upon the border states for their love of freedom, calling forth in response a wave of nationalism from below, which at times passed into crude chauvinism.”

This was the time of the ritual murder trial of the Kiev Jew Bayliss. Retrospectively, in the light of civilisation’s latest achievements, especially in Germany and in the USSR, that trial today seems almost a humanitarian experiment. But in 1913 it shocked the whole world. The poison of nationalism began to affect many sections of the working class as well. Alarmed, Gorky wrote to Lenin about the need for counteracting this chauvinistic rabidness. “As for nationalism, I quite agree with you, “ replied Lenin, “that we must cope with it more earnestly than ever. We have a splendid Georgian staying with us here who is writing a long article for Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment), after garnerning all the Austrian and other material. We will bear down on it.”

The reference was to Stalin. Gorky, long connected with the party, knew all its leading cadres well. But Stalin evidently was utterly unknown to him since Lenin had to resort to such an impersonal, although flattering, expression as “a splendid Georgian”. This is, by the way, the only occasion when Lenin characterised a prominent Russian revoluionist by the token of his nationality. He had in mind, of course, not a Georgian, but a Caucasian: the element of primitiveness undoubtedly attracted Lenin; small wonder that he treated Kamo with such tenderness.

During his two months’ sojourn abroad Stalin wrote a brief but very trenchant piece of research entitled “Marxism and the National Problem”. Since it was intended for a lawful magazine, the article resorted to discreet vocabulary. Its revolutionary tendencies were nonetheless distinctly apparent.

Materialist

The author set out by counterposing the historico-materialistic defition of nation to the abstracto-psychological, in the spirit of the Austrian school. “The nation,” he wrote, “is a historically-formed enduring community of language, territory, economic life and psychological composition, asserting itself in the community of culture.” This combined definition, compounding the psychological attributes of a nation with the geographic and economic conditions of its development, is not only correct theoretically but practically fruitful, for then the solution to the problem of each nation’s fate must perforce be sought along the lines of changing the material conditions of its existence, beginning with territory.

Bolshevism was never addicted to the fetishistic worship of a state’s borders. Politically the point was to reconstruct the Tsarist empire, that prison of nations, territorially, politically, and administratively in line with needs and wishes of the nations themselves.

The party of the proletariat does not enjoin the various nationalities either to remain within the bounds of a given state or separate from it: that is their own affair. But it does obligate itself to help each of them to realise its actual national will. As for the possibility of separating from a state, that is a matter of concrete historical circumstances and the relation of forces. “No one can say,” wrote Stalin, “that the Balkan War is the end of internal and external circumstances that one or another nationality in Russia will deem it necessary to postulate and to solve the problem of its own independence. And, of course, it is no business of the Marxists to place barriers in such cases. But for that very reason Russian Marxists cannot get along without the right of nations to self-determination.”

The interests of the nations which voluntarily remain within the bounds of democratic Russia would be fenced off by means of “the autonomies of such sBy elf-determined units as Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the like. Regional autonomy is conducive to a better utilisation of the natural wealth of the region; it does not divide citizens along national lines and makes it possible for them to group themselves in class parties.” The territorial self-administration of regions in all spheres of social life is counterposed to the extra-territorial — that is, platonic—self-administration of nationalities in matters of “culture” only.

However, most directly and acutely significant, from the point of view of the proletariat’s struggle, was the problem of the relations between workers of various nationalities inside the same state. Bolshevism stood for a compact and indivisible unification of workers of all nationalities in the party and in the trade unions on the basis of democratic centralism.

