Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, January 9th, 2009 - 86 comments
Categories: activism, International, notices -
Tags: gaza, gpja, israel
The following quoted text is a e-mail response by Mike Treen from Global Peace and Justice Auckland to someone who was complaining about the campaign to boycott an Israeli tennis player.
Hopefully Mike won’t get too upset with me for giving this a wider airing. It appeared in the GPJA NEWSLETTER #269, January 8, 2009 that was forwarded to me. I’d link to it, but the site appears to be down or very busy. My opinion is at the bottom of the post, but Mike Treen says it much more clearly than my initial drafts.
There is a protest assembling at 12 noon Aotea Square Auckland, Saturday 10th January for a march to US consulate.
REPLY FROM MIKE TREEN, GPJA
Hi Yael, The decision to support the international call to boycott Israel completely was not an easy one. We are aware of the impact of such boycotts on individuals academics, sportspeople, businesses some of who may oppose the policies of their government.
It grows out of a recognition that six decades after the establishment of the state of Israel the right of return of the refuges guaranteed by the United nations has not been achieved.
It is recognition that 4 decades after the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza they remain imprisoned territories without self-determination.
The Israeli state completely controls all movement into and out of these territories as well as movement within them. It assassinates whoever it decides is guilty. It imprisons thousands without trial. Two generations of Palestinian have grown up in these conditions. Israel refuses to give up control. It continues to build settlements on the West Bank. It is building a so-called separation wall imprisoning Palestinians and preventing movement. Settlers have their own roads. Water and electricity is controlled for their benefit.
Even inside Israel the discrimination against Palestinian citizens is flagrant. Spending on Jewish Israeli education per head is six times that for Palestinian Israeli’s.
This reality, in Israel and the greater Israel incorporating the occupied territories and Gaza, is what makes the Israeli state an apartheid state. That was not true in 1948. It wasn’t true in 1967. But it is true today. All adult Jewish Israeli citizens serve in the military and directly or indirectly take responsibility for ensuring that this occupation continues.
The body politic has moved progressively to the right and the official discourse in the state of Israel is now whether its own Palestinian citizens should be encouraged to leave. “I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, ‘Your national solution lies elsewhere,’” says the so-called moderate Kadima leader Tzipi Livni.
There is no solution available within an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue alone. The relationship of forces is simply too disproportionate. Most importantly Israel has had an effective international impunity. This has allowed it to defy the UN resolutions to allow the refugees to return and withdraw from the occupied territories.
That impunity has to end with the people of the world saying we will isolate everything to do with Israel until there is not one soldier or settler forcibly occupying Palestinian land and the refugees have the right to return.
For New Zealand that means not welcoming sportspeople. It means Auckland University ending its partnership ties with Technion, an Israeli University. It means stopping Rakon from sending components used in all Israeli smart bombs. It means getting the NZ Super fund to stop investing in Israeli companies. It means cancelling Veolia’s train contract until it stops building train networks from Israel to illegal settlements.
It is a sad a regrettable fact that we have come to this position. Many people will be hurt. But nothing that happens to the official or unofficial representatives of the apartheid state can compare to the imprisonment and destruction of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state.
Mike
This e-mail resonated with me because it describes almost perfectly my opinion of the Israeli state. It cannot be described as being democratic because it is not inclusive. It is steadily drowning in its own internal contradictions based on religion and race, and the internal political landscape is fracturing on those lines. It has a steadily increasing tolerance of attacking civilians with military force by politicians, civilians, and the military.
Where it does have some level of agreement with its opponents like Fatah, it simply views that as an opportunity to abuse its position, eg new settlements and the wall. That hardly gives any reason for anyone else to trust them.
These are all charactestics of an apartheid state. Like all such states it wants you to view its victims as being terrorists rather than civilians. It wants the collateral damage inflicted by their armed forces as justifiable rather than the result of incompetence of their military and symptomatic of a failing political system.
