Russia, China and Israel: Why I Disagree With Vanessa Beeley

In my notes section I commented on why I consider the attacks of some commentators on especially Russia and China with respect to Israel to be a symptom of Western-\centrism and a tendency of the “left” to judge such nations with utopian ideals that can never be met; in response to the interview between Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley below.

The Western “left” just can never get it right it seems, they are always criticizing China etc. because they are not “perfect”. The Eurocentrism is also very evident.

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Palestine is NOT the paramount moral issue of our time. Yes, it is awful but we have to keep things in perspective. The paramount moral issue of our time is the establishment of a counter-balance to the West so that its ability to sponsor such violence and subjugate nations is severely curtailed. Millions have been genocided in DR Congo by the Western-puppet Rwanda, a million died in Iraq at the hands of the West, more in Afghanistan, billions of people are kept down by the West in poverty.

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Actually existing socialist and anti-imperialist nations have to use discretion in their actions, a reality that Lenin fully understood. China and Russia have more important issues to deal with, and it is not in their interests to be pulled into the Zionist quagmire. Sorry, but thats just reality. Utopian socialism is a dead end where real change goes to die.

From the discussion:

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“We also highlight that it’s a huge red flag that Venezuela was basically blocked from entering BRICS and this was not just on Brazil, which became a scapegoat. Ultimately, holding alternative powers accountable is not about blaming them, but about demanding they live up to their professed principles because we believe there IS hope they can live up to them. Ending the genocide in Palestine is the paramount moral issue of our time, and if a new world order is to be genuinely different, it must start by taking a definitive stand there—otherwise what comes next may be much worse.”

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Its not the job of BRICS (and BRINCISTAN) to end the Palestinian genocide. Its their job to build a counter-balance to Western power. Palestine, sadly, would be a very dangerous distraction from that goal.

Ms. Beeley then restacked my comment with the following commentary:

This is precisely the kind of nonsensical ‘real politik’ argument that validates powerful BRICS nations doing nothing to prevent genocide in Palestine that is now expanding to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. According to this argument ‘Palestine is just one issue or NOT the paramount moral issue of our time’ - I would argue it is because if we allow such sadistic slaughter to continue, we are all morally responsible and history will judge Humanity as a whole for its inaction and apathy - BRICS nations like Russia, China and India have a responsibility to uphold the public statements they make and to provide a counter to the ZIonist bloc shredding of international law and inhumanity against the most vulnerable peoples. They are not doing this, whether it is Gaza, Occupied Territories, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq - they are de facto keeping the genocidal entity alive and sustaining the genocide and unlawful expansionism into sovereign territory of nations while claiming that “sovereignty must be respected. “Israel” is violating every human rights convention, every UN charter, every aspect of what humanity should represent is being destroyed in front of our eyes but we should condone BRICS ‘discretion’ while the blood of children runs in rivers in Gaza and in all the region, while rape is becoming normalised by the Takfiri creatures that “Israel” supports to bring down regimes in favour of its national security? Real change is our refusal to accept the devolution of mankind into some kind of Global Capitalist hellscape where genocide becomes just another useless term, another extreme that becomes normalised because what counts is supremacism of another colour and another facade - hiding the exact same exploitation of the peoples of this planet, the same resource grab, the same lack of equity, justice and compassion. You can call me a ‘leftist’ but know that it is just another form of othering, partitioning of debate - we are all human beings and we are all fighting for survival - Palestine is the fate of all of us if we do not act and call out those who are doing nothing to end the suffering of an entire people beyond an anodyne “two state solution” BS - if we do nothing, we are all next. After Palestine, Lebanon will be destroyed and the Palestinians and Resistance here will be slaughtered, ethnically cleansed - and it will go on and on until they arrive at your doorstep and what will you do then? Favour ‘discretion’ ?

First of all let me deal with my use of “leftist” as I myself are on the left and my use of it is certainly not any kind of “othering”. I actually admire the work that Vanessa has done over the years, and our views with respect to the Zionist regime are in very close alignment. I am simply expressing my exasperation with the positions taken by many of those on the left with respect to the judgement of the anti-imperial nations and the inability to deal with the realities of those nations. I will not address the hyperbole of the last sentence above.

