I thought I’d hunt around the net for what some leftie and libertarian writers were saying about the Danish Cartoon furore. Here are the highlights of what I found.
Tariq Ali argues that the over-reaction to the cartoons was misplaced:
It’s strange that the Danish imams and their friends abroad ignore the real tragedy and instead ensure that the cartoons are now being reprinted everywhere. How will it end? Like all these things do, with no gains on either side and a last tango in Copenhagen around a mountain of unused butter. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine the occupations continue.
Fred Halliday looks at the internationalisation of the political domain, going back to the Rushdie Fatwa, and contends that globalist optimism about the growth of an international civil society ignores the dark side of interconnectedness.
Thus, “global civil society” is no guarantee of progress, freedom or the defence of rights: as much as any specific domestic society, it may be the site of conflict over values, power, lies and manipulation, even as the illiberal take advantage of their freedom to access the news media and the internet.
From a libertarian perspective, Cathy Young points out that the identification of the West with enlightenment reason and Islam with traditionalist obscurantism isn’t as neat as it might appear.
The truth is that modernity with its ”chaos of conversation,” its chaos of lifestyles, its attitude that there is nothing more sacred than freedom of expression, is profoundly threatening to many religious traditionalists of different faiths. (Last year, quite a few American conservatives applauded Pope Benedict XVI’s assault on ”the dictatorship of relativism.”) At the present moment, for a variety of historical and cultural reasons, radical fundamentalism holds a particular sway in the Muslim world, where it is wedded to political violence in ways that have no parallel in other religions. To ignore this difference and this danger would be foolish. But it is also unwise to ignore the religious backlash against modernity right here in the West, and its own tensions with individual freedom.
Here is some other relevant information I have gleaned from the web which I think has passed largely unnoticed.
After 350 pilgrims were killed during the Haj on January 12 and soon after, Saudi Arabian government received a lot of criticism from around the Muslim world. To deflect this criticism, Saudi newspapers, which are controlled by the government, decided to create a storm around the Danish cartoons which had been published months earlier.
They began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the cartoons. The Saudi government asked for a formal apology from Denmark. When that was not forthcoming, they began calling for world-wide protests. After two weeks of this, the Libyans decided to close their embassy in Denmark. Then there was an attack on the Danish embassy in Indonesia. And that was followed by attacks on the embassies in Syria and then Lebanon.
Source: [link]
Also largely unreported in Flemming Rose’s connection to Zionist and Neo-Con Daniel Pipes. He has visited Pipes in Philadelphia and written a friendly biographical article which is featured on Daniel Pipes Danish website. … Because of Rose’s close connection with Daniel Pipes, … I think Rose is a Zionist agent who has created this scandal for a strategic purpose.
Source: [link]
Like Pipes, Rose wants to bring about the so-called “clash of civilizations”.
Here is the beginning of an opinion piece Rose wrote in 2004, in which he proves his anti-Islamic credentials:
According to Daniel Pipes, the Muslim world is, at the moment, going about its third attempt at defining itself in relation to the West. The first two attempts were concerned with imitating different aspects of the West. The third represents a totalitarian ideology in line with fascism and communism. …
Source: [link]
I think the observation was made somewhere else that Condi Rice had correctly pointed to the role of the Syrian and Iranian governments, but ignored the significant role of US allies the Saudis in stirring things up.
Good point, Kim.
Those pesky muslims. Fancy that, eh? The Danish newspaper insults their culture and religion and then they get upset.
I’d also love to know where these people, Saudis and Danes, learned their dog-whistling tricks… They sound so familiar…
You also missed out on Lenin’s Tomb has a few things to say passim. Here’s one example:
Tks Kim. Nothing against Tariq at all, of course; but I always especially like to have the benefit of some scholarship from Fred Halliday.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth:
[link]
Norm Geras has a very good post up today on what two philosophers and Stanley Fish have to say about freedom of speech and the prospect of reaching mutual understandings.
[link]
It appears that the entry of the cartoon by Leunig in the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon competition was done by a Chaser staff member. Now that is funny!!
I find it interesting that despite the fact that Leunig actually drew the cartoon and it was accepted by the Iranian Newspaper as fitting into the “offend the Jews” competition he is all snotty about it being entered.