The citizens of Israel rein in their useless politicians and start doing something to rescue their state. This current outbreak of hostilities seems to be more related to politicians trying to show how hard line they are in the current elections in Israel, than a few rockets ineffectually fired across the border.
This appears to be a dominance display between Israeli politicians. Who cares how big a politicians balls are? They should confine their displays to something less destructive and fewer victims.
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Mr Dale it is a matter of opinionage whether Hamas and Iran would do that but you recognise the same circumstances of course, which is why I referred to it as a human trait.
I think we just need more Ghandis actually.
No justice. No peace.
Vto
Agree 100% we need more Ghandis!
AG
No justice no peace was the catch cry of the rioters after the Rodney King verdict.
The rioters showed their angry by stealing televisions and murdering koreans.
lprent,
Yes yes!
We too easily fall into believing that one-person-one-vote makes a democracy. A true democracy needs to value each person equally and treat every individual with equa respect.
Brett – Incredibly surprising that you wish there were more Ghandis. Have a read of this Applied Ghandi – Ghandi – The Anarchist.
Ghandi also famously said:
Of course all of them were looters and thugs.
Don’t you have slaves to beat, or something?
Brett Dale:
It would of course be suicidal to do so. And besides, they need their oil.
Says you.
Many people think that President Ahmedinejad wants to “wipe Israel off the map” because Zionists have been assiduous in promoting this spurious quotation. In fact Iran could not hope to gain anything by launching a military attack on Israel, as is obvious to anyone with any grasp of military strategy.
The Iranian leader’s actual position is that the Zionist political regime must be defeated by political means, and replaced with a democratic regime with equal rights for indigenous Palestinians, a regime which Iran would recognise as legitimate:
It’s worth quoting Ahmadenijad’s analysis of why the so-called “peace process” has failed so miserably:
How true! This is why I can’t believe that the Zionist regime’s current military adventure can possibly bring about peace: to completely crush the Palestinian people it would actually be necessary to kill all of them (a “final solution”), and this is thankfully not possible. If peace is ever to be achieved it will only be when the indigenous people have reclaimed their freedom.
The interesting question, for me, is what will be required to bring this about? I suspect that, as in South Africa, an international political campaign, with trade and sporting boycotts, etc, will turn out to be a key part of the transition to democracy in Israel/Palestine.
Now I’m being asked to make duplicate posts
Gandhi is spelled Gandhi
What’s going on with moderation, I have been there there for 15 hours.
It can’t still be that unmentionable former state to the north of Ukraine can it?
Compare that to the notorious USA failed in every department, promoter of democracy at the end of a bomb. The reason that Israel gets away with mass murder is because its big brother USA has got away with it for years.
the damage done to the anti-war movement in the UK by the SWP was at the national committee level. There is no problem with them being on demos with masses of placards (apart from the litter afterwards). But it was their anti-democratic behaviour on the organising committee that alienated many of the groups we needed to keep on board to reflect the breadth of the campaign. Now the anti-war movement struggles to get a few thousand on the streets; after over a million turned out in 2003 this is a disastrous waste of an opportunity to build a mass peace campaign.
Groups like the SWP always prioritise promotion of their own organisations over what needs to be done to spread the message to the wider public and to support the actual cause. Do we want to see a broad campaign that can speak for the majority of Kiwis, or do we want to remain tiny and marginalised – and represented by people whose extreme views alienate most people?
deemac
keep hitting that nail on the head. Couldn’t agree with you more. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter which political group, religion or dodgy sect somebody belongs to or identifies with…they are welcome to add their voice and energy…AS AN INDIVIDUAL.
But when they come along to push their political group or whatever; when they attempt to elevate ‘their’ group over other voices; to make ‘their’ group the voice of the broader constituency, the result is always destructive.
I’ve said so to other posts. Always met with silence. Glad to see I’m not the only one on this blog who understands the reality/ dangers of working with Authoritarian Left groups.
Bill:
You obviously put the authority of the individual above groups of individuals.
