My experience with Hezbollah this week has left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I had heard this from other journalist friends who have recently returned from Lebanon, but discovered it for myself this week: their interaction with the press borders on fascist. In southern Lebanon it is very difficult to find people of any confession who speak freely about the organization. Even mentioning Hezbollah by name in interviews seems often to make whoever you’re talking with a touch edgy and uncomfortable. By the end of the week, my Italian colleague was comparing trying to cover the Shiite organization to trying to cover the mafia in her home country.
Hezbollah says journalists need their approval to work in the Dahiyya, the south, or anywhere else Hezbollah has unilaterally declared sovereignty over. My photographer was shooting pictures in downtown Beirut, near the tent city the opposition set up last November, and was pulled aside by a Hezbollah security guard and told he needed Hezbollah permission. Where does Hezbollah get off dictating who can or can’t shoot in the heart of Beirut, he asked and was promptly shooed away.
I dutifully applied for approval to Wafa, the stern faced veiled woman with a plastic smile who runs the Hezbollah media office in the southern suburbs. I filled out the necessary forms, name, father’s name, address, phone number, media org, etc., provided passport photos, passport photocopies, requests for where we wanted to work, what we were interested in and who we wanted to interview. Wafa assured us it would take about 48 hours and perhaps sooner and that there should be no problem.
When the approval hadn’t come after two days, I called to check on the status. I was told it would take another day. Wafa said she had been out of the office for a day and my application had been delayed as a result. I told her I was on deadline and that this was extremely inconvient for me, but she said not to worry. Call first thing the following morning and everything should be fine, she said. She warned me not to go anywhere without her permission and the following day she stopped answering my phone calls.
When I next got a hold of somebody in her office, that evening, I gave a rather laughably self-righteous speech about how I had risked my life alongside Hezbollah’s own fighters in southern Lebanon during last summer’s war in order to report on the suffering of the Lebanese people. Now, this was the thanks I was getting from Hezbollah. Needless to say, it made little difference.
Anyway, we were already in the south at that point without Hezbollah’s permission, which turned out to be unncessary in the end. No one we encountered from Hezbollah, that we know of anyway, ever checked with Beirut to find out if we had approval to be there. Still, everywhere we went we were closely watched.
At one Hezbollah-run construction site, we were chatting with the site’s foreman. My colleague forgot something in our car and went to get it and found two men with Hezbollah’s standard neatly trimmed beards photographing our car. At a one year anniversary celebration in the town of Juwaya, we were discreetly photographed with cel phones by plain clothed, bearded men.
Other encounters were more amusing. Trying to find a backroad into what we knew was a closed Hezbollah military zone, we came across a few 20 something year old boys milling about outside a remote, long abandoned Christian village. They came running out to stop us from going on, but didn’t quite know how to do so. One of them introduced himself as an agriculture student. We told him we were interested in Christian villages and he told us this particular village just ahead was abandoned and there was nothing to see. We said we wanted to see for ourselves. He said it was forbidden. We said we had just passed through an army checkpoint and showed him our handwritten permission slip. He said it was forbidden. Who are you, we asked. He said he was an agriculture student. We’re going to go check out the village now, we said. It was forbidden by the military, he said. We had permission from the military, we said. Forbidden, he said. Why did an agriculture student have the right to overrule the military, we asked. Why did we want to go, he asked. (At this point one of his friends standing behind him was openly laughing at the absurdity of the exchange). We were interested in the Christian villages, we said. There were no more Christians, here he said, but then quickly added that they had left of their own volition and that they had not driven them out.
In the end we compromised. He allowed us to go a touch further down the road with him in the backseat and then forced us to turn around. And we decided we wouldn’t push the charade too far and agreed to accept the authority of an agriculture student.
Despite Hezbollah’s seeming omnipotence in southern Lebanon and the limitations they place on reporters, it IS possible to do substantive reporting on the organization there. It is clear there are chilling developments going on in southern Lebanon, especially north of the Litani that I will address in later blog posts.
61 responses so far ↓
1 sean // Aug 6, 2007 at 9:52 am
If you’re still in town and feel like a drink tonight, drop me an email…
I hope you’ve had a good time here.
2 rina // Aug 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I stand corrected. Thanks!
3 The Arabist » Hizbullah tightening media coverage // Aug 6, 2007 at 12:42 pm
[…] excellent blog) that they were now impossible to deal with, and it is confirmed again by Charles Levinson’s recent experience: My experience with Hezbollah this week has left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I had heard this […]
4 Faruq // Aug 6, 2007 at 1:43 pm
With a family name of “Levinson,” I am “surprised” that the author has written a negative piece on Hezbollah.
Nothing on the rebuilding of Lebanon by Hezbollah, or the defense of Lebanon by Hezbollah, or the people’s enthusiasm for Hezbollah, but only that reporters have a tough time getting permission.
My thought - the yahud could not find anything negative to write about on Hezbollah, so he writes the only negative thing he can - that reporters need permission from Hezbollah to operate.
What a joke. No one is falling for it, Charles.
5 Abu Muqawama // Aug 6, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Nice, Faruq! That’s what we all like to see: a little unrestrained anti-Semitism. Bravo! I myself have often chided the Arabic-speaking, Cairo/Baghdad/Quds-living Charles for the way he obviously refuses to consider non-Israeli perspectives.
And you’re right — Hizbollah hasn’t gotten nearly enough credit for the way in which it valiently defended Lebanon last summer against unprovoked Israeli aggression. There they were, minding their own business, helping old ladies cross the street in Ayta ash-Shab, when these Israelis — out of NOWHERE! — just crossed the border and started shooting the place up.
I think the — cough! Jew! cough! — Charles Levinson should spend a little more time in the charitable institutions established by the Islamic Resistance he’s herded toward by his minders rather than those places where he clearly has no business being because nothing’s going on there and besides why are you asking so many questions, Charles?
6 Benjamin Geer // Aug 6, 2007 at 3:06 pm
?? ?????
??? ???? ?? ??? ??????
7 Benjamin Geer // Aug 6, 2007 at 3:09 pm
(Arabic doesn’t seem to work on this blog…)
Ya Faruq: dam al widd ma dam al-’itab…
8 rina // Aug 6, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Abu Muqawama:
I though your post is funny, but some people don’t respond to irony, so one has to spell things out to them.
Faruq:
“the yahud could not find anything negative to write about on Hezbollah..”
Err, what’s the right word for thick-headed, narrow-minded, hate-filled nincompoops who have the gall to show up on someone else’s blog and spill their chauvinistic bile against the host? (sorry, English is a second language for me, so I’m at a loss…)
9 lisoosh // Aug 6, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Charles - Is this an extension of the control Hezbollah had before or has it got worse recently? The Lebanese army were supposed to be making headway. Do you think that the current issues with the groups hiding in the Palestinian camps has distracted the army enough to give Hezbollah more room to manouvre and establish more control in the South?
And where are the UN forces? Where do they fit in to all of this?
10 Compulsive Reader // Aug 6, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Do you think what happened to the Spanish UN troops has anything to do with their paranoia? And, since we are quite aware of Israeli black ops and the propensity for certain Aunts of Future Movement members to pay off the Jund Al Sham, that they actually have a lot to worry about? Anyone could be a spy. Bad taste or not, I think they have their existence in mind, not their friendliness, no matter how cuddly Hasan Nasrallah looks.
11 Edie // Aug 6, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Rina,
I believe you’re looking for ignoramous, jerk, asshole, bigot ….
Mr. Faruq, I believe, does have the right to question or challenge someone on their blog, that is what blogs are about - open discussion - but to do so in such a -”thick-headed, narrow-minded, hate-filled nincompoop” manner just shows Faruq’s own prejudice and ignorance.
Sadly, there are people out there that continue to judge on name, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation, language, or skin color alone. And more sadly, there are those who can’t/won’t differentiate between Jews, Israelis or Zionists just like there are those who can’t/won’t differentiate between Muslims, Arabs, Jihadists …
BTW - I like your command of the English language, especially ‘nincompoop’. That word should get more usage.
12 bin-yameen frank-leen // Aug 7, 2007 at 11:28 am
Faruq,
It’s hard to report on the positive aspects of Hezbollah when people in Hezbollah-controlled territory are scared to say ANYTHING to a reporter — whether it be good, bad or Wasat.
I don’t care if it’s Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces or the Bush Administration — any organization that suppresses peoples’ opinions and right to express themselves deserves to have that aspect of their policy highlighted. Is asking someone in the Daheeyah how Hezbollah’s reconstruction program is progressing going to divulge secrets? I think not. So why should I need permission to go talk to free citizens of Lebanon, whether they be in Jounieh, Haret Hreik or Bint Jbeil?
Reporters risked their lives to tell the story of the suffering in South Lebanon during the war. Charles was one of them. People in Lebanon who are the first to let the word “Jew” slip out of their mouth with a hiss were often nowhere near the front line…and more often than not drowning their self pity in beer in Gemayze.
Hezbollah, by the way, if they are disciplined party members, will almost always make the distinction between Jews and Zionists. Why don’t you take a lesson from them.
13 Kebz // Aug 7, 2007 at 11:52 am
Good points Bin-Yameen. Although I would say that sometimes even mentioning zionists gets one into trouble with some people who take it as equivalent to anti-semitism or implying support for Islamic extremists etc.
14 Difficult Dealings with Hezbollah « Report on Positivity // Aug 7, 2007 at 2:51 pm
[…] Posted by Nima Maleki on August 7th, 2007 Charles Levinson writes in Conflict Blotter: […]
15 jonolan // Aug 7, 2007 at 3:06 pm
At the risk of being labeled antisemitic, I have to note that Hezbollah’s behavior towards reporters seems very similar to the Israeli army’s behavior towards reporters over the last 10 years.
I think its just “normal” behavior for people who are doing possibly unpleasant things to restrict reporters.
16 tsedek // Aug 7, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Jonolan, the army is only like that in combat areas DURING combat. Not in villages or towns or rural landscapes.
Charles, nice reporting. Although, what I’m missing from anyone having been in the South is interviews with Hizb supporters/members.
Don’t they talk?
17 sean // Aug 7, 2007 at 4:53 pm
For what it’s worth, Hezbollah has had a freeze on interviews for the last month or so, which means that access (at least officially sanctioned by the party) is off limits for everyone these days. This includes academic researchers and journalists.
