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Interesting as always with Richard. But again, as always, his imaginary is drawn to the intractable, the complex that cannot be solved. At times it seems to me that Ricard's thought is a series of long variations on the theme of "pessimism of the intellect." The reference to biopolitics & Foucault is not incidental. There are echoes here of Nietzschean thought of the Will to Power as the defining aspect of the human, and so there is no ground for a resolution or hope for a Utopian rupture. I think he also underestimates the historical role of and need for Arab labour. It is true that since the 1990s the Israelis have substituted "foreign" workers (to the level of about 77k) for Palestinians. But the point is that Israel has always been dependent on Arab leader complicity in the Zionist project and Arab help within Israel to make the Israeli state viable. I also know from my experience of growing up as a Catholic in Northern Ireland, and Richard would agree with this, that a state which declares a growing section of its own population as "the enemy" is permanently unstable. Richard does make the point that "Israel depends far too much on international support". That is true, and it is why the BDS movement is such a threat. My own critique, and one I fear that Richard would not recognize, is that Israel's true weakness is that it is not a moral undertaking. It is an ensemble of what Bhaskar would have called power2 master-slave relationships. Israel rests on a layer of dirty business - torture, arrest without trial, spying, bribery, murder, and regular burst of slaughter. Most states of course also depend on a layer of artisans who specialize in dirty business. But in Israel the proponents of dirty business are in charge out there in the open and increasingly they are a scandal to all our humanity. Moreover, the social media meant that this morning I could see the dirty work with a consciousness forming immediacy that the likes of Murdoch and the Mainstream Media can no longer control. In my youth the idealists at the university boasted were proud of their work in the kibbutzim. No one does that now. No one. The Israeli ambassador to the UK, Regev recently advised the Labour Friends of Israel that they should highlight the misogyny and homophobia of the opponents of Israe. That was a desperate attempt to hold on to the notion that there is something intrinsically good about Israel. The Zionist myth that the redemption and sanctification of Israel would lead to the redemption and sanctification of all humanity, has never seemed so sadly bizarre. All around this troubled world where the Alt-right gather they fly the flag of Israel. We are now confronted with the realtity that scumbags, who are deeply anti-semitic, support Israel. They are all the way with Netanyahu, as they march mouthing their filthy chant "Jews will not replace us". There is no surer sign of the inevitable failure of the Zionist project. My critique then rests on the proposition that there is a fundamental moral impulse in the human and no one can violate that imperative for long without suffering a breakdown. That also applies at the level of the state. And to make a final return to Richard's theme, it is here that one finds the true similarity between South Africa and the Israeli state. comradely Gary On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 12:22 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > > https://www.patreon.com/posts/palestine-and-21081569?utm_medium=post_notification_email > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