Don’t you think that individuals can act jointly, democratically, as a group?.
Perhaps you are unwittingly voicing the hegemonic idea that renders individuals in capitalist society as sovereign as if it was something you personally thought of.
If I say that the sovereign individual is an invention of capitalism which masks the fact that some individuals own private property and other don’t, am I disqualified necessarily from holding that view? If not, what is to stop me from joining forces with others who agree? Who are you to say that our groupiness is inherently authoritarian?
Not a bad post, and I’ve been thinking recently about the Israeli state too, and how the whole structure of Israeli govt and society seems to be sliding deeper into moral and political corruption…
Also wondering at what point it’s appropriate to give up on the comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and instead start talking about the Warsaw ghetto…?
Dylan: I already have in another thread.
The actions of the politicians and of the military of Israel remind me of the type of crap that Germany used (including the Warsaw ghetto).
For instance, just been reading this one.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/lie-you-werent-supposed-to-believe.html
I think that the Israeli cabinet should be pulled made to justify their actions in the context of charges of attempted genocide. It is almost impossible to view this as war.
So the Hamas leader has called for “No Peace”
Will Locke and Minto be protesting this, will they be yelling abuse at young Palestinian’s.
Where are peace groups protesting this?????
Where is the outrage?????
Where are the bloggers?????
Brett – The offer of a ceasefire hasn’t been taken up by the Israelis or the Hamas last I heard. Hamas would get a raw deal from this opening the borders isn’t part of the deal and it doesn’t even specify where the Israeli soldiers are to withdraw to. So what’s the point? If the the borders aren’t opened and the seige not ended and its not even guaranteed that the Israelis won’t be occupying some of Gaza what is the point in this ridiculous ceasefire offer written up by western nations?
redrave
“You obviously put the authority of the individual above groups of individuals.”
No I don’t.
“Don’t you think that individuals can act jointly, democratically, as a group?”
Yes I do.
My point is that when a group (such as the SWP and their ilk) hi-jack meetings and impose the dogma of their group on the larger group through playing the numbers game etc, then democracy and momentum are lost. People who don’t ascribe to the views or preferred actions of the SWP (as an example) disengage or are deliberately marginalised.
Put another way. They (eg the SWP) win control of proceedings, dictate the parameters of debate/action and any movement towards a broader and deeper constituency dies…a ‘party line’ is imposed.
I’ve seen this happen time and again here and abroad and maintain that it’s avoidable.If you had read my comments on other threads you might have picked that up.
Just for clarity. SWO, SWP etc are not groups of individuals acting democratically. The view of the individual is subsumed/ subject to the party line. They are not democratic orgs and whereas people who are members of such groups can make valuable contributions in a democratic set-up if they contribute as individuals, the reality is that they tend to act as reps or ambassadors for the SWO or SWP thereby killing democratic processes. They push the party line above all else.
I just want to see the same outrage from peace groups at hamas that they have for Israel.
Like I said before these peace groups have nothing to do with peace.
Brett,
Can I assure you that your accusations regarding Peace Action New Zealand are simply groundless. I have also talked to another peace activist that was around in Christchurch at the time.
PANZ or PAN never had an office on Gloucester Street nor anywhere else. What there is on Gloucester street is the WEA (Workers Education Association) – these rooms are used by a wide variety of groups and individuals – its pretty much a public space.
I think the vast majority of people would not wish to remove memorial messages left by others. This should also include messages that you may not agree with. Thats the real test of free speech. There is a long history of the pro-war lobby in Christchurch removing messages from memorials – one example is the wreath that was angrly removed by the RSA during an Anzac day ceremony in 1972 – it was placed there by the student association to remember the vietnamese dead.
I very much doubt there was a message stuck to a window claiming the holocaust was a jewish lie, and if there was it would not have lasted long, and the most likely explanation was that it was a (perhaps right wing) individual trying to be provocative or make trouble.
