Palestinians overwhelmingly support FSA

Yet another subcategory of the ineffectual New Left.

And don't remind me of the neo-Stalinists who would unironically consider support for fucking ISIS in that whole mess, or Trotskyites who would unironically attempt to sell their publications at a local price in civil war zones (SAlt tried this in Syria a few years ago and no I'm not kidding).

Maoism makes no sense in the West. It's not like the US or Canada has a sizeable peasantry. Pretty much all WMs are armchair intellectuals who just like to shit on whites for being white.

Israel openly backed Hamas as a way to screw over the more moderate and secular palestinian resistance.

Hezbollah have really fucked up their reputation amongst Palestinians by interfering on Assad's behalf too.

This feels like liberals in America hand-wringing over Russia "rigging" their election. Sure maybe they wanted an outcome and pushed it a certain way, but it's still up to you to actually vote.

Now if the vote itself is manufactured that's a different story but it doesn't seem like it

I think there's value in understanding subjectivized categories within any rank of the proletariat, and we are indeed approaching a point where lumpens have organically become a very large portion of the working class with such distinctively different conditions of existence to the "standard" proletariat that their conditions must be approached differently.

The same goes for the precariat; those (usually immigrant) parts of the working class who work illegally but not for black markets. This is very huge in southern Europe where large flocks of Chinese immigrants work black for otherwise mainstream bourgeois firms, or the US where it is Mexicans or other Latin Americans. In this situation, the Maoist process of understanding specific productive relations towards the process of revolution is interesting, but it is precisely here that western Maoists don't utilize this at all, even if it is similarly useful for the chasm between post-feudal peasantries versus proletariat under capitalism.

We have geniuses like Badiou who understand such Maoist theoretical principles, but nobody listen to them while the New Left chugs along and gives us another Black Bloc vigilantist spergout and we are only a few more steps back.

Sucks because Hamas and Hezbollah previously had good relations.

So, how *should* they utilize the situation? Give guns to undocumented immigrants and have them fight the government through the slums?

People's War doesn't seem very feasible in most places outside the Third World TBH.

Yeah but like said, Hamas still wouldn't be in power without some level of support from the Palestinians themselves.

are you retarded?
Our goal is communism not Palestinian feels.

Hamas are widely supported in Gaza because they're seen as incorruptible and very much serious about taking the fight against Zionism. Fatah lost ground there because they were seen as weak and American shills.

The situation in the west bank is a bit different I think. PFLP and Fatah have much more support there I think

I do not know; all I know is that Badiou uncovers a very useful universal truth with his analysis of subjectivization discourse of various "sub-classes" of labor under capital today.

I also, and don't take this the wrong way, think it's important to understand the primary value in such revelations and not to want to jump the gun and instantly find a way to act upon things. Of course, if something ideal could be suggested, I would all be for it, but I am always suspect of spontaneous ideas because they are usually born from a much too feisty desire to do things for their own sake.

I think a protracted people's war is too far from the table to even consider as entry point. It requires the levying of massive communist control of power to guide such a thing, which the PLA had after winning a year-long civil war with liberal nationalists on one front, another civil war front with the royalists and other loyalists, then the remaining colonial forces of the British empire and finally the second Sino-Japanese war.

PFLP really doesn't have that much support compared to the other parties. The idea that all of '48 Palestine will be regained ("one state solution") and will become socialist/proletarian seems highly unlikely.

You can't have communism without anti-imperialism.

Who cares what those retards think?

Permanently stunted fools

This is also why anti-fascism is not communistic; an attitude targeting a simple facet on the multi-faceted crystal of capital, like fascism and right populism, inherently fails to be communistic. With being a communist comes an implicit opposition to fascism, which is why all movements purport themselves as primarily anti-fascist are nothing but useful idiots for left-liberal reform against right populism.

www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/SpainBil.htm
libcom.org/library/fascism-anti-fascism-gilles-dauve-jean-barrot

You can't have imperialism without capitalism, but you can have capitalism without imperialism since capitalism is the base upon which the imperialist superstructure forms.

So your entire argument is that because there exists different divisions of labor among the proletariat, that the class struggle needs to be put on hold, because the exploited immigrants/black market laborers are the most revolutionary class?

No…

!=
as if class struggle, an automated subjectfication under capitalism, can be "put on hold", or as if I'm suggesting anything of the type.

What do you mean by "subjective" or "subjectification" in the context of class/historical emergence of the proletariat?

