British writer attacked in Beiruit after defacing Syrian nationalist poster

by Centreleft Tue Mar 31, 2009 13:44

Interesting to compare Hitchen's behviour to that of his sometime nemesis, George Galloway. Wheras Hitchens gets into fights with the SSNP on their home turf, Galloway spoke at an SSNP commenorative function in Canada in 2004 (i think it was 2004, anyhow).

by Radicalleft Tue Mar 31, 2009 14:17

Interesting to compare the behaviour of Hitchens with his sometime nemesis Galloway - whereas Hitchens aggressively supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq and vilified anyone who drew attention to the torture chambers and random shootings of the US army, Galloway used his position in the UK parliament to denounce an illegal war that has led to over one million violent deaths since 2003. No particular fan of Gorgeous George but I'll take him over Hitch the Snith any day.

by Centreleft Tue Mar 31, 2009 16:53

Nah, Hitchens was wrong about the Iraq war being a good idea, no question, but at least he opposes fascists rather than, like Galloway, using his position in the UK parliament to talk about how the Iraqi 'resistance' was writing its name in the stars with 145 heroic operations per day (aimed mostly at the Iraqi people) or some such guff. That and praising Saddam Hussein, Hezbollah and Hamas, all supposedly in the name of anti imperialism, as if these movements weren't themselves aggressively seeking to impose their will on various populations of the middle East.

by Radicalleft Tue Mar 31, 2009 17:33

As I say I've no particular fondness for Galloway, and his appearance in Baghdad was a permanent blot on his record. But as far as I'm concerned he deserves nothing but credit for defending the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israeli aggression, even if that resistance is led by Islamists. What aggression are Hamas and Hezbullah guilty of? Hamas have said they're willing to sign a long-term truce with Israel if it withdraws to its 1967 borders. Hezbullah fought against Israel until it withdrew from southern Lebanon - if it hadn't, the "international community" certainly wouldn't have done anything to end the illegal Israeli occupation. They also stopped the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 - I only wish Hamas had the same military capacity to punish the Israeli army for its recent assault on the people of Gaza. As far as Iraq is concerned, I don't recall Galloway ever supporting attacks on civilians - his main error was probably to talk about the "Iraqi resistance" as if the anti-occupation forces were homogenous, which they never were - but the majority of attacks by anti-occupation groups were always directed against military targets - the jihadi suicide bombers were always a minority among those who resisted the occupation with arms. If there hadn't been armed resistance to the US occupation, they probably would have moved on to launch a similar attack on Iran by now - again, the "international community" would have been found wanting in response.

Hitchens on the other hand is a boorish, intolerant, and mendacious yob, who abuses anyone who opposed the Iraq war as a "fellow traveller of fascism" and whitewashes the war crimes committed by the occupiers. He also rushed to defend his racist chum Martin Amis with one of the most dishonest articles I've ever read. I'm not too impressed with his brief episode of neo-con tourism in Beirut - I'd be more impressed if he'd joined the Marines going into Sadr City or Falluja on search-and-destroy missions to back up some of his silly macho rhetoric. The difference between Hitch and his nominal hero Orwell is very simple - Orwell went to Spain and got himself shot in the throat fighting Franco, Hitchens has stayed behind his typewriter.

by Centreleft Wed Apr 01, 2009 16:11

I don't think it's fair to rubbish Hitchens just because he's not as good as George Orwell. Also, you speak of him staying behind his typewriter in the comments section of an article that details him getting in a brawl with pro syrian fascists after attending a pro democracy rally. This is the 'neocon vacation' you refer to. If you're serious about a man who i assume is about 60 joining the US military because he supports it then why not also demand that Galloway straps on an explosive vest a la Hamas?
I should make clear at this point that i'm pro palestinian but i think that Hamas are scum. They are openly antisemitic, indoctrinate children and crush internal opposition (helped by Israel's ban on journalists during Cast Lead). I certainly don't wish for a movement like that to gain more of a military capability, as disgusting as Israel's treatment of palestinians is. That said, the EU response to their election was counter productive and amounts to the collective punishment of a population. Incidentally, Hitchens is, to the best of my knowledge, broadly pro palestinian and critical of Israel also.

I mentioned the Galloway thing to contrast his behaviour with Hitchens. How can someone, in the name of opposing the Israeli occupation, speak at an event, as guest of honour, that commemorates the founding of a fascist party that seeks to occupy a huge swathe of the middle east?

by Radicalleft Wed Apr 01, 2009 17:31

I'm not at all sure that speaking at a meeting of the SSNP is any worse than what Hitchens was doing in Lebanon - speaking at a meeting of Walid Jumblatt's ill-named "Progressive Socialist Party" - there's nothing you could accuse the SSNP of that couldn't equally be said about Hitchens' host. The only reports I've heard about Galloway speaking at that meeting in Canada come from blogs aligned with the "pro-war left" (Hitchens' fan club), I haven't seen what he has to say about it himself, what his thinking was etc.