Peace Action New Zealand was the early name for the group that became Peace Action Network (which I was involved in). You appear to have no evidence to suggest PANZ was responsible for these acts (if the occured), particularly if you are basing this assumption on the location of an ‘office’ that simply did not exist.
“I didn’t bother to go in” – so I take it from that you were unable to establish whether PANZ was responsible or not – by shock horror – asking somebody!
Mythbusted!
Bill
Forgive me but if you criticise left groups for being authoritarian and think that this can be avoided, then you should put forward arguments as to how to achieve this and some examples to inspire us.
I would say that the SWP and all of its variants are very much more democratic than any bourgeois political organisation. To refer to democracy and parliament in the same breath is a joke. So to be fair to the SWP etc we need to judge them against the socialist norms of democracy they promote – a watered down form of democratic centralism. For democratic centralism to work properly all members must be equal in terms of information and participation so that majority decisions are really that.
If we apply this higher standard (no apologies) then we should be able to see when and why they fall short. Mostly it takes the form of bureaucratisation which reflects their immersion in capitalist society that takes up the time of most members earning a living, allowing a group of middle class professionals (removed from daily class struggle) to dominate.
The illegitimate authority you talk of is really the usurped authority of a bureaucratic leadership which is the default situation in capitalist society. We can fight this by recycling the leadership back into wage labour every 2 or 3 years; keeping their pay no more than the average of the membership; making them accountable to frequent all up meetings; forming committees of the members to lead action rather than paid organisers etc., hoping that this will equalise the members power within the organisation.
I look at the glass as more than half full; for all of the bureaucratic excesses of left organisations, they are still light years ahead of the right which does not know or care about democracy, and of social democracy, which can only exercise the degree of democracy that is compatible with managing capitalism.
“Forgive me but if you criticise left groups for being authoritarian and think that this can be avoided, then you should put forward arguments as to how to achieve this and some examples to inspire us.”
I have. On a number of occasions commenting on other posts.
“To refer to democracy and parliament in the same breath is a joke.”
I agree. Again you can refer to umpteen comments I’ve made on other posts for verification on that point.
The problem with democratic centralism is quite simply that majority rule is not democratic by any meaningful measure of the term. And that is apart from the fact that centralised organisations lend themselves to the formation of leadership cliques. So anyway, as referring to democracy and parliament in the same breath is somewhat oxymoronic, so it is with democracy and centralism.
To be fair, I’m not really interested in comparing two undemocratic models to ascertain which one is the ‘more democratic’. I’m a democrat. I don’t want anything less than substantive democracy.
Is the second half of your comment referring to the unions? If so, then all I have to say is that I come from a syndicalist perspective. Tinkering with the edges of bureaucratic organisational structures in the hope that they one day become meaningfully democratic is delusional. They can be made more democratic…less bureaucratic and you give examples. But substantive democracy involves a whole other organisational model.
With reference to the groups who espouse the traditional authoritarian left line (SWO, SWP, IS etc), they reject and try to usurp any and all organisational models that deny them self promotion or that thwart their desire for control. And I think that was the point deemac was making somewhere up above; the point I agreed with.
How come there is no comment on how Hamas thinks Israel doesn’t have the right to exist?
So, Brett, why do you think Israel, an invasion and occupation of someone else’s land, has a right to exist?
PS. Yes, the documentary is well worth watching.
Draco:
Everybody has a right to exist.
Bill:
Its a matter of opinion as to what is democratic, usually that opinion flows from actual class struggle. In fighting unions there is an instinctive support for majority ruling after a good debate and all sides heard. If that were not the case, nothing would get done, no struggle would take place, everybody would be doing what they felt like etc etc, just like the bourgies.
I am pretty sure that the anarchosyndicalists in the Red Fed were happy with majority rule. Correct me if im wrong, or perhaps they fell short of your concept of democracy and should never have voted to strike at Waihi, or have a general strike in 1913? Jock Barnes held to a majority vote, and nobody on the workers side has suggested that he rigged the vote to refuse overtime in 1951. But maybe he and they were wrong and shouldnt have let themselves get locked out.
