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by Frances M. Beal
Friday, Aug. 24, 2001 at 3:21 PM
FBeal@aclunc.org
The pro-Israeli lobby in the U.S. has been vociferous in its efforts to line up mainstream civil rights groups or their representatives to accept without criticism all Israeli policies concerning the Palestinians.
Blacks Split on Zionism
By Frances M. Beal
Delegates to the NGO Forum on Racism, Xenophobia and other forms of intolerance are finishing their shopping lists and packing their bags. Some have already landed in Durban to participate in a Youth Forum associated with next week's gathering. Black Americans, in particular, are experiencing a sense of euphoria because Africans and Africans of the Diaspora have stood firm in the face of the U.S. threat to boycott if the language on reparations for the slave trade, slavery and colonialism remains in the final declaration. The U.S. nongovernmental organizations leading the fight for reparations have succeeded in forging a show of unity among Blacks representing divergent class and political persuasions and nationalities that is truly remarkable.
The same cannot be said of the African American view on defining zionism as racism. The pro-Israeli lobby in the U.S. has been vociferous in its efforts to line up mainstream civil rights groups or their representatives to accept without criticism all Israeli policies concerning the Palestinians. And this has been successful, even when these policies constitute horrific acts of violence in defiance of UN resolutions condemning Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It was shameful to see, for example, NAACP Board Member Julian Bond's name on a full-page N.Y. Times ad condemning the Palestinian response last year to Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to a Palestinian holy site, Temple Mount, and total silence on the slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children that has since ensued.
This myopic view stands in opposition to the view articulated by the Black Radical Congress, which is "appalled that the march toward a stillbirth of Palestine as a bantustan, surrounded by Israeli settlements and subject to
the total political, economic and military control of Israel, continues unabated. In short, nothing but legitimate rage and frustration could be expected to flow from the Palestinians' awareness that [the Oslo Agreement] promises not a peace with justice, but a peace of might over right, of supremacy over the principle of equality, a neo-colonialist peace, an apartheid peace, a peace of the grave."
The recent escalation of military violence against a civilian Palestinian population, and now the retaliatory bombing deaths of Israeli citizens is underscoring the truism that without justice, there is no peace. These developments have created a new political situation, however, particularly for Black America.
The TV images of a disproportionate and murderous police and military response to Palestinian protest cannot help but recall our own experience in the fight against white supremacy. This picture was further sharpened this week by the violent Israeli police repression of peaceful Palestinian and Israeli demonstrators protesting the government's seizure of Orient House in Jerusalem, a symbol of Palestinian sovereignty, as limited as it was. Even those who had studiously ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people have to feel uncomfortable at the intransigent and fascistic tactics that the Israeli state is perpetrating against a civilian population. In this context, it may have been a tactical error to insist that the WCAR declaration contain language that defines zionism as racism. This approach precipitated a fight over the definition of a "word" rather than a struggle to highlight and condemn the actual Israeli policies in the occupied territories and against the Arab population within Israel itself.
There are many Black Americans who may not understand the full implications of the zionist project and turn away from condemning it as racist. After all, the Israeli State was established in the wake of a holocaust of monumental crimes by the Third Reich and its allies. How could the Jewish State be racist? Definitions, unfortunately, tend to keep the argument in the ideological rather than the political realm. On the other hand, a close investigation of the actual conditions under which the Palestinians languish under the Israeli Army occupation and the second-class citizenship that Arabs within Israel itself suffer is another question. It is one of the ironies of fate that a history of oppression of Jews (usually by Christian zealots) has not prevented them from turning around and inflicting upon another people violence and repression based on their non-Jewish status.
These discriminatory and genocidal Israeli policies against the Palestinians are something that no Black American should ignore: the pain of conquest, occupation, displacement, statelessness, exile, subjugation, national oppression within its borders and violent death. Indeed, the list of crimes perpetrated against Palestine parallels all too closely the "crimes against humanity" that compose the heart of the demand for Black reparations.
It is too bad that African Americans are entering deliberations at the World Conference Against Racism with a divided view on the Palestinian question. But trying to unite people around "definitions" doesn't seem to be
the way to go.