Researchers and journalists were hoping that the freeze would be over when the Paris talks were done, but unfortunately that has not turned out to be the case.
18 Edie // Aug 7, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Tsedek - you mean ‘Israeli’ villages or towns or rural landscapes correct? The Israeli army is very dangerous, mostly because of their unpredictability, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories which I guess could be considered under constant ‘combat’ mode. There’s been a few journalists killed and injured by the army and you could say just a few innocent civilians.
Jonolan - I believe you were being sarcastic; it’s kinda hard to tell on these blogs, but let’s not re-affirm the wider definition of ‘anti-semitism’ that’s being over used nowadays. Criticizing Israeli soldiers or their actions; criticizing Israeli policy; hell - even criticizing someone Jewish is NOT anti-semitic. It’s wrapping everyone up in one big, generalized catagory of Jewishness, and embuing it with evil intent (pretty much as Faruq was doing) that is anti-semitic and WRONG.
19 jonolan // Aug 8, 2007 at 12:44 am
Edie,
I take your point, but I wasn’t being sarcastic. I’ve often been accused of antisemitism when I’ve criticized Israeli actions or policies.
20 greenmamba // Aug 8, 2007 at 3:37 am
Antisemitism - criticising Israel:
In the west, criticising a Black person will have you labeled a racist nine times out of ten. (The president of South Africa cries “racism” when his government is criticised.)
Muslim representative organisations like CAIR in the US cite “Islamophobia” at every opportunity and often start a lawsuit.
This behaviour is common but people only talk about it in reference to one group…..
21 Edie // Aug 8, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Jonolan,
I guess you’d have to know your own intent. Are you truly criticizing Israeli policies and actions because they are wrong? Would you criticize the same policies and actions by another nation? Do you refrain from lumping all Jews in with your comments?
If that holds true then don’t let the people that intend to intimidate you with accusations of ‘anti-semite’ discourage you from speaking out.
I’ve pissed off some Palestinian friends by pointing out that I’ve probably worked with more Jews on behalf of the Palestinian issue than Palestinians. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but there are Jews around the world that disagree with Israeli policies and actions and not only speak out, but put their lives on the line for their beliefs , including Israelis.
I applaud your courage in speaking out against injustices - there are those whose voices aren’t heard in the West - so if you don’t speak out, who will?
22 Edie // Aug 8, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Ironic, just found out a friend of mine wrote a piece on ‘anti-semitism’ for a Colorado paper. It’s also published online at Countercurrents.org
http://www.countercurrents.org/audeh070807.htm
23 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 8, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Edie,
“it has been demonstrated conclusively that Iranian president Ahmedinejad never vowed to wipe Israel off the map, for example, yet the lie is slyly and regularly repeated to drum up support for an attack on Iran.”
http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html
24 greenmamba // Aug 9, 2007 at 2:46 am
Fuchsbaunews: I’m not sure why you mentioned the “wipe Israel off the map” reference but for anyone following Cole’s argument, here’s the truth.
1) Former president Rafsanjani in 2001 specifically referenced destroying Israel with nuclear weapons, even adding that any retaliation would only damage the Islamic world but it would destroy Israel (because of its small size).
http://tinyurl.com/2dobum
2) Juan Cole made his claim with regard to a specific speech by Ahmadinejad. The speech was made with a backdrop featuring an hourglass with the Star of David falling to the bottom and the Stars and Stripes already there. The threat has been repeated many times since.
E.g. Sep 22, 2005 http://tinyurl.com/35t3r3
Some of the missiles, which have a range of 1,250 miles (2,000 km), bore banners proclaiming “Israel should be wiped off the map” and “We will trample America under our feet”.
The particular speech, to which Cole refers, caused major international diplomatic turbulence as Iranian ambassadors were summoned by various host countries.
3) IF AHMADINEJAD DIDN’T MEAN IT WHY DIDN’T IRAN SAY SO AFTERWARDS??? Instead we got:
Oct 28, 2005 http://tinyurl.com/yq8jgx
The official said that while there was broad consensus within the clergy-dominated regime on the hard-line President’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map”,
4) Reuters has defended their translation of the speech in question, in response to those influenced by Cole. (On their customer interaction website, ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” I have seen it twice.)
5) The website, “Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting” has the story with the headline: “Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map”
http://tinyurl.com/yuop3j
Cole’s assertions amount to flagrant intellectual dishonesty and expose him as an anti-Israel ideologue. All his prognostications should be treated with contempt because the reference cited in your comment is very recent and he has had nearly 2 years and many counterexamples by Iran to stop making this charge.
25 Edie // Aug 9, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Thank you Fuchsbaunews. Excellent link. Juan Cole makes a lot of sense and good points.
I learned long ago not to always trust ‘translations’ or quotes from foreign leaders that are then propagandized.
26 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 9, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Edie, yes and no.
I posted the link, because the “Ahmanidejads never vowed” of your friend is quite as much propaganda as Memri-translations. I posted the link, because my conclusion of the text is that a discussion about ones antisemitism in our times must deal with ALL facts. If one is no antisemite, but anti-zionist and assists Hezbollah with money and rockets that kill jews, the question of antisemitism is “vanished from the pages of time”.
And yes, the figth agains xenophobia is affected because some organisations misuse the terms.
