Harry’s Place

Naeem is not fooling anyone who matters. What i do find interesting is the timing of this new hamas propaganda angle that they have nothing against jews.

Is it not odd that Seamus Milne has been trying to convince his CIF sickophants (sp) that hamas are not anti-semetic? Is it just a coincidence that Naeem trots out with a piece which is supposed to support the assertion that there is nothing anti-semetic about hamas?

I noticed this same pattern when a story in the Guardian linked Chavez to cocaine smuggling and FARC. Immediately, Milne followed with a piece attacking the journalist from El Pais.

The left has a serious problem, as Nick Cohen has rightly demonstrated.

Milne had lost an argument about Hamas’ antisemitism with David Hirsh so Milne asked Hamas to create some ad hoc evidence in his defense. Its utterly pathetic and cowardly. The Guardian’s editorial board (and the British mainstream left) is now officially antisemitic. It must be tough to be a Jew in Britain right now.

There’s an interesting article by Martin Bright, political editor of the New Statesman, which may herald the start of some honest soul searching by the Left on this issue.

(but I’m not holding my breath)

The Guardian article is typical Taqiyya. Anyone whose got up to speed on the Koran, Hadith and Shariah will recognise that. Because of course Muslims don’t have a problem with religious non-Zionist Jews who fully accept Islam’s hegemony and their inferior Dhimmi status. They know that will leave a few Potemkin Jews they can put on show, Thereisenstadt style, for the benefit of the cameras. The rest will be massacred or exiled to Europe and America.

In fact I think Islamists generally take the Nazi line on this. Just as the Nazis thought it was good to have inferior people around with slave status to confirm the worth of the “Herrenvolk” so too Islamists like Mohammed’s plan that Jews and Christians are allowed to survive - but with this reduced, slave-like Dhimmi status.

Hamas’s beef with the Jews is with Jews who resist.

Baseem Naeem can, at least, trust the Israeli health care system to shore his up.

Conflicts Forum has been assisting Hamas in framing its message in a way which is designed to help them to hide the fact that they are an openly racist and genocidal party.

I would say that this article may well have been ghosted for Hamas by them.

Aside from the holocaust denial, racism and murder of civilians perpetrated by Hamas, it is also unfortunate that the Guardian was unable to otain Bassem Naeem’s views on the oppression of Christians, women and gays. Naeem’s linking of the holocaust with present day Israel is a refrain that works either way: the holocaust was terrible but why are the palestinians punished for it/the holocaust is a fabrication used to justify crimes against palestinians. Time to break the link: the defence of Israel is about the defence of democracy, human rights, frreedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of sexual choice. Nothing to do with the holocaust at all.

The Guardian article is typical Taqiyya.

This is the kind of crackpot anti-semitism (in the traditional imperial sense) that Harry’s Place makes itself a vector of. It is also ignorant:

1) ‘Taqiyya’ is a practise elaborated by Shi’iites, not Sunnis (Hamas is a Sunni organisation). It was developed historically as a response to actual oppression of Shi’ite minorities.

2) It is not a blanket excuse for lying, but a mode of self-defense against repression. It involves the kinds of subterfuge that any oppressed group might undertake in times of imminent danger. Anyone who has ever been asked the question “Are you a Prod or a Taig?” will have engaged in something like it.

3) It is matched by similar concepts in other religions, including Judaism, and is universally practised.

Brett Lock’s comical rant is no worse than usual, but I would point out that practically every informed commentator on this topic is aware that for some time there have been pressures within Hamas to break with commitments in the 1988 Covenant, including the antisemitic statements. Bassem Naeem’s public repudiation of antisemitism is of a piece with this, and with Azzam Tamimi’s constant arguments in favour of co-existence and against antisemitism. Hamas is no more monolithic than its rivals: it is characterised by the same internal struggles, and subject to the same forms of evolution and adaptation that any political organisation goes through. It isn’t good enough just to damn it as a lie when Naeem says the struggle is not against Jews or Judaism - it is an important statement and it should be welcomed. That is, unless your sole aim is to reduce Hamas’ role in the Palestinian struggle to antisemitism and thereby de-legitimise the elected government of Palestine which is the object of serious Western aggression - for which Lock has been a constant if somewhat incoherent apologist, most disgracefully when he defended the Israeli murder of unarmed Palestinian women in clear view.

