So, I want to do a historical analysis on this article, and what I think it gets wrong.

To start, however, I’d like to say that Murray Bookchin is a great influence upon me. His works on the social roots and effects of ecological collapse are like no other. And I agree with [1]

a majority of his recommendations on how to remedy that.

Those who use this article to dismiss him in his entirety are, at best, mistaken to do so and, at worst (like that child, Ben Norton), simply propagandists. Unlike most Marxist-Leninists and neo-Stalinists, anarchists [2]

and communalists do not manufacture their philosophical influences into idols.

With that being said, my problems with the article begin before it can really even take off.

While Zionism may not have a one-to-one correlation with bigotry against Arabs, the modern Zionist [3]

experience necessitated colonialism, which inherently brought forth bigotry against the colonized subjects.

Today’s bigots who shout into oblivion that Palestinians “do not exist,” as particularly genocidal as that is, are the logical conclusion of “the Arab demographic [4]

question” and its solution in “transfer” that Zionists contemplated all those decades ago.

Quoting Benny Morris (certainly no apologist for Arabs), “These Jews were not colonists in the usual sense of agents of an imperial mother country”:

“But the settlements of the [5]

first Aliyah were still colonial, with white Europeans living amid and employing a mass of relatively impoverished natives.”

Indeed, “The settlers ... and the natives quickly developed ‘normal’ colonial relations based on stereotyped images and behavior patterns: [6]

exploitation, and mutual dependence, contempt, racism, hatred, and fear.”

While the red-highlighted text is true, I think it’s only right to emphasize that the Zionist experience fully understood that “transfer” was going to require coercion and, hence, [7]

conflict—that is, to establish the Jewish State in Palestine, it was logical that war, or something just short of it, was going to occur.

That fact only follows the rule of establishing State entities, moreso in a colonial context in a foreign land. To quote Robert [8]

Carneiro, author of A Theory of the Origin of the State, “Historically speaking, there is not the slightest difficulty in proving that all political communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare.”

Thus, while we can assign blame to the initiation [9]

of hostilities to the Arab States subsequent to the U.N. resolution, it equally makes sense—perhaps moreso—to assign blame to the colonial project that sought to create a State in the presence of an non-consenting indigenous population as well.

Furthermore, it only [10]

makes historical sense to bring up, as the historian Avi Shlaim points out, that “at each stage of the war, the IDF significantly outnumbered all the Arab forces arrayed against it, and by the final stage of the war its superiority ratio was nearly two to one”:

“In this [11]

war, ... the stronger side ultimately prevailed.”

In addition to this, Bookchin loses all sense of nuance here, collapsing the situation into two sides: “the Arabs” and “the Jews,” specifically when he refers to that “highly trained Jordanian ‘Arab Legion.’” In reality, [12]

as Shlaim has documented in Collusion Across the Jordan, a “special relationship between Israel and King Abdullah” of Transjordan became “a major factor in determining the course and outcome of the first Arab-Israeli War.” As a matter of fact, Shlaim goes so far as to state [13]

that “the Arab Legion remained neutral” due to that “special relationship”: which worked in collapsing any supposed “Arab unity” during hostilities.

I don’t have time to demonstrate the effects of “transfer” throughout the war, but it is now accepted by almost all critical [14]

scholarship on the topic that 1948 constituted an ethnic cleansing for a cohesive ‘Democratic *and* Overwhelmingly Jewish State,’ most persuasively by Norman G. Finkelstein in his Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. The broader topic, perhaps, can be for [15]

another time.

“That many Arabs remained in Israel clearly challenges ...”

Of course, given that the entirety of critical scholarship recognizes the fact of ethnic cleansing, this point falls flat.

With regards to the “imperialist interests” of the Arab States, [16]

I find it odd that this is so readily recognized yet the same interests of the Zionists are not. The underlying point, that both the Arab States and the Zionists, sought to conquer Palestine is largely true: the “special relationship” between King Abdullah and the Zionists, [17]

for one thing, only highlights this.

A lot of this is true, although I feel it is quite reductive in its characterization of Palestinian-Jewish relations before the major ascendency of Zionism. It’s a topic for another time, but yeah, it was detestable and violent but [18]

also a lot more complicated.

While I do disagree with some small premises in this, I do find it funny how obvious the parallels are between this and today with certain neo-Stalinists. Felt it had to be brought up. [19]

There is a point here: I would definitely agree in saying that Israel is not “the core” problem. It’s bigger than that: it’s imperialism and, reactively, how many communities have responded to that (specifically in the creation of “National Security” terrorist States, all [20]

based off imported “Western” bourgeois ideals of nationalism).

A consistent anti-Statist approach, one based off Bookchin’s own philosophies, would be able to wholly reject the Zionist colonial project, it being like every other colonial project; that is, inorganic and [21]

hierarchical; while rejecting how some communities in the colonized world have likewise reacted to that broader imperial project (with States, often terroristic, and bourgeois nationalism).

[DONE].

I do this not to “dunk” on Bookchin (personally I’d rather be reading him )[22]

for having written this mostly ideological piece or for him not having access to the historical records / not reading any critical scholarship.

I’d rather this particularly critique of him be recaptured by non neo-Stalinists, and especially recaptured by those who [23]

actually admire his work and do consider themselves within the tradition of social ecology.