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kano OP wrote

Yea for me at least it's about the whole colonial thing and the historical context of when Zionism got going that makes me kind of satisfied with leaving Zionism as white supremacy. The Zionists have been portraying themselves as defenders of the west for a long time, and also started their colonial ventures during the height of European colonialism in general, and there's plenty of Zionists who ain't Jews anyway.

But I don't really wanna say anything else here, don't really need to convince the people of anything, just hope they also agree that Zionism is a settler colonial venture.

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cyb3rd4ndy wrote (edited )

Replying to both monday and kano:

Here's where I am getting lost with you two... you want to make this about "whiteness" and it just isn't. I don't have any idea if you have studied nationalism in non-European contexts, or colonization that isn't European, but your insistence on comparing Jewish nationalism (Zionism) with White Supremacy makes it seem like you are using the well-established leftwing opposition to White Supremacy and (European) Colonialism as a springboard for opposition to Zionism. I think that this is totally unnessaccary and that we can oppose Zionism as it is.

As far as Zionism and colonization goes, what exactly is your take here? Do you think Jews are indigenous to Palestine? No? If they are, then how do you sort out what parts of Jewish migration to Palestine are colonial and how much of it isn't? Were all the Jews who have migrated to Palestine Zionists (White Supremacists)? Is it only the Ashkenazim? Is it only some parts of Palestine? What parts? And what about the British and their mandate? They're classic colonizers. Were they Zionists? What about the U.N. and their partition plan... Zionists? White Supremacists? What about the Ottomans... colonizers? How exactly did people in Palestine become Muslim? ETC.

Here's my take:

Empires used to rule the world. Not only in Europe, but all over the place. Over the past few hundred years, those empires broke up and what emerged in their place were nation states. That is... different nationalists claimed that they were the nationality that had the right to govern a territory and form a state. That's all of the nationalists. Not just the British ones, or the Irish ones, or the Italian ones, or the Polish ones, or the German ones, or the Jewish ones; but also nationalists in India, in Africa, in Asia, in the Americas, etc. A lot of what you're talking about regarding supremacy is part of nationalism itself, before it ever becomes colonial or fascist.

When it comes to colonization... of course the old empires colonized huge parts of the globe before any nation-states did. But yes, some of the many nation-states that formed also colonized. Yes, Zionism comes out of this period. However, the logic of Zionism wasn't colonial. I know that they literally used the terms colony and colonize, but actual colonial enterprises aren't based on the notion of a people indigenous to a region returning to it. Zionism was based on Jews believing that their fundamental problem for 2,000 years was that they were a nationality in diaspora and that created numerous problems they could only solve by returning to their homeland and restoring their sovereignty in that land. That would have been their mission whether or not anyone else was living there, whether or not the people living there were white or black or brown. They didn't go there to exploit the labor or resources of the Palestinian population that lived there. They didn't create an outpost for European nations to extract resources. It's just not the same logic.

So how can you compare that with White Nationalists? What is specifically "white" about this at all? I can't help but think the entire point of adding "white" into this is to make the claim that Ashkenazim are white and hence, have no claim to indigeneity in Palestine. If that's the point you're making then just fucking say it.

Also, also - specifying "white" supremacy or nationalism makes it seem like you're making an apology for plain, normal nationalism. Like there is a good kind of nationalism that isn't separatist, supremacist, authoritarian. Is that the case? Do you support Arab Nationalism? Pan-Arab Nationalism? Palestinian Nationalism? Are those the good guys? Is that why Zionism needs to be "white" so that it can be a bad nationalism? Can't we, anarchists, make the straight-froward argument that we're opposed to nationalism generally, which includes all of the above: white, black, Jewish, Arab, etc.? Or do we need to play this game with the fucking bourgeoisie and pretend like we support the good nationalisms, the kind that create good socialist dictatorships and they support the bad nationalisms, the kind that create capitalist states? Are we really going to go back to the third-worldist, Maoist bullshit? In the age of the failed Arab Spring and Islamism, are we going to really pretend that nationalism is only bad if it's white, European? As if national liberation doesn't become national supremacy?

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