If you silly saps were really interested in taking on politically dangerous lies, you might as well get stuck into the Martin Bright essay that Steve M links to and which, inter an awful lot of alia, repeats several well-worn myths. Not least of these is the fantasy that Iran threatens Israel with a nuclear Holocaust. There is ample evidence to deal with this lie, up to and including that supplied by a branch of the United States government. But then, since I confidently expect that the newer, uglier Harry’s Place will be a noisy and belligerent cheerleader should Iran be attacked, I also expect that this is the sort of lie you will have need of. Moralizing the means of imperial violence is not a task that permits too much intellectual consistency, after all. Like any PR job it requires the relentless promotion of selected themes, and the theme of the hour is that Muslims who defend themselves are fascists, while those attacking them are a high-octane Abraham Lincoln Brigade with cluster bombs and daisy-cutters.

I’ll leave you to it.

“and with Azzam Tamimi’s constant arguments in favour of co-existence and against antisemitism.”

well done Richard.

Azzam Tamimi preaches co existence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6q02J6dJk

they are an openly racist and genocidal party.

The lawyer speaks. When you wish to comment on contemporary politics with any degree of seriousness, Mr T, you will have to drop that glib advocacy and do a bit of background research. Hamas is not remotely genocidal, and hardly ‘openly’ so. That much is a straightforward fiction on your part. Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant, and has been for some time. This has been expressed by Azzam Tamimi (boo hiss, I’m sure), Khaled Meshaal, and now Bassem Naeem. If you really want to understand Hamas’ attitude to Israel, to Jews and to negotiations, then you could do worse than consult the work of a couple of Israeli scholars named Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, whose 2000 book ‘The Palestinian Hamas’ described a far more complicated state of affairs than you are prepared to countenance in your energetic apologia for the apartheid state.

“Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant, and has been for some time. ”

Have you any proof of that?

“Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant, and has been for some time. ”

What form does this ‘process’ take and how long will it be, do you think? It doesn’t strike me as too time consuming to re-write the offending passages.

Azzam Tamimi preaches co existence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6q02J6dJk

Indeed he does. In the video you link, he is standing next to people of the Jewish faith, and declaring the Palestinians’ right to resist their oppression by violent means, but their willingness to reach a peaceful settlement. Your problem is two-fold. The first is that, like some Hamas members and like every purblind Zionist, you don’t know the difference between Zionism, Judaisma and Jewish people. But you must never project your racist essentialising onto Azzam Tamim. The second problem you have is that you want a Hamas member to sound like a liberal Zionist, blithering about Israel’s inherent ‘right to exist’ or something similar. If he doesn’t, then he must be racist and genocidal and all the rest of it. Hamas are a legitimate force of resistance to a violent and expanding occupation, whose hallmarks are segregation, expropriation and the casual murder of civilians, including the baiting of children. Given that Tamimi is, unlike you, all too aware of what Israel is actually doing, he is less inclined to handwringing and sucking up to the bully of the region.

Yes a VERY long time, lenin

But you couldn’t even wait for them to abandon it before leaping to support it. Very stupid of you, particularly considering the way your own party was utterly done over by the Islamists in RESPECT.

Has it not occurred to you that, if Hamas really wanted to drop the genocial racism from its Constitution, it would have done so? I mean, the passages which rehearse genocide - including the invocation of religious texts which look forward to the day on which Muslims will kill all the Jews - are one of the main reasons that all sensible analysts correctly identify the party as a racist and genocidal organisation. You would think that the first step to avoiding the “genocidal racists” tag would be to drop those passages.

I’ll give you an explanation. The reason that they’ve not dropped these passages is because they are vitally important to Hamas. They ARE a genocidal racist organisation. They believe that they’re following god’s will in promoting genocidal racism. And they won’t drop them, even if they stand between it and respectability.

