The above video is of the UN debate over whether Zionism is a form of racism, which took place 36 years ago this past Thursday. One thing that struck me as I watched it was how similar much of the discourse was to today, especially from Israel's defenders.
(h/t Colum Lynch)
Defense of Israel is no more than assault on truth.
So the truth is being assulted by uber-politicians of the 1st world countries.
Along with the passive indifference of majority of the massess, who see it and do nothing about it.
Any arguments presented in the affirmative in the video? None that I saw.
Just political.
Of the votes in the affirmative, how many in the Arab league? How many in the Soviet block?
Any national/ethnic states voting in the affirmative?
Its not a vote against the occupation.
‘Just political’. Yes, we can’t have political arguments about justice, fairness or the law. That would be unseemly. LOL
Please, haven’t you been listening to Witty? Laws are written by businessmen, not politicians!
“Of the votes in the affirmative, how many in the Arab league? How many in the Soviet block?”
So what? They don’t count? They aren’t humans capable of reasoning?
If you are going to discount them, why don’t you discount the votes in favor that came from NATO and countries with powerful Jewish lobbies. They’re no less biased on the question than the Soviet bloc and the Arab League.
RW, “political”? And what isn’t?
Was UNGA-181 (1947:partition) passed on merely “political” bases? Probably. It nearly failed and passed only after strong arm-twisting by USA. Today, USA twists arms against self-determination (and against enforcement of international law), but still only for “political” reasons.
Political meaning orchestrated for partisan advantage, not for moral clarity.
Since the Soviet Union disbanded, and since Yugoslavia disbanded, the definition of international norms is very different.
Hey squeaky clean, want to talk about “orchestrated for partisan advantage” rather than “moral clarity”, huh?
Shall we start with the response to the Palestinian application to the UN Security Council?
Or would you prefer your own writings?
The imperialists scolding the colonized. What is really shocking is how pissed off the white guys were….the only word I could think of was, “entitled” – cant you brown skinned people get it? We decided a long time ago we were top dog, get with the program.
Underneath it all, I think the real fight is for who gets to define what is and what isn’t. The western countries feel that they can dictate terms to the rest of the world and call it whatever they want; “economic liberalization” “democratic reform” blah blah blah… zionism is just a really blatant example of this dynamic. To the west, if zionism is deemed illegitimate, so to is the moral basis for western economic domination of the region (we’re here to help and protect, don’t worry about the big guns) The whole propaganda machine is totally fucked. If zionism is racism, then neo-liberalism is neo-feudalism, globalization is colonialism and maybe most importantly “stability” is instability…..If people are allowed to define things on their own, it’s all over for the rich white guys…….
36 years on and they are still occupying . “It is not apartheid ” doesn’t work any more.
The third world voted in favour but they had no power. and so Israel went on colonising. Nothing could ever stop it. Meaning the ultimate crash is going to be so destructive.
I think the white guys can comfortably ditch Israel while still shafting away.
Watching this and the over the top condemnations of the resolution especially from US and UK, I am reminded of the shock horror response from our own Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to potential war crimes charges against Israeli politicians visiting the UK over the Gaza massacre,he said in effect that there was no real evidence,and that it would not stand up in court, this after all the evidence of war crimes and potential crimes against humanity had been published….incredible
zionism = colonialism = racism
simple as that!
I remember the evening so well. At the time, I thought the resolution absurd, nearly Orwellian. My girlfriend was out of town, and a very cute Jewish girl was watching the debates on TV with me in our apartment.
About five years later, I married a woman whose father was a UN official with extensive duties in the ME. After fifteen years of marriage, she acknowledged to me that she actually agreed with the resolution. By this time, I agreed with her.
(the essential nature of Zionism was more apparent by the mid nineties than it was only a few years after the 67 and 73 wars, when the the conflict could be more plausibly viewed as a conflict between states.
Way before we even knew of the plight of the Palestinians, we fought against apartheid South Africa and for the American civil rights movements. What took us so long to recognize that Zionism also, was based on the same racist colonialist mentality?
“what took us so long”??
Plenty of “panem et circenses” ,as well as the brain-clogging propaganda ,oozing from all mass medial openings.
When people have plenty of “bread”, and plenty of cheap, easy entertainment, they are not really that focused on such “abstract” terms like justice, freedom, equality etc.
They leave it to “other people”,a.k.a. “politicians” to take care of “that business”.
And those “other people” did take care of it.
Not exactly in the way we wanted. So now, it is out turn to wonder why,
and if it’s not too late?
People often don’t think of 19th c. American policy towards Indians as “racist”, because it wasn’t officially based on racial ideas, like slavery was. There were depictions of Indians as savages, yes, but the main idea was taking the natives’ land. The racism was latent, not as explicit like in slavery.
On another note, it is hard to see that a government based on an ethnicity that has been extremely persecuted would be “ethnicially superior” in its policies towards another ethnicity, especially where it officially opposes racism. So part of it is because the ideology isn’t so explicit, and because we are dealing with a group which experienced worse discrimination in the past… I’m sure there are other reasons.
But still, it is worth pointing out that for some reason the third world countries- nations of would-be ethnic “inferiors” -saw things differently than us.
Secondly, the debate movie was somewhat disappointing, because it gave like over 80% of the talking time to one side of the debate.
“this resoulotion is a piece of paper, and i will treat it as such” best UN quote ever, much better then Yasser’s crocodile tears in Geneva.
Chaim Herzog had a great Dublin accent.