SURVIVING AS A PEOPLE

by Felix Quigley

How can the wonderful Jewish people today survive as a people? This is the most important question facing socialist revolutionaries today.4international is at present turning its attention to finding out the truth about what happened at Srebrenica in Bosnia, the so-called Srebrenica “Massacre”. We think this is important because this issue has reached a major level in the propaganda war against the Serbs, which is somewhat akin to the war against the Jews on the issue of Palestinian Arab Refugees.

 In the Srebrenica experience as we examine it a word emerged which described one small incident. The Muslim Forces organized what could be called in military terms a “feint”. They staged an attack against the Serb unarmed villages in order to draw the Serb army into what was in effect a trap. I found it interesting to look up this word in a thesaurus:

Synonyms:   artifice, bait, blind, bluff, cheat, deceit, deck, distraction, dodge, expedient, fake, gambit, hoax, hoodwinking*, imposture, jig, juke, make-believe, maneuver, mock attack, play, ploy, pretension, pretext, ruse, sham*, shift, snare, stall, stratagem, stutter-step, subterfuge, trick, wile

In relation to the situation facing the Jews of Israel there is also a stratagem or “feint” which is being enacted against them, and I think of this in relation to Gaza, Hizbullah and the Iran Bomb.

It seems to me that many on the Jewish side have lost the plot. The major issue in all of the three above is of course the Iran Bomb. This is the major existential issue which is facing the Jews of Israel.

 Let me quote from a piece on the issues facing the Jewish people in Sderot from the Hamas rockets, which are continuous.

The article is by Bret Stephens, and is on the Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal:

begin quote here

But here another set of considerations intrudes. Hamas was elected democratically and by overwhelming margins in Gaza. It has never once honored a cease-fire with Israel. Following Israel’s withdrawal of its soldiers and settlements from the Strip in 2005 there was a six-fold increase in the number of Kassam strikes on Israel.

Hamas has also made no effort to rewrite its 1988 charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction. The charter is explicitly anti-Semitic: “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” (Article Seven) “In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad.” (Article 15) And so on.

It would seem perverse for Israeli taxpayers, including residents of Sderot, to feed the mouth that bites them. It would seem equally perverse for Israel merely to bide its time for an especially unlucky day — a Kassam hitting a busload of schoolchildren, for instance — before striking hard at Gaza. But unless Israel is willing to accept the military, political and diplomatic burdens of occupying all or parts of Gaza indefinitely, the effects of a major military incursion could be relatively short-lived. Israel suffered many more casualties before it withdrew from the Strip than it has since.

Perhaps the answer is to wait for a technological fix and, in the meantime, hope for the best. Israel is at work on a missile-defense program called “Iron Dome” that may be effective against Kassams, though the system won’t be in place for at least two years. It could also purchase land-based models of the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, used by the U.S. to defend the Green Zone in Baghdad.

But technology addresses neither the Islamic fanaticism that animates Hamas nor the moral torpor of Western policy makers and commentators who, on balance, find more to blame in Israel’s behavior than in Hamas’s. Nor, too, would an Iron Dome or the Phalanx absolve the Israeli government from the necessity of punishing those who seek its destruction. Prudence is an important consideration of statesmanship, but self-respect is vital. And no self-respecting nation can allow the situation in Sderot to continue much longer, a point it is in every civilized country’s interest to understand.

On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a “punitive expedition.” Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a failure. Then again, Villa’s raid would be the last significant foreign attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.

end quote here

http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=342

At the same time in fact only a few days ago there was a threat from Nasrullah that Hizbullah intended to wipe out Israel. These as we know are not just words they are in deadly serious.

So we have these threats from Hamas, from Hizbullah, from the Arab League, but still the Iranian Bomb is being rapidly put together. So I return to the word “feint” with all those wonderful English equivalents.

The Gestalt Theory when I look into it today has become a fabulously complicated body of knowledge. I first met it when I was a student of Physical Education and at the time I meant it as a discipline in which the sports person would be able to see the whole. Say a golfer would sense the whole swing rather than its individual parts.

