droid
Well-known member
I mean, its literally, the line after the one you quoted.
Droid said:
I try and let it slide, but its becoming pathological.
Jeremy Corbyn
- Thread starter glasshand
- Start date
I mean, its literally, the line after the one you quoted.
I try and let it slide, but its becoming pathological.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
You said:
"Collaboration" implies some mutual arrangement working towards a common goal. I don't think Zionism can be reduced to "the removal of Jews from Europe". Nor do I find "Zionist paramilitaries ... attempted to form an alliance with Italian and German fascism" a convincing argument for "collaboration".
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droid
Well-known member
Please, just give it up - by your definition, there was no collaboration between occupied civilians and the Nazis in WWII.
owengriffiths
Owen
Droid, did you say there is a book looking at links Israel has with right wing Latin American groups?
droid
Well-known member
There's a few I think - Chomsky covered it in a couple of books, deterring democracy details the UN record I think (Its been a while).
Some recommendations here. Of those mentioned I have only read Benjamin Beit-Hallami’s 'The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why', which I thought was very good.
If I recall correctly there's also a chapter in Benny Morris & Ian Black's devastating 'Israel's Secret wars'
Some recommendations here. Of those mentioned I have only read Benjamin Beit-Hallami’s 'The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why', which I thought was very good.
If I recall correctly there's also a chapter in Benny Morris & Ian Black's devastating 'Israel's Secret wars'
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Don't act like you've won by default here. If your argument rests on defining the goal of Zionism as "the removal of Jews from Europe" then, as vim has abundantly pointed out, that's a bankrupt position.
I'm going to leave it now because we're obviously at loggerheads.
droid
Well-known member
Well, no thats not true, or at best, its semantics. The concepts of European emigration and a Jewish national homeland are utterly entwined - one could not exist without the other.
The fundamental premise of Zionism since the mid 1800's was that the only solution for a viable, communal Jewish existence lay in Eretz Israel, and the negation of the Diaspora is a fundamental principle in nearly every current of zionism. The prime goal of the Jewish National movement from its foundation in Russia and Eastern Europe was to promote immigration to Palestine. The grand project of Herzel, the world Zionism Congress and Political zionism was to promote immigration and to find a 'corner' (be it in Europe, Uganda or elsewhere) for all Jews to emigrate to and establish a state. Herzel even suggested that anti-semitism be promoted and used as tool to aid this process:
"It would be an excellent idea to call in respectable, accredited anti-Semites as liquidators of property. To the people they would vouch for the fact that we do not wish to bring about the impoverishment of the countries that we leave. At first they must not be given large fees for this; otherwise we shall spoil our instruments and make them despicable as 'stooges of the Jews.' Later their fees will increase, and in the end we shall have only Gentile officials in the countries from which we have emigrated. The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies."
And of course you have cultural zionists like Brenner and Kaufmann with borderline anti-Semitic descriptions of diaspora Jews as 'slovenly', 'depressed', 'disfigured' - positives for Brenner as he saw despair as a primary motivation for Zionism & immigration - in fact the similarities between Zionist portrayal of pacifist, parasitic, diaspora Jews and the basic tenets of European anti semitism have been well documented.
Jabotinsky, the paragon of revisionist Zionism provides probably the most eloquent summary:
"Eliminate the Diaspora, or the Diaspora will surely eliminate you."
This all continued in the post '48 period, with Israeli efforts to promote immigration from the arab nations including grenade attacks at Iraqi synagogues, military & political wrangling with other Arab (& even African) states, repeated public campaigns in the US, subsidised Aliyahs - amongst countless other examples. Anti diaspora ideas have never gone away, and have been periodically revived - primarily to counteract the 'demographic threat' of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. 'Diaspora Jew', coined as an insult in opposition to the dynamic, muscular 'Mensch' of Zionism at the start of the last century is still, today used as a synonym for 'self-hating Jew' in Israel today.
You could write a book on the subject - in fact, several dozen have been written, but I think that gives some kind of overview.
