Gidley, Ben and Mang, D. and Randall, D. (2023) For a consistently democratic and internationalist left: a contribution to left renewal and transformation. Left Renewal.
Abstract
We have been watching the civilian death toll in Gaza mount, in horror, day by day, for weeks on end now. We are appalled and outraged at the collective punishment meted out to Gazans by the IDF, increasing settler violence in the West Bank, and repression by the state and right wing mobs against Palestinian citizens of Israel. In the US, in Europe, in India and elsewhere, Palestine activism as a whole is demonised by many mainstream politicians and much of the media, and in some cases criminalised by the state. Much Western reporting on Israel/Palestine is soaked through with civilisational racism, often framing Israelis as modern, Western, civilised people whose suffering is somehow more real and important than that of Palestinians. Racist dehumanisation of Muslims and Arabs contributes to the suffering that is being experienced by Palestinians. In this context, there is an understandable impulse to focus only on the immediate. It can feel like this is not the right time to talk about what’s wrong with left Israel/Palestine activism, and the left more generally. But we believe that in the face of crisis, self-reflection is more, not less, important. It is now, not later, that we need to critically reflect on whether the dominant perspectives in our movements, broadly defined, are the right ones for actually winning change.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Other |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Left antisemitism, campism, pseudo-emancipation, truncated anti-racism, Multipolarity, Israel/Palestine |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Dr Ben Gidley |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2024 17:42 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2024 17:42 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/53359 |
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