The Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism

On November 17^th, Selma James came to Detroit to speak about the Jewish Internationalist Tradition versus Zionism in an event hosted by ARA. Selma James is an amazing woman with a 40 plus year history of being involved in activism. Most particularly Selma started the International Wages for Housework Campaign and is a leader of the Global Women's Strike movement; her work involving race, sex, and class was the topic of her discussion at the November 15 ^th event held at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. For the event on the 17^th though, Selma talked about how Zionism can’t be equated with Judaism, a myth that Zionists have long attempted to perpetuate in the discussion of Zionism and its state, Israel. The truth is Zionism is a political ideology that began in the late 1800s, more than 2000 years after the founding of Judaism. Zionism's crimes are many but Selma touched particularly on perhaps one of the most egregious and that is Zionism's destruction of the long-standing tradition of Jewish people's struggle for justice and equality for all. Great Jewish figures such as Rosa Luxembourg and Emma Goldman have disappeared from the vast majority of Jewish consciousness in today's world and in its stead Zionism has taken hold. Zionism and those who stand by it have worked hard to erase the struggles for justice that people like Luxembourg and Goldman fought so hard for. Zionists mock the work of people like Selma James, callously dismissing it as the work of a "self-hating Jew". This could not be further from the truth, as was seen in Selma's talk on Saturday. She is proud of the tradition of struggle for a better world that for so long has been a part of the Jewish people. She also pointedly drew a distinction between Zionism and Judaism, understanding well that Zionists opportunistically use Jewish tradition to establish their own state power based on white supremacy and racist oppression of the Palestinian peoples. It was an honor for ARA to host such a wonderful woman who has dedicated her life to making the world a better place for all peoples. The experience and insight that Selma has to offer all of us who are today struggling is remarkable. We can only hope that other people recognize the great Jewish traditions of struggle and emulate the footsteps of people like Goldman, Luxembourg, and James. Only when this is done will there truly be justice in Israel/Palestine for all people.

The Jewish Internationalist Tradition, part 1


The Jewish Internationalist Tradition, part 2

Khaled Abu Toameh: A Voice for Palestine Solidarity?

Khaled Abu Toameh spoke yesterday on Wayne State's campus at the behest of community and campus Zionists. (Zionists apparently don't mind community members on campus when they support Israeli colonialism and apartheid.) Although Toameh's presentation played nicely into Zionist hands, blaming Palestinians for all that violence they use to oppose Israeli colonialism, ARA wondered at several points whether this was actually a pro-Palestinian event.

Toameh, for example, readily admitted that Palestinians in Israel have second-class citizenship status, something Zionists on campus have consistently denied. He went on to list the inability of these Palestinians to get jobs working for the state and the marked differences between Palestinian and Israeli neighborhoods. He also stated quite plainly that it was these inequalities that were responsible for radicalizing Palestinians inside Israel. However, rather than praising this radicalization as a step toward Israel's ultimate dismantling as a Jewish state, he lamented Israeli behavior, and formulated policy advice for Israel so that it might avoid the wrath of the social forces it is responsible for creating. Naturally, doing so destroyed any credibility he might otherwise have had as a Palestine solidarity activist.

In addition, Toameh paid ARA the remarkable compliment of calling us optimists when we called for a single, democratic polity in all of historic Palestine where Jews, Muslims, Christians and all others can live side by side as equals. We have been called a lot of things during our struggle for the liberation of Palestine, but "optimists" has never come up. Unfortunately, Toameh tried to dismiss our optimism by saying it was impractical because Jews and Palestinians don't want to live next to each other. At that point, we reminded him that Judea Pearl, another Zionist speaker, had only Monday afternoon specifically said the opposite, that the VAST MAJORITY of Palestinians DO want to live as equals, "one person, one vote" with Jews in the region. That being the case, the conclusion was clear to everyone in the audience: it is actually the Jewish folks in Israel that refuse, and enforce with all the power of their state, to live with Palestinians as equals. In light of such cold, hard logic, all talk of Palestinian barbarism faded away like so many Zionist dreams past, present, and future.

As much as ARA agreed with Toameh on the second-class citizenship of Palestinians, and as much as we appreciated being called optimists when the alternative is racist pessimism clinging for dear life to military might, we disagreed on the way forward. Toameh still labors under the illusion that Palestinians within Israel can gain equal rights without challenging the Jewish character of Israel. The case of Azmi Bishara proves otherwise. While Toameh tried to dismiss Bishara's case by accusing him of corruption, the truth is that Bishara has pioneered the movement among Palestinians in Israel for full citizenship. Unlike Toameh, however, Bishara realizes that full citizenship will only be achieved when Israel as a Jewish state is dismantled. Toameh refuses to make that stand, and as a result operates freely in Israel, unharassed, writing for one of the most rightwing papers in the country.