 Today the Jews of Israel need to get a bit of the Gestalt Theory into operation because it is possible to become involved in isolated sections, to be drawn in by the “feint” of the enemy, and to miss out on the whole.

I do not think therefore that Bret Stephens provides the answer. I see the Hamas, the Fatah and the Hizbullah as bit players in the overall scene but by no means do I think they should be dismissed.

So if I could return to a previous article and state again what is a necessary strategy for the Jewish people of Israel. It is called “Draw the Line Here” and is from 4 days ago on this site. This is the relevant extract from that article:

begin quote here

Let us in order to explain this go back to the position which Leon Trotsky took up towards the plight of the Jews in the late 1930s. Trotsky sided with the Jews totally against Imperialism and against Fascism, he warned (like Jabotinsky did) of the horrible dangers that the Jews faced from the Nazis, he urged most strongly that the Jews at all costs get out of Europe, that they should make their way to Palestine and should there set up their JEWISH state and make it free from antisemitism.

The leadership of the Jews in 1948 was in the hands of reformist Labourists and of Stalinists. Ben Gurion and his Stalinist supporters definitely did not do that. They did the opposite.

 While Leon Trotsky said that the new state should be free from antisemitism, Ben Gurion and his leadership created an Israel where it would be possible for Jews to be attacked in all kinds of ways by antisemites.

In something similar in Yugoslavia the Stalinist leader Tito made it possible and even desirable for Serb Haters to attack Serbs and Serbia. The people who now control Serbia are essentially following that same line of attacking Serbs.

 In that sense they are not mobilising the Serb people to recover Kosovo, they are doing the very opposite, preparing the Serb people to accept and to live with the loss of Serbia to Islamofascists.

WHAT ISRAEL MUST DO

The first thing that Jews in Israel must do is through revolutionary action get rid of the present traitorous Government of Olmert, Livni and the Labourist Barak, who in every sense are the tools of the US and EU Imperialisms, and of the Palestinian Arab Islamofascist Jihad against Israel.

And as part of this strike against these traitors a new leadership in alliance with a new leadership in the IDF must issue a call to the whole world stating its position clearly.

Nasrullah and the Fascist Hizbullah have stated just 2 days ago they will destroy Israel. Israel should tell the world this is war and act accordingly. While holding a defence against Gaza Israel must move its army up the Laetani River valley, cut Hizbullah off at that point, issue a call for civilians to move out safety totally guaranteed, then it is all out war with Israel using EVERY means to destroy its Fascist enemy.

All those who have appeared on Israpundit Kosovo Independence Opposers list must be asked to vocally support this Israeli move against Fascism (Islamofascism variety). If they do not their names must be thoroughly exposed.

Having won this war against Hizbullah, with the US warning Iran to stay clear, then Israel must declare war on Hamas and Al Aqsa Brigades, (the armed wing of Abbas’s Fatah). Israel must move its forces in along the Philadelphia Corridor as a very first move, hold it by all means, issue a call to the whole world that Hamas has declared its intention many times to destroy Israel, and that Israel is at war with Hamas to the end. Civilians must be invited to leave into the Sinai and the transition will be entirely guaranteed safe. After a set time as with Hizbullah it is all out war in which Israel will use every method at its disposal to destroy and wipe out its enemy.

Israel having defeated these 2 enemies must make a call to the US: Are you NOW prepared to join us in destroying the Iranian Nuclear Bomb which action is distinct to an attack on the Iranian people. This point must be stressed. If the US is not then every political organization in the US must be asked to take a position. Israel must tell the world that to save its people it is at war with the Iranian Mullahs and must also call on the youth and workers of Iran to support the Jews of Israel. Then Israel with its new revolutionary leadership must destroy the Iranian bomb making facility by whatever means are necessary.

end quote here

https://4international.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/draw-the-line-here/#more-71

I believe that Israel is hamstrung by its present leadership. It is a march against time. This present leadership in Israel must be replaced without any delay. There certainly are the leaders present in the Israeli situation which are able to meet the challenge posed in the above, the defeat of Hizbullah, the defeat of Hamas and a revolutionary strike against, not the Iranian people, but against the Iranian Nuclear Bomb.

