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ADL is including pro-Palestine protests in count of "antisemitic" incidents (forward.com)
submitted 10 months ago by derbis@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org
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[–] Stillhart@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I am Jewish. My mom is Israeli. I have friends and family living in Israel right now. I lived in Israel for a year a few decades ago. I was there when Rabin was assassinated and things went from "peace in the middle east at last!" to "Bibi committing war crimes for a few decades." I am so critical of the Israeli government's actions toward Palestinians that I have had to mute all my family group chats since October.

But I have to agree that anti-Zionism feels like antisemitism. You can be critical of the Israeli government without the belief that Israel shouldn't exist. You can want the Palestinians to have their own state without the belief that Israel shouldn't exist. I'm not sure what anti-Zionists think would happen to all the Jews living in Israel if it were just magically given to the Palestinians overnight, but here's a hint: Hamas, the people running Palestine, literally, factually want to kill them all.

No, I don't think what Israel has done to the Palestinians for decades is in any way acceptable or moral. But any solution at this point will have to involve safety for everyone not just one side or the other.

That's my $0.02. I expect to get a lot of flack for being so open about myself and my beliefs. I probably should have made a throwaway account but whatever. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass.

EDIT - Just to also add that I don't think it's black and white that all anti-Zionist are antisemites. But it FEELS that way. And I think part of the issue is that antisemites are using anti-Zionism to spread antisemitism.

[–] TheOakTree@beehaw.org 9 points 10 months ago

I'm not sure what anti-Zionists think would happen to all the Jews living in Israel if it were just magically given to the Palestinians overnight, but here's a hint: Hamas, the people running Palestine, literally, factually want to kill them all.

I don't understand why you default to conflating the denial of a theocratic Jewish state to "hand over all the controls to Palestine."

What part of opposing Israel as a state excludes current Israeli people from participating and organizing in a hypothetical one state solution?

Obviously, none of this is simple, and violence is not the answer, but I'm not sure why your idea of anti-Zionism focuses only on the most reactionary (and most likely to actually be anti-semitic) voices of anti-Zionism. This kind of language only drives polarization.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think that there's still a lot of conflation happening here.

I am anti-Zionist, insomuch as current-day Zionist adherents almost universally support Israel as having religious justification, which, given that Israel conducts colonialism, apartheid, and murder, means that they are tying their own religious beliefs to the aforementioned settlement, apartheid, and murder.

Nothing in Jewish scripture says that this state at this time will be the end-times land for the Jewish people. I would have no issue with Zionists who just believe that they have to actively work towards a Jewish state rather than expecting it to simply come into being, but tying that belief to a specific state as a movement opens it up to criticism based on that relationship.

If I meet a Zionist who says, "yeah, this is not a religiously-ordained state by any means we can tell. The actual land for Jews spoken of in scripture could happen 10,000 years from now. We don't know.", I'd have no problem with that viewpoint.

I'm anti-Israel (i.e. the specific, currently-extant state) for being a settler-colonial project that actively enshrines apartheid in its laws, and dehumanizes and subjugates and murders people. I'm also anti-Evangelical Christianity, in part because it also as a movement/ group of beliefs, supports Israel.

But any solution at this point will have to involve safety for everyone not just one side or the other.

The problem I have with this is that it frames the situation as though it's 2 sides struggling against each other, when in reality it's one side being oppressed by the other.

In order for them to be in a state of peace and mutual safety, Israel has to give up control that it currently has. It has to remove the violent programs it currently operates (like settlements and "trimming the grass"). It has to LOSE something (control, ground, capacity for violence) in order to reach a neutral state. And by neutral state, I don't mean "equal power with the Palestinians", I mean a state of not actively making Palestinians unsafe.

But most people making your argument are not open to admitting this; it is almost always based on the assumption that making the current state static would equate to mutual safety, which is false.

[–] Seathru@beehaw.org 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

ADL is including pro-Palestine protests in count of "antisemitic" incidents

I can't find that anywhere in the article. Why use that for a title? The article states ADL is including 'rallies that feature “anti-Zionist chants and slogans",'. Which is understandable; That's their job. But pro-Palestinian isn't inherently anti-Zionist and conflating the two is disingenuous.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're talking about "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." They routinely malign this call for freedom as "antisemitic," and I haven't been to one where this hasn't been said. It's part of their effort to conflate these things, not me being disingenuous.

[–] ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

So, uh, if you have a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea" where do the Jews (who were born and raised in Israel, and who have no other homes) go? It's not a call for freedom, it's not a call for a ceasefire, it's not a call for Israel to withdraw its settlers from the West Bank, it's not a call for a two-state solution, it's a call for a repeat Holocaust.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

No, it is not. You can look up the one state solution. At this point it's inevitable, just a matter of how much grief we put ourselves through to get there.

[–] Actuali@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Israel exists to create a safe place for Jews. In a democratic one state solution jews would be in the minority in Israel so it would no longer be a safe haven for them, Israel would effectively no longer exist.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 13 points 10 months ago

And this is what is meant by apartheid. It was never a land without a people for a people without a land. There were always people there. This "safety" is predicated upon ethnic cleansing, and Zionism is now inseparable from that. The implicit suggestion is that Jewish safety requires Palestinian oppression. That is not going to work in the long term. And it's not worked so far.

[–] tangentism@beehaw.org 7 points 10 months ago

In a democratic one state solution jews would be in the minority in Israel so it would no longer be a safe haven for them, Israel would effectively no longer exist.

Jews lived peacefully in Palestine alongside everyone else prior to 1948 for centuries.

Does any nation have the right to exist when its creation was based on ethnically cleansing those who lived there?

[–] ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also, the sheer amount of hatred between the two groups means that a one-state solution (even if it could be willed into existence without violence) would be, at best, highly volatile.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are we to pretend things are not "highly volatile?"

[–] ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No. But that does not make a one-state solution feasible. Neither side would be willing to agree to it, and even if you could force it, the new state would violently implode the second you remove that external force.

[–] Arkham@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

Just as a possible counterpoint to this: Lebanon has been highly divided by sectarian conflicts, mainly between Christians and Muslims, but has managed to stay a cohesive state since its founding in the 40s.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't point to Lebanon as some beacon of stability or good governance. But despite decades of problems, including a long civil war, Lebanon's government and civilian population still exist without a major external power forcing them to stay as a single cohesive state.

If they can do that, maybe a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel isn't completely unworkable. If nothing else it sure seems like an improvement over the current situation.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

There's no longer a menu of options where we have the luxury of feasible or not feasible, preferable or not preferable. We are in a one-state reality now. All that's left to decide is the degree of strife we're willing to accept.

[–] TheOakTree@beehaw.org 11 points 10 months ago

I don't understand your point. You're right with the "where do the Jews go," but you're failing to ask the same question about Palestinians who only have (or had) their homes and livelihoods in Palestine. Where do they go, in this current climate of decimation by the IDF?

[–] tangentism@beehaw.org 7 points 10 months ago

You could summit Everest in a matter of minutes with the leaps youre making there.