“The dissolution of the state of Israel” sounds like an extreme ethnic-cleaning position, not a Zionist (whatever that means) or anti-Zionist position. Unless someone means establishing an anarchist utopia, which is certainly extreme left, but has nothing to do with Israel specifically.
…I have a question for you.
Out of all the things I talked about in my post, the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, the countless atrocities that are still being committed to this day, the thousands of Palestinians locked up in torture camps, you decided to respond to the thing that I said I had no interest in debating and had no opinion on.
My question is, why?
As I said, the word obviously means different things to different people. So I’m less concerned about whether or not “‘Zionism is racism’ help or hurt the cause of stopping genocide” and more curious as to what your position is on what, including a majority of people that will likely vote for the Dems, many are calling genocide. If you don’t want to call it a genocide thats fine. But do you acknowledge that Israel have committed countless atrocities since October the 7th and those responsible and those that committed them should be held to account?
Because how I’m choosing to stop the genocide is to keep lightning focused on it. I choose not to get distracted by things that materially don’t matter. Hence, “I have zero opinion on Zionism.”
The other thing is you aren’t being very specific. And you appear to be conflating multiple ideas. It’s hard to debate your interpretation of things. I have no interest or desire to do that.
It’s literally what “anti-Zionist” is. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people should achieve self determination through statehood; anti-Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people should not have a state.
That is certainly one reason one could be anti-Zionist - the belief that states shouldn’t exist at all, or perhaps the only slightly less extreme position that no peoples should have self determonation or a state and every polity on the planet must adopt civic based nationhood (although I doubt that such a person, if they actually existed in the real world [which I highly doubt], would define themselves as anti-Zionist without clarification; it would be a bit like a militant atheist proudly identifying himself as an Islamophobe or Antisemite before clarifying that actually they hate ALL religions).
…this was how Greta Thurnberg was treated when captured by Israeli forces:
A reminder that the “crime” here was trying to breach an illegal blockade to get food and aid to a populace experiencing genocide.
…I obviously condemn October the 7th. I condemned it back on October the 7th. I have condemned Hamas multiple times.
I don’t recite “Hamas propaganda.” I don’t “blast Israel for defending themselves.” I said at the time and I say it right now that they have a right to defend themselves.
I also think that the way they responded to October the 7th was wrong, and they have crossed a line.
I think that we should be able to criticize anyone who is responsible for atrocities and war crimes without being accused of being a propagandist. I don’t think thats too much to ask for.
Maybe it means this to you, but there are plenty of people who mean something totally different. Like it or not, the term has multiple meanings.
I wonder if the Israeli military actually believed their scorched-earth tactics would dislodge Hamas, or some such miscalculation? They were not wrong in some sense— it is not like Hamas emerged unscathed— but now Gaza is FUBAR and I am not sure what the military goal is/was.
…Because that’s not the specific topic I was interested in at that particular moment? Why am I required to address the rest of it just because you brought it up? I wouldn’t have asked to begin with if hijacks weren’t specifically allowed.
And because I thought what I had to say might change your mind about the relevance of my original question. I failed, and that’s fine. But I’m bewildered myself that you seem to be implying that I don’t care about genocide for the sole reason that you brought it up and I didn’t respond directly to it.
Exactly why I asked if it was a mainstream view. Though the identity of the poster you were responding to might be relevant data itself…
…so for the sake of clarity, I believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The definition of genocide is governed by the genocide convention.
Bolding mine.
So I don’t believe that the “scorched-earth tactics” were used to dislodge Hamas.
I believe that the people that are in control of this war intended to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people.
That’s what genocide is.
If we are going to use the term, we should be crystal clear exactly what we are talking about.
I think intent has been shown by the words used by the people in control, by the tactics that have deliberately targeted the places that people live, the healthcare system, food and aid, the places that people go to worship, schools, and universities.
I think multiple different organisations from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to the United Nations to a broad consensus of genocide scholars have all presented sufficient evidence that we were talking about any other country would have been more than enough to accept.
There is an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that was issued by the International Court of Justice for (among other things) starvation as a method of warfare. Starvation isn’t a thing that targets Hamas. Starvation isn’t a thing that would dislodge Hamas.
The policy of using starvation as a method of warfare ultimately led to famine in parts of Gaza and the deaths of at least 440 people. Often Israeli forces would ban fishing. Even outside of those bans, Palestinian fishermen report regularly getting fired on. Israel are still only letting in a fraction of what they agreed to during the ceasefire and strictly control what food does and doesn’t get into the strip.
At one stage Israel took over food distribution and forced people that wanted food to try and get to one of only five food distribution points for over 2 million people. And getting through to those distribution points included running a hunger-games-style gauntlet that ultimately resulted in 2600 Palestinians killed and thousands more wounded.
I think that the starvation tactics and the control of food and water (including targeting desalination plants) are probably the clearest signal, among many other signals, that Hamas were not the target of these scorched earth tactics.
So I don’t believe there was a miscalcuation here. I think there are people in power who don’t think the Israeli military have gone far enough. I think the intent is to eventually remove as many Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank as they can. I think that the plans articulated by the so-called “Gaza Board of Peace” that has Donald Trump as the chairman for life and his son-in-law on the executive board, make that clear. If Palestinians do stay in Gaza, they will be treated as second-class citizens.
These tactics have effectively removed Hamas. But in the eyes of international law these tactics were atrocities and warcrimes. And these should never be acceptable.
…you aren’t required to do anything. I was just asking the question.
But in case I wasn’t clear before: I have no interest in debating Zionism, and I have no opinion on Zionism.
Nope. Still got no opinion on it. Still not going to debate it.
I don’t know if you care about genocide in general or not. But I’m allowed to be curious, just like you.
Because every “leftist” I know personally doesn’t care about what you bought up. I know that isn’t what would be regarded as a testable sample size. But thats the best I’ve got.
Some of the people who do care I wouldn’t describe as “leftists.” They are Palestinian, and they have strong feelings about Zionism because every single interaction they have with Zionism has been formed by directly interacting with it, and I don’t know enough about Zionism to be able to offer an informed opinion, so I’m not going to offer an opinion here.
Because the word means different things to different people.
But all of the “leftists” I know are only concerned about the genocide and the ethnic cleansing and the warcrimes and atrocities and they want it to stop.
Is what a mainstream view? Anti-Zionism? No, it is vanishingly rare among Jews, according to this survey:
Or is the idea that there should not be a Jewish state mainstream within the subset of people who are anti-Zionist? I punched that into Google and got the following response:
I don’t know why people are trying to sanewash anti-Zionism. But it’s not particularly convincing.
…correction: I should have said the International Criminal Court.
Because they can’t openly say what they really want to say about Israeli statehood.
…by colonizing Palestine and installing a demographic majority. You left that bit out.
Sounds to me like your beef is with the Ottoman Empire, then.
No, obviously it’s with the Romans. No, wait, the Babylonians… 
Bingo! That was the last buzzword I needed! 
The narrative that Israelis “colonized” Palestine strips the Jewish people of their indigenousness. Israel is the only successful example of a decolonization project.
Now we’re onto settler denial! I think that’s a new one for you. Greater Israel, right Babs? It all belongs to the Jews, no matter who’s living there, and how long they’ve been there?
My great grandfather came here from Germany over one hundred years ago, do I have German indigenousness?
Some Jews can be indigenous to Palestine while others can be colonizers.
Zionism was very much the project of the latter. They said as much:
“Zionism is a colonizing adventure”. I wonder who said that…OK, I don’t wonder, it was this guy: