![](/static/253f0d9b/assets/icons/icon-96x96.png)
The first time I read this comment, I started to write a reply but then realized that I’m not totally sure what you mean in some places, and I figured it would be better to ask than just assume.
Islam in this context is a material force, precisely because it is imbedded in the people - the colonized and the working classes, in their decision-making and power. It becomes entrenched in the material base.
What do you have in mind with the notion of ‘entrenchment’ here?
It is in the masjid where muslims congregate and form communal bonds. It is in the masjid where people recieve their political and cultural education.
How does this distinguish the masjid from superstructural institutions generally, like schools or mass media?
It is in the masjid grounds in which people partake in the political economy.
What does this mean? That the masjid is an employer? That it’s a marketplace? Or just that it carries out the functions of the state in Islamic societies?
Why is it when state secularism and athiesm is mentioned, we only mention those in AES, like the conditions of the ummah is somehow exactly one-on-one the same as that of China or the USSR?
To be clear here, ‘the’ ummah extends to everywhere Islam is believed or practiced? Or does it mean instead something more like ‘Muslim countries’?
Islam is the form that the anti-imperialist essence of the ummah takes.
To make sure I understand what you mean here, Is this a fair (equivalent) restatement or does it miss some things?
in the ummah, anti-imperialism takes the form of Islam
This is also true in Israel. Due to the current state of the West Bank, a two-state solution would essentially require partition all over again, an opening of a new instance of the same kind of wound as 1948 constituted.
When the Israeli Jewish settlements were removed from Gaza, there was a huge uproar inside Israel. If the Israeli government did that in the West Bank today, it’d be a huge reversal and they’d have to contend with a very vocal, very armed, right-wing religious extremist faction going absolutely nuts over it.
Alternatively, if the Israeli government proposed to do land swaps instead (which they’d probably want to do since the West Bank is of special religious and historical significance to Jews, much more so than most of the territory the state of Israel now claims for itself), that could mean further mass displacement for Palestinians living in the West Bank, plus the same kind of domestic problem for the Israeli government in whatever territory they would give over to the Palestinians in exchange.
There’s no way to do a two-state solution that doesn’t require mass displacement by force, possibly for both sides. I don’t understand how that inflames things any less than decolonializatlon/reconstruction/reparations to transition to a single multinational state or a confederation with free movement across the whole territory or something like that.
Israeli Jews certainly cry out loudly today if anyone talks about a one state solution, but there would also be a massive outcry from them if steps were taken to actually realize a two-state solution, too.
(If, when they have a hand strong enough to actually meaningfully negotiate with Israel and hold them to account, Palestinians (including the Palestinian diaspora), should choose a ‘two-state solution’, you won’t find me opposing that. But I really struggle to see how that’s possible given current realities on the ground.)