A few weeks ago, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel on the current genocide in Gaza being conducted by Israel. The panel was organized in person at NYU. It was recorded and has been since posted to their YouTube. The forum included two student representatives, Eva Porter and Joe Whitcomb, and two influential intellectuals of the left, Norman Finkelstein and Daniel Lazare. The question posed to the panel was how the Left should relate to the current crisis, its origins, and its history. Is there a left-wing alternative to the current bloodshed?
The panelists offered no unique way of thinking about the Palestinian crisis or our current political moment. The Left (American or otherwise) holds no power. It cannot sway or change the reality on the ground or U.S. foreign policy. To do that would require democratic control of policy making, the means of which the US political system does not have. The support of Israel by the American Empire – regardless of the destruction caused by Israel’s expulsion and murder of Gazans – is a political machination going back to President Truman and the gravely needed support of Jewish Democrats in the 1948 election.1 The most extreme evidence of this in the 21st century is articulated best by Diana Johnstone.2 Johnstone reviews the history of the Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1994 and its birth and expansion of the Neoconservative political movement. The Neocons indeed are the intellectual brainchild of the powerful Zionist Lobby. The current relationship between the US and Israel is simply a matter of powerful interest holding such outsized influence because of the incoherent political and constitutional US system.
The US policy of backstopping Israel regardless of the heinous crimes committed has everything to do with the Neoconservative ideology and little to do with American Empire or strategic thinking. I agree with Daniel Lazare: so long as the U.S. policy remains the same, there is no military solution to the genocide in Gaza. However, I do not agree with his assessment of Hamas and its current goals towards Israel. Hamas is the national liberation group of Gaza and Palestine. No one else is fighting for Palestine.
All the other panelists were well-spoken about the current crisis, including the extent of the destruction and the history leading to this moment. Norman Finkelstein delivered nothing less than what I would have expected: a thorough update on Israel’s intentions and where things stand now. However, he did not provide a strategy for how to get Palestinians out of this mess. The Houthis are brave and principled, but their actions won’t end the suffering or lead to a strategic shift in US policy.
If there was heat in the room, it didn’t last long. Accusations of clairvoyance and an inability to read documents were made, but the panel largely remained diplomatic. The biggest disagreements between the panelists seemed to include the intent of what occurred on October 7th, 2023, and identifying Hamas as a right-wing force or simply national liberation party as it exists. Daniel Lazare and Norman Finkelstein were the primary advocates of these opposing views. Finkelstein laid out a recent history of Hamas, leading tactics of non-violence demonstration for example the Great March of Return in 2018-19. Lazare accurately points to Hamas’ original Charter and its right-wing and racist goals. He also pointed out that Hamas is an Islamist party. Hamas released an updated charter in 2017 and corrected its antisemitic language in the 1988 charter. It now reflects Hamas’ fight against the antidemocratic colonial project of Zionism, not the Jewish People.
The Left must focus on the root of the problem, the inability of the American people to control the policy-making apparatus democratically. This leaves this destructive, violent policy in the hands of an empire complex advanced by our anti-democratic political system. The anti-war movement aimed at this particular crisis must connect the political reality to the need for a democratic constitution. The US Left, the American people, and the “demos” that the left is supposed to represent, all lack political power.
The left wants to end Israel’s U.S.-backed destruction of Palestine. However, an Arab-Israeli Worker State or regional socialism isn’t possible without first establishing a democratic US Constitution and abolishing the American Empire. The left must target actual power: the Constitution. Morals won’t influence Empire managers in an immoral system. A political movement for democracy currently exists on the left. The reinvigorated antiwar movement must join the struggle for a democratic constitution.
-Lucas C De Hart
- Frederic J. Frommer, “The State Department Told Truman Not to Recognize Israel. He Did It Anyway,” The Forward, May 12, 2023, https://forward.com/news/546537/state-department-told-truman-recognize-israel-75-arab-jewish/.
- Diana Johnstone , “The Debate over Israel as ‘US Aircraft Carrier,’” Volume 29, Number 38- Wednesday, February 7, 2024, March 13, 2024, https://consortiumnews.com/2024/03/12/the-debate-over-israel-as-us-aircraft-carrier/.