Conversation

"No doubt unconsciously, the contrast between the true state and false ‘entity’ that founds
Malm’s argument here replicates that made by Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg in his 1922
pamphlet 'Der Staatsfeindliche Zionismus'
/.../
Far from the state being the means by which this society can be opposed, as it is for Malm,
from this perspective – one shared by Anselm Jappe, whose work draws heavily from the value-critical tradition – the state is ‘the political form of [capitalist] society’ itself, and thus
dependent on the continued reproduction of that society. The validity of a particular state in
this society does not rest on any ontological connection between a ‘people’ and a ‘land’ – the basis of Malm’s rejection of the ‘Zionist entity’ /.../ – but the extant state’s ability to defend its borders, quell internal unrest and
integrate its citizens into the capitalist world market. Romantic nationalism does not explain
the underlying ‘origin’ of the state but is rather a consoling fantasy
/.../
And as his impassioned writings and intervention makes clear, for Malm this Palestine-to-come, premised on the destruction of the ‘Zionist entity’, will not be merely one more state among many but rather the symbol of an emancipated world, the harbinger of a reconciled nature and a redeemed humanity. As so many times in the past, here a stubborn, recalcitrant Jewish particularity is presented as the obstacle to the restoration of natural harmony"

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