They best they can do is to write articles in sympathetic newspapers, ghost written for them by the likes of Conflicts Forum, I’d guess, in which Azzam Tamimi is active, lying about their true beliefs.

You, personally, are a promoter of racist lies.

As a member of the SWP, this surprises me little.

The preface to the book Lenin mentioned can be read in full here.

I remember Seuamus Milne trying to argue that Hamas was not Antisemitic and their charter was being re-written.

Obviously they rejected his first draft!

David on Richard Seymour: You, personally, are a promoter of racist lies.

Exactly. And while we’re at it, would it be possible for us to stop calling this creep by his ridiculous nom de guerre? At the very least it might encourage him to grow up a bit.

Lenin writes

“Hamas is no more monolithic than its rivals: it is characterised by the same internal struggles”

Lenin writes

“Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant”

Lenin knows.

“Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant, and has been for some time. ”

What form does this ‘process’ take and how long will it be, do you think? It doesn’t strike me as too time consuming to re-write the offending passages.

I have the answer. When Hamas have killed all the Jews then they wil abandon Antisemitism from their Charter and substitute “Christion” (or “non-believers”)

Is Hamas also in the process of changing the message that its television station puts out to Palestinian children?

Hi Lenin, nice to converse with you again. You do realize that you can’t moderate the comments here, don’t you?

“Has it not occurred to you that, if Hamas really wanted to drop the genocidal racism from its Constitution, it would have done so?”

This is obviously true. But, what astounds me is that they haven’t even (as far as I know) taken the intermediary steps of publicly announcing a thei intention to re-draft (with a provisional deadline) or forming a steering group or committee to oversee it. Nothing like that. So what do the Hamas apologists base their assertions that a ‘process’ is underway on exactly? ‘Lenin’ is usually thought of as just a useful idiot but in the light of the desperate spinning he’s indulging in on here ‘lying liar’ seems more the ticket.

Lenin

Hamas will not renounce its Charter, whatever Azzam Tamimi says. He may have gone to school with Khalid Meshaal but outside the comment pages of the Guardian nobody takes this particular claim very seriously.

In fact Hamas still prints and distributes its Charter in the Palestinian territories, complete with all the antisemitism, while giving the opposite message to its friends in the West. You can see a copy here, published in 2004.

As you can read, Mahmoud al-Zahar said, on the day of the Palestinian elections in 2006, that the movement [would] not change a single word in its charter. You are going to be waiting a long time, I fear.

As for this:

This is the kind of crackpot anti-semitism (in the traditional imperial sense)

I’m sure you know the origin of the term ‘antisemitism’. Pretending that it includes things against Muslims or Arabs is a pretty transparent semantic trick. It almost makes me wonder whether you take antisemitism seriously at all.

What form does this ‘process’ take and how long will it be, do you think? It doesn’t strike me as too time consuming to re-write the offending passages.

Use a bit of imagination if you don’t want to do the leg-work. It is not a question of just rewriting passages from the Charter, although as one senior figure in the organisation has suggested: “It is not the Koran, it can be amended”. It is about changing a mode of analysis. Hamas is a group that understands this political struggle in the terms of religion, as an unwarranted struggle by Christians and Jews for domination over an Islamic Waqf. Its Charter expresses this purview, and - while plainly not ‘genocidal’ (it in fact states that there should be co-existence under the ’shadow’ of Islam, provided the dominance of Islam in the region is accepted) - adopts the motifs of European antisemitism to make its case against Zionism. For years, there has been an oscillation between those in Hamas who explicitly distinguish between Jews as a people, and Zionism as an ideology and state structure, and those who fail to do so. Indeed, that distinction is implied even in the Charter itself, in the apparent clash between Articles 31 and 32. There are those like Tamimi and others who frequently make this distinction clear, and apply a political analysis that militates against a strictly religious and conspiratorial interpretation of the oppression of Palestinians. That is a very clear and present trend in Hamas. Just as the organisation has eschewed elements of its Charter in pursuing peaceful settlement on the basis of two-states for the time being, so there is a leading layer of Hamas that is prepared to reject the conspiratorial analysis of their domination in favour of a more thorough analysis of the structures that support their subordination.

Of course, that analysis is totally absent at Harry’s Place, which prefers to moralise against the oppressed and provide ideological sustenance for a state that has come far closer to implementing genocide than Hamas ever will.

“It is not a question of just rewriting passages from the Charter”

No, but it is ALSO a question of just re-writing passages from the charter, and doing so would go a long way towards deflecting accusations of institutional racism in the party. So, if they can’t just change it, having first to change their mode of analysis, but being in the PROCESS of changing it, why not set up a group for the purpose with a provisional deadline and a public statement to the effect that they are re-drafting and, specifically, deleting all outmoded racist sentiments. They could even have a public consultation exercise, all that. But they don’t. Why? And in the absence of all that, how do you know they are in the process of changing the charter? It’s just wishful thinking, isn’t it? Or is that what you call ‘imagination’?

Lenin said

“1) ‘Taqiyya’ is a practise elaborated by Shi’iites, not Sunnis (Hamas is a Sunni organisation). It was developed historically as a response to actual oppression of Shi’ite minorities.
”
Taqiyya is used by both Shia and Sunnis and has been for many centuries. Deception such as this was sanctioned by Muhammad himself.

Take a look at Qu’ran 3:28 for example.

Respected Sunni commentators over the years have commented on this (officialy sanctioned) practice.

“2) It is not a blanket excuse for lying, but a mode of self-defense against repression. It involves the kinds of subterfuge that any oppressed group might undertake in times of imminent danger. Anyone who has ever been asked the question “Are you a Prod or a Taig?” will have engaged in something like it.”

Absolute rubbish - see above and also the hadith’s referring to “war is deceit” - Opressed group indeed.

“3) It is matched by similar concepts in other religions, including Judaism, and is universally practised.”

Examples please

Has it not occurred to you that, if Hamas really wanted to drop the genocial racism from its Constitution, it would have done so? I mean, the passages which rehearse genocide

There are no passages which rehearse genocide at all. This is pure fantasy on your part, a straightforward falsehood designed to justify the oppression of Palestinians by the racist state known as Israel.

I’ll give you an explanation. The reason that they’ve not dropped these passages is because they are vitally important to Hamas. They ARE a genocidal racist organisation. They believe that they’re following god’s will in promoting genocidal racism. And they won’t drop them, even if they stand between it and respectability.

This is just juvenile ranting on your part, David. I don’t expect much better from an idiot like Brett Lock, but you are actually trained as an advocate, so I can only assume that your bluster is deliberate. Let’s go back to the start: where do they call for genocide?

You, personally, are a promoter of racist lies.

The Dershowitz school of debate: throw mud, hope it sticks. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t, because your claque of morons will cheer you on.

As a member of the SWP, this surprises me little.

Forgive me, but you are not a member of the SWP so far as I know. We would almost certainly kick you out for being a supporter of a vicious form of racist domination. You might well be a supporter of Shaun Wayne Phillips, but I don’t know that he has ‘members’ as such. Are you sure you’re not confusing yourself with someone else?

‘Richard’, my dear, I regret to inform you that I don’t accept your authority as a commentator on Islamic texts. I will take my lead from experts like John Esposito, and you can take your lead from Danny Pipe, if you like. Ciao.

Would you be confusing Shaun Wayne Phillips with Shaun Wright-Phillips?
Something to do with Ian Wright being his adoptive dad,you’ll find Richard.

So you have no proof whatsoever that Hamas are rewriting their Constitution

Amazing in all his outpourings so far, ‘Lenin’ hasn’t been able to explain the issue of the TV station. As the most obvious lie to fall from the Hamas spokesperson’s lips, I can’t wait to be entertained by the ‘explanation’ from SWP HQ.

“There are no passages which rehearse genocide at all. ”

You have to read the charter with one eye not to come to the conclusion that it is a call for the extermination of all Jews. But even if you do read it like that, you can hardly deny that it is, at least, a disgustingly racist document, can’t you? Isn’t that enough to condemn it? It used to be.

“I can’t wait to be entertained by the ‘explanation’ from SWP HQ.”

