I worked at the University of South Florida with Sami Amin Al-Arian when he was indicted under the USAPATRIOT ACT after 9/11. The faculty union (voluntary because FL is a RTW state) supported his right to speak out. Many union leaders were Jewish. At that time there was much solidarity about Al-Arian's civil rights - and no discussion of Zionism or anti-Zionism.
I am often astounded both by the parochialism and historical illiteracy of the American Left generally and in relation to anti-Israel sentiment.
A basic understanding of the history of Israel negates most current Left wing anti-Israel rhetoric. In 1947 Israel supported the UN proposal for the establishment of a Palestinian state and got a civil war. The effects of which included many Sephardic Jews being exiled from communities thousands of years old in other countries. Israel has been invaded by neighbors successively with the stated goal of destroying the country. During the succession of Oslo and the Camp David accords everything was offered except right of return and a pass on future litigation. This was rejected.
Losing wars of aggression and rejecting reasonable peace offers has consequences.
If Israel laid down its arms, Israelis would be massacred. If the Palestinians did so, there would be peace. Hamas in Gaza has the founding purpose of the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah is not much better.
The apocryphal, '“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us,” holds true.
This is not to say Israel is 'good' and the Palestinians are 'bad.' It is to provide a general outline that explains 1) why the Israeli left has been decimated, 2) that there is no peace partner, and 3) why a large proportion of the Arab world including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others have moved on ('The Palestinians are idiots,' is what the Arabs are saying in 2021).
With no peace partner, no opportunity for peace, no option of a two state solution, and acknowledgment of these facts by the former disaffected Israeli left and the big Arab players, what is the American (and European) left arguing for exactly? How would you like Israel to 'be better'?
Anti-Zionism is a vanity project for the American Left that is inconsequential, uninformed, and out of touch.
Also, the idea that US pressure could be used to affect Israel's behavior to a greater degree than other countries is laughable and a dodge from admitting that to some degree this is about the Jews. What policy-wise do you imagine Israel could be made to do? I agree that the US doesn't have much leverage over Saudi Arabia. But, you don't think the US has significant power of Egypt and other allies in South and East Asia and South America? Why always Israel?
My cynical take is that the new anti-Zionism of the American left is similar to a lot of other performative leftism. That it offers very little other than social status points for the performer.
I am middle aged but old enough to have seen the great arc from, 'Why did the Jews not defend themselves?' to 'Why do the Jews defend themselves?' and I don't see much about it to commend.
One final gripe: The founding and building of the state of Israel was in due large part to socialist and national, as opposed to theocratic ideals, and Israel is certainly not a theocracy.
the Human Rights Watch 214 page report documents the take over of Palestinian lands in 1948, when Jews only owned 6% of the land at the time.
the “Big Lie” of the 21st Century is…
Israel has a Right to Exist.
Helen Thomas became a White House correspondent for UPI in January 1961 and became the first woman chief White House correspondent. Thomas became known as the "First Lady of the Press."
When asked about Israel, she said "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. These people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German, it's not Poland."
I believe the post Tablet refused to link to was titled The Basic Logic of Bigotry, yes? I think that was one of the first pieces I ever read by you. I think I found a saved copy a while back. I will see if I can find where I saved it and share here.
Zionism probably would have wilted away had Israel been accepted by its neighbors. There are hundreds of millions of refugees and descendants of refugees living all over the world. Many of us here in the US are examples. Yet, where else are there still camps a half-century after the fact and who benefits from this lack of resettlement and assimilation? The answers obvious. And its not the Israelis.
One of Deveraux’s themes is that the early republic and empire were ethnically diverse, specifically because Romans pragmatically opened up citizenship to conquered people instead of insulating themselves from their holdings.
To an extent, Israel has done the same- Israeli Arabs can worship Allah and vote and go shopping and so on. But in the conquered province, there is no integration (you can mail me me “Biggest Understatement of the Year” award later).
It means that one day, Israel will find itself weak. Economic collapse, plague, demographic crisis, sectarian civil war, natural disasters, I dunno, take your pick. Might be next year (doubtful), might be 2050, might be 2060. It’s a question of when, not if, because it happens to everybody eventually. The ability to suppress Palestinian nationalism will go away.