I think whoever entered it should have said it wasn’t theirs but it does fit the competition guidelines so here it is. The fact that the Chaser boys did it is still funny - I believe lefties actually laugh at what they do, too.
Reap what you sow, Mr Leunig.
I think Tim Dunlop’s take on Leunig gets it right.
I know the cartoon profoundy offended the Jewish community, but it’s more depressing than anything. It colonised the central, most enduring image of the Holocaust - the extermination camp - in the service of an attack on Israel. One could argue back and forth about whether it’s intentionally anti-Semitic, but it’s of a piece with some of the most virulent anti-Semitic stuff coming out of the Middle East. The Iranians immediately recognised it as such.
Of course it’s anti-semitic, Rob, I don’t think anybody would argue it wasn’t. Leunig should have been sent packing into retirement ten years ago, on quality control grounds if nothing else.
Self-righteous sanctimoniousness is the preserve of the opinion editor, not the cartoonists.
Hold on.
So being against the erstwhile apartheid supporting, zionist, jack-boot neo-colonialist Israel is also being anti-semitic?
So my jewish friend who has serious qualms about the state of Israel, its policies etc in the name of his religion, is also anti-semitic?
Does mean then that he automatically believes that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real or that he’s also a holocaust denier?
Huh? I have no doubt that some people who are anti-Israel are also anti-semitic but surely not everyone who questions Israel’s politics is anti-semitic?
I think the Chaser boys are funny but I’m not sure what this story says about them or Leunig, about whom I can’t say I know much (his cartoons are a bit twee for my tastes).
“Of course it’s anti-semitic, Rob, I don’t think anybody would argue it wasn’t.”
Liam, we had a bit of a problem establishing a consensus on that point last night at Tim Blair’s, however.
Christo, no, of course being anti-Israel does not necessarily equate to anti-Semitism. But as the link I posted above indicates, there is a disturbing convergence of radical anti-Zionism with classical anti-Semitism (prevalent for decades in the Middle East) in the dicourses of both left and right. Even some members of the left are troubled by it.
btw, I think only ‘Zionist’ is accurate among the list of derogatory adjectives you applied to Israel. And even its employment as a term of derogation is instructive. Since Zionism is about the establishment of a Jewish homeland, I assume you believe Israel should not exist?
Lordy, Rob, trouble establishing a consensus at Tim Blair’s! What’s the blogosphere coming to?
As to the issue at hand. It seems to me that the language being used is imprecise. What people generally mean when they say they are anti-Zionist is that they are opposed to that aspect of Zionism which seeks to permanently dispossess the Palestinian people through occupying (and settling) the whole of “Biblical Israel” (which is also a much more imprecise construct than some imagine). It would be perfectly consistent to be opposed to a “Greater Israel” yet supportive of both Israel’s right to exist and a measure of justice for the Palestinians. Indeed, many Israelis share that position. It’s again quite possible in a democratic country to be against the policies of the Israeli government without making any adverse judgements about Israelis.
Perhaps you’re getting at that with the modifier of “radical anti-Zionism”.
It’s also worth noting that there are anti-Zionist Jews both within and outside Israel.
The problem with these debates is the degree of polarisation that occurs.
On Leunig’s cartoon, my view is that it is highly offensive and distasteful. I’m not sure as to the logic of labelling it anti-Semitic though, unless one equates denial that anything the Israeli state can do being wrong with denial or minimisation of the Holocaust. That’s a frequently asserted position, but one that has no coherence. Nevertheless, Leunig’s cartoon is worthy of condemnation. Though I would support the right of The Age to have published it, had that been their choice.
Rob, I’ve decided that thread is a bit too long to read in its entirety but I note that you said the cartoon was anti-Semitic. I’m open to being convinced that it is, but I think it needs some fleshing out.
I’m not quite sure it should exist. My friend and I think if it should exist, perhaps somewhere like New York or in the area would probably be best: they wouldn’t have to evict and kill as many arabs.
Maybe my language was a bit colourful but I don’t think I was too off the mark.
I’ve mentioned this blog before and I’ll mention it again as a useful source of unvarnished information about Israeli politics:
Jews sans frontieres
It seems pretty balanced to me.
There is often livelier debate at Tim’s than there is here, Mark - though it’s improved of late.
From my reading of the tea-leaves, very few people, even - especially?- Israelis, any longer support the Begin/Shamir concept of ‘greater Israel’. It was the great historical error that the state of Israel made, and is still trying to recover from it.
