The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide-David North-Mehring Books. February 26 2024 $9.99
“David North’s three lectures, delivered amidst the war, are a remarkably concise, historically informed, and politically devastating indictment of Zionism and the Israeli assault on Gaza.”
Charles Thorpe, Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego.
The lectures presented in this volume are not only a sharp Marxist analysis of the reactionary ideological and political foundations of Zionism, but they are also an antidote to poison and bile being spewed out by the capitalist media, who not only print lies and cover-up a genocide going on in Gaza, they label any opposition to the Israeli regime as being anti-Semitic.
As Charles Thorpe, Professor of Sociology University of California, San Diego, states, “David North’s three lectures, delivered amidst the war, are a remarkably concise, historically informed, and politically devastating indictment of Zionism and the Israeli assault on Gaza.” Thorpe is to be commended for raising his head above the parapet to defend a clear-sighted Marxist analysis presented by North and the ICFI(International Committee of the Fourth International).
It is not in the realm of this short review to cover everything contained in this excellent book. One of the most important aspects of the book has been to oppose the charge that any opposition to the Israeli regime is tantamount to antisemitism.
As North writes, “Ten years ago, I was barred from attending a seminar at Humboldt because I intended to challenge historian Robert Service’s falsifications and his use of antisemitic slurs. Now, the university, posturing as an irreconcilable opponent of antisemitism, forbids the inclusion of a reference to the Gaza genocide in the name of fighting antisemitism.
I recall this incident from the not-so-distant past because it exemplifies the cynicism, hypocrisy, demagogy and unrestrained lying that drives the campaign to discredit opposition to Israel’s onslaught against Gaza as “antisemitic.” The use of this slur has become a critical weapon in the efforts of Israel and its imperialist accomplices to intimidate and isolate all those who are protesting the genocide of Palestinians.
Suddenly, and from so many surprising quarters, warriors against antisemitism have emerged. Last week, in the United States, university presidents were summoned to Washington D.C. and questioned on their failure to suppress allegedly antisemitic protests on American college campuses. Leading the inquisitorial questioning was Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Republican from a district in New York State. She demanded to know why the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other major universities were tolerating calls for “genocide”—which the congresswoman identifies as any student protest that demands an end to the apartheid regime that deprives Palestinians of their democratic rights.”[1]
From a personal viewpoint, the most fascinating aspect of North’s lecture at the Humboldt University in Berlin was his adding to the more well-known public personal background by producing a family history that is not only extraordinary but which North uses to counter the slanders that have come not only his way but the Trotskyist movement itself.
He writes, “I do not have any personal obligation to answer the claim that I and my comrades in the Trotskyist movement are antisemites. As the saying goes, my record speaks for itself. But, unfortunately, that is not generally true. The accusation of antisemitism requires the ignoring and distortion of a given individual’s political record. So I will, for the first time, respond to the accusation, by adding to my well-known public political record information relating to my background. Now, having reached a somewhat more advanced age, just a little more than a year away from what will be my 75th birthday, I think the time has come to do this. I do not do so because it will have any effect on the slanderers but because there are elements of my personal experience that may resonate with a younger generation and encourage them to intensify their struggle in defence of the Palestinians and against all forms of oppression.”
While the book stands independently in its meticulous research and erudition, North's book is not just a catalogue of the crimes of the Israeli regime, nor is it “Two Minutes of Hate”, which was the charge by an audience member at the London lecture given by North. It is a call to action, especially aimed at the young.
As David North declared in his third lecture, delivered in Berlin on December 14, 2023: “The ongoing war, for all its horrors, has made one significant political contribution. It has awakened the youth. It has opened the eyes of the world. It has exposed the Zionist regime and its imperialist accomplices for the criminals they are. It has set into motion a tidal wave of outrage that is sweeping across the world and will sweep across those responsible for this genocide”.
The book deserves a wide readership. I would encourage all readers and non-readers of the World Socialist Web Site to buy the book.
[1] The Israeli state’s fascist ideology and the genocide in Gaza-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/19/pers-d19.html
The Centenary of Trotskyism: Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century.
