Re: <nettime> silence on Palestine?

[Dan S Wang via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

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Dear Nettime,

I am not at all surprised by the lack of commentary regarding this latest paroxysm of violence. And I do not read it as "silence" in a self-censorship sense. Given the political tendencies of list members combined with people's baseline intellectual sophistication, I don't perceive a lack of commentary as a repressive effect of pro-Israeli intimidation, fears of being tarred as anti-Semitic and similar speciousness. This is indeed the dynamic in other spheres--political, commercial media, etc. But not so much here in our peculiar online niche.

Rather, and I put myself as an example, many leftists simply are without much new to say. The Hamas offensive was only surprising in its level of organization, not in the attack itself. For anybody who's paid attention, we knew that Israeli forces had exacted quite a price in lives over the last eight or ten months, including the egregious killings of totally innocent children and young people, over and above the everyday collective punitive treatment Palestinians suffer. The ground level provocations have been building over this year, with boiling points exceeded at the Al-Aqsa Mosque at least a couple of times. The Israeli aggression seemed to rise in parallel with the controversies regarding the Israeli judiciary, a conservative religious power grab that if carried through, from the Palestinian point of view, portends turbocharged legalized ethnic cleansing and dispossession.

So when Netanyahu "declared war," my first thought was, what does that make the attacks of the last half year, "special military operations"???

No, not much to say because it's all playing out according to a narrative that remains in broad strokes familiar even a full generation after the first Intifada. Whatever retaliation Israel takes, it will be ruthless, everybody knew this. Grim-faced Netanyau warning Palestinians confined in Gaza to "leave now," as if that were in any way possible, sounds to me like a preemptive blaming of the victim for their own soon-to-be massacre. But A) Hamas isn't totally suicidal; abducting dozens of Israelis to be used as bargaining chips speaks to their desperate belief in a future, almost a resignation to their own persistence, since B) as the Israelis know better than most anyone, stamping out an entire people is damn near impossible in any event.

Finally, I might as well share my knee-jerk response to the question "Why the silence?" Which is a variation on the phrasing I consider all-too familiar: "Why are we not talking about [fill in blank with your choice of urgent issue]??" I see this kind of objection to a presumed complacency a lot these days, and each time and in regards to whatever issue is being raised, there is in the asking of the question a whiff of shaming. The question is asked as if "talking about" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict helps to solve it. But we know this is not true--I stand by my arguments and condemnations of disproportionate Israeli violence and land theft that I've made over the years publicly, semi-publicly, and in private, but nothing has changed. Not even the opinions of the people I've addressed. So what good is the talking for?? In the resorting to the question "Why the silence?" there is an ultimate and maybe only definite presumed effect: that those of us raising the issues and taking the right sides (with--as is mandatory in my lefty circles--a sensitivity to the legitimate grievances of ALL sides) *purify* ourselves. So there is a kernel of understood (neo?)liberal values at the heart of the question: that our own personal displays of virtue are the solution to the problem.

The BDS movement sought to turn this talk into action, into a material consequence for Israel. And we've seen how moves to enact BDS in any de-personalized and/or institutional way, even on the smallest, almost merely symbolic level, have been repressed. But, sure, let's keep talking....

So with this response, I've broken my own silence. To which I will now return--not out of a discomfort regarding the topic (clearly), but rather because I believe "noble silence" is the less disingenuous path when public discourse has been so thoroughly degraded of its formerly meaningful role in decisions of state, that we are left with only the neoliberal vulgate. 

All that said, the geopolitical implications are where I have questions. The Saudi/Iran fault line seems like a key dynamic here, with Palestinians and their legit resistance being used by neighboring powers yet again. Despite the timing of the Hamas incursions to launch near the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, the regional balance of power is quite different from the post-Soviet era, to say nothing of the pre-Arab Spring era, and now, in shadows cast by the Ukraine War. I'm sure the Iranian regime is asking itself whether a hot war would help Iran's ruling regime consolidate its authority over its restive young people, and at what cost. These are the kinds of wider possibilities that I *do* believe are worth discussing, mainly because pooling info and perspectives would help (me, at least) think through the reverberations of the current conflict--not because I'd expect the conversation to affect anything. 

Signing off with hope (believe it or not), 

Dan W. 

Late Postscript: Kudos to all who contributed to the smooth re-boot of Nettime. Been here since the late 90s, still ready to add something when pricked just so. 


-- 

Resident Artist, 18th Street Arts Center
@type_rounds_1968
@nowtime_asianamerica
danswang.xyz



------- Original Message -------
On Sunday, October 8th, 2023 at 10:35 AM, Andrew Ross via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:


> At this moment, as on many past occasions, I have been struck by the
> silence, on this list, about the topic of Palestine. I expect there are
> quite a few nettimers who fit the profile of "progressive except on
> Palestine," but there are surely many others who do not observe that
> exception and who are otherwise outspoken on the topic. So why the silence?
> I ask, not to provoke, but because, at the very least, it is a question
> about the behavior of online communities--a topic about which
> nettimers have often been very eloquent.
>
> Andrew Ross
>
> https://andrewtross.com
> --
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
>
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
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# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org