(no subject)

[pearwaldorf]

Blarghhhhhhhhh

Friends, especially Jewish friends, I would like some input.

Content notes: antisemitism, zionism, Israel, a little bit of transphobia

So people have been talking about some of the leaders of the Women's March outright saying they're admirers of Louis Farrakhan. Which is, uh, bad. Because he's super antisemitic and transphobic. (He legit said trans people were invented by Jews to destroy the black community so, uh, yeah.)

Farrakhan's antisemitism isn't really in question, but as an aside to this, Linda Sarsour (another Women's March leader) apparently said that no woman can be feminist and zionist and has been kinda cagey about the whole issue. And a Twitter acquaintance got into a discussion with me on it and I'm trying to reconcile the things I'm hearing from lots of places. I mean, obviously Farrakhan is an antisemite. But I'm not convinced Sarsour isn't one.

My understanding is that all it takes to be a zionist is that you believe the state of Israel has a right to exist where it does. It does not necessarily come with the political/religious baggage or actions we see/have seen taken by the Israeli government. Obviously it's way, way more complicated than that, but I'm working up to the complicated shit as best I can.

I realize that my perspectives are influenced very heavily by American discourse around Israel, and the assumption that most (American) Jewish people are zionists. I also realize that there are ways in which zionism has been enacted in Israel that are violent, colonialist, and reprehensible, and (especially Arab and Palestinian) people rightfully question. But it seems kinda fucked to hold non-Israeli Jews "accountable" to a government they have no control over. I mean, it's basically the equivalent of me (a person of Chinese descent) being asked to answer for the horrible things the Chinese government has done. I'm not responsible for them. So I'm rather baffled by people, especially progressives, who think that some sort of litmus test re: Israel needs to be applied.
 

 

My gut feeling is that people (in general) equate zionism with the horrible things done by the Israeli government, which I suppose is understandable even if incorrect. But if we are to go by the dictionary definition of the term, it feels oogy and antisemitic to say “You don’t get to have a state/country of your own and you’re a bad person for wanting to have one.” Obviously not every Jewish person is a zionist. But I think it is an understandable position to have.
 

 

I am an American goy, and I am horrifically ignorant about this stuff. Your thoughts and recommendations for further reading are welcomed.

Comments

[nonelvis]

But it seems kinda fucked to hold non-Israeli Jews "accountable" to a government they have no control over.

CORRECT. And yet somehow, we American Jews are expected to answer for the crimes of a government many of us do not support, even if we support the concept of Zionism (i.e., a Jewish state -- not the de-facto apartheid the American left increasingly seems to think defines "Zionism"). Why, it's almost as if "Jews are only loyal to themselves, not whatever country they live in" is an ancient anti-Semitic trope that's been used to attack us for thousands of years or something.

So I'm rather baffled by people, especially progressives, who think that some sort of litmus test re: Israel needs to be applied.

I can only speak for the Jewish religious education I received, which was at a Conservative shul in the 70s and early 80s. (And briefly, at a Hebrew day school in the 1970s.) But it's hard for me to believe that any American Jew receiving even the most minimal religious education here wouldn't be taught about the Right of Return, or be instilled with an almost mythic reverence for the idea of Israel as a place that all Jews should at least visit, if not live in someday. I would like to think that modern Jewish kids are getting a much more nuanced education about the Palestinians than I did, though admittedly, when I was in Hebrew school, Israel was a much younger country, and actively at war with Yasser Arafat and the PLO.

But the goyim don't know what we're taught in school. They assume that we're taught that the Palestinians are always evil, and that Israeli settlers are always good, and that we are somehow incapable of reading the news or forming any critical thoughts about a country that supposedly has more of our loyalty than the place we live. They fail to recognize how painful it is for us to know that this country that represents a home to an ethnic group that's been consistently demonized since the Middle Ages is also responsible for terrible crimes of its own. We are literally considered untrustworthy -- you know, the way Jews are -- if we cannot fully renounce a state that represents an ideal to us yet has fallen hugely short of its promise.

It is gross. It is anti-Semitic. And it is fucking tiresome as all hell, let me tell you.

[nostalgia]

The left at least here in the UK have a whole Thing about zionism and Israel and at the time of the inital protests against the Iraq war there was a LOT of befriending openly anti-semitic people when they wouldn't be friends with someone who openly said that, for exaple, all gay people should be shot. HRM I WONDER WHY.

