A suicidal answer to Zionism

This short pamphlet was originally published in 1969. Its author, George Novack, was a leading member of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and something of the party's house philosopher. He has authored several books on Marxist theory and philosophy. “How can the Jews survive?”, by contrast, is a polemic against Zionism, written in the form of a eulogy to anti-Stalinist Marxist Isaac Deutscher. Both Novack and Deutscher were East European Jews.

Novack argues, unpersuasively in my opinion, that the Jews must break with Zionism and instead embrace revolutionary socialism. Under the epoch of imperialism, the nation-state is rotten, especially imperialist or imperialist-allied nation-states (read: the United States and Israel). Only world socialist revolution is truly progressive. Such pronouncements are meaningful only to those who accept the precepts of Trotskyist-inspired Marxism.

More concretely, Novack argues that Israel is a death trap for Jews, since the Jews as a new oppressor nation has provoked the fury of the Arabs, who will eventually unite and destroy Israel, something Novack sees as inevitable. In the United States and Western Europe, anti-Semitism is dormant rather than dead, and will raise its ugly head again in the future, as the ruling class attempts to divert the anger of the common people from capitalism to suitable scapegoats. The only way to fight such a development is through working class unity, including support for the currently oppressed groups in Western society. In particular, Novack calls on Jews to support Black struggles in the United States.

Novack's more concrete proposals are (of course) connected to his general perspective of world revolution. Most of them are just as unconvincing. Novack supports the Arab attempts to smash Israel, in effect preparing the death trap for Jews he is ostensibly bemoaning. While he calls for a (utopian) socialist federation of Jews and Arabs, the immediate goal of the SWP is “a democratic secular Palestine” (really an Arab Palestine). Apparently, some nation-states are less rotten than others! Novack is right that anti-Semitism may make a comeback in the West, but this will probably be connected to developments in the Middle East. The destruction of Israel both presupposes stronger anti-Semitism in the West (cutting off Western aid to Israel) and precipitates stronger anti-Semitism there, since Jews will be defenseless when their state is gone. Yet, Novack wants the Jews to voluntarily put themselves in such a position! A Jewish-Black alliance makes more sense if a White Gentile establishment scapegoats both groups, but why should U.S. Blacks support, say, Baathism or Muslim fundamentalism?

Of course, Novack and Deutscher believed that the socialist revolution would save both the day and the Jews, but if history is any lesson, Jews can't wait for the Marxist Messiah, but need a nation-state of their own, right now, even under “rotten capitalism”. Perhaps the world would have been a better place if the Zionists had settled outside the volatile Middle East (in some part of friendly little Portugal?), but in the end, they didn't and here we are today. If the socialist “answer” to Zionism is an anti-Semitic spring trap, I can understand why the Jews will stick to their really existing state of Israel, warts and all…