Capitalism, Not Zionism, is the Problem

Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Winter, 1980), pp. 154-157
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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 VIEWS FROM ABROAD

[The aim of this section is to reprint in-depth reports and contemporary analyses likely
to be of interest to readers of the Journal. Items reprinted have appeared in non-Middle
Eastern sources that may not be regularly followed by most English-speaking readers.
When, for reasons of space, it is impossible to reprint articles in their entirety, priority
will be given to their main general points or to single important sections of the articles.]
O Capitalism, Not Zionism, Is the Problem. Fred Jameson sees the Palestine/Israel
conflict as intractable as long as there is no radical social transformation within Israel.
O1 Hard But Just. Fidel Castro of Cuba explains why the non-aligned nations came
down hard on the policy followed by Israel and the United States in the Middle East.
O No Appropriate Spokesman. An informed commentator finds Menahem Begin an
unworthy symbol of the Jewish Holocaust that President Carter wants to commemorate.

CAPITALISM, NOT ZIONISM, tories evacuated by the Israelis. Recog-

IS THE PROBLEM nition of Israel? 'It is a card I have,' says
Arafat. 'The Israelis have many cards to
Given the complexities of the Pales- play. When will they play them? For
tine/ Israel conflict many in the West now I am waiting for the right time to
either despair of a solution or believe it play my card.'
can only come from a lengthy and grad-
"0 There is no such thing as a Pales-
ual diplomatic process. In an article in
tinian.
Seven Days (September 28, 1979), Marx- -Golda Meir, 1969
ist writer Fred Jameson looked at the "0 We have nothing whatsoever to
conflict from a broad perspective that talk to them about on the two basic
took in Israeli fears, Palestinian psychol- issues they want to raise: (1) the creation
ogy and Zionism as a variant of nine- of a Palestinian state; (2) the fate of
teenth century imperialism and Oriental- Palestinian refugees.
ism, arguing that a real solution hinged on -Moshe Dayan, October 1977
a radical social transformation of Israeli
society.
"0 We don't want the PLO to recog-
nize us.
"The PLO has made very clear that it
would 'accept' an independent Palestine -Ezer Weizman, Israeli Defence
Minister, July 1979
on the West Bank of the Jordan River,
connected to the Gaza Strip (only some "The intransigence of the Israeli posi-
twenty miles distant) by an appropriate tion masks increasingly complex attitudes
corridor. PLO spokespeople don't say it toward the PLO. A decade ago it was
quite this way, and their formulation is perhaps possible for the majority of
ingenious: We are willing, says Abu Jihad, Israelis to believe that providentially the
one of the PLO's top military leaders, to Jews, a 'people without a land' had found
establish a Palestinian state on any terri- themselves 'a land without a people.'

