Read on Twitter
the USSR was not only the first country to recognize Israel, but when the US would send jammed arms or none at all, the USSR had Chechezlovakia arm the nascent Israeli military forces. First signatory on Israeli constitution was a Communist party member—Vilner https://twitter.com/karl_was_right/status/1191441649764712448
The USSR’s early support was critical—it’s almost unthinkable Israel would have won against the combined Arab Liberation Army forces without it, especially bc the British Army was arming, staffing & training the latter.
In fact, until the late 50s and early 60s, the UK refused entry to Israeli diplomats and supported the Arab nationalist states, while the USSR supported Israel. It was only because of the US that these switched in the 60s & were fully solidified by the 70s.
The PRC and Israel are now besties , and conduct economic, diplomatic, military, and technological exchanges and cooperation with each other. So much so that the US is genuinely afraid they’ll lose their client state to the rising world power.
Twitter MLs don’t care about solidarity with Palestinians or consistent anti imperialism & consistent anti Zionism. Their concern is settling weird petty resentments & grudges, using geopolitics as an aesthetic flavor to do so.
This thread is about other aspects of settler colonialism in Palestine & the Americas, but several of the links & threads contain sources relevant to the USSR & PRC's relationship with Israel. https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1231354684201455618
On another point, while the map gif OP opened their thread with was illustrative, it ends in 1930. This sometimes leads people to infer that settler colonialism is confined to the past, something that is over, rather than ongoing. Here's one that ends in present day.
It's important to also look at the settler colonial genocides alongside their twin--the spread of slavery. While this map ends with the Civil War, it's important to also recognize its continuing nature.
While this Vox article has a weird framing, it's surprisingly good for a Vox article. What I like is that it shows how the ongoing effects of settler colonialism & white supremacy persist in the present https://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8618261/america-maps-truths
These are maps of Indigenous populations in the contemporary era--again there's a tendency, even among leftists, to view settler colonialism as a 'finished' project, by erasing people, cultures, and histories in the past & present.
The erasure of people, history, language, and culture is ongoing.
These maps indicate in several locations, the interrelation between colonialism, land seizure, biological warfare, epidemics, disease, ecocide, and dispossession and their effects on population.
Notice this graph ends in 1750, yet still calls it the US--I guess time travel existed!--I include this solely to illustrate that mass depopulation via genocide began right away, and was fundamental to the colonial projects on Turtle Island.
Also notice the graph above doesn't distinguish among population, as though all of it was some 'natural' occurrence--but the project was active, and slavery, forcible removal & capitalism were fundamental to this project.
I include here multiple modalities of settler colonial oppression in the present, ranging from direct attacks to ecocide. Indeed, the nexus of extractivism, capitalism, & settler colonialism as tight as ever, AND, not only that, but many of the ecomodernist responses to it.
While this slideshow has issues, and is clearly meant for a younger audience, it is useful because it not only describes the past colonial projects, but how active removal projects continue into recent memory. https://slideplayer.com/slide/5891582/
I include all of these to show how active dispossession and indigenous genocide continue in the present, and they span the entirety of the Americas. The US, Canada & the states of Central, South & Caribbean America are united in this.
In ‘Unsettling the Commons’, Fortier discusses how the commons itself was used as a form of settler colonialism. Land enclosed through forcible dispossession was then established as an exclusive commons for the colonists, only to be re enclosed yet again.
I bring this point up, as well as the Green New Deal critique, because they show how the commons & conservationism—left wing & intended to be emancipatory projects—can and do operate within settler colonial frameworks, unless they’re actively opposed to them.
This leads to another point, and ties the first part of my thread to the second part, which is that often left wing projects—anarchist, socdem, Marxist Leninist, communist, ecomodernist—can be & Are settler colonial projects.
This is not *intrinsic* to them—consistent anarchists, Marxists, ecosocialists and leftists in general, I would argue, would take deep account of the problems here & work in solidarity with indigenous struggles.
This isn’t meant as a No True Scotsman, and there’s no guarantee that good intentions turn into good praxis, but the point remains. I bring this up because I want to remind people that anti-settler colonialism isn’t a political football to be lobbed around, but an active project.
To the extent that MLs, or Anarchists or anyone, wants to oppose settler colonialism, it’s paramount they do not pretend it exists in isolation or in the past, and that it can be neatly divided along the lines of which left projects they happen to like or don’t like.
On a tactical & strategic level, people living in the US or North America focusing on oppression & projects in the US & North America makes sense. One can be a consistent internationalist & intercommunalist but tactically & strategically focused.
But analytically, & in terms of solidarity and alliance, a hyper focusing on neatly drawn lines of responsibility & focus generates a kind of myopia and parochialism, because frames the issue in terms of ‘big bads’ rather than ongoing structures & processes.
What unites this thread is a deep caution against using anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and ongoing struggles as a way to settle scores, preserve neatly drawn lines & narratives, and to diminish accountabilities.
Whether Palestine or Turtle Island, the ongoing mass of human dispossession & suffering, and the struggle for emancipation is far too important to become a mechanism for score settling.
And the complexities of history refuse any simple reduction of responsibility. Every aspect of the states, economies & societies of the Americas is a legacy of & ongoing continuation of those of settler colonialism, slavery, white supremacy, capitalism, and ecocide.
