when the most common message being put forth is not "hey, Israel do better" but "Hey Israel, stop existing", progressives have to answer to that.
If someone feels the solution to this conflict is the elimination of Israel and they:
A. don't care how that happens = anti-Semite
B. Don't know how that would happen = maybe well meaning but very stupid at best, subconsciously anti-Semitic at worst.
When Muslims are slaughtered, displaced, subjugated in the millions (Uighurs, Rohingya, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan expulsion of Afghans) and it barely moves the needle but when Israel is subjected to a massacre on 10/7 and they're accused of genocide on 10/8, That is fucking anti-Semitism.
Jews are "othered", held to a different level of scrutiny, and not allowed to pursue basic self-defense of life and dignity that would be available to any other country, no matter how flawed those countries are.
Ceasefire now! for whom? Hamas? oh no silly, they can attack whenever they want. that's "resistance". we won't condemn that, only Israel's response. Because their lives are worth less. Self-defense principles do not apply.
The Pernicious thing that no one wants to address is the fallacious Oppressor/Oppressed binary whereby the "oppressed" cannot possibly be racist or wrong in anyway.
Telling an entire group of people they can't be racist because of their skin color will lead to bad, bad, very bad things. It's too bad there aren't enough progressives with a spine to call the bullshit where it exists.
Before 10/7, “From The River To The Sea” was understood by all mainstream media to be eliminationist towards Jews in Israel. Both Talib and Lamont Hill apologized for previous remarks.
Now, a month later, both are offering tepid excuses about what the phrase means that are being repeated by pro-Palestinian supporters.
This a power move, and a giant “Fuck You” towards the 90% of Jews who support Israel. It ought to be self-evident that this change in attitude shows a lesser regard for Jews and therefore is antisemitic.
The problem with all of this scholastic discussion is that it just doesn’t matter. There is a war going on that has lasted three quarters of a century now. It is war to the knife and it will end only in surrender of one side to the other. That side needs to be the Palestinians because 1) they have lost the war and 2) they will not be murdered when they do surrender. That’s it. None of the rest of the learned allocation of fault and parsing of distinctions and positing solutions means anything until there is peace first. The faster the war ends, the fewer people will die and the more grandchildren there will be to live in peace.
Yeah, I'm not antisemitic, I just think it's obviously wrong to kick people out of their land. That said, I also would never advocate for the unitary binational state solution. If Israelis thought they could live in a country where Jews weren't the majority, they wouldn't have moved there in the first place. I feel conflicted about the idea of a Jewish state, as I think many other liberals do. On the one hand, I'm against governments privileging one religion over another and establishing state religions; on the other, it's easy to understand why Zionism arose after all the persecution and pogroms the Jews have faced over the years, and there are many Christian and Muslim nations out there. Overall, it's not wrong to want a Jewish state, but it is definitely wrong to kick other people out of their homes to achieve it. It was wrong in 1948 and it's wrong now. If they want more sympathy from the left, they need to stop the West Bank settlements.
"Instead, the Israeli electorate" - nothing says anti Zionist like that intentional erasure of actual history. The Israeli Left got bombed out of political relevance by Palestinian terrorism. It's not for a lack of trying to offer land for peace. Netanyahu started his long stretch as prime minister in 2008 after 15 years of sustained Palestinian terrorism since Oslo I accords in 1993. Matt quickly skips over the PLO stabbing the Israeli Left in the back with a decision to 'negotiate' by terrorism in 2000-2005, the fact that all of Gaza was given to the PA in 2005, only to be lost to Hamas in a coup in 2007, turned into an Iranian artillery base. Also forgot to mention that Palestinians chose to vote in huge numbers for Hamas in 2006, after 13 years of being well aware that they're the anti-peace terrorism party. But sure, the problem with both the lack of a Palestinian state and SJP fans on campus attacking Jewish students must be because of the Israeli electorate.
There may very well be a greater number of antisemitic right-wingers than there are leftists, but they don’t seem to hold any real power, and they have even less impact on policy. Marjorie Taylor Greene may say crazy things about Jewish space lasers, but what’s the policy consequence of that?
On the other hand, someone like Rashida Tlaib very much advocates for policy that would directly harm Jews.
Matt, your apologia for antisemites knows no boundaries. How many words you've spent so far in article after article to make excuses for students and Leftists attacking Jewish students, um sorry... zionists. Yes, they're attacking 'zionists' in the US, who happen to be Jewish, and you find that acceptable.
"From the River to the Sea" isn't criticism of Israel, it's a call for its destruction, and since those chants started as early as October 7th, it's a support for genocide and ethnic cleansing of 7 million Israeli Jews, the majority of Jews in the world (and quite a lot of Israeli Arabs too).
