Review: If I'm not for myself

Rabbinical wisdom says that we should "Love work, loathe mastery over others, and avoid intimacy with the government." You'd be hard pressed to find these sentiments expressed by some of those who have taken it on themselves to fuse Jewish identity with the Israeli state.

Mike Marqusee's excellent new book If I Am Not For Myself takes on this relationship between Jewish identity and the state of Israel in the form of an intimate family memoir. He looks back at the activities and lives of his father and grandfather as American socialists who also supported the foundation of Israel and the subsequent terror against the Palestinians.

Where Marqusee is so strong is that instead of demonising or caricaturing Zionism he takes pains to crawl inside it and explore the psychology that led those who had stood against oppression whenever they found it to support ethnic cleansing and violence when it came to the foundation of the "Jewish State".

He takes their ideas seriously enough to explore them with sympathy - even when this becomes difficult or frustrating. Whilst he movingly recognises their human failings and is clearly not always approving of what he found in his journey there is no taint of moralism or pretence that people are easy to label and define, rather than complex and often nuanced mixtures. In fact, so well written and engaging is this book that I caught myself occasionally thinking "Why do I ever read books by people who are not Mike Marqusee?"

Whilst the majority of the book finds Marqusee sifting through a battered leather case full of memories and evidence of the past there is a noticeable gear shift towards the end of the book where he moves from his relationship with his family's history towards his relationship to the political movements (both right and left) of today. This section is a departure in tone from the rest of the book but it is no less readable and does not descend into dogmatism.

Whilst Israel's anti-semitic opponents share with the Zionists an obsession with creating an identity between Jewishness and Israel what this does is deny the fact that many Jews absolutely and completely reject the behaviour of the Israeli state, and some even reject its right to exist. That whilst they claim to act in the name of a shared Jewish interest they have no right to that claim, and that Jews need to speak for themselves lest the Zionists end up speaking for them.

For those of the left part of the task of undermining anti-Semitism is to show that actually Zionism is a political movement that has served an agenda very far from representing Jews (even if this were possible). Jews themselves are, just like everyone else, divided on political questions. To deny this is to render the Jewish population into some homogeneous mass - and you can see that this serves the purpose of the racists and the apologists for Israel's actions alike but does no service to those Jews who have been denied their own identity and voice in the process. As Jews Sans Frontier writes the ideology of anti-semites and Zionists can be two sides of the same coin rather than the polar opposites that we might at first assume.

Organisations like the Jewish Socialist Group work hard to defend the Palestinian people against the oppression and violence that they face from the IDF and Israeli State more generally. But they do not do this to, in some way, deny their Jewishness but because they are horrified that murders and atrocities are being committed in their name.

I've always had the suspicion that those who describe others as self loathing Jews for their rejection of Israel are, in fact, projecting and it is they who loath the Jewishness of actually existing Jews who are as diverse, annoying, interesting and human as anyone else. When this old self hatred canard is wheeled out it speaks volumes for the political weakness of the case that Israel deserves support in whatever it chose, chooses and will chose to do.

What Marqusee has to say about the accusation of self loathing, which was even levelled at him by his own father, was more interesting. "But do let me say a brief word for self-loathing. Anyone who entirely lacks this trait is not to be trusted." And this attitude is a valuable thread that runs throughout the entirety of the book, a self aware and self critical attitude that ends up strengthening and hardening his politics rather than undermining it.

As the review in the Independent quotes approvingly "I cannot subcontract my ethics, my relationship with the human race, to a state or a religion – or indeed a political party. For me, being an anti-Zionist is inextricable from being a democrat, a socialist, a humanist and a rationalist."

I think there is a lot to be learned from from this approach. For instance the Green Party recently passed a motion supporting the boycott of Israeli goods as part of the campaign to put pressure on Israel over its collective punishment against its neighbours and its refusal to acknowledge the damage its policies have caused to the ordinary citizens of the region. I supported the motion - although I thought it could have been more thoughtfully phrased.

As you might expect it was a contentious issue and there are those in the Party who were very unhappy about this motion. These Greens have even set up Greens Against the Boycott which has among its supporters some very reasonable people, who I'm in complete agreement with on other issues.

It seems to me that the way to approach these people is to have a dialogue and attempt some understanding, as Marqusee does, rather than denunciations and personalised attacks. I'm certain there will be some common ground and the worst thing that we can do is entrench our positions against each other, despite the fact that there is bound to be other areas where we will have to agree to part company.

Whilst personally I can't be bothered to engage with some of the more rock headed of Israel's supporters if we don't leave the door open to discussion then we accept that there are some good people who, despite themselves, give credence and legitimacy to a dangerous and racist rogue state.

Getting inside the reasons for that is the first step towards a more mature and interesting discussion - and it's my view that whether you find yourself in 100% support of the Palestinian cause or the Israeli this book will help you understand with sympathy those who stand on the other side of the wall.

See also Tami's report of the book launch.
Suggest a topic for the Daily (Maybe) here.