Dissident Veteran For Peace

Roughly translated the text on the image above says: "100 Years" and "Fight with the Comintern for the rebuilding of the Bavarian Soviet! Long live the 100th anniversary of the Bavarian Soviet Republic April 13, 1919 - April 13, 2019". The sign identifies the marchers as members of the Neuhausen—a borough of Munich—section of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

One of the best books on the American labor movement I've ever read is the late Robert Fitch's 2006 Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise. Following Fitch's lead, a reviewer for The Nation aptly compared the book to Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses.

Unfortunately, Fitch's constructive criticism of American unions was not generally well-received. It was mostly ignored.

However, the impetus for this post was not Solidarity for Sale but, rather, a bit in a fascinating 2006 book review by Fitch of separate works by Michael Lerner and Jim Wallis. I won't comment on those books or Fitch's review except to say I am on the same side of the fence as Fitch (but for somewhat different reasons) and he was out of his hermeneutical depth.

What I want to focus on here is his striking reference to the 1919 Bavarian Soviet Republic. In "Vetting God's Politics" Fitch writes:

Lerner's account of the Nazi rise to power leaves out some critical material and political factors — like the Great Depression and the suicidal division of the Left between Social Democrats and Communists. But even more significantly, Lerner blots out the not inconsiderable role of the communitarian Jewish Left in producing the convulsive reaction that Hitler exploited.

At a certain point in the upheaval that followed the German defeat by the Allies, members of [Martin] Buber's Neue Gemeinschaft group — like Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam — were high-level participants in the regime which seized power in Bavaria.  To understand the terrible repercussion of the 1919 anarchist coup, imagine if Vietnam not only won the war but invaded the U.S. in the 60s and, in the chaos that followed, a handful of long-bearded Jewish radicals from Berkeley seized power in California and declared the state a Republic.  Then, although a tiny anarchist minority of a left revolutionary minority, the government proceeded to decree a new social order; handing out a worthless currency as free money; establishing agrarian communes; and declaring war on Mexico.  (Bavaria declared war on Switzerland after its refusal to lend the new government 60 locomotives.)  It's likely that California would have experienced a reaction far worse than the election of Ronald Reagan.

In speaking this not-so-speakable (see note below) history Fitch exhibits the kind of intellectual integrity that helped unfairly doom him to a relative obscurity in academic and activist circles. There's a reason why Lerner's account left this information out and it is directly related to why Lerner's star rose much higher than Fitch's in elite circles.

That said, Fitch's characterization of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (BSR) as an "anarchist coup" is a bit puzzling. Apparently, some of the leading figures in the BSR, such as Landauer and Mühsam were self-described anarchists. However, the seizure of state power in a coup is inimical to anarchism as I understand it.

Moreover, in The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (UChicago Pr., 1993) Benjamin Ginsberg more aptly writes:

Jews were also among the leaders of the Communist government that the KPD briefly established in Bavaria after the murder of Kurt Eisner. Eugene Levine was head of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, Gustav Landauer was its commissar for propaganda and cultural affairs, and Ernst Toller commanded its "red army."

Kurt Eisner and Ernst Toller were members of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). Founded in 1917, the USPD joined the Communist International in 1920, leading to a split with the majority of party members going into the KPD. (The USPD is not to be confused with the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD) but often referred to simply as the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The USPD was the result of a split within the SPD/MSPD, a self-proclaimed Marxist party. Many founders of the Spartacist League-KPD, such as the Jewish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, also started out in the SPD.)

This is a complicated period in Bavarian history. As best I can tell, the sequence of events is as follows:

November 8, 1918: Eisner (a USPD communist) proclaims the People's State of Bavaria (Volksstaat Bayern; VSB) in Munich. Johannes Hoffmann, a Social Democrat (MSPD) and not a Jew, becomes the VSB's minister of education or culture (sources vary). Some sources say Landauer and Mühsam had formal positions in Eisner's government, most say their positions were supportive but informal.

November 21: 29-year-old Adolph Hitler arrives at an army garrison in Munich after being discharged from the hospital where he was recovering from war injuries. The following month he is transferred to Traunstein (about 100 km/62 mi from Munich) only to return to Munich in January or February (In Mein Kampf Hitler says it was March).

January 5, 1919: A general strike, led by the Spartacist League (renamed as/absorbed into the KPD in the preceding month) and the Independent Socialists, begins in Berlin. It will last about one week and in the ensuing violence 150 - 200 people will die before it is violently suppressed by Freikorps.

January 12: In parliamentary elections Eisner's party, the USPD, gets only 2.5% of the vote, entitling them to 3 seats. By contrast, the MSPD wins 31 seats.

February 21: Eisner is assassinated by a 22-year-old army officer, Count Arco-Valley (described as "a young Jew" by British historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke in his book, The Occult Roots of Nazism). Some sources claim Hitler is photographed in uniform at Eisner's funeral five days later. The VSB falls into disarray and Toller soon takes over Eisner's position as leader of the Bavarian branch of the USPD.

March 17:  Hoffmann is elected by the VSB's parliament as the VSB's new minister-president.