You are detached from reality, like many anti Zionist progressives. You feel awkward that your Pals have shown their face as massacre loving and genocidal, and all you can do to absolve your own ass from the immense amount of pro Palestinian propaganda you swallowed and threw up over us is to claim that people who physically attack Jews aren't anti Jewish? You've lost your marbles.
Matt misses one crucial aspect of left-wing antisemitism.
Progressives tend to conflate mere "criticism of Israeli policy" with a characterization of Israel as "a settler-colonial state" (and, to some degree, with the left's long-standing contempt for religion).
A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem!") "Palestine" is the name applied by the Romans in conjunction with kicking out the Jews.
When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now.
Meanwhile, if the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....
PS: If calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?
Sad to to see MY lose his moral ground here. I guess his point is that I can hate Mexico without hating Hispanic people. But hating Mexico is still a dumb idea.
Gaza is controlled by barbarians who rape, butcher babies, film elderly folks' execution on their Facebook page and then call home to brag to their parents about how many Jews they have killed. And then they claim Jihad and wish to do it all again.
Israel could do some things better, but trying to put these 2 entities on equivalent moral ground is ridiculous. So young people think Israel is bad and Palestinians are good, but aren't antisemitic? The fact that support for Palestinians rose after the butchery shows that these people are idiots, independently of whether they see Israel as bad or just Jews in general.
Go take one of the Gay pride flags and fly it in Gaza and see what happens. And that is the place these people root for?
I think young college-educated leftists see opposing Israel's actions in regard to Arab Palestinians as part of a broad anti-colonialist political positioning. They are uncritically failing to distinguish between colonialist and imperialist activity by European nation states or groups whose national identity was represented by existing European nation states and the settlement movement of the Jewish people who obviously had no nation state and were subject to ongoing religious and racial persecution in European countries and elsewhere, ultimately climaxing of course in a movement where millions of Jewish people were exterminated across Europe, a movement that for a moment seemed to credibly threaten global domination. This is not to excuse every action taken by the state of Israel or groups within it but only to say I think it's specifically this oversimplified anti-colonialist stance that's largely driving the animosity toward Israel on the US left.
I think they would argue that taking over a country through violence is wrong whether or not the people doing said takeover are people who'd experienced discrimination elsewhere before. Also the fact that said takeover was basically facilitated and enabled by an actual colonial power (Britain) pretty much makes the colonialism of the whole enterprise indisputable.
It’s much more complicated than that. Up through WWII, GB wanted to appease the Arab World, and they pretty brutally persecuted the Jews in the area. They also actively prevented Jews from fleeing to Palestine to escape the Nazis.
Pretty much any time someone makes a broad proclamation about whether Israel is fair or unfair, you can be sure they’ve left major parts out.
I think this is also something that frustrates liberal Jews. We have very nuanced and conflicted feelings towards Israel and its history and seeing people (not saying this is you) who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of Israel’s history stridently claim it’s a black and white issue drives us nuts.
"It’s much more complicated than that. Up through WWII, GB wanted to appease the Arab World, and they pretty brutally persecuted the Jews in the area. They also actively prevented Jews from fleeing to Palestine to escape the Nazis."
And? The fact that Britain behaved badly elsewhere still doesn't change the fact that the Muslim population of Palestine had their lives completely turned upside down and thrown into chaos over the course of less than thirty years all because Arthur Balfour decided their land was his to give away. Why should Palestinians be punished because Britain was feeling guilty about their own behavior?
You said that Israel is straightforwardly unjust because it was enabled by a colonial power. This is not an accurate depiction of Britain’s actions.
Are you actually interested learning more about the history of the region, or are you completely fixed in your current opinion? If it’s the former, I’m happy to give you a summary.
Just so we’re clear, I believe Israel is a legitimate state, and I believe I’m well versed enough in its history that I’m not going to change my mind about that. It’s not going to be productive for either of us if you have equal and opposite beliefs.
That was not my contention. OP seemed to be saying that the colonialism involved in the creation of Israel was somehow different from the colonialist actions that are usually condemned by history because it was done by pogrom survivors rather than by the European powers traditionally associated with colonialism.
My contention was that 1. one of those traditional colonialist powers was plenty involved in the whole mess and 2. it rightfully did not matter one bit to the Palestinians on the ground from 1917-1948 whether the people moving into their nation intending to make it their own were doing it because they'd suffered greatly elsewhere.
Like, if someone burned down my house I would not particularly care whether they were rich or poor, I would just miss my house and I'd still be very mad at the arsonist in question.