Zionism is the movement to establish a Jewish state. Anti-Zionism is opposition to such. Opposition to Israeli territorial expansion, or to targeted assassinations, is not being anti-Zionist, or even anti-Israeli - certainly not anti-Semitic.
So I would take Christo’s comment - “So being against the erstwhile apartheid supporting, zionist, jack-boot neo-colonialist Israel ” - to be unequivocally anti-Zionist, because it is “against” the State of Israel itself. That does not, however, make Christo an anti-Semite, as he points out.
Well, Rob, we’ll see about that if a new Israeli government does try to get the settlers out of (parts) of the West Bank. You might also like to consider the position Netanyahu puts forward - it’s very much “Greater Israel”, and he’s a former Prime Minister, leader of Likud, and beloved of the neo-cons.
Christo, can you clarify your position? Are you saying that you don’t think the foundation of the State of Israel was just? I’d have thought most everybody would agree it’s a present reality and would not have questioned its right to continue to exist. Unless you’re aligning yourself with those (and again this includes anti-Zionist Israelis) who want a democratic state which is not explicitly Jewish?
Thanks, Christo, for confirming my reading.
Mark, I think it is anti-Semitic because it takes the central image of the Holocaust, silences it - together with its resonances of centuries of persecution culminating in genocide - and superimposes it, as a polemical metaphor, on present-day Israel, together with its implications of annihilation.
It’s not, therefore, merely anti-Zionist. It substitutes the historical sufferings of the Jews for the sufferings of the Palestinians. Between the sufferings of the people there is not, on any reasonable reading, an equivalence. The Palestinians have never suffered, or been offered, genocide. Thye have been at war with Israel from the beginning, and have suffered because they were the weaker: but in no sense does that equate to the example of Auschwitz
Inga Clendinnen once said (sorry, no references to hand) that we must keep the concept of genocide pure, so we don’t lose sight of what it really is. For the west, there are two instances that must be kept pure: the extermination of European Jewry at the hands of the Nazis, and that of the Armenian people at the hands of the Turks.
Leunig’s cartoon takes the central image from one of those genocides and symbolically breaks it, transferring its resonances to the people who seek to destroy the haven from that same genocide. To me, that makes it morally abhorrent, as well as anti-Semitic. But that’s why the Iranians liked it.
As for Leunig himself, I don’t know. I think he’s a naif, with no idea of the moral or political ponds he’s paddling in.
Thanks, Rob, that’s convincing to me.
Thanks, Mark.
I, too, would be interested in Christo’s clarification.
When I was putting up this post on the AEL’s obnoxious Hitler-Anne Frank cartoon, I read again the commentaries on the unexpurgated version of her diary. I was reminded that for the desperate survivors of the camps at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau (amid scores of others), there was one word that sustained them - Israel: the hope that one day, Europe having failed to avert their slaughter, they would return at the war’s eventual end to a homeland where, as Jews, they could at last believe it would never happen to them again.
Does Christo believe they did not have that right?
Thanks, Rob. I’ll put up a link to your blog now that you’re posting again.
Incidentally, I was very angry at seeing a copy of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” on sale at Borders in an edition with a preface which claimed it was all true.
Very good point Rob.
Frankly I blame the Brits and Frogs for completely cocking up the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire while bullshitting everyone concerned with the outcome - Jews and Arabs. Mind you none of tem have behaved with any great credit since. That’s about as far as I’d like to open up this particular can of exploding worms.
“a copy of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zionâ€? on sale at Borders in an edition with a preface which claimed it was all true.”
On the one hand WTF!!?!. On the other hand, well hasn’t everyone been banging on lately about free speech as a fundamental Western right? I just hope a smart and sneaky staff member puts it in the fiction category.
Getting back to the cartoon wars thing. I’m all for it. I’d much rather ink instead of blood was split.
And hats off to the Chaser dude who pulled the Leuning prank. If nothing else he or she has just put the show squarely in the global spotlight. The world could always use some more Australian cheekiness and irreverence. We do it best, and odd bloggo nutters aside, get less worked up about it all as well. Not to mention that everyone, across the spectrum, is now secretly excited that we’re getting some more international attention.
Rob Thanks, Christo, for confirming my reading.
Sorry, what did I say?