April 3: Hitler is elected liaison of his demobilization battalion to the Hoffmann government.

April 6-7: A coup is undertaken following which the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic (Räterepublik Baiern; RRB) is proclaimed under the leadership of Toller, along with Landauer and Mühsam as cabinet ministers. Hoffmann and others flee Munich to Bamberg. It was during this period that the RRB, under Toller, declared war on Switzerland. Hitler stays put.

April 13: Hoffmann's forces attempt to forcibly re-establish control in Munich but fail. That same day a Jewish KPD member, Eugen Leviné stages a coup against Toller and seizes power. According to Richard J. Evans in The Coming of the Third Reich, the Russian-born Leviné is acting on his own, not the KPD's, initiative. He takes directions from V. I. Lenin (also of Jewish ancestry) to, among other things, arrest large numbers of so-called class enemies, seize privately owned weapons under penalty of death, and organize a 20,000 strong "Red Army" to "spearhead the Bolshevization of Europe". The ousted Toller, an avowed pacifist, takes a position in the new regime as commander of the Red Army. Landauer is also prepared to stay in the new regime but when his cultural program is rejected he quits.

April 15: Hitler is elected liaison of his demobilization battalion to the Leviné government. Leviné's repressive policies and inept leadership along with outside pressure quickly bring about chaos in Munich.

May 1: The siege of Munich is broken by an alliance between Hoffmann's forces and Freikorps under Lt. General Burghard von Oven. Shortly afterwards, Hitler comes out in open opposition to the recently deposed revolutionary government(s) and in what he will describe in Mein Kampf as his "first more or less purely political activity" Hitler joins a commission "investigating the behaviour of his regiment's soldiers during the two soviet republics."

Note
As another example of the not-so-speakable consider that on the popular, if generally unreliable, web site Wikipedia there is a category of articles on "Christian communists" (not to mention "Christian communism") and a category of "African-American communists‎". There are also 151 categories of "Communists by nationality". There's a category of "Jewish socialists" but you will not find a category of articles on Jewish communists. That category was repeatedly created and deleted in the span of about two weeks in 2007.

Thus, for instance, Karl Marx is not categorized in Wikipedia as a "Jewish communist". Bear in mind that the Communist Manifesto's primary author had maternal and paternal grandfathers who were rabbis and his mother converted from Judaism to Christianity years after Karl's birth. FWIW, Marx is also not categorized with "Christian communists", "German Christians", or "German Lutherans" (although his father is). 

To the extent that Jews constitute an ethnicity or nationality, Karl Marx was Jewish. Although he was baptized as a child (so was the execrable Abe Foxman), Marx was nevertheless Jewish under Judaic religious law, i.e. halakha. As one Orthodox rabbi notes: "... in Jewish law there is no true notion of converting out of the faith. Once a person is born Jewish, that is his lifelong status, whether he is observant or not ... past baptism and conversion never [change] that."

There is also no apparent evidence that Marx ever participated in the Lutheran rite of confirmation or that he ever professed faith in Christ as a child or an adult. Marx did profess atheism but that is not necessarily a halakhic disqualifier.

Now consider the case of Benedict Spinoza. Amsterdam's rabbis formally branded Spinoza a heretic and expelled him from the community in 1656. In 2012, the chief rabbi of Amsterdam's Sephardic Jews was asked to rescind the writ of cherem; he refused. Yet, Spinoza's biographical article is included in the following Wikipedia categories: 17th-century Jewish theologians, 17th-century Sephardi Jews, Dutch Jews, Jewish biblical scholars, Jewish philosophers, Jewish skeptics, Jewish translators of the Bible, and 17th-century Jewish biblical scholars.

The single, Wikipedia categorical reference to Marx's Jewishness is "German people of Dutch-Jewish descent". The point is not that Karl Marx was an observant, professing adherent of Judaism; he, apparently, was not. The point is that, unlike virtually every other group of communists, Jewish communists such as Eisner, Toller, Luxemburg, and Leviné are not allowed to be seen and considered in their collective in Wikipedia. Why is that?

Labels: Abraham Foxman, anarchism, communism, history, Jews, labor, Lenin, Lerner, Ronald Reagan, Wikipedia

Inside Higher Ed and Scott Jaschik, who have done a generally very good job of covering this story since last fall, confirmed yesterday that the University of Michigan has terminated its distribution agreement with Pluto Press. It appears that the formal notice of intent I mentioned in my last post was given in recent weeks and the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday reported an effective date of December 31. Here is an excerpt from the IHE story:

Roger van Zwanenberg, chairman of Pluto, said that there was no doubt in his mind but that for political opposition to a book critical of Israel, his press and Michigan’s press would still be doing business. "What this tells you is that there are dark forces in America who would like to control the flow of ideas, and they are powerfully organized and they are very dangerous," he said.

Many American academic authors come to Pluto because of its independence of such forces, and he said that makes Michigan's move all the more disappointing. He said that Pluto planned to seek another American publisher to handle distribution in the United States.

