{"id":125,"date":"2024-09-29T07:45:37","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T07:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/compercenter.haifa.ac.il\/?page_id=125"},"modified":"2024-09-29T07:46:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T07:46:25","slug":"strategies-of-avoidance","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/compercenter.haifa.ac.il\/?page_id=125","title":{"rendered":"Strategies of Avoidance"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Strategies of Avoidance: Oct 7 as a Non-Event on the Western Left <\/strong>\/Balazs Berkovits<\/p>\n

I propose to study several significant statements on the war in Gaza and the role of Israel following the October 7 pogrom. Those will be statements by professional academic bodies: university departments, professional associations, student unions; open letters and articles by reputed university professors and public intellectuals. These statements either don\u2019t mention at all what happened on October 7, or mention it in half a sentence without ever analyzing its significance, even though nothing was hidden, nothing had to be unearthed: no mass murder was better documented in human history.<\/p>\n

In contrast, they invariably intend to draw attention to Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocidal intention and practice\u201d, \u201cseventy-five years of occupation and apartheid\u201d, \u201cIsraeli settler colonialism\u201d as \u201croot causes\u201d of the conflict. Likewise, campus antisemitism in the wake of pro-Palestinian and Pro-Hamas demonstrations is downplayed, just like before October 7. In fact, previous and present antisemitism-denial and the denial of the October 7 pogrom \/ genocidal episode seem to have the same foundations. Also, there is probably no clearer case of genocide relativization, denial, and inversion, surpassing by far classic Holocaust denial and inversion in its significance.<\/p>\n

It is well documented that today\u2019s antizionism is greatly indebted to Soviet versions propagandized mostly in the 70s and 80s. It also has other important sources as well, chiefly contemporary vulgar social critique cultivated by some new \u201cactivist\u201d disciplines masquerading as critical social science in Western universities. A significant ideological structure has been erected, a main component of which is an immutable and essentialized vocabulary labelling Israel and Zionism as \u201cracist\u201d, \u201ccolonial\u201d, and \u201cgenocidal\u201d. It is a fixed conceptual edifice, which doesn\u2019t permit any leeway or epistemological heresy; worse, it chases away or ignores any development in empirical reality that could threaten its \u201cinterpretive\u201d power. This ideology can be characterized by its extreme rigidity; it is totally conceptually-driven where conceptual binaries (colonizer\/indigenous, oppressor\/oppressed, white\/non-white, etc.) overdetermine anything else.<\/p>\n

I believe that this type of ideology in its form: its essentialism, immutability, redemptory horizon and resistance to all empirical evidence, but also in its fundamentalist \u201cmoral\u201d stance is largely akin to variants of communist ideology, while it is expressed in its fullest form in \u201cPalestinism\u201d or \u201cantizionism\u201d. However, communist ideologies had their moments of disillusionment linked to certain highly significant events: the death of Stalin, the Hungarian \u201956, the Czechoslovak \u201968, or the fall of the iron curtain in 1989-1990, etc.\u00a0 In contrast, Oct. 7 did not obtain the role of \u201cevent\u201d that could elicit any transformation in this belief system, or motivate ideologues to \u201cconvert\u201d. Relying on the texts mentioned, I will try to analyze strategies of avoidance of the event and give an explanation for the absence of any significant ideological change.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Elizabeth and Tony Comper Interdisciplinary Center<\/a><\/h1>
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The Elizabeth and Tony Comper Interdisciplinary Center<\/a><\/h1><\/div>\n\n