Virginia Delegate Sam Rasoul, whose family was displaced by Israel, wrote about the ‘evils’ of Zionism, prompting a flurry of attacks from Tim Kaine, Abigail Spanberger, and other party colleagues.
Virginia Delegate Sam Rasoul, whose family was displaced by Israel, wrote about the ‘evils’ of Zionism, prompting a flurry of attacks from Tim Kaine, Abigail Spanberger, and other party colleagues.
Known top Democrats Eileen Filler-Corn, Abigail Spanberger, and Tim Kaine. I mean, there are plenty of rabidly pro-Israel top Democrats, but none of them are in this article.
The emphasis on “Zionism” is a little bit weird, too. I’ve seen Bernie Sanders be accused of being a “Zionist,” because he doesn’t want Israel to be destroyed. I mean, I guess that’s… true? Maybe? “Zionist” seems like something you can apply to a huge number of pretty reasonable people by that definition. It seems like kind of a textbook way to start to throw mud at a massively pro-Palestinian person, and accuse him of being anti-Palestinian, through cleverly dishonest use of language.
I don’t want Israel to be destroyed. Am I a Zionist?
Edit: I looked up a little more about it. This Palestinian state congressman, who is a Democratic committee chair, has been talking vigorously on social media about the evils of Israel’s most recent “war” since October 2023. It only turned into an issue with this specific post, because the language means one thing to him, but a very different thing to some people who are reading it, and so they objected.
Or they’re acting in bad faith.
Certainly possible, most politicians are, I think. I was just saying that you wouldn’t have to be some nutty apartheid-supporter to look at Rasoul’s statement and have some objections to it.
This is his message that drew the condemnations:
He’s talking about the Zionism that is perpetrating the crimes in Gaza. It is your choice to focus on a “not all zionists” take, and it is your choice to focus on the crimes being talked about. In my opinion, just like “not all men” is (at best) a silly response to legitimate grievances about rape culture, the “not all zionists” take is also (at best) silly in the face of apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
That’s not at all what I was saying. It’s actually backwards from what I was trying to say.
Am I a Zionist (if I want peace, and justice for Palestinian victims of the current genocide, but I also don’t want Israel to be destroyed)? Is Bernie Sanders?
I …don’t care? I personally don’t consider the word “zionist” to be a slur. If there is a version of zionism that can coexist with full Palestinian freedom, with full Israeli accountability for what they have done and are doing, and with fully equal democratic rights for all the people in Israel-Palestine regardless of creed and ethnic origin, including the right of return for all refugees as well as reparations in the context of a genuine Truth and Reconciliation process, then I have no problem being called that kind of a zionist too. I don’t see it, but if you have one that you can point at, sure, why not.
EDIT: to clarify: on the other hand if such a version of zionism does not (edit2: or cannot) exist, then why would anyone want to be associated with an ideology incompatible with universal freedom and democracy? The mere “existence” if this or that state is irrelevant, if such a state cannot be a free and democratic place for all the people in its territory. If Israel cannot be a democracy with human rights for all the people living under its power, then I honestly don’t care if it exists or not. As a gentile Canadian/European dual citizen, I would much rather spend my energy making Canada and Europe safe places for Jewish life and prosperity such that Jewish people can thrive and be happy here, than support some hopeless apartheid ethnostate.
So are you saying “not all Zionists,” then? I pretty much agree with everything you just said, I agree with all of that. Maybe more, truth and reconciliation is probably more productive, but my prescribed solution would be a little more inclusive of measured revenge to disincentivize repetition in the future. But yes we generally agree about all of that.
This was my central point: A lot of times, breaking down things into “isms” and “ists” can lead people to huge failures of thinking. I get why this Palestinian person is attacking Zionism. It makes sense to me. I’m just saying that once you start using a word that can both mean “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way” or also mean something so mild that you don’t mind being identified with one version of it, that starts to become a dangerous word to use, because it helps people become more confused instead of helping them understand what is happening and what you wanted to communicate.
Like I said, I’ve seen people attack Bernie Sanders for being anti-Palestinian, it’s not just some kind of idle speculation about how people could get confused by it.
To me this sounds like a problem of honest universalist democratic zionists (whoever those are) to be solving, and definitely not something to be foisted upon the Palestinians to figure out all the nuances of zionism. I don’t see value in tone policing the people speaking out for the victims. If honest democratic zionists haven’t been able to rebrand, redefine, salvage zionism, that’s their problem, not the Palestinians’. The Palestinians have other, more pressing problems. If you (not you personally, the generic “you”) honestly believe that zionism can be salvaged for democracy and universal human rights, your time would be much better spent yelling at the vast majority of zionists who mean something completely different than you, and something much more sinister and evil, that wagging fingers to Palestinians.
I’m not talking to Palestinians, I’m talking to you. I’m pretty sure I explicitly said that I get why this person would say things that way. Sure, he’s allowed. You’re not. For you, I feel like it’s fine for me to point out when you’re using language that can be used in a careless way that can (and does) hinder the Palestinian cause by being used to attack their defenders. Right?