Maybe you’re right about the cartoon being anti-semitic to a degree but how can it be worse than some of those Danish ones? Not that you said it was.
I don’t see how the slaughter of Jews in WWII logically leads to a need for them to have a homeland. Help me out here. Jews are always welcome in my home.
Mark, I don’t have a really well considered position as yet (I’m a perfectionist). I must admit that I’m only recently becoming disabused of my belief that Isrealis are hard done by the Palestinians, partly through reading stuff on the web while extremely bored at an office job (I eventuallyy resigned) and from my university studies.
For example, having had to read a case which dealt with the Israeli Absentee Property Law of 1950 (basically the Israeli state could take anything left behind by Arabs who had fled their homes etc - why did they flee?) I found out about the Palestinian Exodus.
Indeed, that blog I mentioned above has as the last post on the page some quotes about early zionist thought on claiming zionist property and a link to more quotes from the same author (the 3rd quote from the bottom is explicitly colonialist).
I notice now that this other site, Palestine Remembered, has a page devoted to The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict For Beginners.
This site has an Zionist FAQ and Palestinian FAQ, as well as a page of “famous Zionist quotes”.
I realise my sources are from a small pool and probably biased; I could google some of the other articles I’ve read, eg. from such controversial publications as the Guardian, but it’s getting late and I’ve got a big day tomorrow.
I look forward to reading withg a critical eye any criticisms or references you might offer.
Also I believe Britain’s support of a Jewish state from 1917 was entirely self-serving, as was much of their policy towards the middle east then, esp. since the value of petroleum was discovered.
But yeah, a democratic state of Israel not dominated by a “state of emergency” and old war-mongers would be good.
Shitty damn fuck, I meant:
Very good point Rob
Now Rob, about ole Furtwangler’s rationalisation of why he chose to stay in Germany, work with the Nazis and dis the Jews. I’m sure you can justify that like Mike L. did his cartoon - and at far more length too.
OK here’s something I remember from my readings.
Google this string:
poverty israel statistics
and you get some interesting information, such as this page
In fact one can often find interesting stuff when you google a given country’s poverty statistics…
Christo, I think Rob made the justification for a Jewish state in light of the Holocaust pretty clear. To be honest with you, I think you’re better off researching the history of the issues via a few good historical books rather than on teh University of the Interwebs. There is no question that much of the history of dispossession of the Palestinians bears little close examination in terms of justice, and there are parallels with other histories of colonisation/dispossession. However, I don’t think it’s useful to infer from this that the State of Israel has no right to exist. Both that attitude and the uncertainty from all quarters as to its boundaries, and indeed in many ways, its legitimacy (should it be a secular democracy? avowedly religious? what rights should non-Jewish citizens have? - all questions debated within Israel) derive from its original artificiality. An analogy (though not an exact one) would be that no one questions Australia’s right to exist or the fact of an Australian culture no matter how strong their opinions about the circumstances of its foundation are.
As to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, I’d observe that no human action is ever done for one motive alone. There’s no question that there were self-serving British interests at work (as something of a political realist, I’m highly sceptical of any claim that a state acts in the noble interests of humanity) but there were also real questions about the claims of the Jewish people. Just as the Iraq War can’t be reduced to oil as a sole cause, nor can the Balfour Declaration be seen only in one light.
There’s a difference, Nabs, I’d suggest by publishing it without commentary as a historical document (just as you can easily lay your hands on Mein Kampf) and carrying an edition put out by anti-Semitic cranks. In any case, though I don’t want to search for it or post a link, I’m sure it’s available on the internets.
Well Mark, I’d class appended commentary as exercising free speech too. And cranks should have every right to publish what they want.
As to Borders stocking it, I suspect that given their general clientale, the market will end up punishing that decision. What suburb was the store in?
The cartoon is not anti-semitic. It may be in poor taste, although even there I’m unsure, but the power of the cartoon depends upon the proposition that the holocaust was a terrible event. It does not belittle it, but seeks to use it’s enduring impact to point to present hypocracies on the part of the aggressive side of Israeli politics.
Brisbane CBD, Nabs.
I disagree wbb. The analogy misfires because the Holocaust was targetted at all Jews. To suggest an analogy with the politics of some Israelis and some Israeli governments is to imply that all all Jews are genocidal towards Palestinians. He doesn’t make the comparison (which is still problematic) but makes a statement which implies that Jews collectively are agressive, militaristic, colonialist, etc, etc, which by definition is anti-Semitic.