When this happened to Rome, the far flung provinces that had once been (long, long ago) under the Roman jackboot got stuck in and tried their damndest to save the empire they were a part of. That’s why we study Rome and go, “Wow, a 2,000 year run of it, and once it went away all the fragments that formed small new kingdoms and nations daydreamed for a 1,000 years about bringing it back.”
When disaster strikes Israel, Palestine will not mourn and try to keep Zionism intact (maybe I should get two awards).
This is the problem with building nations based on ethnic solidarity. Nobody fucking wants you there. Right, wrong, whatever; you’re building a house with crappy materials that won’t handle the storm. There’s a line in the Old Testament about what happens to houses that are divided against themselves.
I think the underlying problem is that criticism of Israel has become another political football, another marker for the wider cultural conflict. My sense is that criticism can only produce reform when everyone approaches an issue in a spirit of honesty and open minded inquiry. When you have to be reflexively anti-Israel because you also sympathize with BLM that is tribalism at work.
Every article about Zionism - anti- or otherwise - should define the term. How are you defining the term?
To me, the simplest definition is "Zionism = the belief that the state of Israel should exist". (Note that it's pretty trivial to be a Zionist these days.)
Do you oppose this idea? That seems a bit unhinged, to say the least, and "I don't believe in ethnonationalism or theocracy" is not going to cut it as a justification.
Do you oppose some other idea? I suspect that this is the case, since you reference "the Zionist project" - implying that there's still one ongoing. If so, what is it? And what definition allows you to escape the trap of "this is trivial, everyone relevant opposes this" or "this is trivial, the people opposing this are in fact raving Jew-haters"?
1) Israel accepts that Palestinians are human beings with equal rights, admits them as citizens and becomes a pluralistic society. The one-state solution. This is what happens next door in Lebanon.
2) Create a two state solution where Palestine and Israel are separate countries. With the tacit and explicit support of the settlers over the last two decades, this is not really a tenable solution anymore. Is Israel really going to root out 300,000 settlers? There is no viable state left for Palestine.
3) Massive ethnic cleansing where the Palestinians are forcibly removed.
Supporters of Israel have to ask themselves which solution do they prefer. Is #2 really still on the table? I do not think so.
I support the State of Israel, I cannot hate it the way the author does, but I do not support the Jewish State of Israel. Netanyahu, with his pro-settler (and let's be honest here, pro-terrorist) policies has made the two state solution impossible. This was done with the support of the majority of Isrealis. Israel has made its own bed, now it must lie in it.
Freddie, I wish the post of yours that inspired Pagano's piece in Tablet was still around; I wonder, did you respond to him? I would observe, as I did in an earlier comment questioning how you hoped to supplant the "animal spirits" that drive capitalism, that your Marxist materialism sometimes leads you to underestimate the role of the irrational in the economic and political phenomena that trouble you. Any world in which the Canaan you (and many others) devoutly wish for comes about will necessarily be one that has moved past humans' tribal need to hate some "other" in seeking explanation and/or solace for the pains of life. Sadly, the fruits of this attribute of human psychology show no signs of abating. In fact, as many have noted, they seem to be on the rise worldwide. It has, of course, been the calamitous fate of the Jews to play this role for many other peoples through the centuries. Do you really believe that anti-Semitism--or even anti-Zionism--in the Middle East and elsewhere would fade away if the Israeli government decided tomorrow to concede the civil "equality" you call for in Palestine?
I'm forever pessimistic about Israel, because too many people, on both sides, are mobilized against any solution. Their raison d'etre is the continuation of conflict, insecurity, and grievance, and nothing will satisfy. I feel for the children caught in this crossfire.
