At 08:02 03/10/09 -0400, Andrew Pollack wrote: > >Edelman was one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against >the Nazis. Yes, thank you for posting this!
I am not a historian, so please feel free to correct me. But I have a little trouble with this: > but they were a far sight better than the Zionist >quislings in Warsaw who counseled silence and practiced betrayal, all >in pursuit of their hopes to eventually become colonizers in their own >right. There was indeed a despicable police force consisting of Jews who not only collaborated with the nazis but were complicit in the deportation of other ghetto residents to death camps. They surely met the definition of "quisling" and almost any other pejorative term you could throw at them. But I'm not sure if they were particularly "Zionist" as you have written. Is that not quite an oversimplification, at best? While it is true that the Zionist movement had little interest in fighting fascism per se (after all, they agreed with the nazis on "separation of the races"!), I would have trouble believing that they delivered Jews to the nazis in order that other Jews could conquer Palestine. I can't believe the main thing on their mind when they filled this despicable role, was the effect it would have on the Zionist project in Palestine. I had never heard that the divisions among the ghetto residents (which were very great, involving violence) were split over the question of Zionism and emigration to Palestine (which had ended before 1943), for they had more immediate concerns (to put it mildly). Again, I'd be interested in any further historical data in this regard. I realize that the wording you used would resonate with the Palestinians who you say you were sending that to. At one time I would have just been happy to read something so "politically correct." But I now have less patience for that, and when discussing history, I think "historical correctness" is more important. I think the Palestinians are smart enough to appreciate not only the politically correct position of anti-fascist anti-zionists, but also the actual historical alignments which are never so neat and tidy. - Jeff ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