I think Leuning needs to do some thinking instead of blathering on about “I’m just anti-war”.
I don’t agree, wbb. The cartoon is not targeted at Likud, or the settlers, or ‘the aggressive’ side (are Hamas and Palestinian slamic Jihad not aggresive?). It is targeted at Israel, and depicts it, as an entity, as having the moral status of Auschwitz.
Poor Leunig didn’t even understand the terrible irony with which the Nazis inscribed the words ‘Arbeit macht frei’ over the gates of the camp. It was a terrible joke on the inmates. Freedom, of course meant death. This was a place where Jews spared the gas chambers were deliberately worked to deaths of malnourishment, ill-treatment and disease. These were the twin strands of ‘The Final Solution’ — the extermination of an entire race from the face of the earth, or at least that of conquered Europe.
Whatever you (or he) might think of them, there is no conceivable equivalence with Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
Indeed, Rob.
I wonder how much thought Leunig put into it. What he’s now saying sounds very much like ex post facto rationalisation.
Agree, Kim. Although I think the cartoon is anti-Semitic, Leunig’s recent outpourings convince me that he really is a naif and has wondered into moral, historical and conceptual waters in which he is hopelessly out of his depth.
And I like his stuff, generally.
Yes, Rob, I’m of the same opinion, though I didn’t like his work much.
As I said above, I think Tim Dunlop had some good insights as well (in a post the totality of which is worth reading):
Christo, I think Rob made the justification for a Jewish state in light of the Holocaust pretty clear.
Yes, the justification or pretext is clear. What I asked is where’s the logic in it. Please show me.
I think you’ll find that Zionists were lobbying for a Jewish state long before WWII.
To be honest with you, I think you’re better off researching the history of the issues via a few good historical books rather than on teh University of the Interwebs.
That’s a bit patronising, Mark.
I have been to university and I am currently back at university, you know, a real one with a library, lecturers and stuff… I have also learned to be critical of evidence etc. One does that when one gets a degree, don’t you know.
Does it really matter where the evidence is published? If so why should I bother reading your Interwebs comments.
If you can find any fault in the evidence I presented, then by all means locate it and fire away…
If you know of better evidence then by all means provide it.
That’s all part of a healthy, critical discussion, isn’t it?
Mark, Nabakov and Rob, considering your remarks regarding the Leunig cartoon, which may perhaps be in poor taste, I do hope you weren’t one of those people trumpeting the freedom of the Danish press to publish cartoons in “poor taste”.
If so, as they say in the classics, irony is truly dead.
Mark, are you sure that Protocols of Zion book you saw in Borders wasn’t the recently published last graphic novel of Will Eisner about the fabrication of the protocols?
It’s called The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I loved Eisner’s Spirit comics when I was a kid.
Christo, I wasn’t intending to be patronising - I was just pointing out that most of what’s on the net is going to be highly slanted - for instance all the links that you posted were from an explicitly pro-Palestinian website.
I’ve made my opinion on the Danish cartoons very clear. You can read this post.
The book I saw in Borders wasn’t a graphic novel - it was in the Political Science section and contained the text.
Christo, I was initially supportive but ambivalent. I am now convinced that the cartoons need to be published, and re-published, in an effort to defend the concept of free speech - especially in view of developments like this one.
Christo, my position on the Danish cartoons is here. Would you care to spell out yours?
Umm Cristo, I haven’t expressed any views on the content of the Leunig cartoon, only on the stunt which thrust it into the global spotlight.
And yeah, it would sound more sensible that it was actually the Eisner book that Borders had on sale.
The last couple of days I’ve have some emails from friends in England with that image of the Danish flag andathe caption I Support Denmark embedded in it.
Dunno, but it seems to me people are waking up to the fact that if their governments won’t speak up protect freedom of speech, they’re going to have to do it for themselves.
Anyone else seeing this kind of traffic in their inboxes?
If anyone sent such an email to me they’d get a swift, rude return email telling them off about sending unneccessary files in email. What’s wrong with ‘I support Denmark’ as a plaintext signature, if they feel that way? Fucking broadband users, think they own the internet.
