More Anti-War (meta) Blogging

[eumelia]

As promised... meta-blogging!

Over at Feministe, David Schraub of The Debate Link is guest blogging on the Gaza War:"Cast Lead".
He has written a brilliant (and long) post titled: “We Cannot Live Without Our Lives” Either: Jews, Privilege, and Anti-Subordination.
Now I don't agree with everything he's saying, but the way he breaks down the conflation of Antisemitian and anti-Zionism and how Antisemitism really still a reality for Jews world wide and Jewish history of course.
In any event, it's long and the comments on Feministe are always great to read as they are generally well written and well thought out.
Here's a taste of the entry:

But since I have the microphone at Feministe, particularly, I want to talk about some broader-level issues that tend to come to a fore when I participate in discussions in this community, and other progressive environments like it. The folks on this blog (both writers and commenters) are, by and large, wonderful people. But – here and elsewhere – there is very little recognition and very much resistance to a true, critical engagement with anti-Semitism and Jewish experiences writ large. Indeed, the moment we start talking about anti-Semitism, we’re shouted down with accusations that we’re “playing the anti-Semitism card”. No charge infuriates me more, because no charge is more reviled by progressives then specious claims of card-playing. We’ve all heard how conservatives will short-circuit any discussion of racism by saying “oh, you’re just playing the race card”, and we all have learned the hard way that “the race card”, whatever its benefits, is easily trumped by “‘the race card’ card”. And yet, for some reason, I’m expected to take seriously sanctimonious statements which claim to deplore anti-Semitism but then proceed to assert that “accusations of anti-Semitism are often used to silence legitimate criticism of Israel’s activities”.

Is that statement true? While I guess some people sometimes do cry anti-Semitism merely to shutdown discussion, that is rarely the true purpose. Rather, we’re actually trying to point out a couple of things.

I found this very interesting article at the Alternative Information Center.
During times of war it is easy and convenient to forget that Israel is probably one of the most culturally split countries in the world.
Palestinians and Palestinians with Israeli Citizenship (colloquially known as Arab-Israelis) are not the only "Other" in Israeli society.
The majority of people living out in the peripheral "Development Towns" which in the Negev (Southern Israel and Qassam fodder) are Mizrahi Jews who immigrated here in the 1950's and have remained in low socio-economic statues because... well... Development Towns exist in order to keep the Centre from overcrowding by new immigrants - many from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel in the early 90's also settled in these towns (and secular Settlements in the West Bank).
The article I linked posits that:

The war of 1956, and the nationalist wave it aroused in Israel, created a space in which to ideologically include the immigrants. All Israelis, immigrants or not, shared the hardship of war and social discontent was relegated. Similarly, eleven years later, the 1967 war and the nationalist wave it unleashed following Israel’s victory served as a tool to discipline the independent trade union movement that had begun to develop.

Wars did not unify the diverse communities in Israel, but served to establish discipline within a fractured society. The wars, and particularly the military victory of 1967, served to establish the ethnic fundamentalism that characterizes the hegemonic discourse in Israel. This allowed the ruling classes to overcome the social rifts and thus suggest a Jewish national identity.

For this reason, the discourse of peace, which does not propose solutions to the social upheavals of Israeli society, subverts the promises of ethnic fundamentalism. With peace disappears the common danger that holds together the unemployed in Sderot and the systems engineer in Tel Aviv. At the same time, peace makes evident the social and ethnic rifts of Israel breaking its current façade of social stability.

Interesting stuff.
Jewish monolith?
Not so much.

Laila El-Hadded the blogger behind Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother, writes a very evocative post - The inebriates of Israel's war -about what the Israeli Powers That Be want and how they try and get it:

I said something about how I don't know that the Israeli government has thought that through; that they are so drunk with self-conviction, absolute power and military might, racism and nationalism and perceived "success" all while a media blackout, a well-planned hasbara campaign and a public hungry for "action" fuel the war-terror machine with their blessings and support, that they will blaze ahead, losing sight of why-ever the hell they think they started this and whatever the hell it was supposed to achieve (the latest line is "increasing their deterrent force").

The herd mentality at its best.

I finish this lengthy quotes entry with the unbeatable Amira Hass:

History did not begin with the Qassams.
[...]Ever since the Palestinian Authority was established, the Israeli public relations machinery has exaggerated the danger of the military threat that the Palestinians pose to us. When they moved from stones to rifles and from Molotov cocktails to suicide bombings, from roadside bombs to Qassams and from Qassams to Grads, and from the PLO to Hamas, we said with a whoop of victory, "We told you. They're anti-Semites." And therefore, we have the right to go on a rampage.
What enabled Israel's military rampage - the proper words to describe it cannot be found in my dictionary - was the step-by-step isolation of the Gaza Strip.