The University of Michigan Press knew "from day one of our contract" that Pluto's peer review was not identical to that of a university press, van Zwanenberg said. So the "sudden hurdle" of having identical peer review to a university press was "a facade," he said, to hide the way the university "has not stood up for free speech."

Here's an excerpt from the CHE story:

... The Michigan press took fire last year for one of Pluto's books, Overcoming Zionism, by Joel Kovel, a professor of social studies at Bard College. The pro-Israel lobbying group StandWithUs spearheaded a vocal protest, attacking the book as "a polemic against Israel" and a "collection of propaganda, misquotes, and discredited news stories."

On its Web site, StandWithUs wrote that "hundreds of anti-West, anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda texts reach us exclusively via University of Michigan Press."

The unwelcome attention led the university to take the unusual step of drafting guidelines to govern its press's distribution and marketing agreements. The guidelines, announced in January, state that the press may consider entering into partnerships "with other scholarly publishers whose mission is aligned with the mission of the UM Press and whose academic standards and processes of peer review are reasonably similar."

Re-examining Relationships

The guidelines direct the press's director and executive board to review proposed distribution agreements to make sure they fit those criteria. Pluto Press's peer-review process, which involves sending book proposals but not completed manuscripts out to reviewers, apparently did not.

Few university presses maintain formal guidelines for such distribution and marketing agreements, treating them more as business deals than as intellectual partnerships ...

Philip Pochoda, the Michigan press's director, declined to comment on Tuesday on the severing of ties with Pluto. But Kelly Cunningham, director of the university's office of public affairs and media relations, confirmed that the distribution agreement had been terminated, effective December 31.

The press's board reached the decision "after careful examination," she told The Chronicle. In an e-mail message, Ms. Cunningham said the board had "determined that the Pluto Press mission and procedures are not reasonably similar to UM Press as specified by the guidelines and therefore do not meet the requirements to continue as a distribution client."

The press also has distribution agreements with the American Academy in Rome and two of the university's scholarly centers. Those agreements were vetted by the board and were found satisfactory, Ms. Cunningham said.

Limitations of a Small Press

The impending breakup did not come as a shock to Pluto Press, according to its chairman, Roger van Zwanenberg. The Israel lobby "didn't like the book," he said. "They are unremitting, and the end result is that we're more trouble than we're worth."

Pluto sends every proposal out to half-a-dozen scholars in the relevant field. But small commercial presses like his cannot afford to do the kind of peer review done at subsidized university presses, Mr. van Zwanenberg said.

Were the new guidelines crafted so as to disqualify Pluto? No one has said so publicly. But as Mr. van Zwanenberg sees it, "The hoops that the University of Michigan Press created were only for university presses." ...

"For a tiny overseas publisher to have this sort of effect in the United States is quite astonishing," he said, "and it reflects powerful forces who are deeply antagonistic to free speech when it comes to issues around Israel and Palestine."

I do want to take minor exception to something Mr. Jaschik said in the IHE piece, referring to this blog, he wrote:

A blog that has defended Pluto is arguing that the "Zionist thought police" inflamed the situation, leading the university to adopt procedures that assured that it would have no choice but to cut ties to Pluto. And that blogger didn't even think Overcoming Zionism was that thoughtful a book in its critique of Israel.

In fact, I would say that the book was thoughtful, even courageous, in its way and for very many people, if read critically, helpful and thought provoking. My criticism is of some of the thoughts that Dr. Kovel expressed in the book and I also meant to point out that, notwithstanding the merits of the book, it was disappointing that such a flawed book should be the catalyst for Pluto to lose its sole American distributor.

Speaking of flaws, I would like to now expand on my critique of Overcoming Zionism. On Tuesday I read Assaf Kfoury's review of the book for the first time. Although I would say that he is more positive about the book than I am, he makes some points that I think complement my own. Below are a couple of excerpts:

Two comments on the first eight chapters:

(1) Kovel is primarily engaged in an internal American debate and, more specifically, an American Jewish debate. Many of his references are to people, politics, and history that will resonate with this audience. The tone is set from the very beginning, in the Acknowledgments section, where Kovel thanks some 50 friends and collaborators, many of whom are progressive participants in American Jewish affairs. Kovel mentions that it is after an invitation from Michael Lerner that he began this book project by writing articles and essays for Tikkun magazine.

How many Palestinians or Arabs are included in this group of about 50 friends and collaborators? Exactly two, Edward Said and Samir Amin, both living and working in the West. The decision to go beyond the Tikkun articles and turn them into a book "was sparked by Edward Said's encouragement." How many Palestinians or Arabs are among the hundreds of authors Kovel cites in the whole book? By my count, only five: W. Khalidi, N. Masalha, J. Massad, N. Rouhana, and M. Younis. This does not diminish Kovel's contribution in any way -- his courage to confront Zionist shibboleths in America is commendable -- but also defines its scope and limitation.

In the next excerpt from Kfoury's review I have interspersed some of my own comments and, except for section headings, all emphasis is mine.

