From: slr-AT-marx.org
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 16:03:54 -0500
Subject: Re: M-I: A fusillade towards the past. 


Louis G.:

>Doug H objects to my defining Zionism as Jewish fascism because Jews voted
>for David Dinkins in large numbers (while white *goyim* reactionaries,
>presumably, did not).   Carrol, too, demurs, citing what he fears are the
>effects of "blunting" future anti-Fascist movements.  And Gary M votes "no"
>because, well, I'm not really sure why, but he does mention Nico Poulantzas
>and Ernest Mandel, together with classical definitions of fascism which
>appear to me hopelessly out of date.  
>

Louis P: What's "out of date" is a revolutionary working class. Spain,
Italy, Germany and Portugal had fascist regimes. Hungary, Romania, Croatia,
France and  Austria all had fascist mass movements. Fascism arose as a
last-ditch method to suppress proletarian revolution when parliamentary
options would not suffice. The "classical" definition of fascism would
certainly be appropriate if you had millions of desperate and radicalized
workers in Western Europe demonstrating and voting for socialism. This is
not happening, but may some time in the future as the contradictions of
capitalism deepen. At that time the "classical" definition of fascism will
do nicely.


>I argue that, not only does Israel represent the quintessential modern
>Fascist State, but that the nationalist mystique normally associated with
>fascism has been replaced here by the idea of "The Jew" as the Absolute,
>though with its own rationalist and materialist components.  In this sense,
>the type of "tribal", "integral", or "total" nationalism (epitomized, for
>example, by Barrels in France, Corradini in Italy, or the German *Blut und
>Boden* school) so essential a component in fascism finds its echoe in
>doctrines of "exceptionalism" and the notion of a "Return" of the Jew to the
>home of his ancestors.


Louis P: The Zionist movement does have a fascist dynamic. Jabotinsky tried
to strike a deal with Hitler. In exchange for Nazi support for his Zionist
project, he would back Hitler's anti-Bolshevism. After a while, in the face
of Nazi anti-semitism, it became too absurd to put forward a Nazi-Zionist
alliance. However, the Jabotinsky wing of Zionism certainly *is* fascist.

>
>Zionism, like the fascist movements prevalent during the first half of our
>century, is a direct offshoot of the European revolutionary tradition.  It,
>too, began its life committed to the apocalyptic core of the Marxist idea,
>the class struggle.  And, similar to other variants of European fascism
>after 1918, Zionism came to fuse nationalism and syndicalism.  This
>synthesis, too, did not long survive the winning of State power.  Zionism at
>its core, like its counterparts throughout Europe, came to repudiate liberal
>individualism, humanism and Marxism, philosophies based on natural rights,
>utilitarianism or hedonism, as well as rejecting the premises of
>parliamentary democracy. 


Louis P: You are using a meat cleaver when a scalpel is necessary. Zionism
includes Social Democratic, bourgeois liberal, conservative and fascist
subgroupings that are constantly at war with each other ideologically. Some
day this warfare may turn into open civil war. Initially Israel's Zionism
was a social democratic project but has shifted rightward for the past 20
years or so. Did Zionism come to reject "the premises of parliamentary
democracy"? This grants much too much to the validity of the original state
of Israel. The "parliamentary democracy" was based on the
disenfranchisement of Palestinians, just as Afrikaner democracy was based
on apartheid. There was never parliamentary democracy in the true sense of
the word.




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