27 Edie // Aug 9, 2007 at 1:46 pm
This is getting alittle technical, but is the money being provided to Hezbollah to ‘kill Jews’ or for defense against Israeli attacks? Or, even to fight Israel (as a nation) not as a group of Jews?
Are we assuming that someone that provides money to Hezbollah (or Hamas for that matter) wants to ‘kill Jews’? Let’s not assume anything. An attack on Israel is not an attack on all Jews. It’s hard to distinguish sometimes because the western media often refers to Israel as ‘the Jewish State’, Israel is working to keep it a Jewish majority nation and even in street Arabic, ‘Jew’ and ‘Israeli’ are often interchanged.
This complacency on terms is really sad because there are a lot of Jews out there that whole-heartedly disagree with Israeli policies and there are so many young Palestinians growing up behind the wall that only know the aggressive, soldier Israeli/Jew. It’s so easy for this new ‘wall generation’ to grow up REALLY lumping all Jews and Israelis together; scary and sad.
Right now the accusation of ‘anti-semitism’ is being bantered about to kill discussion on Israeli policies, but I’m afraid in the long run it’s only going to create the anti-semitism it’s fomenting now for real.
28 Amir // Aug 9, 2007 at 2:03 pm
The media guys are very funny; the whitewash terrorism on daily basis and pay dues to fixers and terrorists for a scoop.
When it comes back to bite them on the back side they cry and whine. Hezbollah (The Party of G-d) is nothing more than a terrorist organization and a puppet of Iran & Syria. There is no story to tell from their side; just hate an ignorance.
29 Amir // Aug 9, 2007 at 2:03 pm
PS. despite my Arab name I am “Yahud” too…
30 tsedek // Aug 9, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Yep, Edie the Palestinian Territories are also combat zone as long as there are still combatants combating there
The Israeli army is not really unpredictable and dangerous, but where they’re attacked usually they strike back twice (or more) as hard.
OK, Sean, thank you.
31 tsedek // Aug 9, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Fuchsbaunews, to ‘undo’ Israel of the “zionist” regime is the same as wiping Israel off the map, since Israel is the Jewish homeland. Zionism = the longing for a Jewish homeland.
32 Mark Eichenlaub // Aug 9, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Excellent write up. I wish I’d found this site earlier. You are doing some great work here.
33 Kebz // Aug 9, 2007 at 8:18 pm
That is a dishonest interpretation of it. The departure of a racist government to be replaced by with one that is tolerant of all faiths is not the same as genocide. Genocide is the context used by the people who recycle this ‘wiped off the map phrase’ . They imply that Iran has serious intentions of a suicidal attack on Israel using nuclear weapons at some point (even though they dont have the weapons). They argue therefore that Ahmadinejad should be prosecuted for genocide - odd because he hasn’t committed any. Some also call for the bombing of Iran as a ‘preventative’ measure. The context you refer to actually applies to Palestine, a country that HAS been wiped off the map by zionists.
34 Compulsive Reader // Aug 9, 2007 at 10:06 pm
tsedek - Zionism is imported European Racism. It had nothing to do with the bible, and everything to do with the social darwinist/eugenics as defines Nationalism of the 19th century. The initial momentum and trajectory of Zionism was based on antisemitism, and Zionism needs antisemitism to continue. Hence, all the despicable things Israel has done to make sure that every Arab and Palestinian hates it to the core. Removing Zionism wouldn’t remove your Jewish ancestry, unless you allow antisemitism to define you…
35 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 9, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Edie,
we are of the same opinon, but Ahmadinejad [”not original inhabitats”] is refering to jews. All jews are at the wrong place if they are in Israel. Thats his agenda and the agenda of the Islamic revolution. Jews in Iran are a quite accepted minority, but Jews in Jerusalem [and a “regime” controlling Palestine] is not accepted.
I think the dilemma of the regime in Iran is that their own anti-colonialistic and Quran-based ideology forbids to take a step into real politics. [12th Imam-myth a.s.o.] To say: “OK, Israel exists, it has the rigth to exist it will exist in the future, BUT it has to change its behaviour.” is impossible for them.
Tsedek,
what is Zionism? I can see very different forms of it in Israel today. I have seen some people that call themselves Zionists this week in Hebron. And I have not seen very much Zionists on the world speak out against things they have done. So, ok, if Zionism has reached its homeland it should look for reforms, cause the picture of it is not very amusing.
36 Yoni // Aug 10, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I am a Zionist and the Zionist organisations I am active within are in favour of a Palestinian State and a Peace Settlement. Shock horror!
However, to blame Jews for antisemitism is a very old antisemitic line indeed. And a particularly scummy one too.
Apart from a tiny number of ‘Jews’ whom are either not actually part of the mainstream Jewish community at all (chasidim, charedi) or only vaguely Jewish (ie not Jewish) or part of the extreme left (only technically Jewish) the overwhelming majority Jews in the Diaspora and in Israel are zionists (small z) because they have friends and/or relations in Israel and have no desire for there not to be an Israel no matter what it has done or will do.
Criticism of Israeli policy is very common amongst Jews but while some will be from the Right and some from the Left none want the destruction of the Jewish homeland or for it to not be formally Jewish. How Jewish and what kind of Judaism is the hot topic not whether.