I would say people migrating to find better lives is one of the oldest stories of humanity. And the people they meet wanting them to leave because they will change the character of the neighborhood is the next oldest.
My guess is that you are very sympathetic to people to the south of our border trying to migrate here. Or, say, the Great Migration of black people from the Jim Crow South to the industrialized North. Or North Koreans fleeing to South Korea. I doubt you shrug off the persecution North Koreans face and believe they are colonizing South Korea, even though they are very determined to get to South Korea specifically, and South Korea very much does not want them to come.
Or we could take more complex cases, like Mormons trying to set up shop in Missouri, and getting driven to Utah, both suffering and committing atrocities along the way.
So I don’t think there’s anything special about people who were regularly getting massacred deciding to return to their ancestral homeland, or about the people already living there objecting. As I’m sure you’re aware, Palestine wasn’t its own country. It was a territory held by the Ottoman Empire. Jews for the most part purchased the land they wanted to live on. Should they have continued as a diaspora? Maybe, but like many people in their situation, they didn’t want to.
I think they went about it as legitimately as possible, including petitioning the UN, and they were themselves brutally attacked and persecuted by their Arab neighbors. Both sides were both victims and victimizers. I see why people sympathize with Palestine, but I don’t think it has any special moral claim that outweighs Israel’s.
Britain's malfeasances were very real, but that's not the whole story.
A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem!") "Palestine" is the name applied by the Romans in conjunction with kicking out the Jews.
When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now.
Furthermore, if calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?
"When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now."
IDK, if some foreign colonial overlords decided to turn your country into an experiment by funneling in gigantic numbers of refugees to the point where they were a substantial part of your population and then splitting your country in two with the explicit purpose of making that group the rulers of half of it with you as a permenant minority in what was once your own I highly doubt you'd be super welcoming with open arms either. And given the extent to which even Arab-Israelis in Israel proper are still discriminated against today I don't think this argument that they'd be "thriving" really holds water.
"Furthermore, if calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?"
No clue what your logic is here. The anticololonial struggle was in full force, that's what the aforementioned riots were. And there was a full on civil war for months before the Arab nations moved in in 1948, before any Egyptian or Jordanian land was taken... is that not full force?
1) In questioning "Why wasn't this 'anticolonial struggle' going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?," I was referring to the years 1948-67. Evidently the current "resistance" indicates an animus specifically against Jews. (Same applies, incidentally, to the pre-1948 anti-Jewish riots.)
2) In another comment, I wrote, "A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem.").... If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that...."
The same applies to your characterization of Zionism as "some foreign colonial overlords deciding to turn the country into an experiment."
The narrative of Exile and Return has been at the heart of Jewish identity -- at least since the time when Hadrian was building his wall in "barbarian" Britain (presumed home of the "colonial overlords"), around the same time as he was purging "Palestine" of Jews.
The British notoriously played both ends against the middle (and were resisted by both sides) -- but in the larger scheme of things, that's not a pretext for invalidating the (far longer-standing) core narrative that identifies the Jews.
3) FWIW, I'm vehemently opposed to Bibi's vile "nation-state" law. For that matter, prior to Oct. 7, Israel was thronged with demonstrations against Bibi's regime -- marching with Israeli flags. Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?
4) Also FWIW, I believe that in a true liberal democracy, self-determination is inherently an individual right, regardless of ethnicity. Israel, for all its current flaws, still has the potential to evolve into a full-fledged liberal democracy. Conversely, the very purpose of creating a separate Palestinian state is to set aside a place where Jews are unwelcome. I'd sooner trust Israel than any iteration of Palestine to transform itself into a true democracy "from the river to the sea."
Israel has the power to begin this transition -- free of any neo-colonial meddling. That's the challenge now confronting Israel, and today's Jews.
>"1) In questioning "Why wasn't this 'anticolonial struggle' going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?," I was referring to the years 1948-67. Evidently the current "resistance" indicates an animus specifically against Jews. (Same applies, incidentally, to the pre-1948 anti-Jewish riots.)"
Still have no clue what you're talking about. While the Palestinians were being occupied by those other Arab countries they were famously horrible "tenants" who assassinated people and tried to orchestrate a coup, which is likely a big part of why neither country wants to annex them now... so wouldn't that strongly suggest that they aren't just motivated by Jewish hatred and legitimately don't want to be dominated by any outside power?
>"2) In another comment, I wrote, "A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem.").... If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....'"
Atheism?
