Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

I don’t use the word because in my experience it was used by Turner Diaries types (i.e. Zionist Occupied Government)

also presumes that being a "zionist" is an immutable position that can't be changed via persuasion

Maoism is trending among younger people… as is the belief that Stalin was a great man … for gen x leftists (and boomers), there is some serious wtf
― sarahell, Friday, April 26, 2024 8:54 AM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I am obviously not a Tankie, but especially for younger people, all that they have seen is radical reactionaries and fascist-adjacent ghouls impose their ideological viewpoints upon the populace with little impunity. The urge to replicate this kind of authoritarian bullshit from a leftist ideological view is understandable, if misguided and ahistorical.

I think it's often shallower than that. Mao and Stalin get reduced down to avatars for "people who successfully opposed capitalism" and I'm not sure they think much past that dubious point

That said, I'm not seeing any pro-Mao or pro-Stalin sentiment among the young leftists of Montreal, and I wonder how concrete or significant this is. On the other hand, there is a legally legitimate communist party in Canada, so maybe it gets channelled into something slightly more defensible up here.

Maybe more for the antisemitism thread, but I still think there is a certain grey area that we haven't really figured out how to address/deal with with the rhetoric around "zionism," because the term "zionism" is not well defined. At least pre and during WWII, Nazi meant something specific, a member or supporter of the Nazi party. It seems like "zionist" means anyone who hasn't come to the conclusion that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state in any sense. And I think that is dangerous in combination with a lot of the rhetoric I hear - that zionists should die, that zionists should be targeted by terrorist attacks, etc. And this is "not antisemitism" because you can separate Jews into the good kind (anti-zionist) and the bad kind (zionist).

The issue is that by tying Judaism to a project like Israel, there is a narrow set of paths by which one can oppose the state without opposing the religion, according to the logic set up by the state itself. I am opposed to the state of Israel, but I am not opposed to Judaism or Jewish people. This tethering of a state apparatus to a religious identity is dangerous in all of its iterations— the same problem exists with Islamic states, and in the US (among others) with Christianity, despite our supposed "melting pot" nature.

The issue then becomes: what is the aim of tying the state to a religion? Who and what does this tethering aim to protect and exclude? Why?

That said, I'm not seeing any pro-Mao or pro-Stalin sentiment among the young leftists of Montreal, and I wonder how concrete or significant this is.

xps having been in tankie adjacent spaces most of these people really do know nothing and seem to think the sino-soviet split never happened. they like to use symbols of state power to project a strength and unity that the left doesn't have and there's a huge archive of a century of marxist-leninist theory for them to draw from with prepackaged answers to every question. crappy anarchist zines and ultraleft treatises on value don't have the same appeal. it's like marx said "the tradition of dead [actually existing socialist states] weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living"

there's a tendency to downplay this trend either because people don't come across it or because it's just embarrassing but it has been pretty damaging in the left even if most of the people involved aren't necessarily stalinists in a genuine sense

every socialist state is equivalent to them and anyone who has been hurt or whose family has been hurt by ostensibly socialist or just anti-imperialist regimes is chased out of a lot of left spaces if they talk about their experiences with a lot of racist assumptions projected onto them. it's really fucked up and white western leftists have done genuine harm to solidarity efforts between (for example) syrians and palestinians with their bullshit

I am obviously not a Tankie

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

????????????????????????

there's a tendency to downplay this trend either because people don't come across it or because it's just embarrassing but it has been pretty damaging in the left even if most of the people involved aren't necessarily stalinists in a genuine sense

brave

Nobody can prevent you from wasting your time indulging shit for brains liberal opinions and that’s fine!

I get my fill of those on here

I don't want to stray too far from the point but are the liberal opinions thinking stalin worship is bad or thinking it's consequential enough to be worth opposing? as far as the average bidenite is concerned I'm just a tankie anyway

it depends who you know or where you are but I have run into enough queer marxist leninists who dominate certain spaces and profess to love everything they hate when a red flag is slapped on it and it's hard to leave that alone

The issue is that by tying Judaism to a project like Israel, there is a narrow set of paths by which one can oppose the state without opposing the religion, according to the logic set up by the state itself. I am opposed to the state of Israel, but I am not opposed to Judaism or Jewish people. This tethering of a state apparatus to a religious identity is dangerous in all of its iterations— the same problem exists with Islamic states, and in the US (among others) with Christianity, despite our supposed "melting pot" nature.