My pessimism primarily comes from having spent my childhood exposed to views on one side of this issue, the side that synonymizes Israel with Satan, that casually tells children about the hopeful, joyous eventual destruction of Israel in the same way Christians tell their children about the glorious second coming of Christ. The side where children are marinated from birth in colloquialisms such as "he went Israel on my ass" or "it hit her like Israel" when describing a particularly aggressive and ruthless boss, or someone dying of a sudden horrific illness. This animosity towards Israel (and inevitably, towards Jewish people), an animosity couched as self-defense against a powerful and fundamentally evil and *alien* force, is passed down from to children as though it's part of the culture and proud heritage. I'm describing good people. Not demons, not destructive or vengeful fanatics, not religious fundamentalists, but good people, minding their own business, working hard to provide for their family and maintain a loving community. But Israel-villainizing is second-nature, like it's embedded in the DNA. Multiply what I observed growing up by hundreds of millions. It takes a lot to overcome that kind of pessimism, and I haven't seen anything in my lifetime to make even the smallest dent in it. The arguments in this thread only fuel that pessimism. People here are generally in agreement, or mild disagreement, and aren't even living life on the ground over there. And yet views on Israel/Palestine are pretty polarized and strained. If that's what we're like over here, in the good old US of A, how much more deeply are the trenches dug over there.
I too would like the solution Freddie describes. I just don't think it's realistic, though neither do I have a better or more viable alternative.
I really like this point: "it suggests to those impressionable youth the right-wing Zionists would like to recruit that Israel’s reality cannot be defended in normal terms. It looks like Israel’s defenders are cheating, that Israel has something to hide."
I think it applies to a lot of issues today. Many activists prefer to shut down debate rather than win the argument -- and they seem to be succeeding in spaces like journalism and academia. I'm curious to see if it will work in the long term, or if the backlash will eventually reverse some of these trends. (Deliberately not mentioning specific issues to avoid kicking off another shitstorm in the comments)
I will say, coming back to this: I'm on the opposite side of the issue from you, but I absolutely agree that it's very, very bad for this subject to be a constant third-rail hot-button and the "red line" between liberalism and leftism.
Of course, I say that from the point of view that the Left should let Labor Zionists be, you know, leftists, because our cause is a Left cause and always has been. You probably completely disagree. But oh well.
I worked at the University of South Florida with Sami Amin Al-Arian when he was indicted under the USAPATRIOT ACT after 9/11. The faculty union (voluntary because FL is a RTW state) supported his right to speak out. Many union leaders were Jewish. At that time there was much solidarity about Al-Arian's civil rights - and no discussion of Zionism or anti-Zionism.
I am often astounded both by the parochialism and historical illiteracy of the American Left generally and in relation to anti-Israel sentiment.
A basic understanding of the history of Israel negates most current Left wing anti-Israel rhetoric. In 1947 Israel supported the UN proposal for the establishment of a Palestinian state and got a civil war. The effects of which included many Sephardic Jews being exiled from communities thousands of years old in other countries. Israel has been invaded by neighbors successively with the stated goal of destroying the country. During the succession of Oslo and the Camp David accords everything was offered except right of return and a pass on future litigation. This was rejected.
Losing wars of aggression and rejecting reasonable peace offers has consequences.
If Israel laid down its arms, Israelis would be massacred. If the Palestinians did so, there would be peace. Hamas in Gaza has the founding purpose of the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah is not much better.
The apocryphal, '“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us,” holds true.
This is not to say Israel is 'good' and the Palestinians are 'bad.' It is to provide a general outline that explains 1) why the Israeli left has been decimated, 2) that there is no peace partner, and 3) why a large proportion of the Arab world including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others have moved on ('The Palestinians are idiots,' is what the Arabs are saying in 2021).
With no peace partner, no opportunity for peace, no option of a two state solution, and acknowledgment of these facts by the former disaffected Israeli left and the big Arab players, what is the American (and European) left arguing for exactly? How would you like Israel to 'be better'?
Anti-Zionism is a vanity project for the American Left that is inconsequential, uninformed, and out of touch.
Also, the idea that US pressure could be used to affect Israel's behavior to a greater degree than other countries is laughable and a dodge from admitting that to some degree this is about the Jews. What policy-wise do you imagine Israel could be made to do? I agree that the US doesn't have much leverage over Saudi Arabia. But, you don't think the US has significant power of Egypt and other allies in South and East Asia and South America? Why always Israel?
My cynical take is that the new anti-Zionism of the American left is similar to a lot of other performative leftism. That it offers very little other than social status points for the performer.