Bill,
Correction, it was actually a lockout at Waihi in 1912 too I seem to remember.
More on topic. What do you say to the Norwegian train drivers who went on strike against Israel’s Gaza massacre? Did they follow the proper democratic procedure?
I’m prepared to bet that there was a big majority in favour of the action, it was only a few minutes at each station so no big deal, but still an actual political strike, debated, voted on and acted on.
That’s majority rule followed by majority action. Left political parties generally try to follow and improve on this basic democratic model. The fact that most fall short in some way is not an argument against the basic model, rather for trying harder to get it right.
Brett:
For reasons I am not going to divulge here, I especially loath religious fundamentalists of ANY brand, Jewish, Christian or Islamic. I’ve been up close and personal to it in ways I never talk about with anyone, and I ask you to take my word on how reluctant I am commenting here.
If any of us could truly imagine the horror of what is happening in Gaza right now, as you and I write, the only legitimate human response would be one of traumatised, stunned silence. Yet while we still have the privilege of having a voice, we should be concious of how we use it. Say too little and we legitimise the vileness of it, say too much and it descends into a kind of ghoulish emotional pornography.
No-one can detail what is going to happen in the immediate weeks or months. If Israel does not find an exit strategy within days, the humanitarian situation in Gaza will tip into terminal catastrophe. People will start dying from thirst and disease in their tens of thousands.That would force everybodys’ hand in ways both forceful, unpredictable and therefore dangerous. It is the stuff of global conflagration.
In the aftermath of such a nightmare, the institutions of religion as we have known them, would have lost all legitimacy. All the obssesions and occupations we think so much of, would be so many lost ciphers in the past.
Cut through the distractions Brett. The only thing that matters is how this plays out. There are in principle only two options:
1. We pull back from the brink, through fear of the consequences we impose a lasting, just settlement, and take responsibility for ending the violence.
2. The board is wiped clean of all it’s failed players and a new game arises in it’s place.
And maybe it is too late, maybe there are no longer any options and the choice has already been made for us.
redrave
If enough people are committed to particular course of action…enough to make the action effective, and not fuck up the wrong people, then the act should be executed. That does not necessarily require a majority.
If strike action is to be effective, it will in most cases require a large %age of a workforce to participate. Not always the case though. A strike by a smaller number of people who are strategically vital to an operation can have the same effect as everyone striking. Maybe even a better effect as the bosses have to continue paying the rest even although they cannot perform duties.
That the left parties (Leninist, Trots etc) fall short on measures of democracy is precisely because of the model they use. But that’s their choice.
Much more important ( to quote myself) is the fact that “they reject and try to usurp any and all organisational models that deny them self promotion or that thwart their desire for control.”
Everybody has a right to exist.
I wasn’t asking about individual people but the State of Israel. What makes you think that the state of Israel has a right to exist considering that it stole the land that it stands upon?
Bill
Your’s is a self-defeating argument. Exactly the same objections you have with left wing groups could be directed at your privileged, all-knowing minority. Except that left wing groups are ostensibly committed to majority rule and can be held to account for abusing it, whereas you don’t even try. Your idea of democracy has much more in common with the Israelis than with Leninists or Trotskyists.
Once you abandon the principle of majority rule you end up with you and who else?
You are economistic about the objective of striking. For Leninists and Trotskyists it is an withdrawal of labour to demonstrate the power of labour over capital which ultimately can dispense with it, not to allow freeloaders to continue getting paid.
For example, the Norwegian train drivers who are stopping work for 2 more minutes every day while the invasion of Gaza is underway are demonstrating that the withdrawal of their labour puts the profits of capitalist firms that support Israel at risk. This sort of stoppage can develop into general strikes that would prove that while capital needs labour to make its profits, labour does not need capital to produce to meet everyone’s needs.