In a sense looking at it in this way we can begin to see that the article above by Bret Stephens is a delusion. The tasks facing Israel are truly revolutionary. There is no time to lose. The Israeli patriots must step up to the mark. Olmert, Barak and Livni must be overthrown and there must surely be a government of national rescue or salvation placed in power, relying on the army and the patriotic Israeli people to carry out these decisive actions. Is there really any other way for the Jews of Israel to survive as a people.

4 thoughts on “SURVIVING AS A PEOPLE

  1. Shalom Felix,
    Questions? More than Half of all Israelis would oppose such a move in the North without the corresponding physical attack!

    There would be the danger that both Iran and Syria could intervene widening the conflict!]]The whole of the Arab League sesuing Israeli vulnerability might join as well especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

    Pakistan currently very unstable might offer to provide nuke unbrella to protect Iran and Saudis.

    The EU will go nuts as well as USA. All options would then be a possibility then of foreign intervention by the West like NATO!

    Even without Embargoes our Economy could be destroyed in the process. To fight such a war we would need mobilize most of Reserves which would mean half million away from Jobs for who knows how long?

    What id the Only option in taking out Irans Nukes is to use tactical Nukes to do the Job?

    This is enough for starters ans. these and I will have more

    Nice going Felix!

  2. I take what you say seriously.

    More than Half of all Israelis would oppose such a move in the North without the corresponding physical attack!

    THAT MAY BE RIGHT. I DO NOT KNOW. BUT THERE IS ABSENT A REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST LEADERSHIP TO INSPIRE AND LEAD.

    There would be the danger that both Iran and Syria could intervene widening the conflict!]]The whole of the Arab League sesuing Israeli vulnerability might join as well especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

    Pakistan currently very unstable might offer to provide nuke unbrella to protect Iran and Saudis.

    YES, THAT IS AGAIN TRUE YAMIT. ALL OF THAT IS POSSIBLE PERHAPS LIKELY.

    The EU will go nuts as well as USA. All options would then be a possibility then of foreign intervention by the West like NATO!

    VERY DEFINITELY. BOTH THE EU AND US GOVERNMENT WILL “GO NUTS”

    Even without Embargoes our Economy could be destroyed in the process. To fight such a war we would need mobilize most of Reserves which would mean half million away from Jobs for who knows how long?

    YES AGAIN THAT HAS A LOT OF TRUTH IN IT. IT WILL CAUSE HUGE DIFFICULTY AND HUGE DISLOCATION. HOW ISRAEL CAN OVERCOME THAT I AM NOT SURE.

    What if the Only option in taking out Irans Nukes is to use tactical Nukes to do the Job?

    OF COURSE THAT MAY WELL BE THE WAY. PLEASE THOUGH RETURN TO MY POINTS RE GESTALT THEORY. USING THE ATHLETIC ANALOGY AGAIN. THE HIGH JUMPER HAS BROKEN IT DOWN INTO LITTLE PIECES BUT ON STARTING HIS RUN UP HE OR SHE MUST HAVE THE WHOLE IN MIND AND IN SENSES

    A STRIKE AS YOU SUGGEST ON IRAN BOMB (NOTE NOT ON IRAN PEOPLE) WILL STRIKE ALSO AGAINST THEIR MINIONS HAMAS FATAH AND HIZBULLAH

    ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE BECAUSE FORTUNE IS GOING TO FAVOUR THE BRAVE

  3. Yamit

    The central question for us is really a correct understanding of the term “Fascism”. It was that which directly caused the Holocaust. I mean the Nazis were Fascists, and Mussolini was a Fascist, although not I believe antisemitic.

    There is much confusion thrown about by sociologists on this term. We can do very little if we cannot be precise on what we mean.

    Much of modern truth has got to be conducted in a big struggle against “sociology” as preached by these stupid university professors, who because they are appointed to a job for life and removed from practical work think they can allow their minds to think up any old garbage and then serve it out.

    The Wikipedia site is full of this rubbish, also on the term Fascism so we need to beware.