What is more there is no power on Earth that can change this desire of the Jewish nation for self-determination. After the modern-day unremitting antisemitism from Communists, Fascists, Christians and Muslims it will never be in any doubt that we cannot trust goyim with our lives or livelihoods.
Hezbollah never make the distinction between Israei and Jews except to the gullible idiots of the same looney left persuasion working in the media. They have bombed and killed Jews in Turkey, Morocco and Argentina. They hate who we are, not what we do. They also hate those looney lefties that march in support of them with equal venom and killed every Communist and Socialist they could in Lebanon. Jews and gays too.
But the LL are too obsessed with their paranoic fantasies and self-loathing to notice.
37 Compulsive Reader // Aug 11, 2007 at 12:27 am
“no matter what it has done or will do”. Sounds like my friends dad from Austria who’s grandfather was a Nazi. Literally. He’ll never apologize for the Holocaust, and Yoni will never apologize for the slow motion genocide of Palestine. Why? It seems there is a correlation.
So, after that thought, lets here it from “loony left”. A bit from Lenni Brenner’s “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators”:
“Born amidst a wave of defeats for the Jews, not only in backward Russia, but in the very centres of industrial Europe, modern Zionism’s pretensions were the noblest conceivable: the redemption of the downtrodden Jewish people in their own land. But from the very beginning the movement represented the conviction of a portion of the Jewish middle class that the future belonged to the Jew-haters, that anti-Semitism was inevitable, and natural. Firmly convinced that anti-Semitism could not be beaten, the new World Zionist Organisation never fought it. Accommodation to anti-Semitism – and pragmatic utilisation of it for the purpose of obtaining a Jewish state – became the central stratagems of the movement, and it remained loyal to its earliest conceptions down to and through the Holocaust. In June l895, in his very first entry in his new Zionist Diary, Herzl laid down this fixed axiom of Zionism:
In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to “combat” anti-Semitism. [1]
In the severest sense, Herzl was a man of his time and class; a monarchist who believed the best ruler “un bon tyran”. [2] His Jewish State baldly proclaimed: “Nor are the present-day nations really fit for democracy, and I believe they will become ever less fit for it … I have no faith in the political virtue of our people, because we are no better than the rest of modern man.”
38 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 11, 2007 at 5:17 am
Compulsive Reader, its nice that counterpunch has found its way into this forum with your c&p-orgy of fascinating new and groundbreaking stuff about those evil jews!
39 tsedek // Aug 11, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Compulsive Readerand Zionism needs antisemitism to continue
This is what your feelings say about it. However, ‘zionists’ have not really had a chance to prove the opposite, right?
I’m a fervent believer in people being responsible for their own actions. Thus, everybody claiming that antisemitism is the work of provocation I believe is very wrong.
40 Wolf Pangloss // Aug 12, 2007 at 1:07 am
Dear Charles,
Beware the example of Walter Duranty. Though covering up Josef Stalin’s crimes earned him a Pulitzer in 1932, he and the newspaper he worked for were thereby made complicit in the deaths of tens of millions in the Ukranian purges.
You may wish to find goodness in HizbAllah, but wishing does not make it so and they are still a wicked and evil jihadist group whose greatest desire is to kill as many jews as they can and who pretend to be nice to clear the path towards their goal.
41 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 3:20 am
Evil Jews? No. That won’t come out of my mouth. Horrible deeds and bad faith/false consciousness and multiform abuses of the weak and the poor by the wealthy and powerful, yes. I gotta represent! hehe…
42 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 3:57 am
Here. Lets go to Marx himself:
“The so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the state, but by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state which still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet profess it in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious attitude towards religion – that is to say, it is not the true implementation of the human basis of religion, because it still relies on the unreal, imaginary form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is the imperfect state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as the supplementation and sanctification of its imperfection. For the Christian state, therefore, religion necessarily becomes a means; hence, it is a hypocritical state. It makes a great difference whether the complete state, because of the defect inherent in the general nature of the state, counts religion among its presuppositions, or whether the incomplete state, because of the defect inherent in its particular existence as a defective state, declares that religion is its basis. In the latter case, religion becomes imperfect politics. In the former case, the imperfection even of consummate politics becomes evident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian religion in order to complete itself as a state. The democratic state, the real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On the contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of religion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state, on the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious attitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere semblance, it equally degrades religion to mere semblance.”
You could insert any religion in that statement.
43 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 4:33 am
Some more Marx: “All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself.
Political emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on the other hand, to a citizen, a juridical person.
Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.”
Read the whole thing.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm
44 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 4:41 am
These also act as my essential criticism of Hezbollah as it currently is based. And the Taif Accords, which only put the sectarian bloodshed is stasis, to be utilized but any and all for mutual disenfranchisement.
45 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 12, 2007 at 8:29 am
Bruno Bauer and Marx. The people here in germany say that they can not locate Bruno Bauers influence in things like the shoa. “Flat-Foot-Theory”: Cristianity has not erased judaism, so judaism was invited from christianity to overtake the world. The christian countries have called and imported the jews and thats has made them “coltish”. The jews thougth that their “raw naturalness” and “wild bloodnature” is the idol of the world. The main problem with the jews [that they want to rule the world] comes from their “body-constitution”. Jews have flat foots. And their lower body parts are “mostly weak, like negros, and designed full of failures and not properly connected to the upper part of the body.” […..] “Its no big deal: Jews can not produce cultural important things. They can only trade.” And there are no famous jewish scientists, or scholars, or musicans, ………
Well, Compulsive Reader. “French influenced rassism and antisemitism of the 19th century” has a long list of idiots, that wrote stupid things.