The issue then becomes: what is the aim of tying the state to a religion? Who and what does this tethering aim to protect and exclude? Why?

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Friday, April 26, 2024 11:44 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But I have never seen protesters (other than perhaps right wingers) arguing that it is fundamentally an "evil ideology" for any of the dozens of states that are Islamic in an official capacity to be Islamic, including those funded and supported by the US. No one is protesting that Saudi Arabia or Egypt should be dismantled and turned into secular states.

Additionally, "Zionism" is often used to signify some broader evil, settler colonialism itself, rapacious financial capitalism, police brutality, etc. For example, the fact that the NYPD has done occasional "trainings" with the IDF has been used to suggest that "Zionism" is responsible for the NYPD's brutality, as though it hasn't always been that way.

Have you missed the many calls for Islamic states to become more secular over the years, by both official and unofficial campaigns?

What about the 4-5 million people killed as part of the west’s “war on terror,” which is a war on Islam?

You’ll notice that what leftists oppose is EMPIRE and the wanton destruction of people and culture that does not hew to Western Judeo-Christian “values.”

Training with the IDF and the increased militarization of police after 9/11 go hand in hand, and to be incredulous about this connection is wild to
me, and to claim that Zionism isn’t a settler colonial ideology is also wild.

tabes get the noxious trope "Judeo-Christian" out of your shitty mouth

just say "Christian" when that's what you fucking mean

fuck you

go fuck yourself

eat shit and die you bigoted pig

. The urge to replicate this kind of authoritarian bullshit from a leftist ideological view is understandable, if misguided and ahistorical.

I don’t and will never care or waste attention on shrieking about marginal views in the broader left, sorry if this offends

this is not good: "Student Leader of Columbia Protests: ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live’
After video surfaced on social media, the student, Khymani James, said on Friday that his comments were wrong."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/nyregion/columbia-student-protest-zionism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nU0.2bCg.WdX-HYzAvSls&smid=url-share

people say shit all the time

most of them don't let themselves be the visible leader of a protest movement

It is incredibly easy to oppose Israeli genocide of Palestinians without saying Jews have to die.

I just don’t get the failure to adapt to the audience… these protesters seem pretty smart!

Training with the IDF and the increased militarization of police after 9/11 go hand in hand, and to be incredulous about this connection is wild to
me, and to claim that Zionism isn’t a settler colonial ideology is also wild.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Friday, April 26, 2024 1:00 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think I'm not explaining myself well or you're misunderstanding. I'm saying that "zionism" gets used as a kind of metonym for these things. Israel did not cause the NYPD to become more militarized, the NYPD sought out Israel's help in becoming more militarized, among many other steps it took. And it was also frankly killing and torturing plenty of people well before 9/11. Zionism did not invent settler colonialism, regardless of whether you think that's the appropriate term.

most of them don't let themselves be the visible leader of a protest movement

this is key. this guy needs to be disavowed and ignored. shit like this utterly taints this movement.

re: judeo-christian seems to be mostly an islamophobic construct of american nationalism and imperialism and of course it does generally just mean white christian nationalism buy often specifically in the context of its (ultimately provisional but superficially unconditional) support for a certain version of zionism - it also relies on a whole cluster of antisemitic assumptions about the special role of jewish people in empire/modernity/capitalism/america/etc.

from the israeli POV maybe the emphases are different

yeah

xps sure fuck that guy I'm just reflexively suspicious of anything from NYT

man alive I kind of agree about some of the double standards and dogwhistling but also zionism is a real thing and it's worth talking about. unfortunately because of all kinds of deep seated assumptions and cultural baggage the discourse can get conspiratorial and divisive very quickly and people are reluctant to call out people on "their side" for falling into these traps because the broader issue is perceived to be more urgent and because there are already so many callouts that are disingenuous and certain people's speech is policed much more than others. idk what to do about this

Left otm

Yeah that's a fair comment. I just refuse to entirely ignore it because it can have very real consequences.

FWIW, I got curious about the origin of the term "judeo-christian." This is what ChatGPT said:

ChatGPT
The term "Judeo-Christian" was popularized in the United States during the mid-20th century, particularly after World War II. Its origins can be traced back to efforts to foster unity and solidarity between Jews and Christians, particularly in response to the Holocaust and as a way to emphasize shared values and beliefs. While it's challenging to attribute the term to a single individual, scholars suggest that its usage gained prominence through theologians, politicians, and intellectuals seeking to highlight the common heritage and moral framework shared by Judaism and Christianity. Some credit figures like Will Herberg, a Jewish theologian, and Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, with popularizing the term. However, its exact originator remains somewhat ambiguous due to its gradual adoption and evolution within American discourse.

man alive don’t post that glurge read a book

If I cared what ChatGPT said I could just hit myself in the head with a hammer

yeah i think some people get lost in the sauce of Zionism as the one weird trick that explains everything bad, otoh i think it's worth talking about collaborations between police departments and the IDF and the way in which they both have a restive segment of the population that they have absolute contempt for and view as an enemy to be kept in line.