I would never dream of responding to this person’s post by trying to tone-police him. I’m responding to the OP article, which is describing some people as “top Democrats” who are not top Democrats, putting their statements next to statements from the ADL to create an overall gestalt about “Democrats” by bringing in other things from other sources, other dishonest things. And I’m responding to you. Again, he gets to say these things in the way he wants to say them, it’s fine, he’s earned it. You have not. I get to disagree with you about your use of language.
I feel like I’ve reiterated enough at this point what my issue is. One person in the article is describing Zionism as “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.” Pretty much everyone in this conversation, I think, is against that. One other person is describing it as “the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel.” Some people might be against that, for valid reasons at this point, but I don’t think it is fair to attack someone who wants the second thing as if they were supporting the first thing. Using one word for both of those things and saying things like that it’s the job of the “honest universalist democratic zionists” to make you stop, and otherwise you’re going to continue with it, is just weird.
You’re talking about Zionism as if it’s a single international club, with central definitions and leadership that can include or exclude particular people. Honestly you seem like you’re just persistently missing the point of what I’m trying to say. I’ve said it a few different times at this point, and it seems like you’re still not grasping what I’m saying, so I’m going to give up trying. Cheers.
Well, we have spent the last few comments discussing what other zionisms could be like, so I don’t know where the idea that I am asserting zionism in the abstract is a monolith is coming from. But it is actually true that zionism in the concrete, or “really existing zionism” if you will, has certain characteristics and is in fact the current ideological basis for an ongoing genocide. Abstract vs concrete. It matters.
Other than that, I think we are confusing a couple of things.
I disagree with your reading of the article as somehow smearing “Democrats”. It’s about Virginia politics. Top democrats in Virginia talking about a Virginia delegate. Virginia, Virginia, Virginia. Nothing dishonest about focusing on Virginia. It is in that context that my comments refer, in that context that the word zionism is being used, not to this discussion between us. Anyway, nice talking to you.
No, you spent the last few comments saying that. I was saying something totally different from that. What was I saying? I am curious about your reading comprehension.
You also still haven’t answered my question, I don’t think. Am I a Zionist? Is Bernie Sanders? You really want to be able to use this terminology, say that particular people are or are not Zionists (in the “really existing” form), so I am curious to hear how you would apply it when you’re not trying to construct the exact messaging that’s your favorite messaging to construct with it.
Nothing in the headline says “Virginia.” Actually, if it said “Top Virginia Democrats” I would think it would be significantly less dishonest. But they’re clearly trying to paint a particular picture, through creative use of ambiguous language and editing the boundaries of the picture creatively. Hence my objection.
Fun fact, recognizing Israel as a country had wide support from antisemitic groups all across the US and Europe.
It was seen as a solution to get rid of the Jews once and for all. Just deport them all to the Middle East so that they’re someone else’s problem.
Using the same loose logic could easily be used to say that Zionism is antisemitic. It’s the kind of stupid logic that conservatives use all the time to make the facts fit their feelings.
Makes perfect sense.
Almost as if you can’t look for morality or amorality in broad categories, and you need to look at what someone’s actually doing (or advocating or whatever), and be specific.
Some broad categories are beyond the pale. For example, there’s no moral way to implement an apartheid state.
Absolutely correct. So anyone who’s doing that (or supporting it, making excuses for it, whatever), that’s real fucked up and they’re a bad person. I should have clarified, that type of broad category I’m fine with.
What I was saying is that someone who has been tirelessly advocating for the US to stop funding Israel, showing photos of the genocide and starvation on the senate floor, introducing votes to defund Israel, showing up at protests, all that kind of thing, if you manage to introduce a category of “Zionist” into the conversation, and then say “Well he’s a Zionist so he’s supporting genocide,” that’s a stupid way to reason. That’s what I’m saying about broad categories. That type of broad category (using imprecise language to strategically make it sound like someone’s supporting something they’re not supporting) are useful tools for getting people confused.
I think it depends on what you view as Israel. Israel’s current government system is Zionist, but a people’s government is not equivalent to their people. So just as I can say that everyone in Gaza is not Hamas, I can say that every person in Israel isn’t this Zionist regime. I couldn’t care what they called the area on a map, whether it has 1 non Zionist country, 2 seperate non-zionist countries, or 12 small non- zionist countries, just so long as root out the Zionism / reform their governments into the acceptance of a people not based on their language, religion, color of their skin, sex, gender, etc. Doubt we’ll see it most places until we start fixing economic issues everywhere though.
My point is that attacking someone as a “Zionist,” now that Israel exists and has for a while, is kind of meaningless and dishonest at this point. Specifically because the label can mean a few very different things, you can ratchet someone into a viewpoint they don’t actually hold by using the loosest possible definition when classifying them as Zionist and then using the most damning possible definition when attacking them for being a Zionist.