I’m sure there are some Zionists who believe this (and this quote is different than what you said). But you’re still tarring all Zionists, or Zionism in general, as having this belief, and this is false.
If this is true, it doesn’t conflict with what I said.
Here’s my main point – those Jews fleeing Europe were truly desperate people. That truly desperate people sometimes do truly desperate things for their own safety and survival shouldn’t be surprising. Some of those truly desperate people had a vision to create a Jewish state. You seem to be saying this like it’s a shocking or terrible thing, but it’s not. It doesn’t justify everything that occurred, but the desire to create a state for a stateless people who have been hounded and brutalized for centuries is a pretty damn reasonable desire.
I think some aspects of this discussion depend on one’s operational definition of “Zionism” and “Zionist”. As with all things, there are degrees and shades. I fully acknowledge that there are liberal Zionists who vehemently disagree with Likudism. I’m not saying all Jews or even all Zionists buy into the " ‘Palestine’ (in quotes) was an empty desert’ trope, but clearly many do, and many of those who do are influential. After all, the Likud has power - real power. They also have powerful allies in the United States congress. This isn’t my imagination, iiandyiii. It’s not my imagination that the United States moved its diplomatic post to Jerusalem.
Nor is it my imagination that the US has always been much more reticent than our other Western allies in condemning Israel’s aggressive and, in many cases, outright inhumane treatment of Palestinians, and that’s because there is a very strong pro-Israel lobby in this country, and it’s just naive and ignorant to pretend otherwise. That “making the desert bloom” myth isn’t confined to Israel either; it has also been picked up and retold in American intellectual circles as well. Such as when American author Joan Peters (who was Jewish) wrote what influential book titled “From Time Immemorial.” Peters’ work hypothesized essentially that there was no Palestine, putting Palestine in quotes, as if to debase the authenticity of the people who were born there and had unbroken ancestral ties dating back centuries. Her scholarship essentially tried to advance the notion that there were no Palestinians, and that Arabs migrated to Israel from Egypt and other places around the Middle East.
Fortunately, there were left wing Jewish scholars like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein who tore it to pieces. As I said, I acknowledge that Jews don’t all march in lock step, and not even all Zionists do. I get that.
I don’t really disagree with this; there is a certain degree of ‘It is what it is’ to this discussion. But that’s my point as well: as I see it, what Ilhan Omar did was to unintentionally stumble into anti-Jewish tropes, with which she has limited or no cultural background to draw from. She has been called out and disciplined, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But at the same time, let’s consider what Omar was attempting to do, not just what we find fault with. Omar was attempting to re-frame our discussion on Israel, and it badly - really badly - needs to be re-framed, because it’s biased as hell - and also very dangerous.
In one of my previous posts, I italicized (meant to underline it actually) the part where I emphasize the breakdown of liberalism in 19th Century Europe. There’s a reason I did so. I emphasized the breakdown of liberalism in Europe because I see liberalism breaking down now, giving way to tribalism, corrupting truth, and breeding toxic forms of competition. Liberal values are eroding and being replaced with the values of traditionalism and clannishness. That’s dangerous for everyone - especially Jews. In 2019 America, I don’t think we’re really all that far away from our own Dreyfus affair. We’re not that far away from a sharp right turn toward vicious antisemitism in this country. Supporting fervent nationalism has never worked out that well for Jews, and it probably won’t work out well the next time, either. The ideology of the Likud isn’t carving out a safe space for Jews; it’s putting the world’s Jews in danger. Jews are safer when the side with the values of pluralism, inclusion, justice, democracy, which is not what right wing Zionism has become. Again, I get that many, many Jews and modern moderate Zionists reject this ideology, fortunately.
Okay, I don’t think there’s anything in here I disagree with. It looks different than some of what you were saying earlier, but this appears to be a reasonable analysis, and close to my own position.
