Moving the settlers out of the settlements deep in the west bank might meet the definition of ethnic cleansing but I don’t have a moral problem with it. It was done previously in Gaza when Israel withdrew, there were lots of sad photos of Orthodox dudes trying to block IDF bulldozers from demolishing their house, so sad too bad, it needed to happen. If and when the Palestinians agree to a two state solution, it can happen in the West Bank too.
If some of the settlers want to stay with the understanding that when the Palestinians persecute them they’re on their own I guess that’s fine, but I just don’t buy that it will happen. Any Jewish presence in Palestine will lead to persecution and then war between Israel and Palestine. Forcibly relocating some settlers is a small price to pay to avoid that.
This is a thing that has happened after every war in history. Borders get redrawn and people get moved around. The sooner it happens and is over and done with, the sooner everyone can start building new lives wherever they end up.
And I feel especially not bad about the settlers because they moved there knowing that one day Palestine might come back to the negotiating table and they will be evicted. They saw it happen in Gaza. Some of them (not many, but still) ARE settlers from Gaza.
Why? What about Hamas or the PA leads you to believe that this would be the case? Genuine question here, I’d love to understand your thought process on this.
And it’s not just the 50s; how many Jews have gone back to the Arab world? How are the 4000 or so Jews still living in modern Arab countries doing today?
That doesn’t change anything. You shouldn’t be SOL because you live there. “Palestine” in this construction refers to the government, not to civilians. There’s no rule that says it’s okay to kill civilians if you’re at war with a country.
That’s been the whole problem. If Israel only went after Hamas and wasn’t doing things like preventing civilians from having food and water, bombing civilians and doing so many horrible things, no one would think they were committing genocide. It’s specifically that noncombatants–hell, even medics, who are protected by law–are targeted.
Luck is not what is killing Palestinians. It is Israel, as in the Israeli government and entirely legal armed forces of said country. Calling them SOL absolves Israel of blame.
It DOES matter if it is all of them, as only the ones actually doing the bad thing are acceptable targets. The rest isn’t luck. It’s war crimes.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that snark isn’t a substitute for argument. Sure, it sounds all hateful like you scored a point against your opposition. But, once you find the underlying argument, there’s nothing there.
I always find the use of snark in an argument to be suspicious, like you didn’t think your argument could hold its own.
Of course anti-Zionism is anti-semitic. It is the denial of the self determination movement of the Jewish people. You can’t deny a people autonomy without being prejudiced against them.
And the article clearly distinguishes between anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel:
I’m not entirely sure that’s a thing they could do, even if they thought it was critical.
That’s not to excuse their choices, it feels an awful lot to me like they’re now just beating down a helpless population who made some of their own very stupid choices based on hatred of Israel.
No, but that is the way war has always been and, I’m convinced, will always be. In the old days before mechanized warfare, invading armies got their food from the civilian population they decimated. The conquerors ate well while the civilians starved. In WW2, we ended the war in the Pacific Theatre by incinerating two cities comprised of civilians, many of whom were women and children. You’re basically saying that the Israeli forces should have accepted harder fighting and more casualties because it would be the decent thing to do to avoid civilian casualties. Yeah, right! Al Davis got it right when he said, “Just win, baby!”
I don’t want to junior mod, but I think the intentions of this thread were to discuss the concepts listed in the title on a more abstract, philosophical level.
There are lots of threads to discuss the specifics of what Israel is currently doing in Gaza. I’d like to see this one not get bogged down in that.
I think this is the part people don’t always live up to. In my neighborhood someone put up a flyer saying “Stop killing children in Gaza” and it was defaced. Was the person who defaced it actually enthusiastic about killing children in Gaza? Much more likely they were someone who felt the flyer was “antisemitic” and he was sticking up for the Jews by scribbling over it.
Likewise, right after 10/7 there was that trend of “Missing Person” flyers about the hostages in my neighborhood, and after a while someone started writing “Free Palestine” on them. Maybe that person was a literal Hamas supporter who thinks murdering Jews is awesome, but more likely it was someone enraged about the killing of civilians in Gaza who viewed sympathy for Israelis as an attempt to distract from the crimes Israel was committing.
There is a word that has had a meaning, pretty universally understood for decades, by the PLO, by Hamas after, by most Jews across the world, “Zionism” - which throughout that time has meant that a culturally Jewish Israel should be allowed to exist. And to be against that, to be “antizionist” has meant, to all those same groups, endorsing the goal of many Arab nations who attacked it many times, of the PLO, etc. of destroying that country and eliminating the Jewish presence there.