You should read Marx on Value, Price and Profit.
Draco:
I thought the land belongs to everybody isnt that the left’s mantra.
redrave.
Here’s an example of a situation where majority rule (if it had been pursued) would have been counter productive.
In 2001 a broad constituency of people came together to protest the invasion of Afghanistan and the potential for NZ involvement.
At some point, the question of a UN peacekeeping force came up. Predictably, some people were in favour of such a scenario and some against. Had a ‘party line’ been pursued the likely consequence would have been a split: a pro UN contingent and an anti UN contingent. Bye-bye to a broadening and deepening constituency.
Thankfully, the organisational structure was such that no ‘party line’ was ever pursued. There was a fundamental recognition that different people had differing views and different ‘comfort zones’. No-one ever felt compelled to take part in any particular activity/action because of a majority vote. And no-one felt pressured to not execute any action or take part in any activity because of a majority vote. No voice was given particular prominence and no voice was muted. The criteria that led to action was, as I said above in a previous comment, enough people being committed to a particular proposal so that it would be effective with the proviso that it did not have an unacceptably negative impact on others participating within the wider constituency.
The result was a freeing up of energy and resources; a wider spectrum of actions coming to fruition and a lot, more imaginative, initiatives than the expected norm seeing the light of day due, in large part, to the shackles of a need for a majority vote being absent.
On the UN question, the solution was simplicity itself. A 3 day, 24 hour a day camp had been planned to occupy the centre of town. At the camp there was music, food and information (propaganda). Lots of it. So among the literature that curious passers by could pick up was both a pro-UN perspective and an anti- UN perspective. Given the assumption that people are not stupid, but that they have, as said before, different predilections and comfort zones, the broad spectrum of prop encouraged ever more people to get involved. Nobody asked them to ascribe to any particular view…rather, they were encouraged to act on their own conviction; at whatever level they felt comfortable with.
Envelopes were naturally pushed because everyone at meetings and get togethers was exposed to the full gamut of opinions and political persuasions. There were no arguments to pressure people…respect of opinion was the order of the day. Simple exposure to different perspectives resulted in some becoming more radical and dropping preconceived notions of what a radical or revolutionary was.
For a short time, things were vibrant and exciting. More and more people took it upon themselves to get involved. Communication between all types of people and persuasions mushroomed and all manner of possibilities were continuely unfolding and actions undertaken.
Then came the Authoritarian Left with their demands that a coalition be formed in place of a broad constituency; that party propaganda be disseminated and sold and a brand (theirs) be applied to actions and activities. They were either incapable of appreciating what was unfolding or, more likely, didn’t care for it as it would not give them the profile they craved.
I’ll skip the ins and outs of the turgid bullshit that followed.
Suffice to say, the end result was that a nascent, broad flowering of dissent was squeezed into the confines of ‘acceptable’ dissent; into ‘correct’ political thinking. People disengaged, drifted away and what could have been a sustainable base from which people could have acted on all manner of things in the future died.
redrave
didn’t see that last comment. For most workers, striking is about improving wages and/or conditions. That’s a fact that you or I might wish was different, but hey.
I’m just wondering. Do you want to explore ideas red? Or do you just want to dismiss anything that doesn’t immediately fit your ideological template? That’s not me having a go by the way. It’s a serious question. If the former, then a little elasticity and a little less of playing me rather than the questions/ scenarios raised could go a,long way.
I am not a part of any privileged, all knowing minority or anything of the sort. I’m an unemployed worker. But if you want to call my working class credentials into question (the impression I’m getting) then that’s not a worry. I don’t like league, your dicks bigger than mine and your daddy’s bigger than mine too.
So now that, that’s out of the way, have you any real desire to engage on the matters being brought up? Up to you.
I thought the land belongs to everybody isnt that the left’s mantra.
The land needs to be under common rule with allotments to individuals to account for their needs but your comment still gives no reason for Israel’s right to exist Brett.