First of all let me deal with my use of “leftist” as I myself are on the left and my use of it is certainly not any kind of “othering”. I actually admire the work that Vanessa has done over the years, and our views with respect to the Zionist regime are in very close alignment. I am simply expressing my exasperation with the positions taken by many of those on the left with respect to the judgement of the anti-imperial nations and the inability to deal with the realities of those nations. I will not address the hyperbole of the last sentence above.

Mass slaughter, the use of sexual violence, torture, genocide and ethnic cleansing are already normalized within the West and its vassal regimes. Palestine is a symptom of this, not an exception. The million dead as France attempted to maintain its colonial grip upon Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s, the millions dead in Indonesia in the 1960s, the mass murder and torture programs of the Vietnam War, the 1960s to 1980s South American “Dirty Wars” and Operation Condor, the 1970s and 1980s East Timor genocide, the hundreds of thousands of Mayan deaths in Guatemala with the genocide peaking in the 1980s, the million killed in the post-911 eruption of US violence, the Bush-era renditions and torture programs, the Obama-era global drone murder campaign, the utter destruction of the middle income nation of Libya, the list is endless. Sadly, the Palestinian genocide and ethnic cleansing is not exceptional.

Now let us deal with the realities of the five countries that represent the BRICS initials. There is no hope for the Hindutva supremacist government of India, together with the fascist paramilitary organization that sits behind it (the RSS), that serve a tiny rentier and deeply corrupt billionaire-class residing in a sea of poverty. It has revealed itself in its policies at home toward the Muslim minority, and in Kashmir and Manipur. And then of course there is the continued influence of the caste system and widespread misogyny. To expect India to disassociate itself from the Zionist regime is to not accept reality. I have previously covered the reality of India here.

Brazil is dominated by a majority ethnically European elite in a nation of extremes of poverty; with that poverty being highly racialized. Its president, Lula, is at best the leader of a “neoliberalism with crumbs” administration that is severely hemmed in between the capitalist oligarchy and the increasing political weight of the Brazilian Evangelical movement that is Christian Zionist. Domestic realities preclude any meaningful actions by Brazil against Israel.

The independence of South Africa did not bring freedom to the Black population. Instead a neoliberal coup was engineered by the West within the ANC, and senior leaders of the ANC joined the white ruling class. Together, they continued the subjugation of the mass of the population (both Blacks and whites) with little real progress for the vast majority of the Black population. Given South Africa’s history of apartheid, it would have been difficult for the government not to bring suit against Israel at the ICJ and ICC. However, South Africa still trades with Israel showing its actions to be more performative (for the domestic audience and its international reputation perhaps) than effectual.

The nature of the Indian, Brazilian and South African governments is why I have never considered BRICS to be a truly anti-imperialist force. For that I have instead raised the Eurasian bloc of BRINCISTAN (Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq, and the “Stans”) as a more substantive anti-imperialist grouping. The core of this group is Russia and China.

Russia is easily the weakest of the three great powers, the result of the utter destruction and devastation of the 1990s that destroyed so much of the nation’s industrial base. Its ruling elite is a coalition of Putin’s “St. Petersburg” political grouping, the remaining oligarchs and the military and security services (the siloviki). Western governments have repeatedly called for regime change in Russia, operationalized though a Western NGO complex that was effectively purged by the Russian state. Another avenue of these regime change operations has been a segment of the elites that were ready to be willing vassals, now significantly purged and restricted in influence. With the Russian state aided in these endeavours by the Ukraine War. A third leg included the pushing of Georgia into war with Russia and the support for separatist and terrorist groups within Russia; both of these avenues also failed.

The West then launched the regime change operation in Ukraine and turned it into a proxy while launching an economic and financial war upon Russia. In 2022 this became a full-blown proxy hot war backed up by extreme sanctions and the theft of Russian assets. All designed to internally destabilize Russia and trigger regime change. With the failure of these efforts, the West has even moved to block Russian fossil fuel trade with third countries, as with the recent US punitive tariffs on India. Any move by Russia against Israel would be utilized in the West to further demonize it. In addition, we must understand that Israel is not an independent actor but rather an extension of US and Western foreign policy. Which could result in escalatory measures against Russia, including attempts to reinvigorate separatism and terrorism within the country and both sanctions and military escalations as part of the Ukraine proxy war. It must also be remembered that there are 1.2 million Russian Zionist citizens in Israel and about 100,000 within Russia. Given the extremist orientation of the Israeli population, the Russian state has to be cognizant of their possible reactions to actions taken against Israel.

