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November 28, 2006
Maybe we are witnessing the start of a rational debate about Israeli and the Palestinian conflict in Australia at long last. In New Matilda there is an article entitled Israel/Palestine: Violence Hasn't Worked by Vivienne Porzsolt from Jews against the Occupation Sydney In the article, which is an edited version of a speech given at Politics in the Pub, Porzsolt says:
The mainstream media in Australia base their reporting on the Middle East on assumptions which favour Israel. The conflict is presented as a legitimate if unequal struggle for land, rather than a struggle against colonial occupation and repression. How often are the words of official Zionist propaganda reported as fact? Israel is fighting for its existence; Israel has a right to defend itself. As if Israeli actions in the recent war had anything to do with rational self-defence.
Then there is the lie that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza: 'We gave them Gaza and look how they treat us!' The reality is that not a cabbage or a lettuce, let alone a human being, can get out of or into Gaza without Israel's permission. Gaza is a giant prison with people combing through garbage for scraps of food to survive.... The conditions are reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto. And who knows about them? All these suppressions and misrepresentations of information must be exposed.
You rarely hear this kind of alternative Jewish voice in the media Australia ---corporate or small magazines. It is refreshing to hear a distinction being made between being critical of Israel and antisemitism in Australia. More often than note Jewish critics of Israel are are demonised as self-hating and their views are discounted as 'beyond the pale' by the neo-con strand of the Zionist Jewish lobby.
But this voice has a critical edge that is directed at the Left in Australia for its anti-Semitism, which she sees as part of the revival of traditional anti-semitism. Porzsolt warns:
At the same time, we cannot correct this distortion by equally biased narratives from Arab/Palestinian/Muslim perspectives. In parts of the Left, there is a tendency to exaggerate the crimes of the State of Israel. The reality is bad enough. Sometimes, rhetoric is used against Israel with a venom that I don't notice in quite the same way with other Left struggles. Calling the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla in September 1982 'the other Holocaust,' or claiming 'Zionism = Nazism' is not just bad history; it provokes resistance for no purpose. I appreciate that anger at the Zionist hijack of the Holocaust as a justification for Israel's actions, lies behind some of this. However, as a Jew, I find this special hatred anti-semitic.
Fair enough. Zionism = Nazism is over the top and unnecessary. But we can, and should, direct criticisms against Zionism as an ethnic nationalism that is part of the settler colonialist project; a nationalism that is based on the denial of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, or the racism of a brutal colonial occupation. What is of concern is the silence by Jews in the Australian diaspora about some of the actions committed by the Israeli state.
Porzsolt is wary of this kind of criticism:
I reject the double standard that denies Jewish/Israeli national aspirations in the same breath as supporting Palestinian nationalism. No nationalism, even if expressed as a struggle against national oppression and dispossession, is without problems. Could the Palestinians be said to have attained national self-determination if they were a minority in their own land? The way out of the inherent violence of nationalist rhetoric and action is to base the struggle on justice, and human and national rights for both Palestinians and Israelis. In other words, a truly bi-national vision. Too often, the very notion of national aspirations for Jews is attacked in parts of the Left as illegitimate and racist. If we want a peaceful, just future, we need to challenge this.
I would have thought that the left in Australia would accept Israel's existence as a given and the Jewish desire for national self-determination as legitimate. Few on the left advocate the destruction of Israel. The concern is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the brutality of the oppression.
Suprisingly, Porzsolt wants to replace nationalism with social justice based on universal human rights and international law. So where does that leave Palestinian self-determination and their desire for their own homeland?
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