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 VIEWS FROM ABROAD 155

(Local Arabs, being Arabs, ought to feel will only be a beginning, the first step
equally at home anywhere in the Arab toward repossessing all the rest of so-
world.) The shift in awareness is exem- called occupied Palestine.'
plified in the words of a young Israeli "So, despite an appreciation of Pales-
woman on military service in Upper tinian identity and despite the well-
Galilee, front line in the Israeli struggle publicized claims of the leading theoreti-
against war-torn South Lebanon: 'Arafat cians within the umbrella organization
is a murderer. I hate the Palestinians and which is the PLO that 'armed struggle as
everything they're doing, but their cause such will cease with the creation of a
is just.' It is equally apparent in a recent Palestinian state on the West Bank,' the
poll showing that 89 percent of the Israelis remain as intransigent as ever.
Israelis are against the creation of a Pales- "On the surface this persistent inflex-
tinian state, whose eventual existence 50 ibility can seem a bit of rational real-
percent of Israel's population believes politik. But matters are complex. Listen
'inevitable.' to the further remarks of our ex-leftist
"Israeli broodings about the justice of Israeli informant: 'It is better to live
Arafat's cause, about the inevitability of a thirty, fifty, even one-hundred years like
Palestinian state, plainly reflect a growing this, on a constant war footing, than to
appreciation of Palestinian 'identity.' live five years in a concentration camp or
That five-year-olds in Lebanese refugee ten years in an Eastern European ghetto
camps are raised to understand that they or fifty years in an anti-Semitic US small
'come from' this or that village in town.... Actually, the best way to get rid
pre-1948 Palestine (as likely as not long of Arafat, though, is to give him his
since bulldozed out of existence by Israeli state! Look at the violence of Arab
authorities) is a fact whose implications politics; those people will start to kill
Israelis at all levels of society have come each other off. With the enormous and
to grasp. Not, of course, in such a way as insoluble problems of a Palestinian state
to render any less rigid their hostility to on the West Bank, Israel will have ten
the creation of a Palestinian state. years of peace.'
"Quite the contrary. A well-informed "On the one hand, an anxiety-ridden
Israeli (an ex-leftist who once opposed sense of powerlessness and victimization:
the Vietnam war and has since gained We're absolutely alone, abandoned by
top-level experience in journalism and the everybody, surrounded by 100,000,000
military) confided his sudden illumi- enemies. On the other hand, supreme
nation on the matter of Palestinian confidence; the PLO is absolutely insig-
identity. 'PLO prisoners never answered nificant as a military force, hopelessly
our routine question, "Where do you confused, unable in the end to do any
come from? " by mentioning where they better than they have done before.
were living or training,' he said. 'It was "It is these contradictory attitudes
always, "I come from Safad," or "I come which at the moment underlie Israeli
from Jaffa," or some other town where intransigence. And, any understanding of
their families had lived before 1948.' the Middle East situation that avoids the
Then, he went on to draw what is classical conclusion of exposure to Middle
apparently a widespread moral: 'There is East politics-the whole thing is hopeless,
no solution possible, these people want both sides are right (or wrong)-must
our homes. Our backs are to the wall, and temporarily bypass the temptations of
if our throats are going to be cut, we'll diplomatic suggestions for boundary lines
take everything with us. The Palestinian and formulas acceptable to both sides to
state will never be a solution for them. It examine the 'psychological' import of the

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156 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES

new Palestinian sense of 'identity.' including the recent peace movement.

"No one can doubt that the Arabs, the But Said's aim is to allow us to hear the
Arab world and Islam, are frequently the voices of people who have not been able
objects of a kind of racism. What Edward to speak. And Zionism for them is a
Said shows, in his recent book Orienta- matter of their experience of the Israeli
lism, is that this racism is no mere matter state-forced exile, systematic expro-
of individual bigotry or prejudiced priation of their lands, discrimination in
opinion. It is a system for thinking about education and social services, the
the Islamic 'Other,' which organizes the awesome might of the Israeli Army, and
very academic disciplines of 'Oriental (as abundantly documented by the report
studies' and 'Middle Eastern studies' of the National Lawyers' Guild) police
themselves. Not merely a set of offensive brutality and torture. Zionism has thus
thoughts, 'Orientalism' is a conceptual produced 'Zionism'-an understandably
system designed to control and to repress horrific image of itself-and an anti-
this alien reality, a conceptual system Zionism that mirrors exactly the strate-
intimately related throughout its history gies of Zionism's originators.
with the actual political control over "Thus, Zionism, ironically in view of
Arab lands by the European imperialist its roots, comes to generate a mirror
powers. image of itself. Terrorism? The life of the
"The core of Said's most recent book prime minister of Israel is the greatest
(The Question of Palestine) appeared in success story of terrorism in modern
the new Marxist periodical Social Text. It history. It is this terrorism which Pales-
ran under the title 'Zionism from the tinian terrorism mirrors. And with
Standpoint of Its Victims.' And, true to uncanny accuracy. The two facets of
this title, Said's complex arguments Begin's terrorist heritage, IRA-type terror
explore the dialectic between the view of against the foreign oppressor (the bomb-
the dominant Israeli powers-their sub- ing of the King David hotel) and its more
jects are (undifferentiatedly) 'orientals' - grisly acts against an indigenous civilian
and the view of those oppressed subjects population (the infamous Deir Yassin
who cannot help but see their masters massacre)-are faithfully reproduced in
exclusively in terms of a global, mono- Palestinian terrorism, with its romantic
lithic identity-Zionism. commando-suicide raids, and its very
"As thus perceived, Zionism (and it is different acts of individual protest and
this 'Zionism,' not the multifaceted desperation by a people living under
historical movement, that the PLO so military occupation, as when an anony-
vociferously promises to annihilate mous Arab workman throws a grenade
completely) is a specific historical variant into a bus full of people on the West
of classical late-nineteenth century im- Bank.
perialism, of 'Orientalism,' a complex "Collective identity? The glorious
apparatus designed to implement and reaffirmation of an authentically Jewish
enforce control over a colonial popula- and Zionist identity spells out in advance
tion (the Palestinians) in a colonial space all the dynamics that the reawakening of
(Israel). properly Palestinian identity will undergo
"Said, of course, is well aware that in the years after 1967: Mystique of the
Zionism as perceived by its victims is homeland; mirage of a history of past
woefully unfaithful to the real nature of grandeur; the financial tithes of a wealthy
Jewish men and women and even to diaspora, as well as the virtually inaliena-
Israeli society with its undoubted demo- ble political backing of powerful foreign
cratic tradition and its varied currents, states (in the one case, the United States;