But that's what Maoism is, the belief that the peasant class is more revolutionary than the industrial proletariat, and that they needed to be entrusted with the powers of revolution.

No. Maoism is not about fetishizing the peasants but about applying Marxism to your existing conditions.

bait, kys

...

That there are specific developments paired with the geographical position of the proletariat which lead it to mutate in different ways. Of course, their primary source of sustenance remains the selling of their labor, but there is a radical difference between for example the precariat; which is that much more dependent on selling its own labor than what we may call the standard bourgeois nation-registered proletarian, who gains the benefits of bourgeois law and the welfare state. Here, "subjective" refers to how these things cause a much personally-defined subjective process of mediation with capital, and similarly, peasantry was also proletarian, no longer having a lord to serve, but interacted with capital differently in its time. "Subjectivization" thus speaks of how these relations develop; in the case of a precariat we see that it is the inability for certain third world bourgeois nations to provide sustenance in labor, or their inability to prevent civil war or be subject to imperialism, which leads its workers to flee and form a new, much more intense relation to capital.

No. has it right; Maoism is simply a Marxism much more aware of the subjectivization process I outlined, nothing else. The peasantry is just as distinct of a labor force as the precariat is today, or the lumpenproletariat subcategory was (and still is) to the proletariat "proper".

The "FSA" is a spook, it does not exist

There are people who call themselves leftist who are wrong? Fascinating! Could you tell me more about this, it seems utterly inconceivable to naive old me.

FSA refers to loyalists to Assad, which is a valuable term to refer to more than just Syrian government troops, because the FSA alliance also includes mercenaries paid to in the alliance, distinct from the labor forces the Syrian government normally gains firepower from.

Call me a cynic, but I definitely think the radical left overall is becoming more and more nuanced about the Palestinian issue. Granted, it's not that leftists are becoming a bunch of Zionists or Israel apologists, but aren't nearly as militant in their support of Palestine as they once were.

I'd say part of it does have to do with Syria. Go to any BDS or SJP group and you'll see everyone, both Palestinians and non-Palestinians, are completely divided on the subject. Most Palestinians living in the west tend to be very pro-Assad whereas most Palestinian "white allies" tend to be pro-Kurd or pro-opposition. My university's SJP club, for example, backed off on including solidarity for Rojava in their mission because they were afraid of alienating both Palestinians who are pro-Assad AND Turkish students who are anti-Kurd for the obvious reasons.

I also think it comes from pessimism. Compare the Kurds' accomplishments to the Palestinians' and you'll see how the Kurds were able to organize a fully-functioning anarcho-syndicalist territory in a few years whereas the Palestinians seem to be getting less and less militant and radical. Gaza is basically a prison, the remaining Palestinian areas of the West Bank will be settler bait very soon, so where's the PFLP poised to wage communist proletarian warfare? BDS seems to be very much what Zizek criticizes when he brings up the "faux activity" rant: yes, it makes us feel good when we throw Israeli hummus on the floor, but how does that help the Palestinians? It's just college kids and white liberals getting some nice short-term enjoyment.

Alright, stop, that is just delusional.

Nobody can deny that the Kurds gain motivation from a much more revolutionary and theoretically sound source than Palestinians, whom are just national liberation-fueled, ever will, but to say that the Kurds have already put such a thing as anarcho-syndicalism in practice is just factually untrue. They are still in civil war, still completely sanctioned by Assad for now as a force fighting alongside him on principle of purging the Syrian opposition, etc.

libcom.org/library/rojava-reality-rhetoric-gilles-dauvé-tl

Turks are reactionary scum

Yeah I see what you mean. But the point is, the seeds for anarcho-syndicalism are in Rojava. You don't really see anything close in Palestine where the Palestinian liberation is mainly, as you said, national bourgeoisie-driven rather than proletarian-driven.

not sure about that tbqh

Even if that were true, leftism isn't about playing a game to see which group is the "most oppressed" (as if something like that could ever be quantified to begin with) but about supporting which people/group is the most revolutionary in a given revolutionary scenario.

Alright, we're on the same line then. You just made it sound like things are already in place as the original Kurdish revolutionary principles would want them to be, which is not the case.

Also, they are not so much anarchist syndicalist, but the so called libertarian socialist concept of democratic confederalism, which Abdullah Ocalan developed from reading Murray Bookchin in exile from Turkey and Iraq, which was his move away from Stalinism.