Mark, no worries mate. I did acknowledge that my sources were one sided - except in the case of Palestinian poverty for which sources can be found passim and fairly straight-forward. On the other hand, I think the media’s treatment of this conflict is fairly one-sided too giving voice to the Zionist Israeli line pretty much exclusively.
I find it frustrating, however, that when I state my opinion and go to the trouble of actually doing so with reference to some facts, the other side, be they death beasts or humans, then posit their cases without any reference. I am ready to be convinced by rational, sourced arguments: I don’t know everything and would love to be directed. And I don’t apologise for not taking unsupported assertions very seriously: I have basic critical standards.
I had a careful read of your post just now and it seems fair enough. I agree we do have to be careful to look at this carefully in the context of politics in various parts of the world.
I disagree with your contention that the Danish cartoons merely “lampoon religion” as I think they fairly obviously go beyond that. It is very easy to interpret many of them as vilyfying Muslims, and no doubt this has made it very easy for religious interests to whip up unrest. In that case I find them very irresponsible (I actually agree with Beazley for once in this regard).
Also there are violent people in religions other than just Hindus: it’s becoming trite to say it in this topic but Christians and Jews - and any number of other relions as well no doubt - have a lot to answer for too.
I guess if we are all t live together in harmony we have to find a way to strike a balance.
Kim, I agree with your comment but I agree more with that post from Lenin’s Tomb I quoted above (read the whole thing here).
It’s one thing for westerners to defend freedom of speech etc, but the media’s response and many people’s accordingly is totally off-balance. I get the feeling that people are surprised that Muslims were offended…
But above and beyond all that I think stuff like this is just first class dog-whistling from both sides of the fence to distract people’s attention from the real issues such as the our crimes and gangrenous foreign policy in Iraq, and crimes capitalism continues to visit in every part of our lives - if I could be so bolshy to say.
I will repeat this till I’m blue in the face: the problem isn’t religious, it is political.
Religion and the religious responses are symptoms of political problems and not the problem itself, if I may paraphrase Marx.
Here’s another good post on the topic, ‘Secularism has been forgotten in the West’. A quote:
I’ve been thinking about that Leunig cartoon now, and my position is: on the one hand it is probably quite insensitive (my jewish mate’s folks were affected by the holocaust and it is a touchy subject) and perhaps Leunig could have made his statement better differently; on the other hand though I respect him for his bravery in highlighting the plight of Palestinians in an hostile Australian media environment where they are practically ignored, if not vilified - and I am prepared to admit that it may be partly due to poor political leadership among the Palestinians. The western media has been insensitive to their plight, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
No worries, Nabakov.
Rob, I fail to see how jingoistic nationalism and bigotry is a valid way of defending freedom of speech.
For heaven’s sake, Christo, how is an English person expressing support for Denmark’s stand on freedom of speech ‘jingoistic nationalism’ or ‘bigotry’?
Christo, I’m sorry I’m not able to give some recommendations for good reading on these topics - but it’s been about four years since I’ve looked at it in depth. However, I’d suggest having a look at what revisionist Israeli historians have to say, and also at some of the histories which place Zionism in its context and particularly in the context of Western neo-imperialism in the Middle East.
You could also try the anti-revisionist Alan Dershowitz’s ‘The Case for Israel’. For mine, I’d avoid anything endorsed by Noam Chomsky.
Rob, Dershowitz is something I’d caution against for someone looking for information as opposed to polemics on the same grounds as I made my comment about partisan/slanted info on the interwebs. But he might be a useful datum as an example of partisan polemic
Dershowitz has been accused of deliberate falsification and his only response (as far as I’m aware) has been ad hominem against his critics.
That link just looked like counter-polemics to me.
It is a problem with this issue, though - who on earth to believe.
That’s why I’m suggesting carefully researched history, then forming your own view, Rob. I’d stay away from polemicists on both sides.
Very hard to keep away from polemicists on this issue, though, because they basically ‘own’ the debate. And ‘carefully-researched’ history can be no less polemical than outright propaganda. Plenty of people laud Chomsky as being well-researched, meticulous, etc. And in a way he is. It doesn’t stop him being a paranoid delusionist, however.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend Chomsky, either, though I wouldn’t go that far. But he’s not a historian and I think he makes his mind up before he presents the evidence. That’s why - if you’re looking for a minimum of bias and a maximum of scholarship, it makes sense that revisionist Israeli historians who are Jewish and support the state of Israel but concerned with the accuracy of the historical record and the just rights of Palestinians are ipso facto likely to be the most reliable sources. They would certainly also have had their conclusions and methods subjected to strong challenge within the historical academy.