But if you ask me, as a german what I think TODAY of the texts of them and Marx [who was using that shit for his propaganda, cause some of the idiots thougth russia will “erase” the jews for them], I will tell you: “….” [censored]
46 Microraptor // Aug 12, 2007 at 8:30 am
Haha… I met the same agriculture student…. IN Qotrani, right? The hezb are actually growing fruits, ntio building buunkers… No really….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6707499.stm
47 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 10:44 am
“…and Marx [who was using that shit for his propaganda, cause some of the idiots thougth russia will “erase” the jews for them]…”
What the hell are you talking about? You’ve gone rabid. Seek help immediately.
48 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 12, 2007 at 11:31 am
“You’ve gone rabid. Seek help immediately.”
Oh, yes. I am so afraid now!
Read this book: “Auf jeweils unterschiedliche Weise bewerten die von Kneer untersuchten Autoren das Judentum im Verhältnis zu ihrem das Ziel der Geschichte und Ethik bestimmenden Systemideal. Am Beispiel des – unter anderen von Autoren wie Micha Brumlik und Thomas Haury sehr unterschiedlich beurteilten – Textes Zur Judenfrage (1843) von Karl Marx zeigt Kneer überzeugend, dass im Kontext des Ziels einer „Emanzipation der Menschheit“ das Judentum als eine aufzulösende Partikularität angesehen wird, das Marx entweder als pars pro toto für die bürgerliche Gesellschaft setzt oder dem der Privatbesitz als Wesensmerkmal zugeschrieben wird.”
http://www.fritz-bauer-institut.de/rezensionen/nl30/02-Schleicher.pdf
49 Microraptor // Aug 12, 2007 at 12:48 pm
It ain’t personal. Wafa Hotteit/Hezb media office is crap with everyone… IN December 2006 they promised me 23 out of 26 facilities for a filom I wanted to make. In January 2007 I came back and was told that almost nothing was now possible for “security reasons”… last March I even saw Iranian TV being refused permission to film in Dahiyeh. The reporter was furious with the Hezb press office, complaining that “my taxes are paying for your new houses and I can’t film this?”
50 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Microraptor - fabulous film. Nuff said.
51 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 12, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Compulsive Reader,
The book was published in spring 2007 and is only available in german. I sent a letter to the publisher. If he answers…
Btw., there is a quite fascinating “restart” of research in germany. The role of antisemitism in the Empire and after that [18..-today] will be written new. Any single group of society has a dirty story including [as you mentioned] jewish groups. It will takes years but we will see a new dimension of thinking in that branch of science.
And the Marx-Bauer-Question really is a fascinating one. [Bauer had no influence, its more about other figures.] Like Heinrich von Treitschke. What happened to people like Treitschke? He was “liberal”, he was a quite influental politician and historian. He was a great thinker! And then he “accidental” turned around and became the creator of “The jews are our Misfortune” [”Unsere Aussichten”, 1879]
52 Compulsive Reader // Aug 12, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Cool. Thanks. There are parts to most of the Jewish Question that I totally disagree with, and elements that I think Marx himself discarded after the split with Stirner and the YH and his development of the material dialectic. I really wanted to post some excerpts from Adorno and Horkheimers Dialectic of Enlightenment which I feel fleshes out, even is kind of a revision of Marx via Marx in regards to the subject. But, alas, the “Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment” section isn’t online anywhere that I could find.
53 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 12, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Ok, Compulsive Reader.
But now I would like to bring you away from unessential things like “ns-comparisons” or some wrong and misinterpreting things about Zionism.
The very popular “discussion” about “collaboration” [under the “appeasement”-reproaches in the “discussions” how to deal with Saddam, or radical Islam] must be seen as pure revisionism [like Brenner]. You must READ and POST such things very careful, cause it overlays the dilemma of all groups of society and it does not help to understand the whole process.
The dilemma is quite simple: Today, we all know that everybody in the 20ties had a chance to detect the intention of Hitler to destroy all jews. But everybody dealt with him, even jews dealt with him. Its true that this dilemma was never discussed. The stream of the discussions tried to insert the ns-ideology into english-american dualism [like the brave and good americans vs The Bad Nazis]. [Read: George Luis Borges -”Deutsches Requiem” [1]] It is understandable that political streams like Zionism, or german Lutherans tried to erase anything disturbing out of their self-view. And this is NOT the way to deal with the dilemma. The dilemma that the world at large acted wrong. [And this is the reason why the world still acts wrong, like in cases at Darfur or Ruanda] And if you look into the dealing of the orthodox judaism you can see that there was NO real discussion about the shoa yet. Understanable, cause the horror, the brutality, the “vision” of “future” of the NS-system is far beyond anything understandable.
The world still lives in a sort of shock. But now at 2007 we CAN decide if we want to be [more or less qualified] apologist of the dilemma of the “old world” full of failures or thy to find our personal new way out of the dualism of “I must be good and so the other must be bad”.