>"The same applies to your characterization of Zionism as "some foreign colonial overlords deciding to turn the country into an experiment." The narrative of Exile and Return has been at the heart of Jewish identity -- at least since the time when Hadrian was building his wall in "barbarian" Britain (presumed home of the "colonial overlords"), around the same time as he was purging "Palestine" of Jews. The British notoriously played both ends against the middle (and were resisted by both sides) -- but in the larger scheme of things, that's not a pretext for invalidating the (far longer-standing) core narrative that identifies the Jews."
The Palestinians who were displaced because of this experiment do not care that the people displacing them were doing it because they thought said displacement was "core to their identity."
I'm sure that Putin could give you a mouthful about why he thinks Russia dominating Ukraine is integral to Russia's identity. Xi Jinping likely has all sorts of ancient claims about how the PRC dominate Taiwan. Find a conquest anywhere and you'll find some sort of manifest destiny bullshit justifying it.
>"3) Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?"
1) "'Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?' IDK, probably worrying about being murdered?"
That's precisely why I'd sooner trust Israel (with its demonstrations) than any iteration of Palestine to transform itself into a true democracy.
2) "'If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....' Atheism?"
Ironically, you've taken a position against which Jews and Muslims might finally agree. IMHO, this mess won't be over until the Al-Aqsa Mosque is emblazoned with the words, "This house shall be a house of prayer for all people."
You can take your religion (i.e., atheism), and go build your hubristic empire someplace else -- "making all your nowhere plans for nobody," imposing them on all of humanity (willing or not), no doubt in the name of "saving the planet."
I’m not saying there is any merit to Kendi’s logic, because there isn’t. Still, I don’t understand why we put any credence in surveys on topics as fraught as antisemitism and point to that as evidence of anything.
Admittedly without having read any of the listed papers, my lived experience leads me to conclude the horseshoe theory is more correct than the survey-based research suggests. I think the finding that “the epicenter of antisemitic attitudes is young adults on the far right” is mostly driven by social desirability bias that is present among more cosmopolitan progressives but not present among the far-right who increasingly valorize unfiltered hate.
That is, I don’t believe the progressive left hates Jews less on average, they just know it’s uncool to hate Jews out in the open. Anti-Israel protests are the loophole that lets them express disdain for Jewish people without experiencing the cognitive dissonance that targeting any ethnic group with vitriol should create based on progressive values. Whereas far right nationalists are not similarly compelled to hide their hatred of Jews in a survey setting, leading to the “epicenter” finding.
It is so weird how Israel is the one place in the world where "might makes right" is openly considered a moral argument. The native tribes "lost their wars" with the American settlers, that doesn't make the dispossession of their land right. Hell, Poland "lost their war" against Hitler, that sure doesn't mean the rest of the world was supposed to sit idly by and go "I guess he won it fair and square."
Well, I guess I’d compare it to the Kurds. A lot of people, including myself, think the Kurds deserve their own state, and part of why I believe it is because they have spilled so much of their own blood trying to get one.
If the Kurds did succeed in wresting some territory from Turkey, the rest of the world would consider it almost entirely in terms of realpolitik. Is it worth angering Turkey to support them (almost certainly not)? If countries were willing to ruin their relations with Turkey, the immediate next question would be if Kurds could militarily defend their own borders.
This was also a key realpolitik question when Israel wanted statehood. The CIA advised Truman against voting for the new nation, because it didn’t think Israel would be able to withstand their enemies.
You know who else has spilled a whole lot of their own blood trying to get their own state... the Palestinians.
If they somehow got a whole lot of better weaponry and actually managed to make their most deranged "river to the sea" fantasies a reality would that suddenly make such a conquest right simply because they fought most effectively and won? I don't think so. There are bigger questions in any conflict than who "wants it more" or who fights the hardest and wins.
I thought I was adding some texture on why ability to defend your chosen borders does matter. I’m not interested in getting into a fight about whether Israel should exist. It’s a complicated history. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that is wrong or lying.
When Germany finally lost the war, Silesia (and most of Prussia) became part of Poland. (East Prussia, and the eastern part of Poland, became part of the Soviet Union.) In the end, might still made right.
Thanks Matt "the kids are alright" Yglesias.
when the most common message being put forth is not "hey, Israel do better" but "Hey Israel, stop existing", progressives have to answer to that.
If someone feels the solution to this conflict is the elimination of Israel and they:
A. don't care how that happens = anti-Semite
B. Don't know how that would happen = maybe well meaning but very stupid at best, subconsciously anti-Semitic at worst.
When Muslims are slaughtered, displaced, subjugated in the millions (Uighurs, Rohingya, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan expulsion of Afghans) and it barely moves the needle but when Israel is subjected to a massacre on 10/7 and they're accused of genocide on 10/8, That is fucking anti-Semitism.