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 VIEWS FROM ABROAD 157

in the other, the Arab bloc); virtual beyond the border. The Palestinians are
unanimity of internal public opinion the Blacks and Chicanos of the Israeli
against the enemy; the (sometimes capitalist system. 'What do these people
doubtful) ideological strength of a unique want? ' the Israelis ask themselves. 'Do
religious orthodoxy; the authority of they want to come into our luxury hotels
incalculable collective suffering; the list or be able to buy posh houses in our
could be indefinitely extended. It should neighbourhoods or maybe even to take
not be taken as fuel for more endless, over our own houses for themselves? '
undecidable, and sterile judgments as to "The problem's real name, in other
what came first and who bears the words, is not Zionism, but capitalism. For
'ultimate' responsibility. Rather, it should a genuine solution to the Middle East
mean something quite different: That 'problem' to be thinkable, the possibility
those who have been able to grasp and to of radical social transformation within
feel profound sympathy for the sufferings Israeli society. would have to become a
and struggles of the Jewish people are real one. This is the sense in which the
paradoxically also in the very best posi- familiar slogan-anti-Zionism means anti-
tion of all to understand the sufferings Semitism-is to be rejected. Anti-Zionism
and the struggles of the Palestinians. in this sense is rather to be understood as
"Indeed, once the objective situation opposition to a whole unjust social
which has generated anti-Zionism is system, that of the United States fully as
grasped, it's clear that what is at stake is much as that of Israel. It means, not
far from a matter of anti-Jewish racism. hostility to a people or a religion, but
Just as 'diplomatic' solutions must resistance to racism, oppressive social
inevitably dead-end in the Middle East, so relations, imperialism, monopolies,
too must those which overemphasize the consumerism-resistance, in short, to an
'psychological'-pitting Palestinian enemy that the American Left has long
'identity' against Jewish 'identity.' The since identified here at home."
problem can only be solved by consider-
ing the social relations in which the anti-
HARD BUT JUST
Zionism of the PLO is rooted.
"Israel-this lush and beautiful place, The Palestinian cause has for all
the California of the Middle East, with its intents and purposes become the cause of
glittering hotels along the gorgeous the whole Third World. In his speech to
beaches of Tel Aviv, its fertile and pros- the thirty-fourth session of the United
perous kibbutzim, its fruit farms and Nations General Assembly on October
extraordinary light, the liveliness of its 12, 1979, Cuban President Fidel Castro
citizens and the well-nigh Tuscari beauty explained why and reiterated the main
of the ancient city of Jerusalem-Israel themes of the Sixth Summit Conference
lives an anxiety deeper than that of of Non-Aligned Nations, held in Havana
foreign intervention by inefficient Arab from September 3-9, 1979, insofar as
armies or insignificant handfuls of Pales- they concerned the Middle East situation.
tinian freedom-fighters. It lives the The text of his speech to the General
anxiety from within: the anxiety of class Assembly was published as UN document
conflict-fear, not of external enemies, A/34/PV. 31 (October 15, 1979).
but of the sullen and menacing presence "There can be no doubt that the
of a Palestinian underclass in its own problem of the Middle East has become
midst, a class socially manageable only one of the situations that give rise to the
because so many of its numbers have greatest concern and worry in the world
been driven out into the refugee camps today. The Sixth Summit Conference

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