Well quite,. This is a new point, unlike the issue of the racist charter, so he won’t have been given his opinion on it yet.

From the Hamas charter…

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it”

Sounds pretty genocidal to me…

Forgive me, but you are not a member of the SWP so far as I know. We would almost certainly kick you out for being a supporter of a vicious form of racist domination. You might well be a supporter of Shaun Wayne Phillips, but I don’t know that he has ‘members’ as such. Are you sure you’re not confusing yourself with someone else?

CLUNK

Ha Ha.
As ever,let down by your poor general knowledge Richard

Lenin says this is about changing a “mode of analysis”. In other words, Hamas was founded on an antisemitic analysis, which the Charter accurately reflects. He says that some in Hamas now want to move away from this. His evidence for this is Azzam Tamimi (who says he is not a member of Hamas), and an article in the Guardian. The problem for Lenin is that there is no debate in Hamas’ own media, in Arabic, in the Palestinian territories, about changing the Charter. That is because there is no real process to change it; this is for Western consumption only.

I do like the idea that Azzam Tamimi is going to lead Hamas away from a “mode of analysis” based on antisemitic conspiracy theory. This is the man who blamed the Danish cartoons on a Zionist conspiracy.

Lenin - in what way is accusing Muslims of using ‘taqqiyah’ a form of antisemitism?

Lenin - “‘Richard’, my dear, I regret to inform you that I don’t accept your authority as a commentator on Islamic texts. I will take my lead from experts like John Esposito, and you can take your lead from Danny Pipe, if you like. Ciao.”

Most amusing - I should accept your propaganda at face value but my reply is written off just like that.

How unusual from someone of your political background……..

You arent going to like this but I dont read Daniel Pipes (or Danny as you sneer).

Esposito on the other hand I am familiar with.

John Esposito by the way receives funding from the Saudi’s for being on message and he has some very interesting friends indeed (funny you bring him up in a thread about Hamas).

Ciao

Azzam Tamimi preaches co existence.

And here, where he tells a Tel Aviv-born Israeli to “go back to Germany.”

Al-Aqsa TV - Hamas-run station in Gaza, terrestrial and via satellite.

Courtesy of the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/803257.stm#media

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it”

Sounds pretty genocidal to me…

That’s because you don’t consider the difference between a state and a people. The USSR doesn’t exist any more. Apartheid South Africa doesn’t exist any more. Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist any more. East Pakistan doesn’t exist any more. In none of these cases was the feat accomplished by genocide (although Pakistan came close to inflicting genocide in a bid to prevent Bangladesh from coming into existence). If the rhetoric is military, that is because Hamas believed, probably accurately, that Israel was uninterested in any kind of peaceful settlement.

Amazing in all his outpourings so far, ‘Lenin’ hasn’t been able to explain the issue of the TV station.

Brett, my dear, I don’t *have* to explain the TV station. My article was not an exhortation to regard Hamas as inherently right on and politically correct. My article was a brief exposition of Hamas’ origins and development (probably too much emphasis on Qutb as I have subsequently discovered) and an explanation as to why they had expressed the political struggle in the terms of European antisemitism. It did express the hope that the antisemitic baggage would be dropped, as it is being publicly by several leading figures in Hamas. But I made no claim about the TV station, and I don’t have to.

You have to read the charter with one eye not to come to the conclusion that it is a call for the extermination of all Jews. But even if you do read it like that, you can hardly deny that it is, at least, a disgustingly racist document, can’t you? Isn’t that enough to condemn it? It used to be.

No, actually, you just have to read it. It contains antisemitic rhetoric, but it also contains a call for Jews and Christians to co-exist with Muslims (Article 31). It doesn’t anywhere call for genocide. Now, as for the will-thou-condemnathon, I have already stated that the antisemitic language is “inexcusable”. I need no nudging from you to do so.

“Hamas is in the process of abandoning the antisemitism in its original Covenant, and has been for some time.”

He admits that Hamas is antisemitic, and admits that it is taking a “long time” to change. But he supports them. “Lenin” supports *explicit* racists. He is a racist-supporter. “Lenin” is a racist.