On Saturday, November 18, I attended the above meeting called by The Socialist Equality Party(UK). It was my first major meeting in five years, and I picked a good one. The meeting was safe professionally organised with a good bookstall.
SEP Assistant National Secretary Tom Scripps chaired the event. This was the second meeting held by the SEP to discuss what political fight is necessary to stop the slaughter in Gaza.
The lecture was given by David North, the chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site and national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States. North is a leading expert on Leon Trotsky.
The meeting was originally called to launch the UK North’s recently published book, Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. However, given the gravity of the situation in Gaza North correctly departed from his original subject matter to give a complex and detailed report on the events in Gaza from a Marxist perspective.
North pointedly said that this was not so much a war but a one-sided massacre. North’s lecture was complex and well-researched. He provided a detailed account of the current situation, which included the brutal murder by the IDF(Israel Defence Force) of thousands of men and women and the deaths of 4000 children.
North’s lectures on the Gaza massacres have been complimented by the extraordinary articles from the World Socialist website (wsws.org), many of which have been put into pamphlet form.[1]
North, while noting that the war/massacre has produced a significant amount of emotional outpouring, his lecture series have sought to place the event in a more objective context, saying: “We have been asked why we have not condemned Hamas for the violence of October 7. The answer is that we will not participate in or lend any legitimacy to the reactionary cynicism and hypocrisy that condemns resistance to oppression or draws an equal sign between the episodic violence of the oppressed and the far greater, relentless and systematic violence of the oppressor.
The death of so many innocent people is a tragic event. But the tragedy is rooted in objective historical events and political conditions that made such an event inevitable. As always, the ruling classes oppose all references to the causes of the uprising. Their massacres and the entire bloody system of oppression over which they preside so ruthlessly must go unmentioned.
Why should anyone be surprised that decades of oppression by the Zionist regime led to an explosive eruption of anger? It has happened in the past, and as long as human beings are oppressed and brutalised, it will happen in the future. Those who suffer oppression cannot be expected during a desperate rebellion, when their own lives hang precariously in the balance, to treat their tormentors with tender-hearted courtesy. Such rebellions are often marked by acts of cruel and bloody vengeance.”[2]
From a personal standpoint, I thought North’s research into the anti-working class and anti-socialist origins of Zionism to be very important as North writes, “The creation of the Zionist state was the direct outcome of the defeats of the working class in the 1920s and 1930s because of the betrayals of Stalinism and Social Democracy. Without the mass of displaced persons, survivors of Nazi concentration camps, and without the political demoralisation and loss of confidence in the perspective of socialism, the Zionist leaders would not have had at their disposal the numbers of people required to conduct a terrorist war against the Palestinian people, expel them from their homes and villages, and create, through essentially criminal methods, a Jewish national state.”
North spent a considerable time opposing the vile slander that criticism of the Zionist-led war in Gaza constituted antisemitism. North, in his previous lecture, cited the attack on the musician Roger Waters, saying, “Throughout his recent world tour, the legendary musician Roger Waters has been under relentless attack and accused of antisemitism because he has dared to defend the Palestinian people. Everyone who knows the work of Roger Waters knows very well that he is one of the most significant artists at the forefront of the fight for human rights and that his opposition to the policies of the Israeli regime has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism.”
North took questions from the floor. Only two were noteworthy. The first came from someone who did not declare their political affiliation. At the same time, ignoring most of what North spoke about, he accused the lecturer of carrying out over “30 minutes of hate.” His remarks were a little insulting and quite bizarre. His jibe about hate came from the novel 1984 by George Orwell.
Orwell wrote, “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds, any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”[3]
North rejected that there was anything hateful about his lecture and countered by saying the remarks echoed those who have the audacity of attacking the Zionists as anti-semitic.
My question was about Daniel Goldhagen. North had written a brilliant critique of Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners. I asked him if he had heard what Goldhagen had said about the war/massacre in Gaza.
[1] Stop Israel’s Genocide-£2.00 Mehring Books UK
[2] Socialist internationalism and the struggle against Zionism and imperialism- The lecture was given by World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, October 24.
[3] Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell : chapter1.
