I wanted to circle back to this question. which I wanted to let breathe a bit.
First off, I want to say that most people are unnuanced and don’t think too deeply about why they are Zionist or anti-Zionist. Zionism is not monolithic. The most obvious split is between religious and secular Zionism. anti-Zionism also covers a wide range, from what I’ve seen.
Let’s start with a basic definition of Zionism as support for a Jewish national homeland.
There are certainly those anti-Zionists who use “Zionist” as a synonym for “Jewish” and “anti-Zionist” as a euphemism for “anti-Jewish”.
Then there are those who are generally anti-religious and so oppose any sort of religious state and will be anti-Zionist if they see Zionism as support for Israel as support for an explicitly religious state. Other anti-Zionists instinctively oppose nationalism, so they oppose a state built around Jewish ethnocentrism, but might accept a multi-ethnic one-state solution where Jews can find a home in an Israel which isn’t defined as Jewish. Then, there are those who seem opposed to the idea of states in general as currently defined and see Israel as a product of an international framework (colonialism) they want to tear down.
I could come up with more, but the gist is that there are several strands within anti-Zionism and what happens is that these strands inter-mingle. The first form of anti-Zionism as anti-Jewish is clearly wrong, the others maybe not, but the latter sometimes end up borrowing from the former, sometimes unknowingly. For example, I’m sure there are people who have picked up the chant “from the river to the sea” without knowing the history of those words, probably without knowing what river and what area of land is being described. (And some who say those words knowing full well what they are talking about.)
Fwiw my stance was closer to post-zionist. Meaning, while zionism was necessary at a certain point for jews to survive, Israel borders, military strength and democratic values were strong enough that zionism was no longer a necessity.
Sadly because of the acts of the right wing here, they might have turned Zionism a necessity again. Hopefully this can be changed again in the future.
One thing that bothers me is that people get hung up on 1948 when I think 1922 is important. The original sin is the creation of the Mandate of Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The morally correct solution at the time should have been something more in line with the Wilsonian principle of self-determination; instead we got some weird attempt at colonialism without calling it colonialism.
But we can’t really go back to what would have happened if we had established a state in the region back in 1922 anymore than we can give back land to Native Americans or undo slavery in the US. (And we can’t get a do-over of 1948 either.)
My instinct is that any solution involves being unfair to some group, but a solution better than the status quo needs to be imposed and some form of reparations given to the group that gets screwed.
Cliffs: The Gazan Health Ministry seems to have never actually said 500 people died in the hospital bombing. As best as this guy can tell it got sourced from an interview where someone said there were 500 victims AND numerous casualties, which would imply they weren’t saying 500 people died, but it got mistranslated by Al Jazeera and everyone else copied them
On October 17, shortly after an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, headlines around the world declared that the Gaza Health Ministry said the blast had killed at least 500 people. This was reported by the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , the New York Post , ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, NPR, PBS, the Associated Press, the Guardian , and Al Jazeera.
It was an alarming statistic, and its blanket coverage in the news gave a concrete anchor to the rage expressed by many around the world against Israel.
Except—after an extensive investigation, and a total lack of transparency by many of our most prestigious media outlets—I have found zero evidence that the Health Ministry spokesperson ever said that more than 500 people had died.
My working hypothesis was that someone, perhaps a reporter at the AP or whoever reported this first, had quickly glanced at the Al Jazeera Arabic’s tweet translation and, for whatever reason, wrote it as “killed” rather than “victims.” And then every other news outlet simply copied the wrong wording.
But it’s possible what happened is far worse. A short while after seeing the Al Jazeera Arabic tweet I found a tweet
The Al Jazeera English Twitter account wrote “At least 500 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike… says health ministry.” It linked to an Al Jazeera post that said, “The Gaza health ministry said at least 500 people died in the hospital blast.” But, like all the other reports, there was no link to the original statement. (Note: one of the authors of this Al Jazeera post was among the reporters I had contacted.)
It seems most likely that some of the American journalists had been tracking the Al Jazeera English Twitter account—not the Arabic one I had seen and translated—and immediately copied its erroneous reporting. And the rest of them began copying each other from there.
This is all terribly interesting, meanwhile all of Gaza - even the south which IDF said would be safe - is under intense bombardment. A representative for Doctors without borders said they’ve never been this powerless to help in their entire history.
Incredibly sad that a Jewish country is performing a literal genocide and endless war crimes. Can’t imagine how hopeless this feels for Israelis like Yuv who probably hates Bibi and co 100x more than I ever could.
Good luck ever getting together hostages out alive.
Bibi tweeted out last night at 1 am how he was never warned about Hamas attack by the military. He specified that head of intelligence and head of Shin Bet continuously gave him reports that Hamas is deterred and looking for resolution/normalization.
This is the head of state during a war mourning the worst attack in its history. 1 am he is blaming everyone except him.
The insane thing about this post is it’s makes the point of how intractable the situation is but somehow you seem to think it makes the opposite point!
Zionism has nothing to do with being religious or anti religious. Jews are an ethinc group. Anti nationalism is also pretty meaningless here as obviously the Palestinians are also nationalistic.
About 95% of the Jews in Israel define themselves as Zionist (probably higher than that). Words have meaning. Definitions are important.
If people don’t want to be anti-semitic or sound anti-semitic to Jews, they need to understand that to Jewish people, especially those with connection to Israel, saying you’re anti-zionist means you’re against a homeland to the Jewish people.
Being anti-zionist doesn’t mean being against bombing Gaza or the occupation because Zionism doesn’t mean doing those crimes.
Of course those who scream that the loudest don’t actually care so it doesn’t matter.
There should be a temporary ceasefire until Netanyahu can be removed from power. Action against Hamas needs to be undertaken with an eye towards the future and he can’t be part of the solution after all of his failures. If he has no political future, he has no incentive to behave because he can’t be punished with the threat of losing power, so he is free to be ideology-driven rather than pragmatic. He may even see it as his duty to carry out actions that would normally be too costly politically because he is effectively a lame duck and immune from any punishment beyond his inevitable fall from power.
He even appologized, which is extremely rare. But those are all calculated risks in a way. The message was already sent to his base. He has a TV channel a-la OAN/Fox that is pumping the narrative now.
Zionism is the same as white supremacy, a deep seeded belief around the superiority of an ethno-nationalist group.It’s the driving political force behind most of Israeli politics. It can be exacerbated by religious beliefs like white supremacy can, but it isn’t dependant on it.
Calling this out is obviously good and correct and not anti-semitic since a huge amount of jews are not zionists. Obviously any criticism of the supremacist ideology that underpins the Israeli state is going to be called anti-semitic and its defenders will cloak themselves in the holocaust etc., but that’s irrelevant.
The I/P conflict? It’s a mixture of religious and territorial and nationalist. Part of the right wing talking point is that Palestinians don’t exist. That term wasn’t in use popular use prior to mid 20th centaury and the nationalist movement didn’t really gain track until the 60s. Therefore “Palestinians” are part of the arab world and “have 21 countries to live in”.
I’m of course opposed to that view. If the Palestinians see themselves as an ethnic group and identity that’s enough. Same with Israelis.