Lenin - in what way is accusing Muslims of using ‘taqqiyah’ a form of antisemitism?

It’s a lie; it’s based on ignorant myths; it is designed to de-legitimise anything a Muslim might say as inherently suspect; and it is promoted by someone who is evidently getting his information from rabid Islamophobes in the far right yank media. It is racist. The sense in which it is a form of antisemitism is that outlined by Edward Said (and others, but particularly Edward Said), in whose work the historic origins of anti-Semitism in the Aryan ideology of empire are drawn out, and in which the category of Semite is evaluated in light of that background. Orientalism and antisemitism, he used to say, are joined at the hip. It would be even more accurate to say they are different manifestations of the same phenomena.

From the Lenin’s Tomb comments box:

Seymour: has Israel the right to exist within pre-1967 borders: yes or no?

No.
lenin | Homepage | 17 May, 08:21 |

As Hillel might have said, all the rest is commentary.

I am not sure whether any sensible human being would need that, but here is Hamas minister of “culture” praising the Protocols on al-Aqsa TV.

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1745.htm

Perhaps, though, he is an “independent” minister, and airs only his private views. Here is another example

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1561.htm

Pay attention to the text of this fine poem:
“In black bags
Chunks of flesh of Jews”

But surely they meant Zionist. Didn’t they?

Or, and by the way Lenin. Can you direct us to any moderate speech or article in Arabic that can teach us about the struggle within Hamas?

He admits that Hamas is antisemitic, and admits that it is taking a “long time” to change. But he supports them. “Lenin” supports *explicit* racists. He is a racist-supporter. “Lenin” is a racist.

I realise you’re not being completely serious, but I will happily confirm that I support Hamas’ right to resist Israeli aggression, which - in case you hadn’t noticed - is itself racist. What is more, Israel’s aggression is not merely discursively racist, but *structurally* so, in that it is expressed: in its policies of segregation, theft, expropriation and expulsion; in the tradition of casual slaughter of civilians, and torture and kidnapping and mass imprisonment; and in the situation of third class status for Israeli Arabs and no status for Palestinian Arabs.

You still haven’t provided any evidence that Hamas is rewriting its Constitution Richard.
Do you have any?

(Interesting that you claim Tamimi is a member - whoops)

Seymour: has Israel the right to exist within pre-1967 borders: yes or no?

As Hillel might have said, all the rest is commentary.

I know, it’s simply *awful* isn’t it? Israel must, of necessity, demand rights for itself that accrue to no other state. We, those of us who campaigned against apartheid and didn’t accept the inherent right of Stalinist states to exist, are enjoined to reward the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with all the horror that this entailed with the allocation of one half of historic Palestine to a state founded on colonial domination. Anything else is presumably a non-sequitur.

As I said, re-defining antisemitism to include Arabs and Muslims as victims is a pretty low (and transparent) semantic trick, and that includes when Edward Said did it. It just gives you the excuse not to address antisemitism properly. But here’s a chance.

an explanation as to why they had expressed the political struggle in the terms of European antisemitism

Perhaps they expressed it in this way because they are antisemites? This is from Article 7:

[T]he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to bring the promise of Allah to pass, no matter how long it takes. As the prophet Muhammad], may the prayer of Allah and his blessing of peace be upon him, said: “The time [Judgment Day] will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them and until the Jew hides behind the rocks and trees, and [then] the rocks and trees will say: ‘Oh
Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding [behind me], come and kill him, except for the gharqad [salt-bush tree], so it is the tree of the Jews” ([Hadith] recorded in [the reliable collections of] Al-Bukhari and Muslim26).

This is quite genocidal, I would argue. It is an example of how the fine distinctions between Israel, Zionism and Jews that we might try to observe in our discussions here are absent from the Charter, notwithstanding the nod to dhimmitude in Article 31. It is also not European antisemitism, so can’t be blamed on those nasty colonialists. Lenin - care to explain this one away?

Sorry, I got my italics mixed up in the last post. But you get the point.

In fact, the al-Aqsa Channel is an independent media institution that often does not express the views of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh or of the Hamas movement. The channel regularly gives Palestinians of different convictions the chance to express views that are not shared by the Palestinian government or the Hamas movement. In the case of the opinion expressed on al-Aqsa TV by Amin Dabbur, it is his alone and he is solely responsible for it.

Can Seymour or anyone else point to an example of Al-Aqsa TV criticizing Hamas or its leaders in even the mildest terms? Was Fatah allowed on the channel to rebut this?

“I will happily confirm that I support Hamas’ right to resist Israeli aggression, which - in case you hadn’t noticed - is itself racist.”

How does one “resist…aggression”? Please explain your silly phrase.

We, those of us who campaigned against apartheid and didn’t accept the inherent right of Stalinist states to exist, are enjoined to reward the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with all the horror that this entailed with the allocation of one half of historic Palestine to a state founded on colonial domination.

Yes, I remember your views on colonialism. During our last encounter, you were keen to blame the Darfur crisis on ‘US colonialism’ and no word against China’s role. Now you give a further definition of your ‘colonialism’. You’re not actually anti-colonialist at all, Lenin. What are you?

I couldn’t read all of this thread because of Lenin being a fucking dick for so much of it, but I liked the “Shaun Wayne Philips” howler.

I don’t know why you waste your time with this Theocrats’ Cheerlader. He made his choice: “Hamas me allies. Let’s defend them at all cost”. Oh, let’s not forget the other clowns: Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, etc. etc.

Lenin is just preparing his “future” after all. Don’t be too harsh… Like most of the members of the ultra-left sects (most of them, intellectual petit-bourgeois) soon or later he will become a good bourgeois.

And that day, this strategic choice of him (the alliance with the medieval religious clowns that is) will pay its dividends… The left wll be non-existent in that part of the world… Then he will remember with pride that he did his BEST to strengthen the religious shit.

And this choice is not even original. The Americans already understood this 30 years ago: “better a medieval shit than socialism”. CIA is being replaced by these irrelevant sects, that’s all.

“Can Seymour or anyone else point to an example of Al-Aqsa TV criticizing Hamas or its leaders in even the mildest terms?”

Can Seymour explain why his dissenting comments are not being deleted here, as dissenting comments (to his POV) are commonly removed from his own site?

I’m more interested in whether he can, more globally, explain his utter ridiculousness. Whenever I come across his writing he comes off as a sort of bizarro Ignatius P. Reilly in ChomskyLand.

During our last encounter, you were keen to blame the Darfur crisis on ‘US colonialism’ and no word against China’s role.

No, I didn’t blame the Darfur crisis on “US colonialism”. That is flatly false. The Darfur crisis is the result of socio-economic struggles over land and power. Some of it does indeed originate in the colonial backdrop, but that is British colonialism that is implicated. The US has sometimes been a colonial power, but that isn’t the main way it operates in the world today. It wields a combination of military, political and economic power (’hard’ and ’soft’ power to use the IR lingo) to secure a dominant position for itself. The US certainly been involved historically in Sudan’s political development, supporting various dictatorships, but I should think that Sudan was a minor consideration for policymakers. As for America’s impact on Darfur, I think its economic transactions in gum arabic are probably marginal to the functioning of the conflict. In the same way, I don’t think Chinese oil deals are driving the process.

By the way, folks. Here’s another country that doesn’t exist any more: Rhodesia. I bet there are some people here who regret that.

“I know, it’s simply *awful* isn’t it? Israel must, of necessity, demand rights for itself that accrue to no other state. ”

I am puzzled by this. The ‘right to exist’ is demanded only by Israel?What are the Palestinians demanding exactly?

Andy why should Israel not exists in historic Palestine? If historic connections to the land don’t count for Jews, don’t give some legitimacy to a national liberation movement in those lands, why do they count for Arabs?

“By the way, folks. Here’s another country that doesn’t exist any more: Rhodesia. ”

But what is the point of playing word games? Rhodesia exists in the sense that we are talking here, it just changed its name. I know that you don’t simply want Israel to change its name.