“The type of organisation does not exert its influence on practical work alone. It places an indelible stamp on the worker’s whole spiritual life. The worker lives the life of his organisation, within which he develops spiritually and is educated...The international type of organisation is a school of comradely feelings, of the greatest agitation in favour of internationalism.“

One of the aims of the Austrian programme- of “cultural autonomy” was “the preservation and development of the national idiosyncrasies of peoples.” Why and for what purpose? asked Bolshevism in amazement. Segregating the various nationalistic portions of mankind was never our concern. True, Bolshevism insisted that each nation should have the right to secede—the right, but not the duty—as the ultimate, most effective guarantee against oppression. But the thought of artificially preserving national idiosyncrasies was profoundly alien to Bolshevism.

The removal of any, even disguised, even the most refined and practically “imponderable” national oppression or indignity, must be used for the revolutionary unification rather than the segregation of the workers of various nationalities.Wherever national privileges and injuries exist, nations must have the possibility to separate from each other, that thus they may facilitate the free unification of the workers, in the name of a close rapprochement of nations, with the distinct perspective of the eventual complete fusion of all. Such was the basic tendency of Bolshevism, which revealed the full measure of its force in the October Revolution.
SOURCE

I don't understand all that.

I find it funny when people say marxism is a mad-rigid ideology, with iron-laws determining every policy. Robots can do it, they say. So how come there's no fucking obvious answers to be had then? How come reading Trotsky is more like reading poetry than a manifesto for Israel/Palestine which myself and Joe Public can understand? This is no way to brainwash people! If I'm to become a zombie for the left then I need some answers! And I'm not finding any. Who in hell is ever going to read this stuff? Who is going to understand it? If no-one hears, you haven't said it.

Israel/Palestine, anti-semitism and marxism

Article 22 of the Hamas charter, written in 1988, has this to say about the Jews:

“With their money [the Jews] stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there.”

Hamas are not the only anti-Semitic organisation to have claimed a link between Jews and Communism. Nazi publication Der Stürmer frequently and hysterically attacked ‘Jewish Communism’ii. The anti-Semitic pamphlet The Jewish Bolshevism, produced by the White Russians shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, purported to show how Jews had been the driving force behind the Revolutioniii.

Whilst it is true that a quick Google for ‘Jews Communism’ brings back a list of strange websites such as wake-up-america.net and www.white-history.com all claiming to show Jewish/Communist conspiracies to take over America, it must be said that the perception of Jews has changed radically over the last 30-60 years. Today, much of the ‘left’ views Jews (or Israelis – more on that later) as a single reactionary bloc dedicated to oppression of the Palestinians and defence of neo-liberalism.iv

So, Jews as revolutionary Communists or Jews as right-wing defenders of a neoliberal world order? Is there any truth in either of these positions? Has there been a shift to the right amongst the majority of Jews?
SOURCE

Now that's the sort of thing I am looking for. I think.

Firstly, it hardly needs pointing out that the Jewish people are subject to the same forces that affect everyone else. Whilst conditions peculiar to the Jewish people mean these forces are expressed in a somewhat unique way, the roots of the changes in Jewish political views are in the great political convulsions that have shaken the world.

Following on from this, it is also important that the left intelligentsia, with its lack of grounding in Marxism and the class struggle, has always become disorientated and confused when presented with any sort of crisis. One common manifestation of this confusion is a need to ‘take sides’ when two reactionary forces are fighting each other. This is not a recent phenomenon – after the Second World War, after the reactionary nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy had become obvious, a number of ‘left’ intellectuals chose to side with the imperialist West, believing the Soviet Union to be the bigger impediment to socialism!

I like that - the comment about the apparent need to 'take sides' when two reactionary forces fight each other. I'm a big believer in the brain as a self-patterning system, and the way the brain hates unresolved issues, questions with no answer, etc. The brain insists on an answer, it does not easily vacillate and withhold its conclusions....it has to obtain a conclusion, that's what it does. (Hence stereotype, binary thinking, black and white, us and them, etc and thus a need to "take sides"?)

