I was so disappointed with Contra’s response to the Israel/Palestine situation. Like, I understand her not wanting to make a video about it. That’s one thing. But her whole “the left shouldn’t have made anti-Zionism its primary position” thing is just appalling. Zionism is a fundamentally cruel ideology and should be fiercely opposed.
I know she’s had controversies before, but I found most of the criticisms I heard of her to be pretty foolish (e.g. “How dare she advocating voting as well as doing other things?”). Perhaps I should have made an effort to look into those controversies more.
Can’t there be some nuance between “It’s OK that the country of Israel exists” Zionism versus “The whole middle east rightfully blongs to Israel” Zionism? I’ve personally tangled with many “anti-Zionists” who unironically want to destroy the country of Israel altogether.
Most of the people who think Israel should exist, and that is to say most people, don’t identify as zionists. Just because you believe in some basic premise of an ideology or a movement doesnt mean you are part of it. If you believe, like most Americans, that there should be some basic safety net that doesn’t mean you are a social Democrat, and when people refer to social democrats they probably aren’t referring to the trump supporter in Alabama who likes his mom having food stamps. Same with nationalists, if you believe that the nation should exist with borders that doesn’t make you a nationalist.
Generally the isms and identifying with an ism is about the movement. A movement away from the basic premises and understanding of that idea that almost everyone has accepted and towards an expansion of that idea, social democrats want an expansion of the welfare state, nationalists want harder borders and a stricter definition of a citizen, zionists want an expansion of Israel and suppression of the Palestinian cause.
Zionism is not “it’s OK that the country of Israel exists.”
Zionism is categorically an ethnocultural supremacist, nationalist movement, with the goal of taking over Palestine and making a Jewish state that explicitly does not allow in as many Palestinians as possible. That is what Zionism is. It is not simply the existence of a state named Israel.
It is my opinion that any country that has any fundamental beliefs about which races/cultures/people should be allowed to live there is fundamentally unjust, whether or not that’s an Israel that gives back all the land they stole from Palestinians and has their own now smaller region, one that completely overtakes Palestine, or one that agrees to a two-state solution that still lays claim to some Palestinian land.
Contra attempted to state that Zionism should not be opposed in the way that it was, because:
“Zionist” is a very broad category. Most Jews are Zionists.
If most Jews are Zionists, then that doesn’t make the position acceptable.
Contra also claimed that:
It was politically infeasible. What is the pathway that takes us from the present situation to the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state? I don’t see how this could happen without either a total internal collapse of Israeli society or else, you know, nuclear war. As usual, leftists have championed a doomed cause.
Which is like claiming that it’s politically infeasible to end redlining, because what would happen to all the poor white neighborhoods and their society if all the black people wanted to live in the same areas without discrimination too? Think of how it would collapse white society!
If someone has told you they are “anti-Zionist,” but actually want to simply destroy the entire country of Israel and it’s people, then they’re not anti-Zionist, they’re simply anti-Jew.
Ironically, that’s the one thing Contra was right about when she said:
Antisemites are happy for the opportunity to misappropriate the now-popular “Anti-Zionist” label to legitimize their agenda, and many people are not informed enough about antisemitism to recognize when this is happening. These problems are mutually reinforcing.
The problem is not anti-Zionism, the problem is people not recognizing when antisemites use anti-Zionism as a shield.
If someone has told you they are “anti-Zionist,” but actually want to simply destroy the entire country of Israel and it’s people, then they’re not anti-Zionist, they’re simply anti-Jew.
Not its people - the country. What other term should they use if they want the complete dissolution of Israel?
Saying destroy does imply actual physical destruction, which you can see why that would be confusing when trying to weed out antisemites from anti Zionists.
Any country is made up of its people. If they want the dissolution of the entire state as a whole, simply so that Israel does not exist, then they are categorically advocating that all the (primarily Jewish) people there are displaced and/or left without a country.