To go back to my original point, I definitely think the left sees hope when they look at the Kurds, not so much when they look at the Palestinians. The Kurds are at least attempting to create a new society within the shell of the old. Leftists look at them and get the feeling of "we can do this!" When they look at Palestine they just see 70 years of failed anti-colonial struggle without any cases of communism attempting to be implemented.

Hamas's popularity decreased since 2010

This is the cancerous "antiimperialism" which destroyed the left. I sincerly hope you are a troll.

Capitalism is imperialism. Why destroy "imperialism" without destroying capitalism? I've never got the support for the NB of various countries by many on the left.

haha, take a look at social media sometime

full of endless bickering between non whites, jews and lgbt over which one whitey hurts the most

This is definitely true, yes. Palestinian separatism is, it is slowly being realized, not proper praxis against the powers that be in a world so globalized by capital. The Kurds show that the left today sees that change must come in the field of production, and that, even if I personally think the Kurdish ideas are still lacking, they are a gigantic step above this. The same goes for the Naxalite movement in India, which perhaps goes even further in barely demanding any kind of things along national or tribal lines at all.

I mean, I hate to be "that person" but, why does the left seem to be so overwhelmingly focused on the Palestinian struggle compared to other struggles, not just Rojava but the Naxals, Chiapas, Greece, even black and indigenous movements in North America? I'm not saying Palestinian human rights don't matter, but it seems kind of weird how the far-left seems so narrowly focused on them when there are other conflicts where the stakes are arguably bigger and have much more potential to lead to socialism. How does a one-state solution become better than a two-state solution if both are run by neoliberal Palestinian NB? The left needs to get over its Cold War ideology where borders actually mean something and go back to internationalism.

I thought they were very nationalistic?

Lmao what? The FSA is a force explicitly formed in opposition to Assad. You seem confused.

Largely because the left, largely disgusted with the failures of Stalinist communism (and rightfully so), found massive solace in sociocultural struggles, consequently because it thought a primary fight against productive relations would much too likely lead to such failures and tragedies as the USSR, PRC, etc., and the consequence of this is the so called "New Left" we got after these failures became apparent, culminating in the larget solidification thereof after May '68. This New Left, as we can tell, as it abandons political economy and the materialist view, easily falls into bourgeois political traps like national liberation, identity politics, muh privilege theory, et cetera which, while fine if incorporated into a materialist world view, are completely inept and easily cooptable on their own.

National Liberation is probably the biggest spook on the left.

I'm in no way apologizing for Zionism or the Israeli government, but aren't most Israelis Mizrahi? I know they faced a ton of discrimination in Israel during its early days but make up the majority of Jewish Israelis none the less. I remember reading somewhere that most Arab Jews weren't even Zionists until Arab governments essentially forced them out of Yemen, Iraq, North Africa, etc. and were willingly taken in by Israel. If that's the case, then it seems kind of ridiculous to claim all "Israelis" are somehow aliens in the Middle East like many anti-Zionists like to imply. Not to mention, most Ashkenazi Israels also came from places that are shitholes today, Russia and Hungary and all that. So it seems highly unlikely that most Israelis would just "go back to Europe" and give the Palestinians or their descendants their old houses or farm lands back.

This is why transcending borders seems to be the way to go, at least now in the 21st century.

Yeah the left has an unhealthy obsession with Israel. It's like tankies supporting Assad, people just go way overboard.

My man. But really, it's not time-dependent; a true struggle against capital must be internationalist. Of course communism (or any post-capitalist paradigm) does not necessitate the destruction of local cultural values, but it necessitate the annihilation of the nation state, which is really just an inseparably bourgeois concept. All lines of exlusivity in which production relate are going to be capitalistic; for the purpose of maintain productive relations shaped for the purpose of particular accumulation.

Like, I get that the Palestinians deserve human rights and that the occupation and apartheid system need to end, but why so much focus on the Palestinians? Even if you're coming at it from the perspective of "Americans share in responsibility for Israeli crimes because they fund them through tax dollars" there are still far worse things the US has done in terms of imperialist policies. No one is saying Israel shouldn't be held responsible for what its done, but there are other states which have arguably done far worse which aren't held accountable by leftists at all.

Palestine takes precedence above all other liberation struggles for a few reasons. One of them is because Israeli oppression is essentially American oppression, so American leftists feel they have to speak out and act against their own goverment's crimes first of all. Another reason is because Palestine has become an almost existential issue for the wider Muslim community, or "the ummah", because of its context and location. It's an almost spiritual thing to see Palestine for a lot of people. I get kind of uncomfortable with this myself because a lot of these people only care about Palestine and Palestinians precisely because of the Muslim aspect of things, they don't have much of a problem with oppression going the opposite way. Case in point: Erdogan sending aid to Gaza whilst slaughtering Kurds in Turkey.

