Israel: We're not Nazis, we're punk-anarchists

[Ian David]

Wednesday, February 28 2007 @ 02:40 PM PST
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 384

Middle EastThe teenagers in Petah Tikva's Gan Yehonatan club stress that they are not Nazis. "We're punks!" they say.

"People think all new immigrants are anti-Semites. That's not true at all," one of the teenagers says, referring to anti-Semitic incidents in town, like last year's desecration of a large synagogue. "We don't like the ultra-Orthodox but we wouldn't paint swastikas on synagogues either," he says.

By Moti Katz

The teenagers in Petah Tikva's Gan Yehonatan club stress that they are not Nazis.

"We're punks!" they say.

<snip>

The boys admit uncomfortably that they are familiar with the Nazi-Russian youth in Petah Tikva.

"There are groups of neo-Nazis - not here at the club, though. They exist in every town in the country," says one youth.

Some of the youths regard Israelis with anger and distrust. They are a close-knit group, but complain that Israelis treat them with contempt and see them as stereotypes. Most of all, they say they don't belong. The reports of vandalism and attacks on ultra-Orthodox residents have intensified this feeling.

When asked what they know of Nazi and anti-Semitic groups, they act embarrassed. Gradually, however, they open up and talk about the "Nazi skinheads" and terror they impose on other groups.

<snip>

One group at odds with the Nazi skinheads is the "good" Nazi skinheads, as the youngsters call them. The good skinheads are not Nazis or Jew haters - "they are radical right wing Islamophobes who believe in the working class," a youth says.

More:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070228144008750

[thoughtanarchist]

1. What's with your derision toward anarchists?

Equating anarchy with vagrancy and vandalism seems more than a little intolerant to me...

Consider Louis Lingg, who was executed for his participation in the labor demonstrations in Haymarket Square, Chicago:

"Anarchy means no domination or authority of one man over another, yet you call that “disorder.” A system which advocates no such “order” as shall require the services of rogues and thieves to defend it you call “disorder.” "-- Louis Lingg, May 4, 1886



And also consider Chomsky's view:

CHOMSKY: ...I should say to begin with that the term anarchism is used to cover quite a range of political ideas, but I would prefer to think of it as the libertarian left, and from that point of view anarchism can be conceived as a kind of voluntary socialism, that is, as libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist or communist anarchist, in the tradition of, say, Bakunin and Kropotkin and others. They had in mind a highly organized form of society, but a society that was organized on the basis of organic units, organic communities. And generally, they meant by that the workplace and the neighborhood, and from those two basic units there could derive through federal arrangements a highly integrated kind of social organization which might be national or even international in scope. And these decisions could be made over a substantial range, but by delegates who are always part of the organic community from which they come, to which they return, and in which, in fact, they live.

...

QUESTION: So it doesn't mean a society in which there is, literally speaking, no government, so much as a society in which the primary source of authority comes, as it were, from the bottom up, and not the top down. Whereas representative democracy, as we have it in the United States and in Britain, would be regarded as a from-the-top-down authority, even though ultimately the voters decide.

CHOMSKY: Representative democracy, as in, say, the United States or Great Britain, would be criticized by an anarchist of this school on two grounds. First of all because there is a monopoly of power centralized in the state, and secondly -- and critically -- because the representative democracy is limited to the political sphere and in no serious way encroaches on the economic sphere. Anarchists of this tradition have always held that democratic control of one's productive life is at the core of any serious human liberation, or, for that matter, of any significant democratic practice. That is, as long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.


Now, what is it about this philosophy that makes you think anarchy is all about homeless criminals and vandals?

[Ian David]

2. I'm not deriding Anarchists in my OP. Their words, not mine. n/t

[thoughtanarchist]

3. Ok, cooling the jets...

I've become a little thin-skinned on the subject since the march on Washington and the spray-paint incident on the capital steps opened up a bashfest on anarchists.

Some people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a kid spray painting a symbol and a valid (albeit impracticable) political philosophy.

So anyway, My bad.

I need to remember to follow the link before firing off a volley.

[Ian David]

4. Once again, another unhinged, crazy Anarchist going nuts.

I'm just teasing you.

:P

[thoughtanarchist]

5. Watch your back when we bring this system down robot!!!!

Ahem, uh ...sorry, couldn't help it.

It's like turrets syndrome.

:evilgrin: