Were the Jews a nation?
In his latest attempt to argue that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism, Philip Mendes (GLW #266) claims that the establishment of the Israel state was an expression of "Jewish national aspirations".
This argument rests upon the core 19th century Zionist claim: that the Jews were a nation. A nation, however, is a historically constituted, stable community of people defined by four features — a distinct and integrated system of capitalist commodity production, distribution and consumption; a definite territory upon which that economy operates; a common language which facilitates commodity production and exchange; and a common culture, which is forged in the process of sustained life within a single capitalist socio-economic formation.
The Zionist thesis that the Jews were a nation had no basis in reality. They obviously did not have a common economic life since they resided in a score of different countries and participated in the economic life of those separate countries. The Jews had no common territory and no common language. Hebrew, like Latin, had become a dead language tied exclusively to religious rites. Yiddish (a Germanic language) was the common language only of European (principally Eastern European) Jews.
The Zionist program itself confirmed the fact that Jews did not constitute a nation, since its basic thrust was an attempt — by means of the colonisation and "ethnic cleansing" of Palestine — to bring into being these very missing components of a nation.
Summer Hill NSW
Celebrating International Womens Day
Once again it's IWD and it's time to get out there and make our voices heard. Although I am thousands of miles away in London my thoughts are with you marching on March 8. The womens movement all around the world has taken a battering from capitalist governments and their big business friends — the people who benefit from womens oppression.
In Britain the womens movement used to be strong and militant, but sadly has declined. Instead of marches on IWD there are womens tennis sessions and aromatherapy sessions, totally non-political events. How are we supposed to win equality when we are off having face massages rather then taking to the streets and demanding our rights?
The womens movement needs to be rebuilt. We are constantly bombarded by backlash articles in the media, telling us we live in a post-feminist era. How can this be the case when one in four women are still being raped, women still earn only two thirds of the mens wage and still dont have the right to control their own fertility?
IWD was born out of a political movement to obtain better working conditions for women. It was built by women who stood up for their rights and refused to be silenced. We must carry on this tradition to protect those gains won by the first two waves of feminism and win more. We must not let the women of the future down, who depend upon the rights we win today. We must stand with our brothers united against sexism and capitalism. It is only by doing this will really achieve true equality for everyone.
London
Sectarianism
A recent meeting of the Queensland Education Action Group discussed having a high school speaker on the platform of a rally against the Howard government's attacks on education. This was opposed by the International Socialist Organisation because the speaker was a Resistance member. They reasoned that it was not appropriate to have speakers from political organisations "advertising" Green Left Weekly or Resistance. (Though this did not extend to speakers from the ALP, who never fail to promote that party).
We need a broad and vibrant campaign if we are going to defeat Howard's attacks. Anyone who genuinely supports this would not oppose a speaker who is actively involved in building the campaign. This discussion displayed nothing other than the sectarianism of the ISO and wasted valuable time which could have been much better spent discussing how to build the campaign.
Brisbane
Lucas Heights
A few comments on the recent plan to build a nuclear reprocessing plant in Australia and related matters: The reprocessing plan is a weapons proliferation problem — even developing the capacity to separate plutonium may encourage other countries in the region to take a step closer to nuclear weapons production. It is worth remembering that Israel and India both developed and tested weapons using "civil" research reactors plus reprocessing facilities.
In addition, the reprocessing plan is economically dubious, and it does nothing to solve the waste problem — we need a long-term repository for high-level waste in Australia regardless of whether spent fuel is reprocessed, regardless of whether we ship it overseas for reprocessing (in which case the waste will be shipped back), and regardless of whether a new research reactor is built at Lucas Heights.
As for the Lucas Heights reactor and a possible replacement, it is unlikely that the government will give approval and funding for a new reactor until something is done about the 1600 spent fuel rods at Lucas Heights. The reprocessing plan may be a case of the tail wagging the dog; it may be part of a bigger plan which includes forcing another reactor on the 200,000 residents of Lucas Heights.