Another is just how powerful Israel is. Palestinians are under the boot of one of the most effective and brutal militaries in the world, thus their plight is a lot more pronounced for the wider world to see. Israel are especially brutal and very careless when it comes to civilians lives imo.

You can also factor in how large the Palestinian diaspora is, and how much they contribute to raising awareness.

Overall I think we should express solidarity and help oppressed Palestinians whenever we can. But that goes for all oppressed groups, be it Tamils in Sri Lanka, Kurds in Turkey, Rohingya in Myanmar etc.

I don't see how being anti-zionist necessitates anyone "go back", which is a strangely ethnically focused solution for something that mostly comes down to hierarchal oppression with the current governments.

Well, a lot of "anti-Zionism" today doesn't exactly hold the same revolutionary aspects it did 30 years ago when Palestinian liberation was very leftist. Obviously, Israel needs to be opposed but I don't see anything useful in telling Israelis to "go back to where they came from" as some Palestinian nationalists do.

Biggest problem with leftist support for Palestine is that ever since around the 70s the Islamic influence has grown immensely. I mean, the Palestinian people have always been utilized by outside forces, but the leftist struggle has been almost completely subverted by now.

What we are dealing with right now is Hamas, funded by Islamic powers which have the goal to destabilize Israel and ideally remove it from the Middle East, since they view as an obstacle in their dream of one Arab Empire united under Allah.

The only way I can see peace between Palestine and Israel is through a one state solution, which neither side really wants. Hamas is happy with the role as the victim and Zionists are not willing to work towards a one state solution due to the fear of an Arab majority in Israel.

Why don't you start out explaining why we should?

"Israeli crimes are American crimes by default" should be pretty damn obvious to anyone by now. That for me is the biggest part of it. Israel's military is certainly one of the world's most brutal, but I doubt it can be defeated externally. If Israel is going to be dismantled and turned into an egalitarian one-state solution of Palestine it will require efforts by Israelis living within the belly of the beast (so to say) to make that happen. In other words, it's not really something cultural boycotts can accomplish from afar, even if they're done for the right reasons ethically speaking.

The Muslim thing is definitely weird though.

A one-state solution doesn't really entail the Palestinians will get the goods anyway. By now, it's perfectly obvious those fanatical Zionist settlers aren't going anywhere, and considering how they plop themselves down on the best lands (both in the WB and within Israel proper), the Palestinians will still be left with the bones and crumbs even if it's under their own flag.

The only way a OSS could work is (obviously) if it became socialist and implemented workers' democracy, land reform, wealth redistribution, etc. But I don't see any scenario where that would happen.

I personally think "state solutions" are useless at this point. We need to be looking beyond conventional states and think internationally and promote alternative institutions to state ones.

Israel didn't create Hamas. They supported and funded the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas was an offspring off of that.

Democratic confederalism in Israel/Palestine needed tbh.

Literally Labour Zionism, but in the west bank it could actually work. Good thinking user.

That would be really cool.

Palestinian ideology is pretty shit compared to Southern Lebanese. Hezbollah > Hamas. This is what happens when you get all your money from arrogant rich Gulf State fuckers who don't care about you.

Okay, but what do the conditions of the precariat do, or say about the conditions of the proletariat? I'm not sure I see the point in bickering over the social relations of the proletariat, since it by large just calls for an even more immediate revolution than anything. If you're talking about constantly applying diamat and the class struggle on society, and its social relations in order to more clearly define where the class struggle is poignant, and what needs to be addressed in a socialist society, then that makes sense. But under the capitalist society, all it does is show how much more exploitative capitalism is to the under class.

Forgot to add: the whole image of the "noble Jew" who rejects Zionism for internationalism is nearly dead. Not even most leftist Jews relate to that any more (even groups like JVP aren't entirely "anti-Zionist" in that there are members who support two states, which makes them "Zionist" by default). So, what are you going to do? Emotional blackmail tactics don't work. You'd have to create a large-scale movement aimed directly at Jews to convince them to ditch Zionism and join in international struggle.

Like with any other cultural shift it necessitates a decoupling/degradation of the ideas of zionism from the term itself. Basically you need to muddle the goal/aim of zionism such that you end up with zionists who are zionists in name only.

