On Molnárfi’s Anti-Zionist Populist Alliance
Criticism by Cillian Ó Riain on “The Populist Moment Against Israel”
Recently there has been a lot of debate around “right-wing anti-zionism”. In Ireland, this debate has centered around László Molnárfi’s articles and comments on the need for cooperation between the Left and the Right in the anti-zionist struggle. In his most recent piece, “The Populist Moment Against Israel”, Molnárfi argues against the idea that Right Anti-Zionism is unable to damage Zionism because it is rooted in “America First” isolationist economic nationalism, and instead argues that dialectically speaking, US capital and the ideologies which grow out of its social movement can indeed produce anti-imperialist moments. Molnárfi writes that Left Anti-Zionism and Right Anti-Zionism can and must cooperate to build a populist movement against zionism.
Most of the content in Molnárfi’s article is focused on justifying the philosophical axioms which he uses to make his argument. I am not particularly interested in whether or not the interplay between base and superstructure can produce anti-zionist sentiment within right-wing ideology, although for the record I do believe it can, and I do generally agree with Molnárfi’s dialectical arguments here. I believe that the question of Left and Right cooperation in a populist anti-zionism is not a particularly important one until we answer the question of what the content of these respective anti-zionisms actually consists of.
If Right Anti-Zionism refers to negative sentiment for US support of Israel, Mondoweiss points out two tendencies within Right Anti-Zionism: The one stemming from “America First” isolationist economic nationalism, and the one stemming from antisemetic conspiracy theories. Let it be clear that there can be absolutely no acceptance of a political movement born of antisemitism, much less cooperation with such a movement. This is not the Right Anti-Zionism we speak of. Right Anti-Zionism of the isolationist tendency is not motivated by antisemitic conspiracy theories as on the extreme-right, nor by any notion of the revolutionary decolonisation of Palestine as with Left Anti-Zionism, but is an ideology stemming from the economic interests of the isolationist sections of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie in the US. The task of this ideology is to end US support for Israel, as a form of economic nationalism. Right Anti-Zionism is therefore a sentiment firmly embedded in bourgeois ideology, and stems from the class position of certain sections of the bourgeoisie in the US who seek to reproduce their capital domestically, and who are economically threatened by the hegemonic political power of the imperialist finance capital which upholds Israel and is reproduced ideologically by Zionism. It is one manifestation of the broader bourgeois isolationist ideology beginning to germinate within the American Right-Wing. Materially, Right Anti-Zionism is by no means anti-Israel in any intention for Palestinian liberation, but rather it is a-Israel. Although ideologically it is something which opposes Israel, it is an ideology which wants nothing to do with Israel for the benefit of US capital, and its central goal is not the destruction of Israel (and thus the liberation of Palestine), but for the US to refocus its subjective interests away from the imperial outpost of Israel and towards the revitalisation of its domestic industrial capital. Therefore, going forward, I will refer to Right Anti-Zionism as Anti-Israel Isolationism, and Left Anti-Zionism simply as Anti-Zionism.
Where Anti-Zionism seeks the destruction of Israel, which is at present an arm of US imperialism, Anti-Israel Isolationism seeks the abandoning of support for Israel, to cleave US capital from zionist expansionism and forever-wars. Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Isolationism do not necessarily exist in antagonism to one another, but rather Anti-Israel Isolationism serves the long-term goal of Anti-Zionism. The two are absolutely distinct ideologies with distinct goals, but as ideologies they do not face each other in contradiction, but rather exist in parallel. More than that, Anti-Israel Isolationism serves Anti-Zionism simply through the nature of their overlapping interests. The two have distinct goals, but do share a definite alignment in interests. However, I do not particularly understand the focus on trying to build any sort of general anti-zionist populist coalition with the Right. What would such a coalition accomplish? This debate has been far too intellectual, and has spent far too much time trying to justify itself, trying to prove the philosophical validity of the theory behind it, trying to explain how it is possible through dialectical motion to achieve a proactive coalition, that it has not stopped to ask itself how the alignment of certain Left and Right Anti-Israel interests, an alignment which indisputably exists as explained above, can serve the cause for the revolutionary liberation of Palestine, and deal a more general blow to US imperialism. This intervention into the debate about Left and Right “Anti-Zionism”, especially from coming from Molnárfi’s Left Anti-Zionist perspective, should not be an intellectualist pursuit rooted in a petty-bourgeois mode of thinking, but should be rooted in class analysis and produce strategies and tactics that serve the proletarian, anti-imperialist, socialist, revolutionary cause. Therefore, the alignment of interests between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Isolationism cannot be an object of intellectual curiosity, studied just because it can be studied. Nor is this alignment a political one into which we should plunge ourselves and build a coalition, because the Left and the Right are fundamentally defined by their antagonistic attitudes on the question of power in society.
This alignment, this “populist moment” as Molnárfi puts it, is one merely of economic interests and matters of policy within bourgeois democracy. This alignment is already beginning to materially express itself with the advent of the Anti-Zionist American Political Action Committee, or AZAPAC, a US political action committee (PAC) which supports both Anti-Zionist and Anti-Israel Isolationist political candidates. The basis of this PAC is not Anti-Zionism as the name would suggest, but rather is that particular ideology which exists in the intersection between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Isolationism. This alignment can be expressed in the statement: “Left Anti-Zionists, who wish to see the destruction of Israel, see strategic value in US capital disengaging from the project of Israel. Isolationist representatives of certain sections of US capital wish to see US capital disengage from the project of Israel.”
Nothing about this statement suggests an alliance of any kind. To build any kind of coalition on the basis of our “shared anti-zionism” is not to strengthen anti-zionism as a political and economic force, but to weaken Anti-Zionism, to dilute it, and to force it to cut its programme down to fit the interests of Anti-Israel Isolationism. This is because the entire strategic and tactical programme of Anti-Israel Isolationism is merely a subsection of the larger programme of Anti-Zionism, and a subsection with a different goal at that. To enter into a formal working coalition with Anti-Israel Isolationism would be to restrict our Anti-Zionist programme to just those tactics which are compatible with Anti-Israel Isolationism, and would amount to a reactionary retreat away from revolutionary proletarian anti-imperialism.
With all of this in mind, what is to be done? Our tasks are the same as ever before. We must continue to educate the masses of workers on the Anti-Zionist line, which can only be done through the integration of the Palestine Solidarity Movement into the movement for a proletarian revolution. As for the Anti-Israel Isolationists, their temporary alignment of interests with ours will produce more favourable conditions for us, but fundamentally their goal is squarely situated in bourgeois class interests. We should never cease our Anti-Zionist agitation work among the masses of workers, even if to do so (in some hypothetical situation) would be to chip away at the base of the Anti-Israel Isolationist bourgeoisie. It is very useful if their actions serve our interests, but we must never change our actions to fit their interests. In short, uneasy peaceful coexistence, on the condition that their work never interferes with ours. And if our work is to interfere with theirs, then so be it. As revolutionaries, we take advantage of any favorable conditions to advance our struggle, but we do not transform the aim or the content of our struggle in order to indefinitely preserve favorable conditions. To do so is to negate the content of our own struggle, and to abandon Anti-Zionism, Anti-Imperialism, and the Proletarian Revolution!