Anyway as I said I'm not a partisan of Gorgeous George, he's certainly done other things that deserve criticism, but as far as I'm concerned supporting armed resistance to Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Palestine is not one of them. If Hamas and the other Palestinian groups had had a stronger military capacity (anti-tank missiles, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles etc) they would have been able to inflict heavy casualties on the Israeli army when they marched into Gaza - it would have been a lot harder for the IDF to spend 3 weeks systematically massacring civilians, blowing up schools and hospitals and dropping bombs and rockets on UN buildings. The fact that Hezbullah WAS armed with those kind of weapons helped them to hold back the Israeli attack on southern Lebanon in 2006, inflicting heavy casualties on the IDF and forcing them to withdraw with their tail between their legs. I'm afraid these are the only things that can contain Israeli aggression right now - the support it gets from the US and the EU is so blatant the Israeli elite thinks they can slaughter hundreds of civilians at a time with impunity - the only thing that's going to hold them back is the fear of big military casualties. That's why I hope that the Palestinian national resistance (of which Hamas is one of the major components) increases its capacity to hit the IDF hard - otherwise the next massacre of Palestinian civilians will be even bigger.

I don't like the anti-semitic crap in the Hamas charter, I don't like their use of violence against rival Palestinian groups (although no more than Fatah, I should add), but that doesn't change the fact that when Hamas are the only ones in a position to defend Palestinians against Israeli aggression, I will support their right to resist the occupation. It's kind of important that we remember who is the occupying power in this situation - I quickly lose patience with people who condemn Israel and Hamas in an "even-handed" manner without pointing out the massive imbalance of power between the two groups - Hamas may be guilty of all kinds of things, but they are not occupying another people's land and imposing a project of settlement and colonisation by force.

To go back to Hitchens - he still claims to be supportive of the Palestinians, but I find it hard to take it seriously when you combine it with his rabid neo-con views in other areas. There is a very close link between the most aggressive, reactionary and racist elements in the Israeli political elite and the right-wing Republicans who organised the invasion of Iraq. You just can't reconcile support for the Palestinians with support for the Bush-Cheney crew without tying yourself up into ridiculous contortions (for example I saw Hitchens in an interview claim that Paul Wolfowitz stays up late at night agonising about the fate of the Palestinians - one of the most ludicrous statements of the last decade surely). This is an example of the sort of nonsense he comes out with these days:

"One would have to have a capacity for fantasy of something like that order to believe in the Ronan Bennett universe of modern persecution where "those who point to the illegality of Israeli occupation are anti-semites. Those who protest against the war in Iraq are al-Qaida sympathisers and moral relativists." In which known world is that happening?"

In this world, Christopher, right in front of your eyes - in fact, Hitchens is one of those most eager to denounce anyone who opposed the Iraq invasion as "al-Qaida sympathisers". I won't let Hitchens off the hook for supporting the attack on Iraq because he was so dishonest, boorish and aggressive in his attacks on anyone who opposed the war, and he still continues to whitewash the crimes of the occupation forces. And the only reason I made the comparison with Orwell is that Hitchens spends so much time comparing himself implicitly with Orwell, who also finds himself being posthumously molested by other "pro-war leftists" like Nick Cohen and Francis Wheen. Quite apart from the fact that Orwell actually put his own hide on the line for his beliefs, there's another striking contrast between him and his would-be heirs: he always opposed western imperialism, he never allowed his opposition to Soviet-style Communism to drive him into the western camp, and he refused to share a platform with Tory anti-communists who wouldn't speak out against British colonial occupations in Africa and Asia. If Hitchens had actually learned a few things from Orwell he might still be a credible political figure not a desperate eejit.

by Centreleft Wed Apr 01, 2009 21:17

This conversation started with an attack on Hitchens and support for Galloway. It's not good enough to keep repeating that you don't wish to defend Galloway from then on, surely? I just wanted to compare Hitchens, who was wrong for the right reasons about much and is consistently anti-totalitarian, anti-racist and anti-theocratic with Galloway, who laments the collapse of the soviet union and who i have never heard condemn a third world fascist movement as one should if you base your politics on a genuine opposition to repression, rather than fickle opposition to the Western policies of the day.

We're going a little off topic but i don't agree with supporting deeply reactionary movements and i don't believe it serves progressive politics very well, indeed it might in fact help Israel if its critics are seen to be supportive of Hamas, as you are. That would be disastrous. The best bet is to try to pressure the EU and US to change their policies because, like you say, these policies are what gives Israel a free hand to treat the Palestinians so shamefully.

Hitchens has never, to my knowledge, equated criticism of Israel with anti semitism, as he criticises it himself. You don't serve your argument well by claiming that Hitchens falsely calls his opponents Islamist sympathisers and the going on to voice support for Hamas.