Russia needs to focus its energies on winning the Ukraine War in a way that provides for its security needs given the long-term displayed enmity of the West toward its existence as a sovereign entity. Actions against Israel simply run too great a risk of weakening its position and reducing the possibility of gaining the required victory. A victory that would severely weaken the West and reduce its ability to act in the way that its vassal Israel has. The defeat of Russia would set back the anti-imperialist cause immeasurably.

China represents the only real fundamental alternative to Western imperialism and bourgeois oligarch dominance. Its rise since 1949 has been quite unprecedented and has substantially lead to the end of the second unipolar moment that threatened a greater Western supremacy than that of the immediate post-WW2 period. During the 2010s, the West reoriented itself to treat China as an enemy. Attempts to cause chaos in Hong Kong were patiently and calmly subdued, even in the face of violent and destructive actions designed to trigger a violent state response. Attempts to subjugate China with tariffs and export controls have been overcome. Attempts to trigger conflict over Taiwan have come to nought. Attempts to smear it with an invented fake genocide have now also come to nought. All the while China has grown stronger, while lifting up its people and equalling and overtaking the West in one technology after another.

China strives for a peaceful rise, which it has so far achieved. We are now in a critical decade where China is navigating the treacherous waters toward a truly multi-polar world where the West’s actions are constricted by its relative weakness. The management of the relationship with the declining US is a critical part of this transition. Israel is a non-negotiable projection of US power in the Middle East and it is extremely obvious that its actions are those of the US. The refuelling of the Israeli jets that bombed Qatar by US tanker aircraft that had taken off from a US air base in Qatar is evidence of that. It is also claimed that the US disabled Qatar’s air defences during the attack. Another is of course the constant replenishing of Israel’s supplies used in the genocide.

A Chinese removal of relations with Israel would be seen by the US as a direct attack upon its most important vassal and a direct challenge to its foreign policy in the Middle East. This would most probably trigger very rapid escalation from the West, economically, financially and militarily. The West would also most surely claim that China is an “anti-semitic” atheist Other; most especially the US. The terrorist arm of the Israeli state would also be expected to be unleashed upon a China that has spent much time successfully removing the terrorist threat in Xinjiang. The Chinese Party-state also relies on a performance legitimacy for its high levels of domestic legitimacy and support. A Chinese Party-state escalation with respect to events in far off Israel that do not concern the average Chinese, and which complicates and threatens future progress, may also reduce support for it. As long as Israel is supported by the West, any cutting off of relations by other nations will tend to feed into an escalation of violence, not a reduction of it. So China will gain little if anything, and put a great deal at risk.

Thankfully, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is run by highly intelligent, greatly experienced and patient individuals. They do not strive for the perfect but rather focus pragmatically on achievable goals. That includes working with nations across the world, many of which have utterly disgusting histories and presents. Including many Western nations, India, all of the Gulf Cooperation Council monarchies, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Rwanda and many, many others. That is required to peacefully construct a quite heterogeneous coalition against Western imperialism. The CPC is responsible for the welfare and development of 1.4 billion people, which depends significantly on the effectiveness of that coalition. They cannot pursue moral perfection when it may come at the cost of that coalition and its responsibilities to its own population.

The Western oligarchy is fully behind the Zionist genocide, elements of it may cry crocodile performative tears in an attempt at plausible deniability but its full support is too obvious. That is why rulings of the ICC, ICJ, UN special rapporteurs, and UN commissions will continue to be ignored; even with some of the members of these organizations being personally sanctioned and threatened. The “moral” Europe is even now still dragging its feet on expelling the genocidal entity from song and sports contests; something they had no hesitation in doing so with respect to Russia. And the coercion, censorship and brutalization of pro-Palestinian voices keeps intensifying. Nothing short of an all out war with the West would put an end to this genocide. And China and Russia will not be dragged down that path.