Zionist Hip Hop?
The Forward takes a stab at Ross Golan & Molehead‘s new album Reagan Baby.
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so what is that saying, that claiming that six-day war was expansionist (ask moshe dayan, he’ll tell u) is not zionist?
Sure, it isn’t expansionist in the sense that Jordan occupying the West Bank from 48-67 and Egypt occupying Gaza from 48-67 isn’t expansionist. Considering the 6 day war was in fact a defensive war doesn’t minimize the fact that a Jewish victory allowed the Jewish state to expand. It is more a question of whether we will accept Jordanian (Hashemite) or Egyptian expansionism over Palestinians as equally deplorable as Jewish expansionism over Palestinians. Clearly this is more a talk about the texture of postcolonialism than it is about Moshe Dayan and Zionism.
Sure, it isn’t expansionist in the sense that Jordan occupying the West Bank from 48-67 and Egypt occupying Gaza from 48-67 isn’t expansionist. Considering the 6 day war was in fact a defensive war doesn’t minimize the fact that a Jewish victory allowed the Jewish state to expand. It is more a question of whether we will accept Jordanian (Hashemite) or Egyptian expansionism over Palestinians as equally deplorable as Jewish expansionism over Palestinians. Clearly this is more a talk about the texture of postcolonialism than it is about Moshe Dayan and Zionism.
Sure, it isn’t expansionist in the sense that Jordan occupying the West Bank from 48-67 and Egypt occupying Gaza from 48-67 isn’t expansionist. Considering the 6 day war was in fact a defensive war doesn’t minimize the fact that a Jewish victory allowed the Jewish state to expand. It is more a question of whether we will accept Jordanian (Hashemite) or Egyptian expansionism over Palestinians as equally deplorable as Jewish expansionism over Palestinians. Clearly this is more a talk about the texture of postcolonialism than it is about Moshe Dayan and Zionism.
sorry about the repeats..comp went crazy
that was not my point. all i was saying is that u can argue that it was expansionism and still be a zionist!
Asaf,
You are, after all, writing for the most part to an audience that already understands Israel in terms other than perfect. So, what really is the gravit of your point? God forbid a little Zionist apologia emanating from this blog should get in the way of easy anarchist answers….
(Above: “gravit” should have appeared as “gravity”).
i was making a very simple point – the article referred to by mobius equates zionism with positive attitude towards the 1967 occupation (or whatever else you want to call it). So my remark was actually on behalf of all people who call themselves zionists 🙂
I think Zionista has a good point. Your understanding of the 67 war is too confined to a discussion of Zionism and its ideologically bearing on Jewish military victory. If that hip hop album spoke about Gush Emunim (or any other specific redemption oriented movement) and its relationship to 67, then I would say your point is valid. The occupation that started in 67 ended the Egyptian and Jordanian occupation. You remain silent on this issue, and the texture of reclaiming Judea and Samaria.
I guess i’ll just have to quote from the article to make my point clear:
“There, buried in the fine print, was what could be described only as a Zionist hip-hop stance. In Golan’s condensed version of the history of the world, he mentions the Six Day War not as an expansionist land grab, but instead as a defensive war: “June 5-10, 1967: Arabs Invade Israel Commencing the Six-Day War.”
Golan’s subtle Zionist slant would not be so shocking had most young leftists I know not been involved in a bear hug with the Palestinian cause for the last decade or so.”
THus the author (not me!) equates a stance which looks at 1967 war as a defensive war at not as an expansionist war, as a zionist stance. sadly, this limits zionism to a very narrow and political stream. thats ALL i’m saying. trying to save the term.
It seems that Golan already saved the term. The journalist characterizes this particular song’s “Zionist” stance as ironic for an otherwise left-leaning album. The journalist is saying less about Golan and more about the truth that, in these times, it is a contradiction to be both a leftist and a zionist. Golan pokes fun at this perceived contradiction by showing how Israel’s defeat of numerous Arab armies would normally be applauded by underdog-lauding Lefties who now choose to condemn Israel for claiming the lands they won from Jordan and Egypt.
Your first post said
“So what is that saying, that claiming that six-day war was expansionist (ask moshe dayan, he’ll tell u) is not zionist?”
Depends who you talk to – It isn’t explicitly Zionist to those on the Zionist Left because it not only occupies and changes the lives of millions of Palestinians, but also because the Zionist left holds the ideal that territorial gain is only nessecary to ensure a just Jewish state. It /is/ explicitly Zionist to those on the Zionist Right for national-religious reasons or because of the belief in the abstract notion that “Judea, Samaria, and Gaza” is “Jewish land” whoeever happens to live there.
This discussion, which seems to be the focus of your posts, doesn’t have anything to do with Golan’s that the 67 war wasn’t some Jewish conspiracy to take over the Middle East in a military fashion. He pokes fun at the Left’s contradiction by demonstrating that one can applaud Israel’s victory in 67 and still be in conflict not only with present Israeli policy but also tout other left-leaning causes.
you put it well, “depends who you talk to.” thats all i meant to say.