The Israeli treatment of the Palestinians isn’t great, but let’s be clear about what’s going on: it’s a war. The Palestinians could surrender and negotiate a settlement. Or just negotiate a settlement without calling it surrender. But as long as they are at war with Israel they should expect war to be waged against them. That’s how wars work.
Where the anti-semitism comes in is people expecting Israel to react to a group of people waging war on them, is that they should show restraint not expected of anyone else in the world. It also comes in in objections to occupation, of which only the Israeli occupation is a concern, despite several others around the world. It also comes in when Palestinians die at Israeli hands and it’s a huge problem but when Palestinians die at non-Jews’ hands, whether it be Palestinians themselves, Lebanese, Jordanians, or Egyptians, not a problem worth talking about.
I don’t think this is a reasonable characterization. In the present, many or most Palestinian men, women, and children are in truly desperate circumstances, with very little chance at a decent life. Some of them take desperate action, because desperate people do desperate things. Because these are human beings we’re talking about – not moral superheroes or robots – this isn’t likely to change unless and until many or most Palestinians aren’t living in truly desperate circumstances.
It would certainly be very difficult to change these circumstances, but they aren’t likely to change for the better without the Israeli government changing its policies. Which is why I think a large part of the moral onus is on the Israeli government – because they have the power to change these circumstances, and individual Palestinians do not.
It’s not an act of desperation to respond to your life sucking by killing people. When that happens here, we call them losers. You know what desperate people do? they surrender.
Bullshit. Desperate people do desperate things, including sometimes crazy things (i.e. trying to resurrect an ancient country in a land now partially populated by a different group) or even terrible things.
They do. And it’s generally recognized as idiotic in any other context. But Jews and all. If this was any other people, like say, the Tibetans rising up against the Chinese, the world would be eager for the Tibetans to just stop and get the best deal they could.
I have little doubt that anti-semitism is involved in the double-standards and other unfair characterizations much of the world utilizes when criticizing Israel. That doesn’t negate the reasonable criticism of various Israeli government policies that do maintain these desperate circumstances and oppress and even brutalize Palestinians. Just like that these desperate circumstances don’t justify terrorism (though maintaining these desperate circumstances does make such terrorism much more likely).
In the present, many peaceful Palestinians are in desperate circumstances through absolutely no fault of their own, because of Israeli government policies. This is wrong and reasonable to criticize.
The extension of that view is that anyone claiming to be a Palestinian must be removed from Israel’s borders. In other words, genocide.
If you think that’s the end of Israel’s problems, it isn’t; it’s just the beginning. That is what will provide the fuel for ISIS 2.0 or 3.0 – the crusade in the reverse to take back the Holy Land for the Muslims and restore dignity to Palestinians. Like we don’t have enough problems with radicalized Islam now.
It has nothing to do with Palestinians. The main reason they have never made a deal is because they’d be considered traitors against the Jewish enemy and subject to ISIS-type organizations running rampant through their new country, with generous funding from rejectionist nations like Syria and some princes from the Gulf states. I think given that prospect they’ll take occupation with the appearance of making a fight of it, which is about all they have left at this point.
I’m curious what other folks think about it. To me, everything she says seems true and should not be controversial, and certainly nothing there looks antisemitic to me; but I’m not picking up on some things that other people are picking up on with her words, so I’d love to hear how others, especially those criticizing her for antisemitism, read this opinion piece.
In terms of principles, I don’t have a major issue with what she’s saying. But I have a feeling that when it comes to putting those principles into action, she and I would have more disagreements.
For example, I can see that if she were President, she’d probably take a line on human rights that is somewhat similar to Trump on trade: as in, making such a topic that overrides any other considerations in foreign relations, so that relations between the U.S. and other countries gets boiled down to mostly a single issue. I don’t think things should be simplified to that degree.