The problem with tackling zionism head on is kind of the same as fighting "shariah" in the Muslim world. Culturally and societally it means something different and takes on very different connotations than it does to us.

That's what I mean. Most Israelis, even if they aren't hardliners still feel as if "Zionism" is a part of their identity. Comparing it with shariah may be apt, but I'd say it's closer to the way Muslim women feel about the hijab: even if they don't give a shit about modesty or religion and may proclaim themselves as feminists, they still wear it and defend it on the basis that defaming it robs them of who they authentically are. Most of the world's Jews are Zionists, like it or not.

This is where something like internationalism needs to come in. Don't just single out "Zionism" as a boogeyman, but instead prop up international solidarity with all peoples as an alternative.

I used shariah because the very concepts espoused are so wildly differing, while most everybody agrees on what a hijab is. Even the most modernized muslims believe in a "shariah" even though their shariah is just how to pray properly, how to handle personal assets, and other personal issues completely divorced from imposed religious law. Zionism as a term feels the same to me as even jews that ostensibly believe in progressive ideals feel they are zionists even though their "zionism" is completely different from hardline interpretations.

But yeah I feel we mostly agree it's just an issue of semantics

Fuck your moral obligation.

Why the fuck should we as communists support the classcucked opinion of the majority of Palestinians?

By your logic we should support Trump because a large portion of the US proletariat supports him.

Why do people care so much about one ethnic nationalist Arab group defeating another in the Middle East? News flash: World Communism isn't going to begin in Palestine or Syria.

See:

twitter.com/rdjsus/status/810873984715804672

No they do not, stop sharing fake news.

most palestinians don't support hamas either, hamas only controls the gaza strip and they are derived from the muslim brotherhood so they're probably CIA controlled.

Holy shit, talk about a trainwreck of a thread.

...

Syria is just like Ukraine or the Caucus: sometimes there just isn't a side to support on principle alone.

Also consider how the left is backing down on a lot of would-be inflammatory rhetoric aimed at Israelis, mostly due to not wanting to be associated with full-blown antisemites like the aut-right. They still attack the Israeli government, certainly, but for the past few months I've noticed a sharp decrease in "the Jews are not a people", "Zionism was based on a lie", "A$KKKeNAZI Jews are LITERALLY satan", etc.

...

...

...

It was about 65 percent last census, mostly from other former Ottoman territories that kicked out hundreds and thousands of Jews when it became evident Israel was going to be a thing. The only difference of course being that these peeps were integrated into Israel, while the Palestinians were mostly kept adrift (or in the case of Jordan tried to fuck the place over so the monarcy told them to gtfo). I just tune out these days when I hear someone talking about Israel, because you just know they don't give a shit about this, they only care about dead Arabs or oppression in the middle east when they can point a finger at The Joos.

This is like capitalist voodoo idpol logic why don't you support Tyrone's small business? Or Hill-san being ruler? Don't you like de oppressed?

Anyone who is arab or knows arab people know this.. It is well known and clear. Leftists don't know jack about the arab world.

FSA IS PART OF ANTI-ASSAD COALITION, ISRAEL IS PART OF ANTI-ASSAD COALITION
PALESTINIANS DO NOT OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORT FSA

Maybe OP confused FSA with Hezbollah?

...

True that. Back in the 90s most Palestine solidarity groups were primarily made up of Maoists and anarchists. Today, Palestine solidarity is filled to the brim with hippie grandmas, conspiracy theorists, Ron Paultards, religious nuts, and (of course) social democrats.

...

Fuck those guys

...

It's a very important national liberation issue.

leave this thread now you retard
and return when you at least know the outlines of the sides

ALSO

fuck off back to Holla Forums

I'll pass.

Palestinians are literally being subjected to ethnic cleansing every day for the past 100 years since the Balfour Declaration. Of course it's a fucking socialist issue.

Not to mention, Zionism is basically a white supremacist movement.

How is this unique to Marx? Wasn't much of Lenin's work applying Marxism to the material conditions of Russia at the time? Isn't this just kind of common logic for all sects?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's not how it works. You don't get to cherry-pick national liberation struggles just because there's some imaginary line in your head of where it's geographically acceptable or not. The only sensible position is opposing all national liberation movements to without exception side with the working class, as based leftcom above is, or to take the other route of passively siding with whatever one has the most protections for workers and minorities while undermining the right wing elements in that society. Supporting fascists because Muh Third Worldism is a fucking pleb meme.