Doing that is totally inexcusable even aside from any antisemitic aspects. Some real McCarthy-style bullshit.
In other words, “We have no problem with Jews, except for the ones that get uppity ideas about nationhood or self determination; a Jew should know its place”.
Those are some… other words, all right.
The chief trouble with those other words is that they’re deliberately ignoring, or obscuring, the fact that opposing what Israel does to Palestinians, and Israeli governments’ longstanding refusal to recognize Palestinian rights and sovereignty, is not the same thing as opposing Jewish “nationhood or self determination”.
I think it’s A-OK to criticise Judaism (just as much as Christianity, etc.) itself on philosophical and even theological grounds, in fact critical thinking should always be encouraged, but it had better not be a personal thing, and for fuck’s sake not a political witch hunt.
If we grant that this is the case (which I’m NOT doing), then did the same organization demand ALL Chinese students disavow their government, that all American Students disavow all of it’s recent and not-so-recent atrocities, that all Muslim students disavow the violence done on 10/7, and on and on and on?
If not… well then, yes. It was targeted, directed at one religion, one group, and the rest is window dressing of deniability.
And supporting Jewish nationhood or self determination is known as Zionism. That’s literally the meaning of the term. So demanding that someone renounce Zionism is, in fact, exactly the same thing as opposing Jewish nationhood or self determination.
I have 0 issue with people who criticize Israel’s actions. I have done so myself, many times (as has every Israeli I know; it’s practically a requirement).
The difference is in “criticism” that seeks to delegitemize the very concept of a state for the Jewish people.
Could have fooled me, the way the term is tossed around here as if it was a slur.
(Signed, a proud Zionist)
Hypothetically, I can see someone being decidedly against Ethnocracy in general (including Zionism) but without specifically being an anti-Semite. Don’t know whether that is the position of any of the aforementioned college campus groups.
ISTM that the crux of the matter is how one defines the necessary conditions for “a state for the Jewish people”, because that’s what determines the implications of the term “anti-Zionist”.
If the existence and/or security of such a state intrinsically requires denying the rights, nationhood and self-determination of Palestinians—as, for example, Netanyahu seems to believe—then yes, supporting Palestinian rights necessarily implies opposing a Jewish state, tout court.
If, on the other hand, it’s possible to have a Jewish state and also recognize the rights and self-determination of Palestinians, then ISTM that it’s possible to be “anti-Zionist” in the sense of opposing the current asymmetric power structure in Israel/Palestine, without being “anti-Zionist” in the sense of opposing the principle of a Jewish state in any form.
You can certainly be a Zionist and also against “Ethnocracy”, the two are certainly not synonymous (outside Hamas propaganda and naive misunderstandings by uneducated Westerners). Check out Ahad Ha’am for one example of an avowed Zionist with ideas about nationhood so much more complex than the caricature that exists in the minds of the abti-Israel protestors at colleges that it would make their heads explode to try and comprehend it.
And if the only form of Islam worth talking about is the one practiced by Osama Bin Laden or ISIS, then the crazy right wing Islamaphobes are actually right!
Those are two very load-bearing "IF"s there.
But just like we ignore ISIS when they say that Muslims who don’t agree with them are not real Muslims, we should be skeptical of the claim that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are the only “real Zionists”.
I’ve gotta say that the reduction of Zionism, with everything it means to the cultural revival of the Jewish people, to “must smash Palestinians” is exactly as offensive as the reduction of Islam to “must smash Twin Towers” is, and I really struggle to understand why so many people on the Left, who claim to value other cultures, are so myopic to that when it comes to the Jewish people.
(Not enough to move rightwards myself mind you, I’m not an idiot)
Sure, but a slight difference there is that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are foremost among the recognized and officially empowered leaders of the existing Jewish state. Bin Laden and ISIS, by contrast, were/are not official leaders of any governments of Islamic states, much less the only one.
Netanyahu, in particular, has served as Israel’s prime minister for, what, sixteen-plus years now? I just don’t think it works to dismiss his views on the conditions allegedly necessary for Israel’s survival as though they were some kind of insurrectionist extremist group.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that I agree with Netanyahu and his cohort, or with the many Israelis who support him, that “must smash Palestinians” is a necessary condition for Jewish self-determination. But when supporters of Palestinian rights take Netanyahu’s views as representative of Zionist beliefs in general, I think they arguably have a more plausible excuse than when opponents of jihadism take Bin Laden’s views as representative of Muslim beliefs in general. I mean, he’s the elected leader of the Israeli government; if the Israeli government does not actually need to smash Palestinians, then it can stop smashing Palestinians.
Fine, because Ahmadinejad or Qadaffi or Sadam are so much better than the leaders of ISIS? If we reduced Islam (or the idea of Muslim countries) to killing Kurds, Hijabs on penalty of death, death penalty for rape victims, etc, I’m sure you wouldn’t find that the least bit Islamophobic, eh?