... To this suggestion [of "a Two-State solution based on an equitable and fair division"] Kovel counterposes several objections, starting with his own personal objection: He dislikes any state for any singular kind of people because "life has taught [him] that people do better when they are mixing and mingling in conditions of a rich diversity" (p. 217). Many will sympathize with the sentiment, but how relevant is it in countering the facts on the ground? What we may personally like or dislike will have little bearing on the eventual outcome of the Zionist experiment and its impact on the Palestinians. Or, if we want to act on this sentiment, we should only try to prevent the US from continuing to underwrite this experiment, and let its victims decide for themselves the benefits of living in a mixed society and how to achieve it. ...

It is here that [Kovel] mentions One-State for the first time: "The One-State option is a demand for Israel to cease being a Jewish state ..." (p. 219). Once more there is a fallacy: A One-State in all of historic Palestine does not necessarily imply it will cease to be a Jewish state -- i.e., a state that does not institutionally empower its Jewish citizens and discriminate against the others -- even if the others are not ethnically cleansed and become more numerous than the Jews.

VFPD: Indeed, this is precisely my criticism of Kovel when he writes, "... the South African Communist leader Joe Slovo insisted on a 'sunset clause' for the new state in which no civil servant (needless to say, white) was to be fired when the ANC took over" (243) and, on the same page, "Further, there is no expectation that the authorities of the new state will be exclusively or even predominantly Palestinian." But I don't think this is a fallacy on Kovel's part--this is a model, even a goal. Kovel seems to be openly advocating for the maintenance of the Jewish apartheid bureaucracy, leadership, and economic power.

In comparison to Kovel, Ali Abunimah, in One Country, does not quote Slovo though he does note that the during the transition from apartheid the African National Congress (at the behest of Slovo?) "agreed to honor all existing civil service contracts, assuring white administrators and middle managers of their personal security in the immediate future" (p. 151). It is possible, even likely, that Kovel and Abunimah are talking about the same thing here but the context suggests a difference in perception. Abunimah cites it as an example of reassuring the White South African minority amidst "economic and social transformation" (p. 150). Kovel seems to be talking about and even advocating maintaining the status quo. Moreover, in contrast to Kovel, while he gives it short shrift, Abunimah at least acknowledges, in South Africa, lingering "Economic and social inequalities" (p. 158) and resentment over perceived White resistance to "faster economic change that would reduce the vast economic inequalities" (p. 159).

The last chapter of Kovel's book is meant to lay out a broad agenda for how to achieve the envisioned One-State. But it doesn't, and it can't realistically, do this. The chapter starts with the story of Ahmad, a Palestinian who was born in 1948, spent 17 years in Israeli prisons, and has lived through the repeated dislocations that his community had to endure as a result of Israeli policies. By itself, the story is a welcome counterpoint to the preceding chapters, which relegated Palestinians and Arabs in general to mostly nameless participants. ...

What kind of One-State does Kovel envision? It is not a binational state nor any of the states projected by other One-State proponents. Kovel's proposed unitary state will be different still: It will be what he calls "secular-universal," in which Israelis and Palestinians will somehow merge into a single nationality in some distant future (p. 229). How will this be achieved? The idea to foist a brand new name, "Palesrael," on the newly-minted country is rather presumptuous;[7] it is not a new name that will mobilize Palestinians and Israelis to act together. To be sure, there are general guidelines for political action in the last section of the chapter, but notwithstanding the section title "The Practices of One-State," these neither follow from nor imply a One-State option. Indeed, to "speak the truth about Israel" (p. 232), or to "deprive the Zionist state of what it needs" (p. 233), or to "support the Palestinian right of return" (p. 236), are pursued by many activists who do not make it a priority to raise the One-State banner -- or, for that matter, the Two-State banner either.

VFPD: It is significant to me that in one of the most important statements of the Palestinian people in recent years--the 2005 call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel--Palestinians conspicuously refrained from calling for either a one or two-state solution and focused instead on three simple demands: An end to occupation, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and implementation of the Right of Return under UN GA Resolution 194. Kovel is aware of the boycott option (see pp. 233-235) but he does not condescend to mention the 2005 call or anything Palestinians might have to say about.

Where To From Here

One-State is now an escapist fantasy, whatever form one would like to give it. Some may think that, though perhaps a fantasy now, it will nevertheless be an effective slogan for mobilizing and unifying supporters of Palestinian rights. But it won't even be that, as it will probably be more a dividing than a rallying call for all those who are working against Israel's expansion and settlement project. ...

Two-State is the other side of this false alternative. Two-State is stigmatized by the failed Oslo Accords, a discredited Palestinian leadership, and an "international community" that never enforced its own UN resolutions on Palestine. To insist on debating the two options -- as if much is at stake on settling the question now, or as if there is no other alternative to these two options for anti-settlement activism -- will be gratuitously obscuring the priorities. There is plenty that can and should be done to help the besieged Palestinians without any prior commitment to One-State or Two-State. ...

