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

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

yeah fuck the ottoman empire

You know, I wish we didn't assume the worst of posters' intentions

Since when is that a leftist meme? Maybe in the US.

maybe calling it a leftist meme is an exaggeration, but I feel like a lot of overly favorable portrayals of the Ottoman Empire make their way into anti-western-imperialist accounts of middle eastern history.

I have not seen any favorable portrayals of the Ottoman Empire… I do appreciate my storage ottoman though! Great furniture concept

there was also stupid Young Turks (which is maybe still a thing; isn't Cenk Uygur running for president now? that guy is a moron; also it's gotten progressively less left)

I think that name is less about loving the Ottomans and more about Cenk being from Turkey

Which is why he can’t actually run for president

xpost well yeah but it's a fucking stupid name. If there were a German-born US-based leftist youtuber would he call his show "Hitler Youth"?

well I don’t think Rod Stewart would have a big hit with “Hitler Youth” either

Junge Herzen sind heute Abend frei!

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/

yeesh that's some ugly shit

there is way too much to unpack in there and it would be nice to have a mainstream media that was capable of doing that for us and of showing these things to people who aren't seeing them and which might complicate some of their kneejerk affinities. maybe it wouldn't matter anyway at this point

xps I haven't come across ottoman apologism outside a turkish nationalist context (which includes the young turks thing) but I'm sure it's happening somewhere. but there is a lot of necessary revisionism going on against late european thought's othering of the empire in the service of nationalist and competing imperial interests and maybe this work can look like apologism in its more vulgar manifestations but it doesn't gloss over the many atrocities it just attempts to put them back into a european and international context they have been excuded from in a manner that has reified contemporary racialised categories in an unhelpful way

Most Turkish people I know well are secular AF and I have never once heard any of them say how fantastic the Ottoman Empire was. Lots of Ataturk reverence, though, because of the secularism (and they loathe Erdogan more than any of us loathe Trump).

that has also been my experience but I have also come across some light genocide denial (not from everyone) which I assume is much worse in overtly nationalist circles. because the ethnic cleansings were such a key part of the imperial/national transition you don't have to like the empire to defend them and if your experience has mostly been a lot of christians demanding you apologise for them I almost get it

various parallels could be drawn

I’ve had Jewish friends tell me that since the term ‘genocide’ was coined in response to the Holocaust, nothing else should actually be called that.

Xp suzy … yes, exactly, which is why the pro-palestine rhetoric using that term to describe zionism is… upsetting to some

Apologies if you all already know this, but Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in response to the Holocaust and because the Ottoman-led Armenian genocide had been largely ignored (a fact infamously cited by Hitler iirc). Restricting the term to the Holocaust would directly contradict the point of creating it in the first place.

At UPenn someone at the encampment spray painted “Zios Get Fuckt” on the Ben Franklin statue. University is investigating it as a hate crime.

I did know of Lemkin, and he also coined the term to describe the killing of vast numbers of non-Jewish Poles in the early part of WW2.

I didn’t know that suzy, thanks

I think if there’s any praise of the Ottoman Empire from the American left it is based on a centering of American/western Europe imperialism where what we do is the worst and thus other empires aren’t as bad

if i know american leftists probably also projection of contemporary US racial norms onto every other time and place and indulging in the more "positive" strain of orientalism

xps "zio" is just poor as slurs go so why would you waste a precious opportunity to desecrate a ben franklin statue on that? if they'd sprayed free palestine it would have been much cooler even though they'd probably be getting the same treatment

Ben probably would have supported a free Palestine

Also nationalism is humanity’s worst invention

A sea of flags, oceans of solidarity for Palestine. Hyde Park, London 27.4.2024 pic.twitter.com/MJlWOV4POL

— PSC (@PSCupdates) April 27, 2024

Ben probably would have supported a free Palestine

― Are you addicted to struggling with your horse? (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, April 27, 2024 12:21 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ben certainly supported getting fuckt

bloody press vests laid outside the white house correspondents’ dinner for all the palestinian journalists killed pic.twitter.com/hAJl3mb80Y

— emilie frank (@emiliepfrank) April 27, 2024

some crazy photos of the occupation at Cal Poly Humboldt (formerly Humboldt State University) in Northern California:

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2024/apr/26/cal-poly-humboldt-offers-activists-two-hour-window/

a small group of pro-Palestine students occupied the South Mall at the University of Texas, and the university admin is helpfully sending regular dispersal orders via the emergency messaging system every hour or so to let any students who just got to campus know there's something exciting happening and they should all head over immediately and check it out

The cops maced a bunch of students at UT Austin today, didn’t they

according to the photo here right now, yes: https://www.statesman.com/

better link: https://www.statesman.com/picture-gallery/news/2024/04/29/ut-austin-protest-arrest-pro-palestinian-encampment-protests-photos/73454096007/

lawful protesting isn't even possible in authoritarian societies like the one Trump wants to transform America into. Just saying.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2024

makes u think

Here's why Biden's actually the good guy

Okay sure sure, he's funding a genocide and crushing a peace protest with force but at least

Sorry, couldn't figure out a way to end that sentence

it's such an inane non sequitur. if anyone knows Rupar please tell him I'm going to vote for trump now because I saw that tweet

oh I thought he was being ironic! I was going to say "when u lost Rupar...

no, he was serious: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.bsky.social/post/3krbuopjfq22j

Biden will give protesters comfier prison cells than Trump will