Anyway, more interestingly Marxist.com continues and casts the ADL etc as right-wing (Alex Jones crowd readers, please take note?):

The right-wing attitudes of the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center come as no surprise to anyone who understands the Jewish people not as a single bloc, but as a group riven by class divisions. As in any community or ethnic group, the ‘communal organisations’ have always represented the wealthy elite of the Jewish community, who adapted themselves to the ruling classes of the countries they settled in (particularly Britain and the US), and often had scant regard for poor and working-class Jews. Hence the British Board of Guardians (forerunner to the Board of Deputies) supported the notoriously anti-Semitic 1905 Aliens Act, aimed at curbing Jewish immigration to Britain, partly for fear that many of the Jewish immigrants were ‘Communists’ and would undermine the position of this communal elite, partly because they (as MPs and even peers) were thoroughly wedded to the British ruling class.

Similarly, the communal organisations in the US were set up, and funded, by wealthy Jews, and unsurprisingly reflect the interests of the wealthy. It is not that Jews are threatened by the Latin American revolution, rather the US ruling class feels threatened, and a section of the US ruling class claims to speak on behalf of all Jews.

Well, that seems to much better explain the situation than anything offered by these crazy conspiracists and nazis.

Somewhat reflecting my own sentiments on the subject's complexity, the writer concludes:

This essay may seem somewhat disjointed, but that is an inevitable consequence of the complexity of the subject matter. Simplistic denunciations of ‘Jews abandoning their morality’ and ‘turning from oppressed to oppressor’ (accusations hurled by Jew and non-Jew alike) are worse than useless. I’ve tried to chart the many dialectical forces that have affected the world population over the past 60 years, and show how, due to the special historical and material conditions of the Jewish people, these forces have affected Jews in a special way.

Some Jews became split from the left over the question of Israel, and this split will not be healed until a revolutionary movement develops which can unite the Israeli and Palestinian workers and poor against their imperialist oppressors, and provide a class-based solution to the problems of the Jews and the Palestinians.

As revolutionary Marxists, we concern ourselves little with the fate of the ‘left intelligentsia’ (whether Jewish or gentile), which has always splintered and fragmented when faced with any sort of political test. To borrow Trotsky’s phrase, they are ‘political eunuchs’, so of little interest to us.

As for the decline of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’, we feel sure that the emergence of a serious revolutionary movement, capable of challenging the capitalist system and its bourgeois ideologues, will attract many Jews to its banner, just as has happened in the past.

I'd like to find such sentiments echoed amongst pro_Palestinian movements. The American anti-Israeli movement, with its militia, patriot, christian identity and nazi wings just doesn't cut it. The problem is, no other voice is even heard amongst such crowds. Worse - no other voice is wanted amongst such crowds - such voices are driven out. Such people already know all the answers.

I/P Negotiations.....or maybe not

The BBC is reporting that

Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resume direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to Washington on 2 September to start the talks.

They have agreed to place a one-year time limit on the direct negotiations.

But correspondents say prospects of a comprehensive deal are slim, as serious disagreements exist on the core issues.
SOURCE

Elsewhere, a pro-Stalin and pro-Palestinian website reports that Hamas and other groups have issued statements opposing such negotiations and preferring instead "the choice of resistance to liberate the land and end the occupation":-

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine joined with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the DFLP and 7 other Palestinian factions to issue a joint statement in Damascus in opposition to the resumption of negotiations, direct or indirect, with Israel
........
The statement called for an end to internal division and urged that instead of negotiations, the Palestinian Authority concentrate on building national unity, "and to stop betting on the futile negotiations, and instead adhere to Palestinian national rights and constants and the choice of resistance to liberate the land and end the occupation."
SOURCE

Hmmm. Refuse negotiations and choose 'liberation' instead? And build national unity? Why the need? They're admitting they are deeply split, that there is no national palestinian unity? That Hamas and the rest of these people are not fully supported? That they're acting contrary to the wishes of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority? Who knows? Anyway - clearly they are against negotiations and prefer (surely violent) 'liberation' instead. This is what the Freedom Flotilla supported? Armed resistance over negotiation?