If they are advocating for the dissolution of Israel in the sense that they don’t want a two-state solution, where Palestinians would likely still lose land and still continually be at odds with the Israeli government, but in the sense that they want Israel and Palestine to be replaced with one single state that ensures equal rights for all people there, than that would be anti-Zionism, not antisemitism, since it wouldn’t be an attack on the Israeli people, it would just be requiring them to not live within a two-tier society in which they are allowed to oppress other people.
I was so disappointed with Contra’s response to the Israel/Palestine situation. Like, I understand her not wanting to make a video about it. That’s one thing. But her whole “the left shouldn’t have made anti-Zionism its primary position” thing is just appalling. Zionism is a fundamentally cruel ideology and should be fiercely opposed.
I know she’s had controversies before, but I found most of the criticisms I heard of her to be pretty foolish (e.g. “How dare she advocating voting as well as doing other things?”). Perhaps I should have made an effort to look into those controversies more.
Can’t there be some nuance between “It’s OK that the country of Israel exists” Zionism versus “The whole middle east rightfully blongs to Israel” Zionism? I’ve personally tangled with many “anti-Zionists” who unironically want to destroy the country of Israel altogether.
Most of the people who think Israel should exist, and that is to say most people, don’t identify as zionists. Just because you believe in some basic premise of an ideology or a movement doesnt mean you are part of it. If you believe, like most Americans, that there should be some basic safety net that doesn’t mean you are a social Democrat, and when people refer to social democrats they probably aren’t referring to the trump supporter in Alabama who likes his mom having food stamps. Same with nationalists, if you believe that the nation should exist with borders that doesn’t make you a nationalist.
Generally the isms and identifying with an ism is about the movement. A movement away from the basic premises and understanding of that idea that almost everyone has accepted and towards an expansion of that idea, social democrats want an expansion of the welfare state, nationalists want harder borders and a stricter definition of a citizen, zionists want an expansion of Israel and suppression of the Palestinian cause.
Zionism is not “it’s OK that the country of Israel exists.”
Zionism is categorically an ethnocultural supremacist, nationalist movement, with the goal of taking over Palestine and making a Jewish state that explicitly does not allow in as many Palestinians as possible. That is what Zionism is. It is not simply the existence of a state named Israel.
It is my opinion that any country that has any fundamental beliefs about which races/cultures/people should be allowed to live there is fundamentally unjust, whether or not that’s an Israel that gives back all the land they stole from Palestinians and has their own now smaller region, one that completely overtakes Palestine, or one that agrees to a two-state solution that still lays claim to some Palestinian land.
Contra attempted to state that Zionism should not be opposed in the way that it was, because:
If most Jews are Zionists, then that doesn’t make the position acceptable.
Contra also claimed that:
Which is like claiming that it’s politically infeasible to end redlining, because what would happen to all the poor white neighborhoods and their society if all the black people wanted to live in the same areas without discrimination too? Think of how it would collapse white society!
If someone has told you they are “anti-Zionist,” but actually want to simply destroy the entire country of Israel and it’s people, then they’re not anti-Zionist, they’re simply anti-Jew.
Ironically, that’s the one thing Contra was right about when she said:
The problem is not anti-Zionism, the problem is people not recognizing when antisemites use anti-Zionism as a shield.
Not its people - the country. What other term should they use if they want the complete dissolution of Israel?
Saying destroy does imply actual physical destruction, which you can see why that would be confusing when trying to weed out antisemites from anti Zionists.
Any country is made up of its people. If they want the dissolution of the entire state as a whole, simply so that Israel does not exist, then they are categorically advocating that all the (primarily Jewish) people there are displaced and/or left without a country.
If they are advocating for the dissolution of Israel in the sense that they don’t want a two-state solution, where Palestinians would likely still lose land and still continually be at odds with the Israeli government, but in the sense that they want Israel and Palestine to be replaced with one single state that ensures equal rights for all people there, than that would be anti-Zionism, not antisemitism, since it wouldn’t be an attack on the Israeli people, it would just be requiring them to not live within a two-tier society in which they are allowed to oppress other people.