In general for most of that time the nature of those who endorsed Zionism was explicitly not religious. The big shift to religious Zionism was in Christian circles, and recently some minority Jewish religious Zionism parties.
Among American Jews today there is a fair degree of consensus (not universal agreement) that Israeli actions recently are horribly egregious. And that Israel actually is under serious threats of harm from regional actors who are antizionist in the long established meaning of the word, wanting to eliminate Jews from the region, nothing less will ever satisfy some of these elements. Stated goals. Part of the charter.
Antisemites have a long history of using the word “Zionist” synonymously with “Jewish.” When they speak of a “Zionist agenda” and “Zionist control” they mean Jewish and when they say they are against Zionists, antizionist, they mean Jews as a group, not the actions of the Religious Zionist Party or even Likud. Jews. They for decades have been occasionally wrapping their Jew hate as a hyperfocus on Israel: the rhetoric of that sort was recently on display in these fora.
Some American progressives have heard that word used by these antisemites and adopted it to mean a variety of things - from being critical of very specific abuses by the Israeli state and its citizens, to being specifically against the idea of a Jewish nation state, and many more meanings.
My position is pretty straightforward: the phrase antizionism has a long understood meaning of eliminating Israel of Jews and a long term usage by Jew haters; as a center left to progressive individual I want as many as possible in the common ground that current Israeli actions are unacceptable and that the United States must use its power to constrain it. Israel will not and should not be asked to do things that put its existence at risk. Israel will defend itself and any demand that it not do so would not go far no matter what pressure. But current actions are disproportionate to defense needs.
I completely get that “antizionism” doesn’t mean the same thing to some progressives now as it does to me. And that it does mean the same thing as it means to me to other progressives. And to other non progressive antisemites.
Given that the word has meanings, established and very recent, very antisemitic and not, and when it is used it invites understanding it as meaning something other than intended by some, those who want to find that common ground may consider finding ways to express how they want to be understood that are not going to understood as hate speech by some, who are using the longer term meaning of the word.
Intentionally using a word that invites being understood as hate speech is probably not a good idea unless the intention is to offend and provoke.
I don’t think that’s all it’s meant for Palestinians, for years and decades. In my understanding, to most Palestinians, Zionism means (and has meant) that it’s good and necessary they and their ancestors were displaced, and good and necessary that they continue to be displaced, good and necessary that they are treated differently under the law (especially in the Palestinian territories), and sometimes even worse.
And I honestly do not think that Palestinians ever used the word to mean those things.
But I do endorse that in a group of Americans that include Palestinians using the word “Zionism” to communicate a precondition of accepting that Israel has a right to survival as a state of Jewish character, along with a recognition of a right of a Palestinian state, with the work to do of how to build enough mutual trust to get there, knowing that it is going to have to happen in stages … is to be avoided, as it would communicate poorly and make working together for that future goal harder.
I know the word likely has different implications to a Palestinian American and if my goal is effective communication rather than provocation I have better words to choose.
No. That’s the point. I reasonably expect that “Zionism” is a word that may have implications to a Palestinian American today other than what I mean by it, so whatever its usage or nonusage by Palestinians historically it will be a bad choice for the goal of finding shared goals and alliance.
Seems like we really need a new word to mean specifically racist, genocide-advocating Jewish Israelis, because it’s not fair or appropriate to use “Zionist” for that.
Kahanist?
Yeah, I think Kahanist is a good way to get across what you mean if you’re referring to revanchist expansionist Jews. Maybe they’re not all following Kahane’s ideology precisely, but it’s much closer than “Zionist”.
I have no idea to what extent actual politicians and diplomats, but people have, at least hypothetically, talked about a “one-state solution” without mentioning the word Zionism or calling for the ethnic cleansing of anybody.
Since we’re giving our definitions - when I see “Zionism”, I see “Jewish nationalism expressed through a project of establishing and maintaining a Jewish national homeland in Palestine through settler colonialism”.
So when someone says they’re a Zionist, that’s what they’re telling me they’re for. And when I say I’m anti-Zionist, that’s what I’m against.
Not the Jewish homeland part - knock yourselves out. I hear the Chinese and Dutch are doing great things with building land out of nothing nowadays. Maybe ask them how.
The violent settler colonialism part that is a necessary part of Zionism as it is expressed in practice is the part I’m anti.