Lenin on the National Question

"The cornerstone of the whole policy of the Communist International on the national and colonial questions", stated Lenin, "must be closer union of the proletarians and working masses generally of all nations and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landlords and the bourgeoisie; for this alone will guarantee victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national oppression and inequality is impossible." (Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, 5th June 1920)
--------

So, there can be no resolution to the national question under capitalism, according to Lenin. Elsewhere he wrote:

"The tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied." (The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Progress Publishers, pp.8-9)

Something of the same fatalism informs my own view as nationalism is seemingly closely tied to capitalism. It's certainly very hard to reconcile nationalism with socialism, internationalist as it is. Hence my own ambivalence towards national movements, i think, of which I am essentially non-plussed: national issues seem so chauvanist. But on the other hand nationalist movements can be seen as anti-colonialist movements, self-assertive and foundational for an identity away from colonial, imperialist capitalism. Both Palestine and Israel can be seen as examples of Nationalist movements too and that makes the particular position all the more difficult. Still, I think my position has largely been informed by a growing perception that Israel's nationalist movement gets small regard as compared to the Palestinian one because any jewish nationalist movement can be considered zionism and 'zionism' has become an acceptable term for anti-semitism. Treating existing jewish nationalism (zionism) as a euphemism for Hitlerite jewish world conspiracy leads people to consider jewish nationalism to be illegitimate, even as other nationalisms (the Palestinians in particular) are treated as unimpeachably positive, ethical and anti-imperialistic. On what grounds then is jewish nationalism (zionism) so derided and considered to be so malign? Because Israel (jews) is/are considered to be the ultimate imperialists - world jewish conspiracy - capitalism as jewish plot etc. Even discarding such objectionable views, Israel can be considered a more integral part of capitalist imperium than Palestine (if such a thing as Palestine can be said to exist.) Israel is an American ally....a client state. But even then, it is a client state and as such is a victim of the imperialist system too, even as it claims its special privileges due by dint of its strategic importance as an ally in a particularly hostile part of the world (hostile to american imperialist hegemony, that is, which is partly what gives Israel its strategic position - an ally amongst a sea of enemies.) Point being, Israel is locked into present status quo because it needs protection of imperium. That makes Israeli nationalism a victim of (capitalist) imperium too, a product of it. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is just another subset of the same relationships and a product and example of the same system. Anti-semitism provides a way to ignore this, and leads to obsession about a particular aspect, whereby all the flaws of the wider (capitalist imperialist) system are laid at Israel's door. So the criticism of the anti-semites makes sense in so far as it deploys legitimate structural criticism of capitalism and imperialism (and nationalism, and racism and war and MIC) only they ascribe the problems to Israel alone.....to Jews.... That's their appeal (legitimate criticism) and their error (to ascribe it to Israel/Jews alone)

Lenin might legitimately know about nationalism because of the position of Czarist Russia, one which the Revolution eventually inherited and had to deal with. Incredibly successfully it has to be said. Notably, perhaps, not without violence and threats of it. Civil war. The Cheka. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union did manage to bind seemingly infinite nationalist and separatist movements. Marxist.com says:

".....tsarist Russia, whose empire constituted a "prison house of nationalities". Such was the make-up of the empire that the Great Russians, the ruling nationality, only constituted 48% of the whole. Those under Russian domination (Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns, Letts, Ukrainians, and so on), deprived of their rights, were systematically oppressed by tsarism. It was this that gave the national question in Russia such an explosive force.
SOURCE"

So, Lenin obviously had every reason to deal with nationalism and independence movements along with imperialism. And it really was handled incredibly successfully in many ways. No small thanks to the transition to Stalinism though, I guess, which takes some gloss off of the apparent accomplishment (doesn't it always? Stalin you fuck!!!)