    But I pick this paragraph out that I think is correct:

    “The term fascismo was coined by the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. It is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means “bundle” or “union”,[9] and from the Latin word fasces. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods tied around an axe, were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrates, and the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. It is also strongly associated with the fascist militia “fasci italiani di combattimento” (“League of Combat”). Originally, the term “fascism” (fascismo) was used by the political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Various scholars have sought to define fascism, and a list of definitions can be found in the article Definitions of fascism”.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

    You can see what I mean by sociologists. The last sentence above was leading into total confusion.

    Who knows anyway if the ignoramus Mussolini knew the whole meaning of the word he was using! Buit that does not matter. The important thing is that he dreamed it up and he and Hitler were inter connected.

    Fascism is thus a modern term which is used to describe a modern phenomenon.

    This is why when this phenomenon appeared on the scene with Mussolini and then with Hitler the whole phenomenon had to be understood.

    And thus to understand Fascism, which did such damage to your people, you have to return to the one man who did study it in every aspect of its development, which was of course Leon Trotsky.

    Some of this is echoed in this article written by a group who are not Trotskyist and who I do not agree with but yet there is some truth here:

    “In order to answer these questions clearly we have to look at Trotsky’s analysis of what fascism was. From Trotsky’s writings it is clear that fascism is not a general term used to describe all forms of reactionary regimes. The term has a more scientific meaning. Trotsky clearly distinguished between different forms of reactionary regimes. This was necessary in order to understand what the labour movement was up against in each particular situation. The triumph of fascism is only possible on the basis of certain historical circumstances, of a particular balance of class forces. To mistake a temporary, weak bonapartist regime for Fascism could lead to serious errors on the part of the revolutionary proletariat.

    A clear example of this emerges in one of Trotsky’s letters to Max Shachtman, ‘What is Fascism?’ written on November 15, 1932. In it he underlines the difference between the bonapartist dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain between 1923 and 1930, and the Fascist dictatorship in Italy under Mussolini. “Why quibble over such detail?” some may ask, “aren’t they all dictatorships?”

    Trotsky asks the question in his letter, “Were all the forms of counterrevolutionary dictatorship fascist or not (that is, prior to the advent of fascism in Italy)?

    “The former dictatorship in Spain of Primo de Rivera is called a fascist dictatorship by the Comintern. Is this correct or not? We believe that it is incorrect.

    “The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebeian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.

    “Primo de Rivera was an aristocrat. He occupied a high military and bureaucratic post and was chief governor of Catalonia. He accomplished his overthrow with the aid of state and military forces. The dictatorships of Spain and Italy are two totally different forms of dictatorship. It is necessary to distinguish between them. Mussolini had difficulty in reconciling many old military institutions with the fascist militia. This problem did not exist for Primo de Rivera.

    “The movement in Germany is most analogous to the Italian. It is a mass movement, with its leaders employing a great deal of socialist demagogy. This is necessary for the creation of the mass movement.

    “The genuine basis [for fascism] is the petty bourgeoisie. In Italy it has a very large base – the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany, likewise, there is a large base for fascism.”

    However, the fact that the de Rivera regime was not fascist did not mean that a fascist movement could not develop. In another article, ‘The Spanish Revolution in Danger”, published in November 1930, Trotsky warned the workers of Spain: ” Don’t you think that Spain may go through the same cycle as Italy did, beginning with 1918-1919: ferment, strikes, a general strike, the seizure of the factories, the lack of leadership, the decline of the movement, the growth of fascism, and of a counterrevolutionary dictatorship? The regime of Primo de Rivera was not a fascist dictatorship because it did not base itself upon the reaction of the petty-bourgeois masses. Don’t you think that the conditions for genuine Spanish fascism may be created as a result of the present unquestionable revolutionary upsurge in Spain, if the party of the proletarian vanguard remains passive and inconsistent, as in the past? The most dangerous thing in such a situation is the loss of time.”