Jews are "othered", held to a different level of scrutiny, and not allowed to pursue basic self-defense of life and dignity that would be available to any other country, no matter how flawed those countries are.
Ceasefire now! for whom? Hamas? oh no silly, they can attack whenever they want. that's "resistance". we won't condemn that, only Israel's response. Because their lives are worth less. Self-defense principles do not apply.
The Pernicious thing that no one wants to address is the fallacious Oppressor/Oppressed binary whereby the "oppressed" cannot possibly be racist or wrong in anyway.
Telling an entire group of people they can't be racist because of their skin color will lead to bad, bad, very bad things. It's too bad there aren't enough progressives with a spine to call the bullshit where it exists.
For fuck’s sake, Matt:
Before 10/7, “From The River To The Sea” was understood by all mainstream media to be eliminationist towards Jews in Israel. Both Talib and Lamont Hill apologized for previous remarks.
Now, a month later, both are offering tepid excuses about what the phrase means that are being repeated by pro-Palestinian supporters.
This a power move, and a giant “Fuck You” towards the 90% of Jews who support Israel. It ought to be self-evident that this change in attitude shows a lesser regard for Jews and therefore is antisemitic.
Thanks, Yglesias! This is the most sober, smart take on this issue I have thus far read on this platform.
The problem with all of this scholastic discussion is that it just doesn’t matter. There is a war going on that has lasted three quarters of a century now. It is war to the knife and it will end only in surrender of one side to the other. That side needs to be the Palestinians because 1) they have lost the war and 2) they will not be murdered when they do surrender. That’s it. None of the rest of the learned allocation of fault and parsing of distinctions and positing solutions means anything until there is peace first. The faster the war ends, the fewer people will die and the more grandchildren there will be to live in peace.
Yeah, I'm not antisemitic, I just think it's obviously wrong to kick people out of their land. That said, I also would never advocate for the unitary binational state solution. If Israelis thought they could live in a country where Jews weren't the majority, they wouldn't have moved there in the first place. I feel conflicted about the idea of a Jewish state, as I think many other liberals do. On the one hand, I'm against governments privileging one religion over another and establishing state religions; on the other, it's easy to understand why Zionism arose after all the persecution and pogroms the Jews have faced over the years, and there are many Christian and Muslim nations out there. Overall, it's not wrong to want a Jewish state, but it is definitely wrong to kick other people out of their homes to achieve it. It was wrong in 1948 and it's wrong now. If they want more sympathy from the left, they need to stop the West Bank settlements.
The Israelis are not at fault for the way the 1948 war went.
Well thought out and well said. Too bad you don't have a megaphone to the world.
"Instead, the Israeli electorate" - nothing says anti Zionist like that intentional erasure of actual history. The Israeli Left got bombed out of political relevance by Palestinian terrorism. It's not for a lack of trying to offer land for peace. Netanyahu started his long stretch as prime minister in 2008 after 15 years of sustained Palestinian terrorism since Oslo I accords in 1993. Matt quickly skips over the PLO stabbing the Israeli Left in the back with a decision to 'negotiate' by terrorism in 2000-2005, the fact that all of Gaza was given to the PA in 2005, only to be lost to Hamas in a coup in 2007, turned into an Iranian artillery base. Also forgot to mention that Palestinians chose to vote in huge numbers for Hamas in 2006, after 13 years of being well aware that they're the anti-peace terrorism party. But sure, the problem with both the lack of a Palestinian state and SJP fans on campus attacking Jewish students must be because of the Israeli electorate.
There may very well be a greater number of antisemitic right-wingers than there are leftists, but they don’t seem to hold any real power, and they have even less impact on policy. Marjorie Taylor Greene may say crazy things about Jewish space lasers, but what’s the policy consequence of that?
On the other hand, someone like Rashida Tlaib very much advocates for policy that would directly harm Jews.
Matt, your apologia for antisemites knows no boundaries. How many words you've spent so far in article after article to make excuses for students and Leftists attacking Jewish students, um sorry... zionists. Yes, they're attacking 'zionists' in the US, who happen to be Jewish, and you find that acceptable.
"From the River to the Sea" isn't criticism of Israel, it's a call for its destruction, and since those chants started as early as October 7th, it's a support for genocide and ethnic cleansing of 7 million Israeli Jews, the majority of Jews in the world (and quite a lot of Israeli Arabs too).
You are detached from reality, like many anti Zionist progressives. You feel awkward that your Pals have shown their face as massacre loving and genocidal, and all you can do to absolve your own ass from the immense amount of pro Palestinian propaganda you swallowed and threw up over us is to claim that people who physically attack Jews aren't anti Jewish? You've lost your marbles.