As for the Nazis - apart from The Haavara Agreement with German Zionists, they also famously planned (and nearly executed) the Madagascar plan - the forcible transfer of European Jews to Madagascar, and then again with Generalplan Ost - the transfer of jews to the Soviet Union via Poland.
So - the transfer of European Jewry, forcibly or voluntarily was a shared goal of Zionism and Nazism. The Nazis wanted to remove Jews from Europe and Zionists wanted European Jews to leave Europe for Israel. The motivations are poles apart, but the goal was more or less identical.
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droid
Well-known member
No, we're not at loggerheads. Youve quoted me out of context, completely ignored all of my qualifiers, ignored substantive points in favour of nitpicking and pulled at increasingly tenuous straws to try and support your position - and this isnt the first time.
I have disagreed with many people here on political threads. Occasionally Im right, occasionally Im wrong, but even those with whom Ive disagreed most passionately, Vimothy, Craner (and their ilk), I can respect for the fact that they generally play by the rules of decent debate - and I certainly cant remember anyone who has so consistently deployed the kinds of intellectually dishonest arguments that you seem to be doing nowadays.
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vimothy
yurp
But the difference is that there was a common goal, whereas I don't think that's the case here. It's too strong to say that the Zionists wanted to ethnically cleanse Europe of its Jews, even though if the Zionists were satisfied in their ultimate aim, it would leave Europe in the same state (i.e., without the presence of any Jewish people).
droid
Well-known member
You're deep in the quibble zone here, and I reckon you know it. Bit of shenanigans going on with some subtle shifts of terminology there as well.
I think Ive demonstrated that there was an explicit desire within many currents of Zionism to eliminate the diaspora, to get Jews out of Europe, thereby eliminating anti-semitism - as Chaim Weizmann wrote “Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them ... [This] reaction ... cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off.”
Herzl, founding father of Zionism, writing to the Tsar said that Zionism offered (and I kid you not) the "...final solution of the Jewish question.”.
You think its a bit strong - fine. I think its reasonable to say they shared a common goal, and whilst there may be a good argument against this assertion, it would be in the historical detail - and I dont think youve even attempted to make it.
And just to reiterate - I dont think its reasonable to bring this up in a public spat about anti-semitism, Im not a huge fan of Nazi/Israel comparisons and I dont stand by Livingstone's other statements. I am making a narrow, technical point which I think is supported by the weight of historical evidence.
I think Ive demonstrated that there was an explicit desire within many currents of Zionism to eliminate the diaspora, to get Jews out of Europe, thereby eliminating anti-semitism - as Chaim Weizmann wrote “Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them ... [This] reaction ... cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off.”
Herzl, founding father of Zionism, writing to the Tsar said that Zionism offered (and I kid you not) the "...final solution of the Jewish question.”.
You think its a bit strong - fine. I think its reasonable to say they shared a common goal, and whilst there may be a good argument against this assertion, it would be in the historical detail - and I dont think youve even attempted to make it.
And just to reiterate - I dont think its reasonable to bring this up in a public spat about anti-semitism, Im not a huge fan of Nazi/Israel comparisons and I dont stand by Livingstone's other statements. I am making a narrow, technical point which I think is supported by the weight of historical evidence.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Obviously.
But defeating Nazi Germany was an end in itself. Merely getting Jews out of Europe was clearly not the stated aim of Zionism, and the Nazis clearly had no interest in establishing an independent sovereign Jewish state sharing the same boundaries as the ancient kingdom of Israel. You've said yourself "the motivations were poles apart". I appreciate that you haven't said Ken's "Hitler supported Zionism" is correct, but why this need to mount such a forensically precise defence of everything else he said?
Going from "Zionists hoped to benefit from Nazi anti-Semitism for their own purposes" to "Hitler supported Zionism" is like going from "The UK and USSR shared the common goal of defeating Nazi Germany" to "Churchill supported Stalin's desire to establish a communist super-empire stretching from Kamchatka to Iberia". It's such an obviously wrong statement that the factuality of whatever else he said is pretty much irrelevant.