Similarly, Toameh naively clings to the hope of a two-state solution to the conflict. ARA, on the other hand, clarified to him that the solution in the region has ALREADY been decided in favor of a single state. Israel controls the whole region. As Toameh pointed out on numerous occasions, all claims of Palestinian autonomy and self-government are a sham! Palestinians can elect their own prison wardens, but they remain in prison, under Israel's lock and key. Further, if they elect prison wardens Israel doesn't like, Israel will cut off their rations. That is not a two-state solution, that is a single state solution, it is apartheid, and it is what we have today.

The question before people of conscience everywhere is simple. Will that single state be an apartheid regime, as is currently the case, or will the Jewish character of Israel be done away with and a single democracy for all people be established?

This is the question we as activists must ask ourselves. But we must not end with questions, because the answer depends on us. Resolving the struggle for Palestine is our generation's mission. Will we fulfill it, or betray it?

In ARA, we derive hope from the words of one of the twentieth century's greatest political minds, CLR James, who once said, "Political power never rests entirely on naked force. By the time it has reached that stage, it is already doomed."

ZIONISM IS RACISM! ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTI-RACISM!

Judea Pearl gained notoriety in Zionist circles several years ago when he wrote a brief and poorly argued article entitled, “Anti-Zionism is Racism.” In it, he argued that it was racist to attack what he called the “national liberation movement” of the Jewish people, and noted that many of the same people that attack this so-called national liberation movement support the national liberation of other people. This specious argument overlooks the difference between the Zionist drive to establish the state of Israel and all other national liberation movements. That is, those movements attempted to liberate themselves from colonialism and white supremacy! Zionism, on the other hand, relied on colonialism and white supremacy for legitimacy as it stole land from the indigenous people of Palestine. His claim is ludicrous, and yet many people take it at face value.

But the argument itself is totally ridiculous, even apart from its dubious equivalence of Zionism with national liberation movements. ARA asks, how can anti-Zionism be racism given two basic facts. First, not all Zionists are Jewish! Irvin Reid, outgoing president of WSU, is an African American Christian who supports Israel. Second, not all Jewish people are Zionists! There is a long and proud tradition of anti-Zionist Jews stretching from the Bundists in Poland at the turn of the nineteenth century all the way to the current day, with people like Anna Baltzer and Selma James, both of whom will be speaking in the Detroit area this week. Given these basic facts, ARA would like to know who anti-Zionism is racist against? Certainly not Jews, because anti-Zionism attacks all people who support the state of Israel, whether they are Christian or Muslim, white, black or anything in between, and anyone else who supports Israel. It is a political perspective and has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

Finally, ARA must ask why Zionists devote so much energy to attempting to silence Palestine solidarity activists while doing nothing when white supremacists who seek to begin a second Holocaust come to town? Why does the state of Israel honor vicious anti-Semites like Jerry Falwell with Lear jets and state awards like the Jabotinsky Award (named after a former terrorist/national hero of Israel)? The answer is simple: attacks on Jews are less a priority for Zionists than attacks on the state of Israel. As long as the sacred right of Israel to colonize Palestine, murder Palestinians, and crush the Palestinian “will to resist” is honored, Zionists are willing to overlook even the most egregious anti-Semitism.

Join ARA to hear the side of the debate Zionists don’t want you to hear. Anna Baltzer will speak Tuesday, November 13^th in this same room, Purdy-Kresge auditorium, at noon. Selma James will discuss the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism on Saturday, November 17^th at 5:30 p.m. in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave, Dearborn, MI.

Selma James to Speak in Dearborn, 11/17/07, 5:30 p.m.

Selma James is being sponsored by Anti-Racism Action to speak at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn. She will speak about the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism.

Details follow in the press release.

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For Immediate Release:

Pathbreaking Movement Theorist and Activist Selma James to Tour in November. Available for Interviews

The tour marks the 35th anniversary of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, which Selma James founded. It has been organized in response to requests from anti-sexist, anti-racist and anti-war women as well as men in North America who want to hear her and meet with her. Beginning November 14, Ms. James will be joined on the tour by Andaiye, from Red Thread in Guyana. Please see information about Andaiye below.