Matt misses one crucial aspect of left-wing antisemitism.
Progressives tend to conflate mere "criticism of Israeli policy" with a characterization of Israel as "a settler-colonial state" (and, to some degree, with the left's long-standing contempt for religion).
A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem!") "Palestine" is the name applied by the Romans in conjunction with kicking out the Jews.
When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now.
Meanwhile, if the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....
PS: If calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?
Sad to to see MY lose his moral ground here. I guess his point is that I can hate Mexico without hating Hispanic people. But hating Mexico is still a dumb idea.
Gaza is controlled by barbarians who rape, butcher babies, film elderly folks' execution on their Facebook page and then call home to brag to their parents about how many Jews they have killed. And then they claim Jihad and wish to do it all again.
Israel could do some things better, but trying to put these 2 entities on equivalent moral ground is ridiculous. So young people think Israel is bad and Palestinians are good, but aren't antisemitic? The fact that support for Palestinians rose after the butchery shows that these people are idiots, independently of whether they see Israel as bad or just Jews in general.
Go take one of the Gay pride flags and fly it in Gaza and see what happens. And that is the place these people root for?
I think young college-educated leftists see opposing Israel's actions in regard to Arab Palestinians as part of a broad anti-colonialist political positioning. They are uncritically failing to distinguish between colonialist and imperialist activity by European nation states or groups whose national identity was represented by existing European nation states and the settlement movement of the Jewish people who obviously had no nation state and were subject to ongoing religious and racial persecution in European countries and elsewhere, ultimately climaxing of course in a movement where millions of Jewish people were exterminated across Europe, a movement that for a moment seemed to credibly threaten global domination. This is not to excuse every action taken by the state of Israel or groups within it but only to say I think it's specifically this oversimplified anti-colonialist stance that's largely driving the animosity toward Israel on the US left.
I think they would argue that taking over a country through violence is wrong whether or not the people doing said takeover are people who'd experienced discrimination elsewhere before. Also the fact that said takeover was basically facilitated and enabled by an actual colonial power (Britain) pretty much makes the colonialism of the whole enterprise indisputable.
It’s much more complicated than that. Up through WWII, GB wanted to appease the Arab World, and they pretty brutally persecuted the Jews in the area. They also actively prevented Jews from fleeing to Palestine to escape the Nazis.
Pretty much any time someone makes a broad proclamation about whether Israel is fair or unfair, you can be sure they’ve left major parts out.
I think this is also something that frustrates liberal Jews. We have very nuanced and conflicted feelings towards Israel and its history and seeing people (not saying this is you) who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of Israel’s history stridently claim it’s a black and white issue drives us nuts.
"It’s much more complicated than that. Up through WWII, GB wanted to appease the Arab World, and they pretty brutally persecuted the Jews in the area. They also actively prevented Jews from fleeing to Palestine to escape the Nazis."
And? The fact that Britain behaved badly elsewhere still doesn't change the fact that the Muslim population of Palestine had their lives completely turned upside down and thrown into chaos over the course of less than thirty years all because Arthur Balfour decided their land was his to give away. Why should Palestinians be punished because Britain was feeling guilty about their own behavior?
You said that Israel is straightforwardly unjust because it was enabled by a colonial power. This is not an accurate depiction of Britain’s actions.
Are you actually interested learning more about the history of the region, or are you completely fixed in your current opinion? If it’s the former, I’m happy to give you a summary.
Just so we’re clear, I believe Israel is a legitimate state, and I believe I’m well versed enough in its history that I’m not going to change my mind about that. It’s not going to be productive for either of us if you have equal and opposite beliefs.
That was not my contention. OP seemed to be saying that the colonialism involved in the creation of Israel was somehow different from the colonialist actions that are usually condemned by history because it was done by pogrom survivors rather than by the European powers traditionally associated with colonialism.
My contention was that 1. one of those traditional colonialist powers was plenty involved in the whole mess and 2. it rightfully did not matter one bit to the Palestinians on the ground from 1917-1948 whether the people moving into their nation intending to make it their own were doing it because they'd suffered greatly elsewhere.
Like, if someone burned down my house I would not particularly care whether they were rich or poor, I would just miss my house and I'd still be very mad at the arsonist in question.
I would say people migrating to find better lives is one of the oldest stories of humanity. And the people they meet wanting them to leave because they will change the character of the neighborhood is the next oldest.
My guess is that you are very sympathetic to people to the south of our border trying to migrate here. Or, say, the Great Migration of black people from the Jim Crow South to the industrialized North. Or North Koreans fleeing to South Korea. I doubt you shrug off the persecution North Koreans face and believe they are colonizing South Korea, even though they are very determined to get to South Korea specifically, and South Korea very much does not want them to come.