“As I said, re-defining antisemitism to include Arabs and Muslims as victims is a pretty low (and transparent) semantic trick”

It is also a classic racists indicator. Like people who claim ‘Paki’ is a legitimate epithet because it just means ‘Pakistani’, no harm meant guv. They are either stupid or dishonest.

I doubt many people here believe in the “inherant” rights of states to exist - more so that they recognise a democratic right to self-determination. This right is, of course, contingent upon an obligation to protect minorities.

Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinian Arabs want a single state. Should either be forced into such a position against their will?

I think Richard Wayne Seymour is confusing Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia

Lenin

I see you have avoided trying to explain away this passage, from Article 7 of the Hamas Charter:

[T]he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to bring the promise of Allah to pass, no matter how long it takes. As the prophet Muhammad], may the prayer of Allah and his blessing of peace be upon him, said: “The time [Judgment Day] will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them and until the Jew hides behind the rocks and trees, and [then] the rocks and trees will say: ‘Oh
Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding [behind me], come and kill him, except for the gharqad [salt-bush tree], so it is the tree of the Jews” ([Hadith] recorded in [the reliable collections of] Al-Bukhari and Muslim26).

It is genocidal, and it is not European antisemitism. Is your re-written Charter going to do away with this, as well as the Protocols stuff?

“Rhodesia exists in the sense that we are talking here, it just changed its name.” Unbelievably stupid sentence. Of course, there was a rather more significant change that took place in that country than a change of name. The small matter of the country being returned from the colonial power (Britain) to the actual population. Rather a better analogy for the one-staters than the USSR which is more commonly given, since they argue for the country to be returned to the democratic control of its actual population. Only drawback with that argument is the current strife in Zimbabwe.

I agree with Dave, above. That is the passage I meant when I said you had to read the charter with one eye to avoid the conclusion that it is genocidal. Lenin did agree that the charter was racist though (I think). He said:

“I have already stated that the antisemitic language is “inexcusable”. I need no nudging from you to do so.”

Very weaselly, that. ‘Inexcusable’ ‘antisemitic language’. Not that the charter or the party are antisemitic or racist. Not that. I think he does need some nudging.

S, it is not difficult to be Jewish and be on the left in the UK right now. I saw David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group and many good comrades from the same orga at 1968andallthat Conference/Event. It was wonderful to talk to them and other good people, from a Jewish background, such as Mike Marqusee.

Hold your nerve. The tide is turning. The apologists for anti-semitism and Islamism are having the tables turned on them. I note that HOPI has backing from Klein and even Chomsky.

Now who is going to do the full Book review of Seymour’s (obviously a close relative of Principal Seymour) ‘book’? I volunteer to do it somewhere or other. Probably a Blog or in the pages of Chartist or other democratic socialist magazines.

“Of course, there was a rather more significant change that took place in that country than a change of name. The small matter of the country being returned from the colonial power (Britain) to the actual population.”

Which was precisely my point. It is the same country in the sense we are talking about here, just under a new, more legitimate, constitution and a different name. Rhodesia did not change its borders when it became Zimbabwe, nor did it change the make up of its population, it just enfranchised them. That is not what Lenin is calling for. He suggests that the borders and population should be radically changed along with all institutions, political and cultural, such that Israel, as we think of it today, should utterly cease to exist.

Well, I don’t want to argue for a position which I don’t hold to, but when you say “It is the same country in the sense we are talking about here, just under a new, more legitimate, constitution and a different name.” this is precisely what the one-staters are arguing for. “Rhodesia did not change its borders when it became Zimbabwe, nor did it change the make up of its population, it just enfranchised them.” Again, the de facto borders of Israel wouldn’t change under the 1ss, but the entire population in Israel and in Palestine under Israeli occupation would be enfranchised. So, you’ve shot yourself in the foot - this is pretty much, by my understanding, what Lenin and others are calling for.

I thought May was exam time; what is Lenny the eternal student doing here?

P.

“Again, the de facto borders of Israel wouldn’t change under the 1ss, but the entire population in Israel and in Palestine under Israeli occupation would be enfranchised. So, you’ve shot yourself in the foot - this is pretty much, by my understand