In this episode we chat with Alex McKinnon (https://everythingisfine.beehiiv.com/c/about), a freelance journalist who has been covering the restriction and censorship of pro-Palestine speech in the Australian media.
While I enjoyed listening to this, there’s a failure to understand why there is so much support for Zionism in Australia. It’s not a failure to stand up to a “few Zionist cranks.” Missing from this picture is what Israel’s “success” represents for settler colonies challenged by Indigenous resistance. White australia is making a last ditch to save itself via the punishment of Palestine. (This is not exclusive to Australia).
I think that this is partially true, but I don't buy the idea that Australia sees Israel's success as inextricable from its own. Zionism is not only popular in the colonial or formerly colonial world. I'm not really sure, for instance, that people like Richard Marles are thinking of their own relationship to indigenous people when they pass pro-Israeli policy. I also don't think Zionism is very popular among Australian people. While we might appeal to some unconscious colonial ideology operating through these people, I think it has very limited explanatory value.
So is the theory that the whole australian state and elite (and the rest of the western world) is so beholden to Israel and Zionists that it would tread all over the beliefs of its own citizens? This reading leaves out the role Israel plays both economically and militarily, but also ideologically. Rulers in a white settler colony such as Australia don’t have to be consciously thinking about Indigenous resistance without it, and the illegitimacy of white power that it reminds us of constantly, playing a significant role in the alignments that are chosen. Israel now represents the ‘saving’ of ‘western civilisation’ against the hordes. Good reading on this is Misreading Palestine by Max Ajl. https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/misreading-palestine
While I enjoyed listening to this, there’s a failure to understand why there is so much support for Zionism in Australia. It’s not a failure to stand up to a “few Zionist cranks.” Missing from this picture is what Israel’s “success” represents for settler colonies challenged by Indigenous resistance. White australia is making a last ditch to save itself via the punishment of Palestine. (This is not exclusive to Australia).
I think that this is partially true, but I don't buy the idea that Australia sees Israel's success as inextricable from its own. Zionism is not only popular in the colonial or formerly colonial world. I'm not really sure, for instance, that people like Richard Marles are thinking of their own relationship to indigenous people when they pass pro-Israeli policy. I also don't think Zionism is very popular among Australian people. While we might appeal to some unconscious colonial ideology operating through these people, I think it has very limited explanatory value.
- Tim
So is the theory that the whole australian state and elite (and the rest of the western world) is so beholden to Israel and Zionists that it would tread all over the beliefs of its own citizens? This reading leaves out the role Israel plays both economically and militarily, but also ideologically. Rulers in a white settler colony such as Australia don’t have to be consciously thinking about Indigenous resistance without it, and the illegitimacy of white power that it reminds us of constantly, playing a significant role in the alignments that are chosen. Israel now represents the ‘saving’ of ‘western civilisation’ against the hordes. Good reading on this is Misreading Palestine by Max Ajl. https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/misreading-palestine