Or we could take more complex cases, like Mormons trying to set up shop in Missouri, and getting driven to Utah, both suffering and committing atrocities along the way.
So I don’t think there’s anything special about people who were regularly getting massacred deciding to return to their ancestral homeland, or about the people already living there objecting. As I’m sure you’re aware, Palestine wasn’t its own country. It was a territory held by the Ottoman Empire. Jews for the most part purchased the land they wanted to live on. Should they have continued as a diaspora? Maybe, but like many people in their situation, they didn’t want to.
I think they went about it as legitimately as possible, including petitioning the UN, and they were themselves brutally attacked and persecuted by their Arab neighbors. Both sides were both victims and victimizers. I see why people sympathize with Palestine, but I don’t think it has any special moral claim that outweighs Israel’s.
Britain's malfeasances were very real, but that's not the whole story.
A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem!") "Palestine" is the name applied by the Romans in conjunction with kicking out the Jews.
When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now.
Furthermore, if calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?
"When Jews started peacefully returning from Exile (decades before 1948), Palestinians (predominantly ethnic Arabs) ) staged riots (verging on pogroms). It's not as if they welcomed the Jews home with open arms. Had they done so, there'd have been no "Nakba," and they'd be prospering now."
IDK, if some foreign colonial overlords decided to turn your country into an experiment by funneling in gigantic numbers of refugees to the point where they were a substantial part of your population and then splitting your country in two with the explicit purpose of making that group the rulers of half of it with you as a permenant minority in what was once your own I highly doubt you'd be super welcoming with open arms either. And given the extent to which even Arab-Israelis in Israel proper are still discriminated against today I don't think this argument that they'd be "thriving" really holds water.
"Furthermore, if calls to "Free Palestine" (and the various intifadas) have nothing to do with antisemitism (i.e., antipathy toward Jews), why wasn't this "anticolonial struggle" going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?"
No clue what your logic is here. The anticololonial struggle was in full force, that's what the aforementioned riots were. And there was a full on civil war for months before the Arab nations moved in in 1948, before any Egyptian or Jordanian land was taken... is that not full force?
THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED 😱
1) In questioning "Why wasn't this 'anticolonial struggle' going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?," I was referring to the years 1948-67. Evidently the current "resistance" indicates an animus specifically against Jews. (Same applies, incidentally, to the pre-1948 anti-Jewish riots.)
2) In another comment, I wrote, "A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem.").... If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that...."
The same applies to your characterization of Zionism as "some foreign colonial overlords deciding to turn the country into an experiment."
The narrative of Exile and Return has been at the heart of Jewish identity -- at least since the time when Hadrian was building his wall in "barbarian" Britain (presumed home of the "colonial overlords"), around the same time as he was purging "Palestine" of Jews.
The British notoriously played both ends against the middle (and were resisted by both sides) -- but in the larger scheme of things, that's not a pretext for invalidating the (far longer-standing) core narrative that identifies the Jews.
3) FWIW, I'm vehemently opposed to Bibi's vile "nation-state" law. For that matter, prior to Oct. 7, Israel was thronged with demonstrations against Bibi's regime -- marching with Israeli flags. Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?
4) Also FWIW, I believe that in a true liberal democracy, self-determination is inherently an individual right, regardless of ethnicity. Israel, for all its current flaws, still has the potential to evolve into a full-fledged liberal democracy. Conversely, the very purpose of creating a separate Palestinian state is to set aside a place where Jews are unwelcome. I'd sooner trust Israel than any iteration of Palestine to transform itself into a true democracy "from the river to the sea."
Israel has the power to begin this transition -- free of any neo-colonial meddling. That's the challenge now confronting Israel, and today's Jews.
>"1) In questioning "Why wasn't this 'anticolonial struggle' going on full-force until Israel took control of the Territories from Egypt and Jordan?," I was referring to the years 1948-67. Evidently the current "resistance" indicates an animus specifically against Jews. (Same applies, incidentally, to the pre-1948 anti-Jewish riots.)"
Still have no clue what you're talking about. While the Palestinians were being occupied by those other Arab countries they were famously horrible "tenants" who assassinated people and tried to orchestrate a coup, which is likely a big part of why neither country wants to annex them now... so wouldn't that strongly suggest that they aren't just motivated by Jewish hatred and legitimately don't want to be dominated by any outside power?
>"2) In another comment, I wrote, "A narrative of Exile and Return has been recognized as a defining element of Jewish identity throughout the world for over 2,000 years. ("Next year in Jerusalem.").... If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....'"
Atheism?