This guy is a fucking asshole who seems like he has the sort of online brain poisoning that leads people to say "actually your bad faith critique of my movement is everything I believe, actually [monstrous thing] is good, we should do it more!" And of course he will be the excuse for many reasonable people to write off the pro-Palestine movement, while the existence of similarly psychotic pro-Israel people with massive institutional power will not be a reason to back away from supporting Israel.

From wikipedia

The concept of Judeo-Christian ethics or Judeo-Christian values in an ethical (rather than a theological or liturgical) sense was used by George Orwell in 1939, along with the phrase "the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals".[6] According to theologian Richard L. Rubenstein, the "normative Judaeo-Christian interpretation of history" is to treat human suffering, such as a plague, as punishment for human guilt.[7]

According to historian K. Healan Gaston, the term became a descriptor of the U.S. in the 1930s, when the country sought to forge a unified cultural identity in an attempt to distinguish itself from fascism and communism in Europe. Becoming part of the American civil religion by the 1940s, the term rose to greater prominence during the Cold War, especially when it was used to express opposition to communist atheism. In the 1970s, the term became particularly associated with the American Christian right, and it is often employed in political attempts to restrict immigration and LGBT rights.

interesting genealogy- esp since it's also flexible enough to incorporate some level of rhetorical support for LGBT rights and feminism as (an unfortunately partially successful) ploy to get women and queers on board with the fight the (generally islamic) enemy

(with an air of you should be grateful and we could treat you like "they" do if you don't comply)

the rainbow israeli flag flying over razed gaza homes is the most hideous instantiation of this

of course none of this is incompatible with blatant homophobia as any queer who has defended palestinian humanity will be familiar with

That Columbia guy can get fucked. It being front-page NYT is sort of absurd though -- had any of you heard of this guy before today (genuinely asking, I could be wrong here)? I hadn't, and I've read a bunch of reports on campus protests this week. Not going to deny that the non-hierarchical approach to movement organizing has some clear drawbacks though. But I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from the fact that this person has extremely terrible opinions, and frankly Aimless is right that this kind of political hardmanning is routine and JoeStork is otm about the hypocrisy. Hell I'm sure we all recall that the NYT published Tom Cotton's call for the military to murder protesters, just one of many pro-murder opinions that are perfectly acceptable to the NYT.

I'd be much more interested in a good, in-depth report on this total clusterfuck: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/26/united-for-israel-march-draws-hundreds-multiple-incidents-of-harassment-reported/

Re: fixating on the term “Zionism,” I like Djene Bajalan’s preference for calling these actions as “Israeli Nationalism,” as it helps clarify a lot of things and avoids the emotional entanglement/investment a lot of older folks have with that idea. Also, that historically it’s a contentious concept, in that there have been multiple zionisms over time, and aome weren’t the current popular meaning used to justify a lot of shit.

So, yeah, I try to use “Israeli nationalism,” for the reasons mentioned above but also because it connects a lot of what we’ve been seeing to 19th century notions of nationalism and how all this is far more contiguous than is admitted.

good call

Here’s the interview Djene did(he’s a professor of Middle Eastern History/Studies at Missouri State and a podcaster/radio host) where he lays out the distinction, and provides a lot of critical history of what happened when the British and the French tried to import European/Bismarckian nationalism to the formerly Ottoman Empire after WWI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI6D1WuI1kE

Ottoman ambassadors to Europe knew that it would wind up terribly, of course, and wrote back about that back in the mid-19th Century. They mentioned that if it was forcibly imposed in the Leant, it would probably cause warfare for at least a century.

*in the Levant, rather

The ottomans were so concerned about it they committed genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_Greek_genocide

The wise and benevolent Ottoman Empire is one of my least favorite leftist history memes.

Oh I never meant to grant them any positive attribution at all, just that the lands they controlled over had a setup very different than any part of Europe north of them(yeah, obviously), and one of their diplomatic staffers was able to suss out the implications of that difference