On another nuclear matter, strictly speaking it is true that the most commonly used medical isotopes — technetium-99m, gallium-67 and thallium-201 — can be produced with cyclotrons as suggested in last week's editorial (GLW #266). However for technetium-99m, which is used in 80-90% of all nuclear medicine procedures, cyclotron production is still in the experimental stages. Still, there is no need for a replacement reactor when HIFAR is shut down.
The best strategy for future supply of medical isotopes would be a mixture of greater reliance on imported isotopes combined with further development of cyclotrons in Australia and greater use of diagnostic imaging modalities which do not require isotopes (x-radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, computerised tomography etc.). In the longer term, cyclotrons may be able to produce technetium-99m on a commercial scale; ANSTO ought to give priority to this research.
Wollongong NSW
Special Branch
As one who spoke to the NSW state parliament on four occasions between 1981 and 1985 calling for disbandment of the Police Special Branch, I find it a bit galling that it required a new broom Police Commissioner to do what the elected parliamentarians of the major parties refused to do.
In March, 1978, the bi-partisan NSW Privacy Committee produced a report that the Special Branch records were almost totally restricted to left-wing political activists engaged in legitimate community actions.
In the Parliamentary Labor Caucus on May 2, 1978, I moved, and Maurie Keane MP seconded, a resolution that Special Branch be disbanded. After some debate the discussion was adjourned. On May 6, 1978, the Sydney Morning Herald carried a full report of the debate. I discovered years later that the story had been leaked to Special Branch by a right-wing Labor MP with close police ties.
At the next caucus meeting on June 7, 1978, Neville Wran, the premier, successfully argued against my resolution, speaking at length on how desirable it was to retain the Special Branch to combat terrorism.
The Special Branch never managed to catch a single terrorist. The only two cases involving Special Branch which came to court were the frame-ups of the Ananda Marga trio in 1979 and of the six Croatian nationalists in 1980.
In 1985, the reliability of Special Branch records was well demonstrated in the inquiry before Justice James Wood into the convictions of the Ananda Marga trio, when the Branch Officer-in-charge could not find three diaries and a notebook from 1976-79, all of them accountable documents required to be locked away for safe keeping.
Evidence given at that inquiry demonstrated that the Special Branch members are firm believers in the existence of conspiracies which they are determined to prove, even when all the evidence points to the contrary. They are a menace to democracy and the abolition was long overdue.
Shellharbour NSW
Where do we go from here?
It appears that the federal government has the right to overturn a law approved by voters of a state — I refer to the Northern Territory's passing of a bill allowing euthanasia, now threatened by the Howard government. Is this constitutionally correct? What is the sense of having state governments if the federal government can destroy what inhabitants of the state have voted for? (Apart from the fact that Australia, with a relatively small population, doesn't need two houses in each state, as well as in federal parliament — too expensive.)
Now if the federal government really has the power described above, it could surely overturn Tasmania's brutal state law against homosexuality. Can anything be done along these lines?
St Kilda Vic
Eastern Distributor
The NSW Road and Traffic Authority is in charge of getting big expensive road works like the Eastern Distributor and the M5 East built in order to reduce congestion. This doesn't work because of the "induced traffic" phenomenon. A UK government standing committee found that the extra capacity provided by large new motorways tends to actually attract congestion.
But even other NSW government authorities are more cautious than the RTA. The Environmental Protection Authority's submission to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) written by the RTA for the distributor noted: "The EIS's detail on regional air quality is not adequate. The lack of regional traffic modelling and the failure to recognise traffic effects leaves this matter unresolved."
The NSW Health Department has also made a submission to the EIS but this one probably won't be available to the public until after the distributor goes ahead. This is a shame.
The RTA has been promoting large expressways for decades. I have little confidence that it has significantly change its views in all that time on the associated social, noise, congestion and air quality impacts.
We are at the threshold of a major paradigm shift in transport planning in NSW and the RTA is on the wrong side. I suggest that all existing government reports on the distributor should be available to the public before a decision is made. After all, the RTA has already publicly exhibited its justifications for the project as part of the EIS process. Why can't the public also see another government authority's views?
Randwick Greens Councillor
Randwick NSW
[Abridged.]