>"The same applies to your characterization of Zionism as "some foreign colonial overlords deciding to turn the country into an experiment." The narrative of Exile and Return has been at the heart of Jewish identity -- at least since the time when Hadrian was building his wall in "barbarian" Britain (presumed home of the "colonial overlords"), around the same time as he was purging "Palestine" of Jews. The British notoriously played both ends against the middle (and were resisted by both sides) -- but in the larger scheme of things, that's not a pretext for invalidating the (far longer-standing) core narrative that identifies the Jews."
The Palestinians who were displaced because of this experiment do not care that the people displacing them were doing it because they thought said displacement was "core to their identity."
I'm sure that Putin could give you a mouthful about why he thinks Russia dominating Ukraine is integral to Russia's identity. Xi Jinping likely has all sorts of ancient claims about how the PRC dominate Taiwan. Find a conquest anywhere and you'll find some sort of manifest destiny bullshit justifying it.
>"3) Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?"
IDK, probably worrying about being murdered?
1) "'Where were the crowds in Gaza protesting Hamas?' IDK, probably worrying about being murdered?"
That's precisely why I'd sooner trust Israel (with its demonstrations) than any iteration of Palestine to transform itself into a true democracy.
2) "'If the contention is that Jewish identity is a ultimately based on a fairy tale (or an outright fraud), there's a name for that....' Atheism?"
Ironically, you've taken a position against which Jews and Muslims might finally agree. IMHO, this mess won't be over until the Al-Aqsa Mosque is emblazoned with the words, "This house shall be a house of prayer for all people."
You can take your religion (i.e., atheism), and go build your hubristic empire someplace else -- "making all your nowhere plans for nobody," imposing them on all of humanity (willing or not), no doubt in the name of "saving the planet."
I’m not saying there is any merit to Kendi’s logic, because there isn’t. Still, I don’t understand why we put any credence in surveys on topics as fraught as antisemitism and point to that as evidence of anything.
Admittedly without having read any of the listed papers, my lived experience leads me to conclude the horseshoe theory is more correct than the survey-based research suggests. I think the finding that “the epicenter of antisemitic attitudes is young adults on the far right” is mostly driven by social desirability bias that is present among more cosmopolitan progressives but not present among the far-right who increasingly valorize unfiltered hate.
That is, I don’t believe the progressive left hates Jews less on average, they just know it’s uncool to hate Jews out in the open. Anti-Israel protests are the loophole that lets them express disdain for Jewish people without experiencing the cognitive dissonance that targeting any ethnic group with vitriol should create based on progressive values. Whereas far right nationalists are not similarly compelled to hide their hatred of Jews in a survey setting, leading to the “epicenter” finding.
The left loves Jews as long as fascists are threatening Jews with destruction. It's a protection racket.
That would be Laffer, lol. And me (see my OP)
"But the perception that Israel has grown comfortable with the idea of dispossessing the Palestinians of their land is accurate."
No it's not. They lost 2 wars, it's not their land anymore
It is so weird how Israel is the one place in the world where "might makes right" is openly considered a moral argument. The native tribes "lost their wars" with the American settlers, that doesn't make the dispossession of their land right. Hell, Poland "lost their war" against Hitler, that sure doesn't mean the rest of the world was supposed to sit idly by and go "I guess he won it fair and square."
Well, I guess I’d compare it to the Kurds. A lot of people, including myself, think the Kurds deserve their own state, and part of why I believe it is because they have spilled so much of their own blood trying to get one.
If the Kurds did succeed in wresting some territory from Turkey, the rest of the world would consider it almost entirely in terms of realpolitik. Is it worth angering Turkey to support them (almost certainly not)? If countries were willing to ruin their relations with Turkey, the immediate next question would be if Kurds could militarily defend their own borders.
This was also a key realpolitik question when Israel wanted statehood. The CIA advised Truman against voting for the new nation, because it didn’t think Israel would be able to withstand their enemies.
You know who else has spilled a whole lot of their own blood trying to get their own state... the Palestinians.
If they somehow got a whole lot of better weaponry and actually managed to make their most deranged "river to the sea" fantasies a reality would that suddenly make such a conquest right simply because they fought most effectively and won? I don't think so. There are bigger questions in any conflict than who "wants it more" or who fights the hardest and wins.
I thought I was adding some texture on why ability to defend your chosen borders does matter. I’m not interested in getting into a fight about whether Israel should exist. It’s a complicated history. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that is wrong or lying.
When Germany finally lost the war, Silesia (and most of Prussia) became part of Poland. (East Prussia, and the eastern part of Poland, became part of the Soviet Union.) In the end, might still made right.
Well said.