So, let’s take Saudi Arabia as an example. Horrible on human rights. But, let’s say for argument’s sake, that they are helping behind the scenes to get the Taliban to the negotiating table so we can get out of Afghanistan. Should we be as hard on Saudi Arabia as we are on other horrible human rights abusers, like Iran, when the latter countries aren’t helping us at all on other issues? I think that requires a more nuanced position than thinking that Saudi Arabia should be under the same sanctions as Iran.
But even within the nuances, there’s unquestionably more room to be more critical, and take stronger action, against some of our “friends” who abuse human rights. Like after the Khashoggi murder, damn right we should have started cancelling arms sales. But I suspect that Rep. Omar would probably be further to the side of, we should treat Saudi Arabia and Iran the same.
But she’s not president, she’s a first term congressperson. Further, you’re pretty much just guessing what she’d do as President. It seems entirely reasonable to suspect that if she had, say, 20 years experience in the House (and maybe Senate or governor), her views on how to approach issues like this might well change, even if her philosophical stance didn’t.
Why not just judge her on her words and actions, including her past tweets, apologies, and this Op-Ed?
Are you suggesting that I ought to agree more with her on the basis that she’s not actually in charge of anything? Or that in the future, her understanding of issues may change, so why draw any distinctions on our slightly different viewpoints today?
I have said that I gave her the benefit of the doubt on what appeared to me to be a sincere apology, only to have that apology walked back. So suggesting that I take more of her words at face value does not seem like a particularly smart thing for me to listen to.
ETA: besides which, literally the entire point of the op/ed was to treat every other country the same with respect to several issues. I explained rather thoroughly that we might not want to treat every single nation exactly the same, for reasons I discussed. Who’s to say that I’m NOT taking her at her word when she says all countries should be treated the same with respect to our foreign policy?
No, I’m suggesting judging her by her words and actions, not what you “have a feeling” she might do.
By the worst possible interpretation of her words, perhaps. By a charitable reading of her words, or even a neutral reading, I don’t see how she “walked back” her apology.
By all means argue this issue. It’s a reasonable thing to disagree about. But you’re still extrapolating – “treat every country the same on issue X” doesn’t necessarily mean what you suggested. And you’re extrapolating in what appears to me to be the most negative possible interpretation.
I submit that I’m actually doing the EXACT opposite of extrapolating. She wrote: “Our criticisms of oppression and regional instability caused by Iran are not legitimate if we do not hold Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to the same standards.”
Taken at face value, that means that Egypt etc ought to be treated like Iran, with sanctions and so forth over human rights violations. I’m not sure how you get to that being “extrapolating,” unless you think she chose her words poorly and didn’t mean what she wrote.
Holding them to the same standards doesn’t mean treating them exactly the same, unless you think they’re all guilty of exactly the same thing, to the exact same extent.
Where does she explain this in the op/ed? (Or elsewhere.) The only logic I can make of the argument is that she thinks we hold Egypt to one standard and Iran to another… which can either mean:
We oppose torture of dissidents in Iran on principle, but we are in principle generally okay with torture of dissidents in Egypt.
Or, we oppose torture in both countries, but when it comes to actually doing something about it, we only punish Iran for doing it, and we don’t punish Egypt for doing it.
I don’t think scenario 1 makes a lick of sense. Scenario 2 is more or less what U.S. policy is, so I take it that she opposes that.
So let me understand you correctly: you think Rep. Omar thinks scenario 1 is actually happening?
I think you’re missing the possibility of a lot of nuance and grey areas (i.e. different quantity/quality of torture, different reasons for it, different levels of punishment/sanctions/etc.). She doesn’t get into this level of detail – maybe she should (and it would be reasonable to ask her these questions), but she didn’t.
I’ll also ask you this – do you believe we should do nothing about torture and other human rights violations of ostensible allies? No punishment/consequences at all for Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or others who have done terrible things but generally side with us? It seems pretty reasonable to me to suggest that those countries should face some consequences for these terrible things, and that’s what I think Omar is suggesting, broadly speaking.