Contact:

Phoebe Jones, Global Women's Strike, 215-848-1120 or 610-505-4944 phoebejs@crossroadswomen.net

Local info add here

Ms James will be speaking on the Jewish Internationalist Tradition vs. Zionism on Saturday, November 17th at 5:30 p.m. in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, Wet Club room 1.

For information locally please contact Mike at struggle@wsuara.org

October 24 — Selma James, movement strategist and lifelong campaigner for women’s rights and anti-racism, will embark on a North American speaking tour in November to mark the 35th anniversary of the International Wages for Housework Campaign which she founded in 1972. James – who was for many years the colleague and wife of influential Marxist organizer, historian and critic CLR James – currently coordinates the Global Women's Strike (GWS – website www.globalwomenstrike.net), and works closely with grassroots women in the Venezuelan Revolution. She will be speaking on a range of topics to universities, community groups and churches in Arcata CA, Atlanta, Detroit, Flagstaff, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland OR, San Francisco, Western MA and Toronto, Canada, and will be available for advance interviews starting on Nov 7.

James is known as a dynamic speaker who impresses audiences with the depth of her understanding and the scope of her interests. Since she wrote the classic A Woman’s Place in 1952 as part of CLR James’s Johnson-Forest Tendency, to the early 1970s with the publication of The Power of Women and Subversion of the Community when she spelled out how the function of domestic or "caring" work is basic to creation of the world’s labor force and the perpetuation of the market economy, to 2006 when she introduced Creating a Caring Economy: Nora Castañeda and the Women's Development Bank of Venezuela, James has broken new ground for the movement for change — from the bottom up, beginning with women.

Since 2000, the Global Women's Strike has called for an annual general strike of women on March 8, International Women's Day, under the banner "Invest in Caring Not Killing" with participation in 60 countries. “It is not enough to demand the end of the war,” explained James. “We must demand the end of military budgets, which ensure death and destruction, including by depriving us of our most basic needs – clean water for a start. We want that money invested in caring. Then we will be sure the killing will stop. Investing in caring begins with investing in women. It is mainly our work that keeps the human race alive, and human!”

When James launched the Campaign in 1972 to demand wages for housework from governments, a raging debate followed about whether caring full-time was "work" or a "role" — and whether it should be compensated with a wage. Now, after decades of women demanding payment and pensions for work at home and taking their case to the UN where governments agreed to measure and value unwaged work, the movement of caregivers is busting out all over. Women in Venezuela won Articles 87 & 88 in their Constitution*, there is legislation in Trinidad & Tobago, and time use surveys and other research are underway in many countries. James says today: ‘We must work to reduce women’s horrendous workload. But we don’t want those we care for to be neglected and dissed as a result. Too many of us are forced to dump our kids in any affordable childcare in order to go out to (low paid) work so we can feed them. What a choice: care or food! Well we all, at every age, need both. We, women and men, must have time to care. Pay us for caring and we’ll be able to manage our time and our relationships.’

About ANDAIYE: Co-founder and international coordinator of Red Thread in Guyana. RT began as a self-help income-generating group bringing low-income women together across violent racial divides. It has always given a voice to all grassroots women: Indo- and Afro-Guyanese as well as Indigenous. Andaiye is the author of The Valuing of Unwaged Work, an analysis of the cost to women in the Caribbean of structural adjustment policies. She represented CARICOM at the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995, leading the negotiations which resulted in the agreement among governments, including the US government, to measure and value unwaged work. In 1979, she was also a founding members and leader of the Working People’s Alliance of Guyana along with historian Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

Ms. James and Andaiye are open to scheduling debates on payment for caregivers, and would be pleased to set up advance press interviews to adequately draw out this complex conversation. To arrange an interview, contact Phoebe Jones, tour coordinator, at 215-848-1120 or 610-505-4944.

* Article 88 “recognizes work in the home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth. Housewives are entitled to social security.” Article 87 creates a social stability fund for independent contractors, including housewives, domestic workers and others.

Tour schedule Pittsburgh PA Nov 8,9 Philadelphia PA Nov 11-13 New York City, NY Nov 14 Detroit, MI Nov 15-17 Benton Harbor Nov 18 Amherst MA Nov 19 Toronto ON Nov 23, 24

Atlanta Nov 25, 26 Miami FL Nov 26 (Andaiye only) Phoenix, Flagstaff AZ Nov 27, 28 Portland OR Nov 29, 30 Los Angeles CA Dec 1, 2 Arcata CA Dec 3 San Francisco CA Dec 4-5

Andaiye, above Selma James, left