But you own comment rather begs the question of just are the ‘just rights’ of the Palestinians. To the Palestinians, it’s getting their land back. In their schools, the state if Israel does not appear on maps of the Middle East. And in a way, it would be just - to the Palestinians. But would it be just to the Jews?
And revisionist Israeli historians are subject to bitter criticism from their non-revisionist colleagues (what’s a revisionist again?).
Herein lie the grave difficulties.
Undoubtedly, though, Rob, some of the truth of what occurred can be established through historical research.
The present tends to be a battleground of contested meanings. So does the past, of course, but those battlegrounds do not have the immediacy of the the present. History is only one way to understand and disentangle them. Anecdote, personal testimony, observations, encounters and personal experience will play in an individual’s determination of meaning as much as the historical record. It’s one thing to establish what the French Revolution ‘was’. It’s quite another to establish what it ‘means’. So I’m not sure there is a neutral intellectual plain that will help Christo understand the present-day Middle East, no dispassionate beacon shedding light on the landscape. He will have to to work his own way through the contested territory himself - as we all have done.
Apologies for the pomo turn.
And then even if you did manage to sort thru the historical record, you are still left with the political question of where you stand vis-a-vis the conflict. For that I prefer Chomsky or Fisk.
Anybody, really, who will stand up for a full accounting in a world where one side dominates to the misfortune, ultimately, of all. If somebody sees no injustice concerning the recent history of Palestine then yes the murderous attacks on buses will be the story, but for those who can see legit grievance behind those barbarous attempts at redress, there will at least be context and thence recognition that the status quo will do nothing but bring such troubling scenes to our TV screens long into our childrens’ lifetimes.
It’s all very well to ignore Israeli mishandling of admittedly an extremely difficult situation but unless they attempt to act better the cycle won’t stop. It’s certainly in vain to wait for the suicide bombers to grow up. Israel is in a position of power of wealth of education of powerful allies. They are best placed to break this down. So pragmatics demands that we look to them first. Is why ppl like Leunig grow so frustrated with people like Sharon et al.
The false charge of anti-semitism hurled at harsh but fair-minded critics of Israeli hawks are a time-wasting denial of reality. Akin to being called anti-American everytime one excoriates Bush/Cheney. The Holocaust image is too sensitive to be used as Leunig did. It leads to the types of misreading we see above. But there is no way the cartoon traduces the suffering of the Holocaust. It uses it as a pointer precisely because it is so self-evidently terrible.
Exactly right, wbb. And I would prefer other commentators.
For example, you and I could amicably agree on the facts, as attested by the historical record, of the fall of Sovietism. But I’m quite sure we would violently disagree on its meanings.
Well, Rob, you’re an occasional postmodernist whereas I’m not one at all
There is of course a disagreement over meanings, but forming an opinion on the basis of the facts (or such of them as can be reliably established) is a much better way of proceeding than finding facts or construing disputed facts in order to support a pre-formed opinion.
Yeah, you’d probably expect me to cop some of the blame for Stalin’s holocaust?
Is Rafe lurking?
Mark, the problem is that history is as much about meaning as it is about facts. History is about the discovery and extraction of meaning (or its attribution) that resonates in the present. (Begone von Ranke!)
And wbb, yes, if you were a communist anywhere between the 30’s and 50’s, I’d say you were complicit.
We’re not necessarily opposed, Rob, but history can reveal its own meaning rather than having meanings of the present read back into it. I offer Foucault as an authority
Only up to a point, Mark. At the experiential level, history communicates its own meanings. Take, say, the murder of Marat during the French Revolution. The moment was caught for us by texts and images. We can understand it experientially on its own terms. We understand the victim and the perpetrator, the who where and why - at the local level. But at the explanative level, it can’t explain itself, because the present moment of the past does not understand itself. It doesn’t know what it means, only that it happened. What did it say about the French revolution as a whole? That’s where explanations come in. And explanations are retroactively imposed.
And my authority is also Foucault.
But that’s enough of my anti-historicist ramblings for one night.
Too tired to get my head around all the meanings tonight, Rob!
An interesting development - Leunig has now seemingly become a target of Islamist rage.