    A brief look at the history of Italy and Spain is sufficient to provide the answer to why it is important to distinguish clearly between a fascist dictatorship and a bonapartist dictatorship of the De Rivera type. ”

    http://www.trotsky.net/trotsky_year/fascism.html

    I will not continue on but suffice to say that Fascism for Trotsky as he tried to understand it was a very specific phenomenon. He did not use the word lightly.

    Israpundit and the good Jewish people there have no idea of what Trotsky is on about, and really they do not try to have any idea.

    They are trained in a certain type of school of life. They are Jews and want the best for their people but they are deficient in their METHOD of looking at the world, having been brought up not in a Marxist revolutionary and theoretical environment but in a bourgeois one, even at times an American Imperialist one, even with links into the most aggressive form of US Imperialism, which is the NeoCon movement, which itself is contradictory, in that people like Perle can say things which we as Trotskyists would agree with. But they are isolated things.

    So there you have a site made up of very good people who simply have no way of understanding the phenomenon which destroyed half of their people and would have destroyed the whole completely if the relationship of forces had not caused the Nazis to be defeated in Egypt and so the Palestinian Arab butcher el Husseini prevented from carrying out the Final Solution, as he and Hitler firmly intended and wished, and of course which the inheritors of Fatah, Hamas and Iranian Mullahs wish today.

    So no method, no understanding,

    No understanding no correct strategy to win is possible.

    The scathing reference of Trotsky in the above to the Comintern is really to the Comintern under Stalin.

    There is much to learn there in all of those experiences. But I will conclude by pointing to something that is really omitted by Israpundit and every other Jewish site I have read, even by Francisco whose research and site we depend a great deal on here on this site.

    It is that the early leaders of the Israeli state, and even long before that, were really followers either of the two main political trends which are Social Democracy (Beb Gurion) and Stalinism (Mapai leading on to Sharon and the Israeli Peace Movement and the Israeli Jewish antisemitic Movement around Haaritz, Gideon Levy and Frau Hass)

    Trotsky was eliminated by these forces, murdered by a Stalinist assasin in 1940, but it was a joint effort of Stalinism, of social democracy (see the experiences of Trotsky in Norway before getting asylum in Mexico at the hands of the Social Democrats of Norway) and of US Imperialism (there is a lot of evidence that the US Government were directly involved with the Stalinists in the assasination.

    Israpundit and all the writers there reach a really difficult point and it happens time after time. They continually refer to Leftists etc as a blanket term. But there is no such term.

    What they run up against is the presence of Leon Trotsky in the 30s, that is the main person who was analysing Fascism.

    Then when they are challenged with this, that in fact the term “Leftism” is meaningless (this term is used very often by the US Imperialist sites like Frontpage etc) they will get all uncomfortable and come out with some obfuscation.

    Because it is an historical matter and Trotsky did fight his way through to take up very definite specific positions.

    The main one perhaps being that the Jews had to create a new Homeland, that he was quite specific it would be a Jewish state, and the most important “detail” that it had to be free from antisemitism.

    The latter “detail” has got the most far reaching consequences which I have written about, BUT WHICH HAS NOT BEEN ENTERTAINED by the Jewish bourgeois commentators on israpundit or anywhere else.

    What Israel actually needs Yamit is a revolutionary Party based on where Leon Trotsky left off.

    This guy Olmert is really a kind of peacenik Stalinist cum social democratic operator.

    We need a party which can explode into this Israeli political scene and sweep aside all of this reactionary hogwash.

    So back to the problem that you address. This is not for me anyways an academic discussion.

    The question is how to remove this Governemnt and how to replace it with a revolutionary nationalist alliance of the Army and the best Patriotic Jews.

    The removing of this Government if I read your post on Israpundit correctly is to remove the props from under this reactionary excrescence called the Shas, which in turn is to hit Olmert right where it really hurts.

    Can we do anything without a revolutionary party. maybe it will be small. Maybe at first only 5 or 6 people. But if they are good people! How many do you think this political incompetent Feiglin has around him? I’d bet only a few and they are all into this Parliamentary bullshit.

    Why not build a revolutionary Trotskyist party in Israel Yamit?

  4. Pingback: GAZA VITAL QUESTION IS LEADERSHIP « 4international

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