When it “depends on who you talk to” we lose our objectivity. Objectively, 67 was hardly the war of choice that accusations of Israeli expansionism imply. There existed before June 4 a military pact between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, an Egyptian blockade on the port of Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba, Nasser’s eviction of UN peacekeepers from the Sinai, and deployment of Egyptian troops and armor in the demilitarized zone. These are facts, not opinion.
To argue that 67 was an Israeli expansionist war demands a subjective (and even cynical) selection of these facts. If we are to retroactively condemn any expansion of borders in the modern post-colonial Middle East, then where has the condemnation been of both Jordan’s and Egypt’s failure to nurture Palestinian autonomy and self-determination from 1948-67? Without it, this discussion amounts to an imposition of responsibility for all circumstances in the conflict solely upon Israel. This unbalanced perspective is precisely the major failing of progressive historiography concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict overall.
zionista. i am not saying that i think taht 1967 war was this or that. is no one reading my posts? I am trying to make a simple claim- that there are zionists out there who might think that 1967 was an expansionist war. But they are still zionists. they even may be wrong about 1967 war but they are still zionists. the article brought forward by mobius claims that only people who see the war as a defensive one, are zionists.
Thus, the question of objectivity and subjectivity (i.e. “i am right you’re wrong”) is irrelevant. Because there are many people who are have factually-wrong political views but are still zionist 🙂
In any case, regardless of the argument i am trying to make, check out this link: http://www.codoh.com/newsdesk/970511.HTML
Israeli leaders have consistently said the Golan is too important to Israel’s defense to return. Until Israel captured the plateau in the 1967 Mideast War, Syria often shelled Israeli border communities from its vantage point on the Golan.
According to Dayan, Israel deliberately provoked the shootings as a pretext to attack.
“We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot,” Dayan said.
“If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further,” he said.
Dayan said pressure from Israel’s kibbutzim, or farming communities, led to the land grab.
“Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps — there was only the Syrian army,” he said. “The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land … and they dreamed about it.”
all the text after the link in my last post is a quote from the article – in case that isnt clear..
Asaf,
You began this discussion supposing that to claim expansionist motivation to Israel’s prosecution of the 67 war is not Zionist. While I missed that claim in the article or anywhere else, you must admit that it is not a long reach to the conclusion that to frame Israel’s prosecution of the 67 war as expansionist does not lend legitimacy or sympathy to Zionist principles in general. In fact, your use of a link to Bradley Smith’s flagrantly antisemitic CODOH website (even if the item was taken from Associated Press wires) does more to support the point that a cynical selection of facts can often serve a subjective agenda.
“You began this discussion supposing that to claim expansionist motivation to Israel’s prosecution of the 67 war is not Zionist.” – i assume you mean that i said that it IS zionist. Because thats what i claimed.
regarding the link from CODOH- never heard of the website, so had no clue its antisemtic – but the quote is made to a yediot aharonot journalist, and i found the quote in several sources.
and back to my argument. whats my agenda? there are people in the zionist left (I am NOT among them) who look at the 1967 war as expansionist and are zionists. there are not many people like those, but what defines a person as zionist has nothing to do with his attitude towards 1967, though there is a corrolation.
I don’t claim any insight to your agenda, Asaf.
Often enough, however, at least out here in the “galus” (and I understand you are new to these shores), what defines a person as anti-Zionist (if not antisemitic) has alot to do with their attitude toward 1967 (and 1948, and 1973, and 1897, and 1917, and 2000…). You get the idea, I hope.
well i am happy you brought that up. i guess then that on these shores the term zionism is not worty of my defense. ah, things are so different here 🙂
Sorry, but I admit that I don’t get your latest comment (and the emoticon only confuses me further).
i tried to broaden the concept of zionism by not limiting it to a specific view regarding the 1967. thats how it was back home. but you prefer an “objective” stance which all zionists must hold. i guess thats the way things are here, in America.
I will yield to you greater experience in Israel. However, when I was there it seemed as if 73 came up alot more often than 67 (and I’m still hashing out why that might have been).
To be honest, it bothers me just a bit that you portray my advocacy of objectivity in such negatively authoritarian terms (“which all Zionists must hold”?). Apparently, it’s me who is not getting their point across to you. Lord knows, it’s complicated enough.
I really don’t hold a gun to anyone’s head, and I only brought up the difference between Israel and this particular (USA) diaspora locale to illustrate that we are not entirely in control of our role here (inasmuch as anyone or any one people can really be in control of their contribution to human civilization anyway). That’s all. It takes discipline to view political things objectively, and the process does not often happen smoothly. But I submit that it should be worth the effort.