I saw someone say it was because she’s supporting dems but that doesn’t seem like enough for the amount of dunking I’ve seen. Did y’all think she was so far to the left that that would be a betrayal? I’ve typically thought of her as a progressive more than a leftist. Is there some statement she made I’m not aware of?
I keep running into that issue where if I watch or read pro palistine content neo Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and anti semitism starts to pop up.
One of the most uncomfortable things for me about the last almost-year is realising that loud people equating anti-zionism to antisemitism has undermined my ability to spot genuine antisemitism within the left; through organising, I got to know some Jewish pro-palestine student organisers and it was grim to see how they were a lightning rod for bigot’s hatred, and how used to it they were.
One friend had studied in Israel and said that the propaganda that’s directed towards Israelis, especially young Israelis, was horrifying to her because as well as demonising Palestinians, they leveraged generational trauma around the Holocaust. She said that it hurt to see one genocide being used to fuel another because it felt like the Holocaust was still ongoing, still claiming lives. She said that it also felt like genuine antisemitism was also platformed often with the propaganda, because it helps to reinforce the idea that Jewish people will never be safe without a Jewish state.
She also said that buying into this rhetoric is why she used to be pro-zionism. What really sticks with me is when she explained how her position on the matter changed, she described it as a mounting sense of cognitive dissonance that begin to morph into dread as she realised how the cycle of violence perpetuates: “we were told that Palestinians wanted to exterminate and that it was necessary to fight back. Realising the lie in this came with the horrifying thought of ‘oh God, if they didn’t want to kill us all before, they surely must now’. This was so scary that I almost rebounded back into being Zionist, but the truth of it is that Palestinians, like Jews, just want to live and be safe”.
This struck me because I hadn’t realised how much Israel’s genocide of Palestine depended on constructing Jewish people as an “other”. Another person in that discussion commented that even if they only cared for the lives of Jews, they would still be anti-Zionist, because under such rhetoric of hate, the cycle of genocidal violence will continue, and no-one will be safe — Jews, Palestinians or otherwise
Appreciated reading your thoughts, thanks for taking the time to type that out and share.
Have you tried not using twitter anymore? /s
I totally get you, sometimes nazis co-opt the palestine issue to spout some racist shit about jewish people, and some of the real pro-palestine protestors I think are being/becoming anti-semitic because of their anger about the genocide Israel is currently conducting/ has been conducting since it’s inception. (Not trying to justify the anti-semitism here btw.)
From what my limited reading about it has shown me, is that this is a bigger issue online than in real-life protests.
True, only online I have seen it. Queer circles I run in would shut the shit down fast. I don’t have twitter,reddit, or Facebook anymore. Just something I have seen on YouTube and substack.
Yeah, there’s a reason why the main people ranting about Zionism this time last year were neo nazis. It’s a term which is commonly understood to suggest the dismantlement of the Jewish state, and all the violence that would surely entail. Even in the most linguistically favorable scenario, it’s just not a position any honest geopolitical observer could really put forward as a realistic solution, which causes many to assume it is a dog whistle.
The palestine liberation movement would really do well to avoid some of the more problematic language they seem to have given a home. I honestly believe the reason this is happening is because a lot of this is being put forward by well intentioned young people who may not fully understand the implications of this linguistic history. The movement doesn’t need it, and would be stronger without it.
Objective application of international law puts the existence of the state of Israel on pretty shaky ground. It’s not an unreasonable position at all to support the dismantling of the state, as it’s an apartheid occupation engaged in active genocide by nearly global consensus. Jewish opposition to Zionism has been present since its inception. Any co-opting of the movement into anti-semitism is opportunistic and not inherent in any way.
Sure, there are arguments to be made that Israel is the original sin of the post war nation state, but it’s not realistic to expect that cat to go back in that bag. There is plenty of land for both an Islamic and Secular state in the levant, provided both agree to coexist, and the international community agrees to enforce international law evenly. And I really do emphasize that last point.
How? They’ve divided the land and are ensuring it stays that way by continuing to take land. And if one had the support of the US empire it would keep abusing Palestine even after statehood, like the US does to the global south today. It would be better as one big secular state, especially since you’re going to have to change a bunch of things to make a two state solution work anyway.
A two state solution is better than what they have now and if they can get it, it’s progress, but ideally one state all the way, which requires dismantling Israel. Which happens all the time btw. South Africa completely changed its government. Israel as a country isn’t even that old. Neither is Russia or everything in the USSR, which I saw change. Or Yugoslavia, which was a country during my lifetime, too. The cat can totally go back in the bag, the structures of nation states isn’t set in some holy stone.
Yeah but ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Israeli colonists is
🤡
2024 for ya folks