Well said, Dr. Kfoury. I encourage folks to read the entire review. Moving on, on Tuesday, I took issue with a quote from page 245 of Overcoming Zionism. I want to now more fully quote it:

The real history of Zionism has been a working out of the 'invisible hand' that has shaped history toward the end of accumulation and has placed the Anglo-Americans at its helm, their Israeli junior partner by their side, attacking here, spying there, doing the dirty work as needed. This is the secret of the so-called Israel, or Zionist lobby. Not a Jewish lobby as antisemites would have it, but a dynamic and very unholy gathering of those power-Jews who hitch their wagons to the star of empire: Democrats, Republicans, phony intellectuals, all stripes of opportunists exulting in their admission to the inner chambers of power.

Notice what Kovel has done here. Even as he calls them "power-Jews," Kovel has subtly distanced, though not completely exonerated, them from culpability in the crimes of Capital and Empire. The "power-Jews" are outside, they are not of the "star of empire." No, that is represented by the goyim--the Learned Elders of Anglo-America. Jews have merely "hitch[ed] their wagons" to it.

By Kovel's lights, the "power-Jews" are not at the helm, they have only entered the "inner chambers of power" they don't actually reside there or run the show. Thus, Senators Lieberman, Boxer, and Feinstein; former Defense Secretary Cohen; Attorney General Mukasey; Homeland Security chief Chertoff; Justices Breyer and Ginsburg; Federal Reserve boss Bernanke; billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Larry Ellison--to name just a few--these poor saps are victims. They have been hoodwinked and bamboozled into thinking that they were in the club when the real string-pullers, the secret cabal that rules the world are the goyishe "Anglo-Americans."

In closing, I'd like to quote my friend Henry Herskovitz, founder of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends. He jokingly questioned why I was "so easy" on Dr. Kovel on Tuesday. From his vigil report of March 22, 2008:

Jewish Supremacism?

Readers are invited to examine the email exchange between Joel Kovel and Dan McGowan here. In that exchange, and due in part to our claiming that Joel will not hold the Jewish community accountable for their support of Israeli genocide (see Report 02-16-08), Joel has accused this writer and Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends of, among other things, being "wrong-headed" and "objectively anti-Semitic", and of "making destructive generalizations." If Joel's issues were merely personal or tactical then we wouldn't be so concerned, but he has resorted to what Jeff Blankfort aptly refers to as "the first refuge of scoundrels"--the charge of anti-Semitism. Consider this passage from Joel: "Once the question of Zionism and its injustices moves into the zone of 'Jewishness' as the problem, then we are in the swamp of anti-Semitism ... How does Henry manage to do this? In a twofold gesture: by demonstrating in front of places of worship; and by making it plain that he would do this anywhere and everywhere Jews congregate"

On the latter issue, Joel is simply incorrect and he would have been quickly apprised of this if he had simply asked instead of assumed. JWPF has never protested anywhere simply because "Jews congregate" there. We protest at Jewish institutions that have turned into bastions of Zionism. Zionism is the issue and not 'Jewishness,' as Joel would have it. We would not protest in front of any institution, Jewish or otherwise, that had disavowed Zionism or never embraced it in the first place. For example, we would not protest the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta Rabbis.

On the former issue, we protest in front of a "place of worship" that has publicly and repeatedly identified itself with Zionism and the Jewish apartheid state of Israel. This writer for many years celebrated Yom Kippur at Beth Israel, until he was no longer allowed to buy tickets there. The fact is that Jews are freely wallowing in the swamp of death and injustice that is Zionism, and they do it as Jews while Joel either does not, or will not see this. Joel's statement ignores the reality that it's Jews themselves who erase the line between themselves and Zionists. Remember, it's Beth Israel that (a) flies the flag of a foreign government, (b) prays for the soldiers of the IDF, and (c) takes its children on pilgrimages to the Zionist state, capturing photographs of them with smiling IDF soldiers, and continues their indoctrination into nationalist support for Israel. See " Beth Israel - House of WARship" for photos and details. There are carloads of Jews who drive into the synagogue waving an Israeli flag, several yarmulkes are embroidered with this foreign flag, and one flashy red convertible even sports an Israeli license plate.

And Jewish-initiated linkage of Jews and Zionism is nothing new. As Peacemonger points out, in 1942, 757 Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Rabbis, claiming to "represent[s] the largest number of rabbis whose signatures are attached to a public pronouncement in all Jewish history," declared Zionism to be " an affirmation of Judaism" and "not a secularist movement." They continued: "It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism. Scripture and rabbinical literature alike are replete with the promise of the restoration of Israel to its ancestral home. Anti-Zionism, not Zionism, is a departure from the Jewish religion." More recently we recall the words of Elliott Abrams: "Where is it possible to find a group of Jews who are committed to Israel, and whose children are likely to honor that commitment? The answer is, in a synagogue on the Sabbath."

With his specious "swamp of anti-Semitism" charge, Joel Kovel has cast himself in with the Jewish elites identified by Norman Finkelstein when he wrote in Beyond Chutzpah:

"Wrapping themselves in the mantle of The Holocaust, these Jewish elites pretend and, in their own solipsistic universe, perhaps imagine themselves to be victims, dismissing any and all criticism as manifestations of "anti-Semitism." And, from this lethal brew of formidable power, chauvinistic arrogance, feigned (or imagined) victimhood, and Holocaust-immunity to criticism has sprung a terrifying recklessness and ruthlessness on the part of American Jewish elites. Alongside Israel, they are the main fomenters of anti-Semitism in the world today."