That's really all i have to say. Have we found any common ground?

by Radicalleft Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:32

I don't think we have found much common ground. I think you're completely in denial about Hitchens if you call him "anti-racist" - he has spent the last few years supporting aggressive colonial wars and whitewashing the war crimes committed by the US-UK occupation forces. He certainly does accuse opponents of the Iraq war of being Islamist and/or Baathist sympathisers, you could fill a book with all the shrieking abuse he has directed at anyone who dared to suggest that the invasion would be a disaster for the Iraqi people, "fellow travellers of fascism" and other choice insults riddle his articles. He defends the explicit racism of his friend Martin Amis in the article I linked to above, he is happy to share platforms with raving far-right headcases like David Horowitz.

As far as I'm concerned Hitchens is a completely unprincipled, shabby, dishonest charlatan - if you follow for a while his articles you'll find him contradicting himself every few months, just saying whatever he finds convenient at the time. For example in the article I linked to above, he claimed to have challenged the anti-Muslim racism of Mark Steyn, the ultra-right columnist whose views were so wacky the Irish Times had to get rid of his articles - in fact Hitchens wrote a review of Steyn's book at the time praising his "courage" in writing a book which suggests that Muslim immigration into Europe is going to lead to a continent-wide holy war. It's worth reading in its entirety (linked to below) to see how utterly debased Hitchens has become since 9/11, at one point he quotes his God-bashing mate Sam Harris as saying that in Europe, only the fascists (BNP, FN etc) have the right position on Islam, and adds "Not while I'm alive, they won't" - so Nick Griffin, Jean Marie Le Pen, Umberto Bossi etc. are sound on Muslim-bashing, it's just some of their other policies that aren't so nice, according to Hitchens. I certainly don't recognise him as an "anti-racist" when he praises sordid racist yobs like Amis, Steyn and Horowitz.

I said I wouldn't defend everything that Galloway has done and said, not that I wouldn't defend anything he has done and said. In fact I think the harshest thing that could possibly be said about Galloway is that he's no better than Hitchens - I think that would be too harsh on Galloway, but trying to present Hitchens as a principled anti-oppression, anti-racist and anti-theocratic figure is just for the birds in my opinion.

I don't agree for a moment that we would be "playing into Israel's hands" by opposing the demonisation of Hamas - in fact it's the demonisation of Hamas which plays into Israel's hands, its rulers claim that Hamas are a bunch of primitive genocidal fanatics who cannot be negotiated with, when in fact Hamas has shown itself to be far more pragmatic and moderate than the entire Israeli political elite, Hamas leaders have stated repeatedly that they will sign a long-term truce with Israel on the basis of a full Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 border, that is far more than anyone in the Israeli political class from Labour to Likud has ever been willing to offer as the basis for a peace settlement. The position of the EU and the US towards Hamas isn't just "counter-productive", as you put it, it's criminal - they have never refused to deal with any Israeli government, no matter how extreme, they dealt with Netanyahu the first time he was in office, they dealt with the war criminal Ariel Sharon, they are now happy to deal with Netanyahu again and his fascist ally Avigdor Lieberman, there is no question of Israel being blockaded and boycotted until its leaders agree to renounce violence, recognise the Palestinian state (which would mean a full withdrawal to their 1967 borders) and respect previous agreements signed with the PLO. But the EU and the US have imposed those conditions on the Palestinian national movement, they deliberately sabotaged the formation of a Palestinian unity government by demanding that it sign up to the notorious 3 conditions, which really amount to a demand that the Palestinians must surrender absolutely to Israel and give up all their negotiating cards in advance of talks, then throw themselves on the mercy of the West and hope that Washington and Brussels will put pressure on Israel to make concessions. That's exactly what Fatah did between 1988 and 2000 and in return they were treated like fools.

The only thing that's going to make a difference will be if the Israeli state faces strong Palestinian resistance to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, expecting western governments to intervene and sort things out is hopeless. The Palestinian leadership relied on the West to help them before and got nowhere, the Lebanese resistance led by Hezbullah just kept on fighting and eventually forced the Israelis to withdraw without getting any peace treaty in return, and they were able to drive back the IDF again in 2006. I don't make any apology for saying that I wish the Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas, were armed with anti-tank missiles and heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles so that they could destroy dozens of Israeli tanks and planes the next time they tried to carry out a massacre in the occupied territories. I don't expect the Palestinians to turn the other cheek and wait for the outside world to save them, it did nothing to stop the slaughter in Gaza in January and probably won't do anything to stop the next massacre either. You talk about Hamas "indoctrinating children" - I think it's the Israeli army which indoctrinates children to hate Israel when it marches into Gaza and slaughters women and children, then prints up T-shirts to celebrate the massacre. Hamas could be teaching children to turn the other cheek and love their neighbour and solve every problem with hugs and kisses and those children would still grow up hating Israel.