[nonelvis]

Let's never forget that Jews control the media, the banks, and basically, the entire world, so fuck 'em, obviously.

[nostalgia]

Oh yeah I forgot about that!

[minim_calibre]

http://littlegoythings.tumblr.com/ is a good Tumblr to follow.

https://tikkunolamorgtfo.tumblr.com/post/171559307561/antisemitism-on-the-left is a good post.

[deepsix]

I mean, I'm coming from this as a white Canadian goy, so take this with a grain of salt.

My understanding is that people do (incorrectly) equate zionism with the horrible things done by the Israeli government, even though many of those things have nothing to do with the basic tenets of zionism (i.e. the belief in an independent Jewish nation). Many of my Jewish friends have in the past (idk of their beliefs rn, and don't want to assume; none of them are Israeli either) distanced themselves from zionism precisely because of this, even though they've done Birthright trips and support the general principle, suggesting SOME support for the basic tenets of zionism.

I kinda think of zionism as a spectrum, where in order to be ON the spectrum you need to support the existence of an independent Jewish nation, but where everything else is a matter of opinion. In its totality, "zionism" encompasses a whole host of views about the Jewish nation/Israel (which are not interchangeable) and individual adherents can believe any number of things. Anti-zionists however seem to think that if you're on that spectrum at ALL, you believe in all of it, all the time, and therefore they reject it and everyone on the spectrum. To them, you can't be a zionist AND (for example) be against the Israeli government, because they are intellectually bankrupt and refuse to acknowledge that people hold multiple and sometimes seemingly competing views about stuff literally all the time. Therefore, because they reject some of the ideas under the zionist umbrella, they reject ALL of it, including the idea that Jews have a right to self-determination, and that's what makes them antisemitic.

Idk if you've read this yet: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-when-leftists-celebrate-satanic-jews-louis-farrakhan-1.5868809

[longwhitecoats]

My goyish understanding is that "you're being zionist" is 99% of the time just a dogwhistle. It has no actual content; it's just a way of saying "I'm going to discredit you for being Jewish but without saying that explicitly."

[nostalgia]

Around the time of the Scottish referendum I was thinking about "anti-zionist" left-wing Scots, many of whom were voting for independence and I was like "how can we say we deserve our own country while those other people somehow don't?" Especially if they're a group that other people keep trying to wipe out. We don't like what a lot of governments do, but we don't say the entire state is illegitimate because of that. The US was built on genocide and land-theft but that one's okay while Israel isn't because... reasons? Why should a hypothetical Kurdistan exist but not Israel?

It may be said that *ideally* Britain wouldn't have messed up and promised Israel-Palestine to everyone, and *ideally* nobody would have been displaced, but Israel is there *now* and we should accept that. Which means in the dictionary definition I'm probably a zionist even though a lot of people insist being zionist means you can't dislike Netanyahu's government or think the Occupied Territories shouldn't be occupied.

[nonelvis]

It may be said that *ideally* Britain wouldn't have messed up and promised Israel-Palestine to everyone, and *ideally* nobody would have been displaced, but Israel is there *now* and we should accept that.

thiiiiiiiiiiis

[nostalgia]

I don't think it's reasonable to ask Israelis who have nothing to do with the fuck-ups made at the time of the British Mandate etc to leave the only home they've ever known because someone else's gran was there first.

[callmesandyk]

Theoretically, it is possible to be a good American Jew is you renounce Zionism, but that's super theoretical. Otherwise, it seems most of the left thinks of all Jews as Zionists and all us support everything Israel and, of course, approve of how the government treats Palestinians. Until you can convince your interrogators, you're just zionist scum.

Zionist is a term I would never claim for myself, because the people who've turned into an attack word have long since claimed it. But I never feel the slightest bit safe with people who use the term as a Jew.

[lovelythings]

I was talking to my Israeli friend this summer and trying to explain the baggage that Zionism carries here and we never really came to an agreement. I agree (as another American goy) that in the US, Zionism has the connotation of something other than just recognizing the right of Israel to exist, and definitely has implications of denying the right of a Palestinian state to exist. There are Zionists who are willing to work toward a two-state solution. There are Zionists who aren't. I think the connotation in the US is more towards the latter, even if the reality doesn't necessarily reflect that.