Why is it that Joel, and at least 20 other Jews ostensibly dedicated to the peace movement, cannot bring themselves to hold the organized Jewish community accountable for their undeniable support of Israel? A pattern forms from this growing collection of data points, and suggests to us that a Jewish chauvinism, a Jewish supremacism is controlling the emotions that do not permit the suffering of Palestinians to trump tribal bonds between these activists and the Jews of Beth Israel. And we can only imagine that it is Joel's Jewish tribalism which allows him to benignly describe Beth Israel - this documented center of nationalist support for a genocidal state - as "place[s] of worship" and a "shul". Evidently, every one of those BIC congregants whom Joel could have challenged (had he stood with us) supports Israel's claimed right to exist as a Jewish state in Palestine: The rabbi wrote " ...there is one general statement which I can make on behalf of the congregation--Beth Israel Congregation affirms without any hesitation or equivocation the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state". And not a Jew within or without the congregation ever publicly stood up and said "the rabbi doesn't speak for me."

Joel calls us wrong-headed. We call what we do correctly identifying the problem and holding the those publicly accountable for their brazen support of genocide. And we are saddened that he won't join us.

Full disclosure: I rewrote parts of and edited the above vigil report excerpt before it was first released in March.

See also: "Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader: Another Marxist for Kerry" in CounterPunch (6/24/2004)

Last revised: 6/24/2008 (added comments on Abunimah's treatment of South Africa).

Labels: censorship, Joel Kovel, Lerner, Pluto Press, thoughtcrime, Zionism

Here is a July 4th essay by James Petras:

“You cannot win the peace unless you know the enemy at home and abroad”
US Marine Colonel from Tennessee.

Everywhere I visit from Copenhagen to Istanbul, Patagonia to Mexico City, journalists and academics, trade unionists and businesspeople, as well as ordinary citizens, inevitably ask me why the US public tolerates the killing of over a million Iraqis over the last two decades, and thousands of Afghans since 2001? Why, they ask, is a public, which opinion polls reveal as over sixty percent in favor of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, so politically impotent? A journalist from a leading business journal in India asked me what is preventing the US government from ending its aggression against Iran, if almost all of the world’s major oil companies, including US multinationals are eager to strike oil deals with Teheran? Anti-war advocates in Europe, Asia and Latin America ask me at large public forums what has happened to the US peace movement in the face of the consensus between the Republican White House and the Democratic Party-dominated Congress to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, supporting Israeli starvation, killing and occupation of Palestine and destruction of Lebanon?

Absence of a Peace Movement?

Just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 over one million US citizens demonstrated against the war. Since then there have been few and smaller protests even as the slaughter of Iraqis escalates, US casualties mount and a new war with Iran looms on the horizon. The demise of the peace movement is largely the result of the major peace organizations’ decision to shift from independent social mobilizations to electoral politics, namely channeling activists into working for the election of Democratic candidates – most of whom have supported the war. The rationale offered by these 'peace leaders' was that once elected the Democrats would respond to the anti-war voters who put them in office. Of course practical experience and history should have taught the peace movement otherwise: The Democrats in Congress voted every military budget since the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The total capitulation of the newly elected Democratic majority has had a major demoralizing effect on the disoriented peace activists and has discredited many of its leaders.

Absence of a National Movement

As David Brooks (La Jornada July 2, 2007) correctly reported at the US Social forum there is no coherent national social movement in the US. Instead we have a collection of fragmented ‘identity groups’ each embedded in narrow sets of (identity) interests, and totally incapable of building a national movement against the war. The proliferation of these sectarian ‘non-governmental’ ‘identity’ ‘groups’ is based on their structure, financing and leadership. Many depend on private foundations and public agencies for their financing, which precludes them from taking political positions. At best they operate as ‘lobbies’ simply pressuring the elite politicians of both parties. Their leaders depend on maintaining a separate existence in order to justify their salaries and secure future advances in government agencies.

The US trade unions are virtually non-existent in more than half of the United States: They represent less than 9% of the private sector and 12% of the total labor force. Most national, regional and city-wide trade union officials receive salaries comparable to senior business executives: between $300,000 to $500,000 dollars a year. Almost 90% of the top trade union bureaucrats finance and support pro-war Democrats and have supported Bush and the Congressional war budgets, bought Israel Bonds ($25 billion dollars) and the slaughter of Palestinians and the Israeli bombing of Lebanon.

