Moshe Machover was one of the founders of Matzpen, the Israeli socialist anti-Zionist group. A talk that expands on the themes briefly surveyed in this talk is available here. Looking at Zionist irre­den­tism and American materiel and political support for it from the per­spec­tive of Marxist political economy makes episodic spasms like the “peace process” is currently under­go­ing basically mean­ing­less. Aware that the set­tle­ment project is braided into both the economy and the culture of Israel and Zionism, and aware that the US and Israel rec­i­p­ro­cally benefit from aspects of the Special Rela­tion­ship, how can we expect the latest spat to widen into a fissure? We can’t. Zionism has its own internal dynamic, which means that without an internal schism, it will go out Pyrrhi­cally. The US is made aware of this dynamic every time Netanyahu and Obama/Clinton/Bush huddle in the drawing room whis­per­ing plat­i­tudes and racist cliches at one another, agreeably agreeing to disagree on the precise minutiae of the eventual two-state solution and the exact route to be taken to get there, while agreeing that the best route to peace is war (no mention of Gaza amidst the torrent of Biden’s ire), all the while scrib­bling their sig­na­tures on arms deals.

What is the expec­ta­tion of those tit­il­lated by incessant diplo­matic intrigue? That suddenly Obama will condition aid on with­drawal to the ’67 borders? As though constant mil­i­ta­riza­tion doesn’t also benefit America? As though soundly thrashing the natives and disin­gen­u­ously blaming American support for thrashing of the natives on The Lobby doesn’t serve cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ism? As though support for Arab dic­ta­tor­ships to “support Israel” doesn’t dynam­i­cally also create a built-in-excuse–The Lobby–for sup­port­ing those same dic­ta­tor­ships, in accord with long-standing American policy? There are mate­ri­al­ist reasons for the conflict’s per­pet­u­a­tion that go beyond tribal atavism in the American Jewish community, while acknowl­edg­ing that tribal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, an ideology, is a “material force” that has “gripped” some of the masses, although not those meant by Marx. Still, leftists should look at resolving it in a leftist way, too, as Machover advocates. A certain sort of blinkered mate­ri­al­ism prevented leftists from seeing the Lobby for a long time. And now a weird hybrid of idealism and realism prevents leftists from seeing the Lobby for what it is, too, I think.

A talk delivered at the con­fer­ence “The Left in Palestine/The Pales­tin­ian Left,” School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 28 February 2010:

This talk is dedicated to the memory of my late friend and comrade, the Arab Marxist Jabra Nicola (1912–74).

The terms “Right” and “Left” as used in Israel are mis­lead­ing: they do not denote a socio-economic position (as they do elsewhere, espe­cially in Europe).  They denote attitude to Israeli policy towards Pales­tini­ans, towards war and peace. I will avoid this confusing usage.  I will talk not about “left” but about socialism.

My theme is the cor­re­la­tion — if you like, the dialec­ti­cal relation — between the struggle for socialism and the struggle against Zionism. My main theses are two sides of one medal:

1.  In Israel the struggle for socialism must be part of a regional struggle; and it nec­es­sar­ily implies a struggle to overthrow Zionism.

2. Con­versely, a defensive struggle against the worst effects of Zionism can be waged on its own as a series of one-issue campaigns, by single-issue groupings; but Zionism cannot and will not be over­thrown in this way.  It can only be over­thrown as part of a socialist trans­for­ma­tion of the entire region, the Arab East.  And it requires an orga­ni­za­tion set up according to this strategy.

Continue reading Moshe Machover on anti-Zionism

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