Devil's In the Details

Andrew R. Taylor

writing from Winnipeg, 1 January 2009

To a Skeptic:
Why Sanctions VS Israel Can Work

I am afraid I see that the ideology of religious/ethnic identity defines whose life and death matters. I have never seen this identity define human beings so markedly. As for "ideology" defining positions toward the Siege of Gaza, it is a very labile ideology that unites everyone from Bishop Tutu to Jimmy Carter to the UN General Assembly to me, nu ?

You as an individual may dismiss the right of the Palestinians to resist as ludicrous. I was in the ANC for a few years before Liberation Day and there were many saying the same thing about the outnumbered, outgunned Black South Africans and their resistance in the Townships. But what the naysayers didn't understand then was that the armed struggle was just one front of a many sided struggle that included the peaceful struggle in South Africa and the International Solidarity struggle demanding a boycott of South African products. Perhaps you know that the pinch of Sanctions (despite the US and Israel) helped bring South Africa to capitulation, and power sharing. The ANC won the first fair full Elections with its 2 partners COSATU and the SACP.

So now transpose these multi-layered fronts to the Palestinian struggle. Around the world a Sanctions on Israel Campaign is growing in strength. In the Streets of the world's cities, the
people are now marching against Israeli Apartheid. As South Africa was a long arduous struggle on a number of fronts, so is the struggle for a Palestinian State, free of the Israeli Occupation. One thing you need not despair of, is the revolutionary patience and persistence of the world's "prisoners of starvation" and their allies in every land. Something in us wants freedom, but we seek it under a strategy.

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COMMENTS:

Matt Loewen commented in Facebook: It pains me- I think much of the world was relying heavily on Obama to make the change that he couldn't talk about enough during his election campaign. Have you heard about anything with regards to an American push to steer him into the right direction?

Andrew Taylor responded in Facebook: I am encouraged that some US Jewish policy think-tanks and groups see in the last week that it is detrimental to Israel and Palestine to use military measures to solve what must be a political series of new negotiations with the Palestinian groups including Hamas. Their words and stance may help/pressure Obama to take a more pragmatic Peace Plan. Everything is not lost yet, but the US left need to pick up the tempo on pro-peace pressure.

Richard Williams commented in Facebook: This is a convincing way of depicting the struggles of SA and Palestine. There is a poetic quality to this particular note.

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For other essays by Andrew see HERE.

Andrew R Taylor is married with 2 teenagers. His postgraduate research areas were Christian Socialism in the late 19th & early 20th century UK, and the communist ideas of Gerrard Winstanley The Digger during the English Revolution. He is a fiction and topical writer and blogger as well as a regular Lecturer at The University of Winnipeg, Department of Religious Studies. When living in Montreal in the early attending McGill, 80s Andrew first became drawn to a Marxist analysis of exploitation & the state. He remains a mass-going Catholic.