The Unopposed War Lobby

The US is the only country in the world where the peace movement is unwilling to recognize, publically condemn or oppose the major influential political and social institutions consistently supporting and promoting the US wars in the Middle East. The political power of the pro-Israel power configuration, led by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supported within the government by highly placed pro-Israel Congressional leaders and White House and Pentagon officials has been well documented in books and articles by leading journalists, scholars and former President Jimmy Carter. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has over two thousand full-time functionaries, more than 250,000 activists, over a thousand billionaire and multi-millionaire political donors who contribute funds both political parties. The ZPC secures 20% of the US foreign military aid budget for Israel, over 95% congressional support for Israel’s boycott and armed incursions in Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and preemptive military option against Iran.

The US invasion and occupation policy in Iraq, including the fabricated evidence justifying the invasion, was deeply influenced by top officials with long-standing loyalties and ties to Israel. Wolfowitz and Feith, numbers 2 and 3 in the Pentagon, are life-long Zionists, who lost security clearance early in their careers for handing over documents to Israel. Vice President Cheney’s chief foreign policy adviser in the planning of the Iraq invasion is Irving Lewis Liebowitz (‘Scooter Libby’). He is a protégé and long-time collaborator of Wolfowitz and a convicted felon.

Libby-Liebowitz committed perjury, defending the White House’s complicity in punishing officials critical of its Iraq war propaganda. Libby-Liebowitz received powerful political and financial support from the pro-Israel lobby during his trial. No sooner did he lose his appeal on his conviction on five counts of perjury, obstructing justice and lying, than the ZPC convinced President Bush to ‘commute’ his prison sentence, in effect freeing him from a 30 month prison sentence before he had served a day. While Democratic politicians and some peace leaders criticized President Bush, none dared hold responsible the pro-Israel lobby which pressured the White House.

The Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) – numbering 52 – and their regional and local affiliates are the leading force transmitting Israel’s war agenda against Iran. The PMAJO, working closely with US-Israeli Congressman Rahm Emmanuel and leading Zionist Senators Charles Schumer and Joseph Lieberman, succeeded in eliminating a clause in the budget appropriation setting a date for the withdrawal for US troops from Iraq.

In contrast to the successful vast propaganda, congressional and media campaigns, organized and funded by the pro-Israel lobbies for the war policies, there is no public record of the big oil companies supporting the Iraq war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon or the military threats of preemptive attacks on Iran. Interviews with investment bankers, oil company executives and a thorough review of the major Petroleum Institute publications over the past seven years provide conclusive evidence that ‘Big Oil’ was deeply interested in negotiating oil agreements with Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Islamic government. ‘Big Oil’ perceives US Middle East wars as a threat to their long-standing profitable relations with all the conservative Arab oil states in the Gulf. Despite the strategic position in the US economy and their great wealth '‘Big Oil' was totally incapable of countering their political power and organized influence of the pro-Israel lobby. In fact Big Oil was totally marginalized by the White House National Security Advisor for the Middle East, Elliot Abrams, a fanatical Zionist and militarist.

Despite the massive and sustained pro-war activity of the leading Zionist organizations inside and outside of the government and despite the absence of any overt or covert pro-war campaign by ‘Big Oil’, the leaders of the US peace movement have refused to attack the pro-Israel war lobby and continue to mouth unfounded clichés about the role of ‘Big Oil’ in the Middle East conflicts.

The apparently ‘radical’ slogans against the oil industry by some leading intellectual critics of the war has served as a ‘cover’ to avoid the much more challenging task of taking on the powerful, Zionist lobby. There are several reasons for the failure of the leaders of the peace movement to confront the militant Zionist lobby. One is fear of the powerful propaganda and smear campaign which the pro-Israel lobby is expert at mounting, with its aggressive accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and its capacity to blacklist critics, leading to job loss, career destruction, public abuse and death threats.

The second reason that peace leaders fail to criticize the leading pro-war lobby is because of the influence of pro-Israel ‘progressives’ in the movement. These progressives condition their support of ‘peace in Iraq’ only if the movement does not criticize the pro-war Israel lobby in and outside the US government, the role of Israel as a belligerent partner to the US in Lebanon, Palestine and Kurdish Northern Iraq. A movement claiming to be in favor of peace, which refuses to attack the main proponents of war, is pursuing irrelevance: it deflects attention from the pro-Israel high officials in the government and the lobbyists in Congress who back the war and set the White House’s Middle East agenda. By focusing attention exclusively on President Bush, the peace leaders failed to confront the majority pro-Israel Democratic congress people who fund Bush’s war, back his escalation of troops and give unconditional support to Israel’s military option for Iran.

The collapse of the US peace movement, the lack of credibility of most of its leaders and the demoralization of many activists can be traced to strategic political failures: the unwillingness to identify and confront the real pro-war movements and the inability to create a political alternative to the bellicose Democratic Party. The political failure of the leaders of the peace movement is all the more dramatic in the face of the large majority of passive Americans who oppose the war, most of whom did not display their flags this Fourth of July and are not led in tow by either the pro-Israel lobby or their intellectual apologists within progressive circles.

The word to anti-war critics of the world is that over sixty percent of the US public opposes the war but our streets are empty because our peace movement leaders are spineless and politically impotent.

