this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Depends on the specific conflict you're talking about. Is this about American politics? Palestine? Ukraine?
For example I wouldn't say that the dictatorship of capital is an especially pertinent aspect of the ruling elite when discussing the Palestine conflict, but it certainly is when discussing American politics.
I mean yeah, colonialism and capitalism are tied together at the hip, and Palestinians resisting the settler state of Israel is pretty directly related to resisting capitalist violence.
Throwing in the standard disclaimer of "my family was affected by the holocaust and I know several anti-zionist israelis who think Israel doesn't have a right to exist" because some people get really weird about this opinion.
Everything is related to everything, so if course colonialism and by extension capitalism plays a part. And while capitalists are absolutely using both sides for their own gains, I don't think there driving force of the conflict comes down to capital, but a conflict of non-economic ideologies.
But, it's a very large conflict with a very long history, so not only am I not an expert, but the nature of the conflict may have many aspects that change over time.
Well, you're incorrect. Israel is a settler colonial venture, that is where the conflict comes from, not a difference in religious beliefs.
The region was really peaceful before the colonial project actually, I mean of course the ottoman empire wasn't great but there wasn't a lot of notable ethnic conflict in the region.
By "long history" I meant decades not centuries. Still long enough to be multigenerational.
Also there are more ideologies than just religion and economics, and conflict can be over a combination of them. Just because one party is colonial, doesn't mean that all conflicts are necessarily going to be primarily over capital. That will of course be a part, but it's also not like one day all the Jews in Europe were like "let's go kick out all the people from this area because lolz".
I'm trying to avoid talking about my personal beliefs here, but I'm definitely not of the opinion that both sides are equally bad.
I absolutely agree that colonialism is a huge (biggest?) factor though, and that goes all the way back to when European powers chose the land and kicked out the native people.