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Ah, the role of the French CP (PCF) was always one of a faithful Moscow agent. At first, Moscow did not care for independent states emerging in the Arab world and therefore the French CP was told to support the French government's "pacification" policies (sending 80 000 French troops to Algeria) while at the same time supporting Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. But "dialectics" showed that the two struggles were different in nature, so you know... poor Vietnamese peasants were right to rebel but not poor Algerian peasants. Once Moscow got a proper handle on the Algerian movement, everything changed. All the French "Left" intellectuals started supporting the cause of Algerian freedom (Sartre, Beauvoir, etc.) There was never whole-hearted support for Israel among French intellectuals, the way you seem to describe it. There was a certain degree of interest in Kibbutzim, which coincided with the interest in Gandhi and "self-management'. There was a fascination with the process of nation-building, there were ties with the Israeli CP. But honestly, nothing on the scale of US ideological support for Israel from Fundamentalist Christians. Now, you are right about the Suez Canal expedition which saw close cooperation between French, British and Israeli troops. But that was extremely short-lived. As you point out, after the "six-day war", French interests became decidedly pro-Arab and remained so up to the First Gulf War, into which France was reluctantly dragged into (despite Saddam Hussein being a protegé). As for Foucault, I do not have the references at hand, but I can assure you that he was strongly pro-Palestinian in his later years (late 70s). Even justifying Fedayyin raids into Israeli territory. He supported them just as he supported the Black Panther movement in the US.If I remember correctly he even wrote a short story about Israeli Commandos in Beyrouth. His life-long lover was a Maoist who introduced him to many "anti-imperialist fighters" in the 70s. I honestly do not know what Foucault's political opinions were in the 60S, but I guess they were more CP-aligned than in the late 70s. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