Marxist.com says

"The demand of the right to self-determination [gave] rise to a heated controversy within the Russian Party, with opposition from Rosa Luxemburg, Bukharin, Pyatakov, and others. The essence of their opposition was that under capitalism, self-determination was utopian, while under socialism it was reactionary."

I think that would be my position. Further than that I find it hard to go. I really don't know much about I/P conflict to decide a definite policy, and declare individual instances of strict right and wrong. Anyway, I seem to always agree with Rosa Luxemburg. [I had an argument once with a history graduate who was astonished I claimed there was an attempt at a socialist revolution in Germany post ww1.....he couldn't believe what i was saying and i couldn't believe he was a history graduate. I don't know much about it, but Rosa Luxemburg did exist, right? Spartacists existed too? didn't they?]

Marxist.com disagrees and argues that

"...the argument is completely false as it ignores the epoch of the socialist revolution and its tasks. Clearly, under the domination of imperialism, the existence of stable independent small states is impossible."

Eh? They add

"Also under socialism, with the progressive withering away of the state, the question of national boundaries will fall away. However, in the intervening period, the forces have to be educated and mobilised to overthrow capitalism and a correct dialectical approach to the national question would facilitate this task."

Well, I don't think that's good enough. That's no response at all. Marxist.com - legitimate and authentic? I don't know.

I'm disappointed with Marxist.com. I can get that far on my own - that a "correct approach" is needed. What is it though?! Marxist.com says:

"Above all, the slogan of the right to self-determination was a powerful weapon in undermining bourgeois nationalism and winning the confidence of the workers of the oppressed nation. The possibility of separation facilitated a free unification of peoples. In order to convince the more politically backward workers, who had nationalist prejudices, it was necessary to stress that the working class had no interest in coercing any national minority. At the same time, we must argue for the unity of the working class under one banner, with implacable hostility to the poison of the small nation mentality and the poison of chauvinism."

That criticism of the "small nation mentality and chauvanism" can be laid at both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism but in fact it seems to be used exclusively against Israeli/jewish nationalism. That's one reason I am repelled by most supposedly 'pro-palestinian' causes. It's extremely rare to find such arguments deployed against Palestinian nationalism, rather it's always framed as 'anti-imperialist', self-assertive, positive. Nevermind it's lead by a clerical fascism? An Islamic religious/ethnic ultra-nationalism? Hardly something one can support without being sick. The same is said about Israeli leadership too.

From Marxist.com again:

"Above all, Lenin regarded the right of self-determination as subordinate to the interests of the working class. "The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle." (Ibid, p.21) And again, "While recognising equality and equal rights to a national state, it values above all and places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers' class struggle." After all, the right to national self-determination is a bourgeois-democratic demand, not a socialist one."

self determination is subordinate to the class struggle. it is the bourgeoisie that places its national demands in the forefront. [When do you ever see that argument made? I never do, it's always appeals to nationalism and division]

that argument can suit both I & P. Well, I can relax - Trotsky said it was very complex, so how in hell will I know?

Marxist.com again:

"In the Middle East, there can be no solution to the "Palestinian problem" on a capitalist basis. While the Marxists opposed the partition of Palestine in 1948, and the expulsion of the Palestinians, Israel now exists with a people living there. The question now is how to guarantee a homeland to the Palestinians and put an end to their national oppression.

Revolutionary Programme

The national oppression of the Palestinian masses by the Israeli state expresses itself in the desire for their own homeland. How can this aspiration be realised? The policy and methods of the PLO, of individual terrorism and fawning towards the reactionary Arab regimes for a period of decades, have proved to be completely bankrupt. Only a revolutionary programme can serve to appeal to the Israeli workers and the Arab masses. Only a socialist revolution in Israel and similarly in all the surrounding Arab states can bring about a socialist federal state of Israel/Palestine, with its capital in Jerusalem, linked to a socialist federation of the Middle East."

Hmmm - that's optimistic? wow. some hope? What about until then?