See also:

• UFPJ's LeBlanc Waffles on Iraq Withdrawal
• Iraq War Will Worsen
• On the Iraqi Resistance--Take II
• Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

Labels: anti-war movement, Cagan, Democrats, Iraq, James Petras, LeBlanc, Lerner, Ruth Messinger, United for Peace and Justice, Zionism

Judith LeBlanc, National Co-chair of United for Peace and Justice, was on National Public Radio yesterday talking to Melissa Block about today's non-working day, civil obedient 'anti-war' rally in Washington, DC. As Block alluded, UFPJ's official position is "End the war in Iraq, Bring all the troops home now!" However, LeBlanc explained "When we say 'immediately' we mean make the decision now and then map out a plan."

What's wrong with sticking unequivocally with "... troops home now!"? Of course, no one expects the troops to be tranported instantaneously--that's magical thinking--but there is no practical reason why an American withdrawal from Iraq could not begin "now" i.e. "at the present time or moment" or "in the time immediately to follow : FORTHWITH" and be concluded within days. All that is lacking is the political will in Washington and also, as is now clear, within the leadership of UFPJ.

On the UFPJ web site, LeBlanc is identified with the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). In fact, LeBlanc is a National Vice-Chair of the CPUSA and Chair of its Peace and Solidarity Commission.* LeBlanc's involvement in both UFPJ and the CPUSA is not surprising as both groups have thoroughly accommodated themselves to the Democratic Party, which has steadfastly backed the US war in Iraq.

As Joe Allen wrote last year in CounterPunch:

By every conceivable measure, the antiwar movement in the United States should be a vibrant, mass movement. ...

Another crucial reason for the weakness of the antiwar movement is the political course chosen by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest and most visible antiwar coalition in the U.S.

UFPJ's main claim to leadership was the role it played in organizing the U.S. end of the worldwide antiwar protests on February 15-16, 2003, a month before the invasion took place.

Yet in the three-and-a-half years since, UFPJ has organized only a very small number of national mobilizations. And even these have not always been unambiguously antiwar demonstrations. For example, the clear target of UFPJ's protest outside the Republican National Convention in August 2004 was George Bush, not the war on Iraq, which has taken place with bipartisan support.

This past spring, meanwhile, some coalition leaders explicitly described the New York City demonstration on April 29--which UFPJ cosponsored with a wide array of liberal groups--as part of a broader mobilization behind the Democrats in the 2006 election.

UFPJ's response to the major crisis points for U.S. policy since the invasion--the leveling of Falluja, the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the threats to attack Iran, the recent Israeli-U.S. assault against Lebanon--has been feeble in terms of protest, while its emphasis on building support for the so-called antiwar Democrats in Congress has grown more distinct.

* * *

ONE FACTOR in this strategic orientation is the influence of the Communist Party (CP) USA, which plays an important part in shaping the direction of UFPJ. One of UFPJ's co-chairs and most active leaders is Judith LeBlanc, who is publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party.

For the past 70 years, with few exceptions, the CP has argued that it is essential for progressive movements hoping to win social change in the U.S. to support the Democratic Party against the Republicans. ...

The Democrats--who, before and since the 2004 election, ducked every opportunity to challenge the Bush administration's policies--got the unswerving support of a large section of the left, including the Communist party, to the detriment of the struggle against the Bush agenda.

* * *

NOW, TWO years later, with Bush's policies sinking still lower in public support--when the anti-war movement should be pressing both parties for immediate withdrawal from Iraq--[CPUSA National Chair Sam] Webb is arguing against it.

Instead, he proposes that antiwar activists should support what he calls an "anti-occupation bloc" in Congress and the various proposals put forward by its members for "redeployment" of U.S. troops or setting a deadline for their withdrawal from Iraq.

This "anti-occupation" bloc is an interesting group of people. When the Republicans called the Democrats' bluff and put forward a resolution last spring calling for immediate withdrawal, only three House Democrats voted for it. The rest voted against it--including Rep. John Murtha, whose "redeployment' plan has been supported by UFPJ, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), an "antiwar" candidate in the 2004 Democrat primaries, who said the Republican resolution was "a trick." ...

But most congressional Democrats are opposed to setting a deadline for withdrawal, and even the "antiwar" resolutions put forward by the "out of Iraq" caucus contain qualifications and vague timetables. The demands that Webb would have antiwar activists embrace, in reality, are not to "end the occupation," but to continue it in a different form.

LeBlanc's remarks on Friday exemplified beautifully the position critiqued above by Allen: "Troops home now!" but not really (wink, wink).

The list of confirmed speakers for today's rally includes a healthy contingent from the phony " ' anti-occupation bloc' " cited by Allen:

• Representative John Conyers (D-MI)
• Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
• Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
  

The speakers list also includes Zionist hacks Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator of UFPJ; rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun; and Eve Ensler, Lion of Judah.

Note:
* The CPUSA is not a group known for its principled opposition to war, except, of course, "imperialist wars." However, UFPJ is a coalition and I wouldn't object to their participation/membership simply because the CPUSA is not opposed to all wars.

Labels: Cagan, Communist Party, Iraq, Israel, LeBlanc, Lerner, United for Peace and Justice, War