I am middle aged but old enough to have seen the great arc from, 'Why did the Jews not defend themselves?' to 'Why do the Jews defend themselves?' and I don't see much about it to commend.
One final gripe: The founding and building of the state of Israel was in due large part to socialist and national, as opposed to theocratic ideals, and Israel is certainly not a theocracy.
the Human Rights Watch 214 page report documents the take over of Palestinian lands in 1948, when Jews only owned 6% of the land at the time.
the “Big Lie” of the 21st Century is…
Israel has a Right to Exist.
Helen Thomas became a White House correspondent for UPI in January 1961 and became the first woman chief White House correspondent. Thomas became known as the "First Lady of the Press."
When asked about Israel, she said "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. These people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German, it's not Poland."
https://youtu.be/TVlg01QMN3k
I believe the post Tablet refused to link to was titled The Basic Logic of Bigotry, yes? I think that was one of the first pieces I ever read by you. I think I found a saved copy a while back. I will see if I can find where I saved it and share here.
Zionism probably would have wilted away had Israel been accepted by its neighbors. There are hundreds of millions of refugees and descendants of refugees living all over the world. Many of us here in the US are examples. Yet, where else are there still camps a half-century after the fact and who benefits from this lack of resettlement and assimilation? The answers obvious. And its not the Israelis.
ACOUP had a recent series on Roman diversity- https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-or-who-were-the-romans-part-i-beginnings-and-legends/
One of Deveraux’s themes is that the early republic and empire were ethnically diverse, specifically because Romans pragmatically opened up citizenship to conquered people instead of insulating themselves from their holdings.
To an extent, Israel has done the same- Israeli Arabs can worship Allah and vote and go shopping and so on. But in the conquered province, there is no integration (you can mail me me “Biggest Understatement of the Year” award later).
It means that one day, Israel will find itself weak. Economic collapse, plague, demographic crisis, sectarian civil war, natural disasters, I dunno, take your pick. Might be next year (doubtful), might be 2050, might be 2060. It’s a question of when, not if, because it happens to everybody eventually. The ability to suppress Palestinian nationalism will go away.
When this happened to Rome, the far flung provinces that had once been (long, long ago) under the Roman jackboot got stuck in and tried their damndest to save the empire they were a part of. That’s why we study Rome and go, “Wow, a 2,000 year run of it, and once it went away all the fragments that formed small new kingdoms and nations daydreamed for a 1,000 years about bringing it back.”
When disaster strikes Israel, Palestine will not mourn and try to keep Zionism intact (maybe I should get two awards).
This is the problem with building nations based on ethnic solidarity. Nobody fucking wants you there. Right, wrong, whatever; you’re building a house with crappy materials that won’t handle the storm. There’s a line in the Old Testament about what happens to houses that are divided against themselves.
I think the underlying problem is that criticism of Israel has become another political football, another marker for the wider cultural conflict. My sense is that criticism can only produce reform when everyone approaches an issue in a spirit of honesty and open minded inquiry. When you have to be reflexively anti-Israel because you also sympathize with BLM that is tribalism at work.
Every article about Zionism - anti- or otherwise - should define the term. How are you defining the term?
To me, the simplest definition is "Zionism = the belief that the state of Israel should exist". (Note that it's pretty trivial to be a Zionist these days.)
Do you oppose this idea? That seems a bit unhinged, to say the least, and "I don't believe in ethnonationalism or theocracy" is not going to cut it as a justification.
Do you oppose some other idea? I suspect that this is the case, since you reference "the Zionist project" - implying that there's still one ongoing. If so, what is it? And what definition allows you to escape the trap of "this is trivial, everyone relevant opposes this" or "this is trivial, the people opposing this are in fact raving Jew-haters"?
I see only three possible end games here:
1) Israel accepts that Palestinians are human beings with equal rights, admits them as citizens and becomes a pluralistic society. The one-state solution. This is what happens next door in Lebanon.
2) Create a two state solution where Palestine and Israel are separate countries. With the tacit and explicit support of the settlers over the last two decades, this is not really a tenable solution anymore. Is Israel really going to root out 300,000 settlers? There is no viable state left for Palestine.
