Hi comrades
This posting consists just of suggested reading, though I realise that most of us now have lots of good places to go for information on Palestine and Gaza.
Bashir Abu-Manneh, brilliant Palestinian scholar at the University of Kent, and a contributing editor at Jacobin, explains a great deal in this superb interview/article:
We Must Mobilize Against the Carnage Being Inflicted on the Palestinian People
Daniel Finn, features editor at Jacobin, has published several excellent articles:
The Verso site has several excellent articles on its blog:
Gideon Levy, distinguished Israeli columnist at Ha'aretz:
Shadi Chalesh
For the last time: Rejecting the conversation ‘between the sword and the neck’
Richard Seymour
Alberto Toscano
this is ephemeral, but it's an interview that is pretty effective and cuts through a lot.
ReplyDeletewith the media dices loaded in favor of israel, maybe we need more of this.
would have linked to the whole original interview, but didn't want to give the clicks.
so instead it's a commentary video on the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyh77ou7P7M
they're great sources you are sharing conor, but in a talking point culture, the left has to get its shit together with punchy, rote-repeated, hyper-consise talking points, with everyone rehearsed and on the same page.
ReplyDelete1. roughly 25 to 1. death rates going back years of palestinians vis-a-vis israelis. pummel pummel pummel, every single time (i don't know the exact number, this is ballpark, could be as low as 15 to 1, still works)
2. israel doesn't target civilians: oh yes it does, examples 1, 2 and 3. plus, if u kill 30 to kill 1 hamas, palestinians are cockroaches to you.
3. hamas uses human shields: they're the fuckin government. how can you run hospitals schools utilities etc without being on the ground? and what about military installations in tel aviv? are those civilians legitimate collateral?
punchy punchy punchy, repeat repeat repeat.
it's about denying apologists cover, and getting the low hanging fruit, low info folks or non-ideologically committed, exactly the folks who are swayed by repetition and talking points.
i am not a genius and i am sure a lot of people have great techniques, but what i don't see is balls to the wall repetition and punchiness.
will the left ever get its act together?
Hallo Dara! In my previous post, 'Eyeless in Gaza', I tried to address some talking points. I do take your point. On the IDF 'not targeting civilians' or 'valuing human life', check out the work of Eyal Weizman, who has traced the dangerous and cynical use of legal expertise and language, by the IDF and other armed forces, to explain away their hits on civilians.
ReplyDeleteWeizman looks v interesting, I'm halfway through a vid and want to watch a lot more. My point is boil his argument down to 3 idiot level talking points of 15 words or less, bombard lefties with them, and send them out to repeat them again, and again, and again.
ReplyDeleteAs an academic I know you don't want to hear it, but this is by far the best bang for the buck, far more than another paper or conference or what have you.
Hallo Dara - we're doing our best here with public enagement! Teach ins have taken place in TCD. There is one in Maynooth next week. DCU plans events too. I'm doing an interview with Al Jazeera on Monday. Demos galore - some friends today occupied the EU Commission offices on Mount St, to protest at the Commission president and the Hungarian commissioner making 'foreign policy' on the wing and without agreement or mandate. So, there is stuff going on and the academics are part of it all.
ReplyDeleteYou're a better (wo)man than me! It's all to the good. But the battle is won or lost in the media, particularly on tv, which thinks in seconds, not even minutes. and there, it's about rehearsing talking points, and pummelling. The pro-israeli lines about we don't target civilians and palestinians use human shields works on normies because the lines are simple and they are pummelled. that's the whole ballgame. the facts are a disadvantage because they involve details. tv hates details. it's a prob of more creative people. we could easily develop idiot proof talking points and pummel, but it's beneath us.
ReplyDelete