Specific actions of Israel, or the existence of Israel?
In either case, that’s not a remotely reasonable requirement for the purpose. But if it’s the latter – which “Materials to volunteers were made into promotion of minimally anti-Zionism and it was declared that anyone who would not condemn Israel was not welcome” certainly reads like – that amounts to requiring that the students agree that the Jews in Israel should be killed or rendered homeless. Many of them will have family members there. It isn’t only that they may feel that their religion requires them to support Israel (there’s considerable debate about that one) – it’s that they fear for the lives of friends and family.
Opposing Zionism, however, is exactly “opposing Jewish “nationhood or self determination””.
Also a good point.
Again, you’re sort of sliding those goalposts there. I have never said that it’s okay or defensible to reduce Zionism to nothing but denying Palestinian rights and sovereignty: what I’m saying is that there appears to be a very strong and entrenched belief on the part of the most officially empowered Zionists themselves that Zionism intrinsically requires denying Palestinian rights and sovereignty.
This is what extremely powerful leaders of the only Jewish state are saying, and have been saying for decades, and you’re blaming anti-Zionists for believing them.
Sure, I think it’s valid not to believe them; personally, I don’t believe them myself. But I can see how a more credulous person might well believe them, without being antisemitic.
See above. I think it’s probably fair to say that the vast majority of people who consider themselves anti-Zionist do so not because they’re against Jewish nationhood or self-determination per se, but because they believe the people who say that there’s no feasible way to have Jewish nationhood or self-determination without denying Palestinian nationhood/self-determination.
I’m not moving the goal posts at all, because you are saying that because of this fact we should oppose Zionism; that does reduce Zionism to nothing but the things you want to oppose, just like of we said “for all those reasons listed above, we oppose Muslim self determination”.
Neither Ben Gvir nor Netanyahu are big Zionist thinkers, or representatives of Zionist ideological thought. That you are ignorant of cultural Zionism and the resurgence of Jewish culture is fostered (many decades before 1948) does not erase Zionism’s importance, nor make your dismissal of it any less offensive.
Have they? I don’t like Netanyahu for many reasons, including his failure to implement a two state solution or even move us in that direction. But he mostly has always paid lip service to the idea.
So who exactly are these “extremely powerful leaders” who have been saying a two state solution is impossible for decades? You know that Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and his ilk haven’t been even adjacent to power for 1 decade, much less many?
Cite?
Sigh. No, I’m not.
What I’m saying is that what anti-Zionists mean by “opposing Zionism” is highly dependent on what they believe the concept of Zionism necessarily implies.
If they believe that denying Palestinian rights and sovereignty is a necessary condition of supporting Zionism—which, I repeat, appears to be the fixed opinion of the current and longest-serving Prime Minister of Israel, among many other extremely notable and influential Zionists—then they will believe that supporting Palestinian rights and sovereignty necessarily implies opposing Zionism.
I thought that this was a pretty mundane and unexceptionable view to express. But I forgot that when you and I exchange ideas on this board, somehow it always seems to gishgallop into a swirl of ever more tangential misunderstandings and wire-crossings that my attempts at clarification can’t keep up with. That’s on me, for not learning from experience.
Well, that’s what he’s said he’s said.
Netanyahu has constantly supported continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and AFAICT he has been allied with “Greater Israel” expansionists throughout his political career. And, again, he’s Israel’s current and longest-serving Prime Minister, so you can kind of see why many people consider his unswerving unilateralism to be representative of Zionist aims and views?
Mmm-hmmmm.
Look, I get that it’s annoying, and inaccurate, that the default meaning of “Zionism” is identified with “reflexive political support for the Israeli state”, thereby eliding the entire “Jewish national revival” movement throughout the Diaspora beginning in the 19th century and all its varied cultural and political impacts over the next fifteen decades or so.
But, again, it’s self-identified Zionist individuals and organizations themselves who are primarily responsible for that shift in perceived meaning. When people think of AIPAC, for example, they aren’t thinking of, say, insightful detailed cultural-history studies of the writings of Ahad Ha’am. They’re thinking of large-scale political and public-relations support for Israeli policies, because that’s AIPAC’s primary and extremely visible mission.
If we don’t like the fact that most of the multifaceted aspects of historical Zionism have flattened out, in popular perceptions of the term, to “cheerleading for Israeli policies and trying to silence criticisms of them”, that’s certainly understandable. But again, those advocates and public-relations activities themselves are in large part responsible for that flattening.
Anyway, that’s the best I can do at explaining how I see it, and I’ll bow out of the dialogue now, rather than making things worse by attempting to go on clearing up the inevitable forthcoming misunderstandings and indignations.