3) Massive ethnic cleansing where the Palestinians are forcibly removed.
Supporters of Israel have to ask themselves which solution do they prefer. Is #2 really still on the table? I do not think so.
I support the State of Israel, I cannot hate it the way the author does, but I do not support the Jewish State of Israel. Netanyahu, with his pro-settler (and let's be honest here, pro-terrorist) policies has made the two state solution impossible. This was done with the support of the majority of Isrealis. Israel has made its own bed, now it must lie in it.
I gotta get to physical therapy so I gotta bow out here. The argument is in the piece.
I knew I should have gone with the Star Wars post today
Freddie, I wish the post of yours that inspired Pagano's piece in Tablet was still around; I wonder, did you respond to him? I would observe, as I did in an earlier comment questioning how you hoped to supplant the "animal spirits" that drive capitalism, that your Marxist materialism sometimes leads you to underestimate the role of the irrational in the economic and political phenomena that trouble you. Any world in which the Canaan you (and many others) devoutly wish for comes about will necessarily be one that has moved past humans' tribal need to hate some "other" in seeking explanation and/or solace for the pains of life. Sadly, the fruits of this attribute of human psychology show no signs of abating. In fact, as many have noted, they seem to be on the rise worldwide. It has, of course, been the calamitous fate of the Jews to play this role for many other peoples through the centuries. Do you really believe that anti-Semitism--or even anti-Zionism--in the Middle East and elsewhere would fade away if the Israeli government decided tomorrow to concede the civil "equality" you call for in Palestine?
I'm forever pessimistic about Israel, because too many people, on both sides, are mobilized against any solution. Their raison d'etre is the continuation of conflict, insecurity, and grievance, and nothing will satisfy. I feel for the children caught in this crossfire.
My pessimism primarily comes from having spent my childhood exposed to views on one side of this issue, the side that synonymizes Israel with Satan, that casually tells children about the hopeful, joyous eventual destruction of Israel in the same way Christians tell their children about the glorious second coming of Christ. The side where children are marinated from birth in colloquialisms such as "he went Israel on my ass" or "it hit her like Israel" when describing a particularly aggressive and ruthless boss, or someone dying of a sudden horrific illness. This animosity towards Israel (and inevitably, towards Jewish people), an animosity couched as self-defense against a powerful and fundamentally evil and *alien* force, is passed down from to children as though it's part of the culture and proud heritage. I'm describing good people. Not demons, not destructive or vengeful fanatics, not religious fundamentalists, but good people, minding their own business, working hard to provide for their family and maintain a loving community. But Israel-villainizing is second-nature, like it's embedded in the DNA. Multiply what I observed growing up by hundreds of millions. It takes a lot to overcome that kind of pessimism, and I haven't seen anything in my lifetime to make even the smallest dent in it. The arguments in this thread only fuel that pessimism. People here are generally in agreement, or mild disagreement, and aren't even living life on the ground over there. And yet views on Israel/Palestine are pretty polarized and strained. If that's what we're like over here, in the good old US of A, how much more deeply are the trenches dug over there.
I too would like the solution Freddie describes. I just don't think it's realistic, though neither do I have a better or more viable alternative.
I really like this point: "it suggests to those impressionable youth the right-wing Zionists would like to recruit that Israel’s reality cannot be defended in normal terms. It looks like Israel’s defenders are cheating, that Israel has something to hide."
I think it applies to a lot of issues today. Many activists prefer to shut down debate rather than win the argument -- and they seem to be succeeding in spaces like journalism and academia. I'm curious to see if it will work in the long term, or if the backlash will eventually reverse some of these trends. (Deliberately not mentioning specific issues to avoid kicking off another shitstorm in the comments)
I will say, coming back to this: I'm on the opposite side of the issue from you, but I absolutely agree that it's very, very bad for this subject to be a constant third-rail hot-button and the "red line" between liberalism and leftism.
Of course, I say that from the point of view that the Left should let Labor Zionists be, you know, leftists, because our cause is a Left cause and always has been. You probably completely disagree. But oh well.