[1]- Borges hits the point: The world, especially the victorious american world of thinking was the place where the NS-system found its SENSE. “We [Nazis] are the cause of the forging of the luck of the world, even if we are the anvil and England is the hammer.”
54 Compulsive Reader // Aug 14, 2007 at 2:00 am
“The dilemma that the world at large acted wrong.”
Absolutely.
“cause the horror, the brutality, the “vision” of “future” of the NS-system is far beyond anything understandable.”
A state of knowing and not knowing at the same time?
I disagree. I think National Socialism is thinkable and needs to thought. I happens too often in society for it to be an enigma! The position of “homo sacer” is a fundamental feature of todays politics and has been for the 20th century. Yesterdays Jew is todays Muslim. In America for hundreds of years, it was the Negro. Think about it. African slaves were legislated as 3/5ths of a human being in Americas founding document! How do you divide a human?
Anyway, how do you fight something that is “far beyond anything understandable”? If it is unknown, you only fight blindly. And if you’re blind, you won’t be able to see that you’ve become what you are fighting against in the first place.
BTW, Moe Fishman died, a man who actively fought fascism in the Lincoln Brigade in Spain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/nyregion/12fishman.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin
55 Compulsive Reader // Aug 14, 2007 at 2:48 am
From Badiou:
” Let me add something of a more affective note. It is wholly intolerable to be accused of anti-Semitism by anyone for the sole reason that, from the tact of the extermination, one does not conclude as to the predicate “Jew” and its religious and communitarian dimension that it receive some singular valorization - a transcendent annunciation! - nor that Israeli exactions, whose colonial nature is patent and banal, be specially tolerated. I propose that nobody any longer accept, publicly or privately, this type of political blackmail…
… I shall maintain that the intrusion of any identity predicate into a central role for the determination of a politics leads to disaster. This should be as I’ve already said, the real lesson to be drawn from Nazism. Since it was above all the Nazis who, before anyone else, and with a rare zeal for following through, drew all the consequences from making the signifier “Jewish” into a radical exception - it was, after all, the only way that they could give some sort of consistency, in their industrial massacre, to the symmetrical predication “Aryan”, the particular vacuity of which obsessed them…
Lastly, there is no question of tolerating the anti-Jewish diatribes, uttered in the name of colonial guilt and the rights of Palestinians, that circulate in a number of organizations and institutions that arc more or less dependent on identitarian words such as “Aral”), “Muslim”, “Islam”… This anti-Semitism could not be passed off with give-and-take for a progressivism that settles for little…”
” I will make the hypothesis that the aggressive promotion of the triplet Shoah - Israel - Tradition, or SIT, as the only acceptable content of the word ‘Jew’, and the ignorant, stubborn, personalized violence directed against anybody who proposes a different mode of signification and circulation of the word, has to do with protecting a power: the power - very useful to the powers-that-be - of managing to subjugate this word to totally anti-working- class political and statist determinations, i.e., to a system of judicial and police control to which, little by little, everything that shows itself to be heterogeneous to the established consensus is subjugated, whether or not that heterogeneous element is already localized in organizations and actions, or is as yet only at the stage of the circulation of ideas. Further, that, in the constant use of a word that has been reduced to a sort of power of intimidation, it boils down to rallying the largest possible number of intellectuals in the world to the camp led by the Americans. In sum, it is about making the word “Jew” - assumed lo be untouchable because of its Shoah component; statist and pro-American because of its “Israeli” component; and vaguely spiritual because of its “Tradition” component - into the ideological shield and the intellectual referent of a new stage in the counter-revolution mat has been led in France by the nouveaux philosophes since the end of the 1970s, a stage that is now truly oppositional and supported by the services of state. By protecting their monopoly over the word ‘Jew’, it is hoped to eradicate for ever the very possibility of political universalism, of an equality of all particularist predicates, of a politics practiced by people who are here, irrespective of their origin.”
http://www.lacan.com/badword.htm
56 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 14, 2007 at 5:37 am
Short answer for now: “A state of knowing and not knowing at the same time?”
Yes.
1. I will tell you an simple example. The butcher of Sinsheim was the only one in town who acted against NS-looters at the Reichskristallnacht. The rest of the 20 000 did nothing against it.
Tell me why the butcher did it. [Nobody can.]
And we are not talking about silly and untaugth butchers, we are talking about bodys of millions of organized people. What makes one butcher better than millions of christians that dealt with Hitler?
Maybe that makes it easier to understand the “clou” of the NS-system. And the clou of Nazism was to bring almost all human beeings into one single stream. [The americans that had not interrupted the transport-system that sent jewish people from across Europe to Auschwitz f.ex.., even if they knew what was going on.]
2. As I wrote “vision of future”. Its not only about never tackled plans like the invasion of Palestine. Its about the “myth” of the NS-system. The killings and wars were only a stage for more wars and killings. Hitlers “myth” developed and terms like “regime of violence” are not able to express possible next stages.
The break of 37: Hitlers “myth”, stage: terror was ready and implanted into the german society. His “new myth”, the next stage was shown “naked” http://www.kubiss.de/kulturreferat/reichsparteitagsgelaende/bilder/Lichtdom.jpg as Henderson [british envoy] said: “Cathedral of Ice”]. The departure into the stage “figthing the heros into the empire of ligth” = Total War.
Thats all what we can say about the “vision of future”. We know that some transformed myths of the germans could play a role in the “Empire of Ligth”. Thats all what we know.
You can speculate about messages of Hitler [”The eagle will leave his position on top of the flag and will reign the world”] Have much fun with that. But you will not understand the design horror-brutality-vision and the final outcome. Understand [is I use it, I don’t know, I am thinking in german and there will be better english words.] needs your personal point of view. You must locate yourself, you have to find yourself. [”Rose is red” is not understood why the rose is red.]
“Empire of light” is far beyond, cause before you can reach it you have to kill. And kill. And kill. [Thats onbe of the reasons the NS-System failed. Hitler himself recognized that saying that the germans are not ready, cause in the war very much refused to kill among other things.]
57 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 14, 2007 at 5:52 am
:-))) OMG Badiou!!!! Jewish Maoists! We germans have already 37 clashes between germans historians, I think my head will explode in the next few days. And now, I have to deal with the french-clashes, too.
[Slavoj Zizek has published recently [09.08.07] a very intresting peace in the german newspaper ZEIT about the clashes and I am following the story and I currently think that I am with … the jewish maoists.]
58 Fuchsbaunews // Aug 14, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Part II
“National Socialism is thinkable and needs to thought”. No. The german concept of “Wehret den Anfängen” - “struggle the beginnigs” needs knowledge and not thinking. Films, workshops, education, projects, dialog transport knowledge and designs standards to struggle against several dangerous contents of Nazism. In that standards people can think. The question of today is not how to figth the NS-system, its how to fitght the used contents [like antisemitism, biopolitics, aso.] And there will be a lot of upcoming generations that detect new things in old material.
The Agamben-analysis that any structure produces biopolitical discords and creates with that unlawful cleareances has some true points. But “McDonalds produces fat Americans” is not “Nazis produce Auschwitz”. To produce fat americans is a personal decision, or a decision of the parents. Error that is USED OF THE SYSTEM. To be at Auschwitz is not your own error.
True point is that in any human beeing are “enemies” -system of organisation - genetics - “meme”- And if you are looking at interactive systems like the Israel-Palestine-conflict with all of its global and external systems [like this website here, microcosmos of the conflict] you can say that we are all living and assimiliate in/into the “permanent state of emergency” and it all depends on biopolitical decisions of “leaders”. As an individual, you feel helpless and alone, like a “naked victim”. [The film “Matrix” was made like a Agamben-theory-future.]
Agamben has no clue how to come out of his theory. We all here at this website know it better. And we should not underestimate the chance to communicate above the former frontiers and prejudices. It can be the chance. Or not. We will find it out.
I remember that meaningless and small story of Charles sitting in Gaza with his friends in between the “fractional figthings”. Agamben is wrong. He was not alone and naked.
59 Compulsive Reader // Aug 15, 2007 at 12:05 am
Right on, brother.
60 Brian H // Mar 6, 2008 at 11:52 pm
But CR, the “slow motion genocide of Palestine” is EXACTLY what the neighbouring Arab states want and set up long ago!
Prior to the invasion to sweep Jews back into the sea in’48, Arab population in Israel had virtually exploded, because there was a viable economy and people determined to do more than goat farming. Unacceptable in the neighbourhood, so they had to go. Arabs were advised to stand aside for a bit till the housecleaning was done.
Oops.
And there they remain, a half-century + later, guests and useful symbols for local Arab tyrannies, who have no intention of letting such valuable ideological assets and excuses-for-everything go anywhere. Arabs who were smart enough to stay put have threatened intifada against Fatah if it tries to govern them down into Palestinian penury.
The contributions of the Jewish state to the world exceed by orders of magnitude those of the Arab nations, if any.
61 Dina Venes // Aug 14, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Oh dear, oh dear. Before making huge sweeping colonialist-like statements “Arab population…to do more than goat farming.” Firstly, the “Arabs” in Palestine were Palestinian and have an identity i.e. they can’t just naturally accept any Arab country as their homeland, they already had one! You should try reading a history book or two to truly unpack the realities of the 750,000 strong Palestinian population who were violently driven from their homes pre-1948 by militant diaspora Jews.
Brian’s “housecleaning” sounds very much like “ethnic cleansing” to me…racist and inflammatory. It is another colonial myth that the Jews arrived in Palestine in “a land for a people for a people without land” - it was already somebody else’s home and was in the throes of industrialisation. These myths are constructed to justify the settlement of colonial communities encouraged by the political electorate in US and a war weary Europe.
Also, what exactly has the Jewish state contributed to the rest of the world apart from a long list of broken UN resolutions and hands bloodied by the ongoing massacres of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian men, women and children????
The “Arabs” have contributed a rich and diverse culture not to mention cuisine from the sprawling souqs in Marrakesh, to the enigmatic temples in Luxor, Petra in Jordan and of course Sharm al Sharif in Jerusalem, oh yes and hamams - all of which attract millions of tourists around the world! Remind me what Israel has contributed?
Nothing but racist, ignorant language coming from Mr Brian H!
Leave a Comment