Frances M. Beal is a political commentator for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and national secretary of the Black Radical Congress. Contact: fmbeal@igc.org or blackradicalcongress@email.com
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by Justice
Friday, Aug. 24, 2001 at 10:49 PM
Zionism is racism. The reason the NAACP will not support this fact of life is because it is a pro-capitalist organization, determined to promote the black bourgeoisie as it climbs the corporate ladder. Thurgood Marshall, while on the NAACP's Board of Directors, kicked out the NAACP founder, WEB DuBois, for being too Red in 1948. Thurgood Marshall's reward for being a good anti-Communist was to be appointed Supreme Court Justice. He made some good decisions while in that court, but he passed the litmus test for success in this bankrupt society: He was a good anti-Communist.
The Black Radical Congress comes from a different political tradition, the post-Vietnam War tradition, when the black liberation movement was part of the anti-war movement. Anti-Communism was the agenda and continues to be the agenda of the capitalist class that promoted the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all wars to this day in Iraq, Yugoslavia and everywhere else in the world.
All nationalism is reactionary, and Zionism is no exception. Nationalism and racism are two sides of the same evil coin. Zionism is Jewish nationalism, and like all nationalism, it promotes discrimination against those who do not support its racist outlook.
Those of us from Holocaust families know the Zionists as collaborators with the Nazis in promoting the Transfer Agreement, which was an attempt to break the boycott of Nazi goods while saving the lives of some middle class anti-Communist Jews.
Today, Israel is just a pawn of oil imperialism. It exists to thwart all workingclass struggle against the oil corporations taking the oil from the Middle East. Israel is not now and never has been a refuge. It is a real estate investment for upper class American Jews and above all, it is a "bulwark against Communism."
What we need is a socialist world. If you have had enough of the twin parties of capitalism, the Democrat-Republicans, both of which are staunch supporters of all the evil deeds of Israel, join Peace & Freedom Party now. Peace & Freedom Party is a socialist party on the California ballot that supports the Palestine liberation struggle, and is always for labor, peace, the environment, gay rights, women's rights, all other civil rights and public ownership of utilities, that is, public power. We oppose imperalist war, prisons and the death penalty. Just check "Other" on your voter registration form and write in "Peace & Freedom Party." For more information, see http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
www.peaceandfreedom.org
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by xx
Saturday, Aug. 25, 2001 at 7:19 PM
Be careful. There are culty elements in P&F. At one time, I think they were pretty legit, but in the 80's I saw it taken over by the New Alliance Party, a cult of personality.
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by Justice
Saturday, Aug. 25, 2001 at 10:31 PM
The New Alliance fascist garbage came and went in the 1980s. You are over 10 years behind the times. I woul dnot have anything to do with the New Alliance either. The people in charge are those who were there since its inception, and we are lifelong socialists. I suggest you read the website before you engage in any name-calling. I also suggest you keep up with the times.
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
www.peaceandfreedom.org
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by Justice
Saturday, Aug. 25, 2001 at 10:41 PM
Referring to the website, 1988 was the year the New Alliance Party of CIA agent Lenora Fulani, tried to take over Peace & Freedom Party and failed. The California Secretary of State refused to recognize any candidates for president from Peace & Freedom Party in 1988 because the Peace & Freedom Party convention was split by these thugs. That was 13 years ago, and a one-time problem. We came from the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s, formed in 1968, and became socialist in 1974. It was a major achievement to break from the anti-Communist hysteria that spawned the Vietnam War, say goodbye to the warmongering, anti-Communist Democrats, and form a new party. As we can see today, it is still a major effort for many people to make that change, and that is why Peace & Freedom Party is needed and why we keep fighting for labor, peace, freedom and socialism.
As to Israel, the only solution to the crisis is a secular, socialist Palestine. There can be no peace under capitalism. Most likely, at the same time, there will be a secular, socialist Middle East. It is all one region. The issue is always one of class struggle and the workingclass of Israel, both Jewish and Arab, has nothing to gain from supporting the Zionist state, which exploits and oppresses all of them. The only hope of workers everywhere is to unite and fight for socialism.
www.peaceandfreedom.org
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