Bravo Peter. Thank you for being a voice of reason and fairness, which is the only way for any of us to find lasting peace, in the middle east or elsewhere. The US has much to answer for worldwide, for giving militancy, instead of diplomacy, primacy in its foreign policy and policing of domestic issues. I hope we can still turn the tide toward cooperative coexistence for us all.
Thank you Peter for your clear reasoning on Greenblatt and the ADL, and for your interview with MSNBC. You are opening space on these issues that is encouraging. THe key rests with mobilizing the grass roots, as you rightly stated with Mehdi. Wonder if we will get there before its too late with the upper levels of the Democratic party? The violence in Jerusalem and Israel's dismantling of the Status Quo for not only religious institutions but the settler colonial theft of land in E. Jerusalem and the West Bank continues without accountability to international norm or regulating institution.
The single most egregious lines in your essay here is: “Greenblatt seems to be suggesting that anti-Zionism requires rejecting the Jewish connection to what our texts call the land of Israel. But that’s not convincing either. For most of the last two thousand years, most Jewish religious authorities affirmed that connection while opposing a Jewish state.”
As any reasonably knowledgeable person knows for 2,000 years the Jews have been waiting for a sign or for the Messiah to lead them to the promised land. And in fact, many Jews ignored Palestine when a bunch of Marxists and Socialist decided not to wait and got the ball rolling—even before the Zionism.
As I recall it was not until the June 1967 war that religious Jews finally decided that Israel’s stunning victory was G-d’s way of letting Jews know that he approves of Israel. And then of course all the crazies, mostly from America, moved into the West Bank.
Of course, in all fairness there really was no one to talk to on the other side. Never mind the three NO's from Khartoum. There really wasn’t anyone on the Palestinian side who was ready to agree to an Israel side-by-side Palestine and the Oslo accords were not followed up on because there was always an Intifada to show the Israeli left that the Arabs are not serious about anything other than Israel’s destruction.
Your audience was mostly dismissive of Olmert, his plan was to essentially give all of the West Bank and the Arab section of the Jerusalem to the Palestinian state and the resounding answer was? NO. So, if the other side is not willing to settle for anything less than the end of Israel why does Israel have to agree?
Finally, I suspect you are probably too young to recall the NLF (National Liberation Front) of the Vietnamese people. When I was at Wisconsin, we in the anti-Vietnam war faction routinely supported the NLF because we understood it as the voice for Vietnamese nationalism. Zionism is similarly the organization that was the guiding philosophy for the creation of a Jewish state. Being against it is being against a Jewish state. Is that antisemitism? You can call it what you wish but being anti-Zionist does mean you are for the dismantling of the Jewish state. I suppose those folks can go back to where they came from. Show me the model where this happed in the past. I might be persuaded right after all the white folks in the Americas return to where they came from.
Most of the Hasbara coming out of IDF nowadays is about how "diverse" the IDF is with Muslims and Arabs being part of the force. And of course, the "peace" deals with authoritarian regimes that help these dictators spy on journalists and activists (sometimes kill them in the case of Khashoggi). Why isn't diversity and "Peace" taken to the next step in reality?
Hoo boy, where to begin on this one? If I had my own Substack, I'd go line by line and debunk the multitude of lies and false equivalences above, but since I'm confided to the comment section, I'll cut right to the heart of the matter.
""If anti-Zionism is “rooted in rage,” so is opposition to any ideology that denies people equality and freedom"
I'm going to state this as plainly and clearly as I can: Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. That means inequality for the Jewish people as a nation, and therefore it is anti-Semitism.
If you oppose the existence of the Jewish state of Israel, which is what anti-Zionism means, you support inequality for the Jewish people on a global level. Without Israel, the Jewish people no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations, to give one major example and which should be the end of the discussion. Anti-Zionism is no different than heading down to your local college and demanding the Jewish student group be banned from campus while completely ignoring the Christian and Muslim groups alone.
If Peter actually loved Jews and equality so much, he wouldn't be defending anti-Zionists. He'd be first in line for condemning them as the bigots and anti-Semites that they are.
Hoo boy in deed! Let me just state as plainly and clearly as I can (even though I know you will not hear it) that anti-zionism means opposition to the state of Israel as a state that discriminates against its citizens who are not Jewish. The same way that the fight against apartheid in South Africa was not about opposition to the country of South Africa but to the racist nature of the country.
No, wrong. Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel.
Wikipedia: " The term is broadly defined in the modern era as opposition to the State of Israel"
Collins Dictionary: [opposition to] "a movement which was originally concerned with establishing a political and religious state in Palestine for Jewish people, and is now concerned with the development of Israel."
I understand that it's necessary to redefine anti-Zionism so its anti-Semitic nature isn't obvious, but you're fooling nobody.
Who should I believe, Wikipedia and multiple dictionaries or a random person on the Internet?
All Israeli citizens are equal under the law. Palestine and its anti-Semitic allies have made it clear that their opposition is to Israel's existence as a Jewish state. They're quite honest about it, so why can't you be?
Calling a Jewish state "racist by nature" but having no problem with the dozens of Christian and Muslim states in the world today is a blatant anti-Jewish double standard. Can we agree about that?
"Upon their arrival in Israel, Ethiopian Jews faced appalling racism and discrimination from the Israeli establishment. Many in the religious establishment even dared to question their Judaism.
One of the early incidents that exposed this approach was the revelation in the 1990s that the Israeli national blood bank had routinely destroyed blood donated by Ethiopian Jews for fear of HIV. Ethiopian Jews also suffer from the highest poverty rate among the Jews in Israel, and suffer much higher levels of police stop-search, arrests and incarceration. Unemployment among Jews of Ethiopian descent is also significantly higher than any other Jews in Israel."
(Anadolu Agency, 2019)
"One third of Israelis “would not marry an Ethiopian Jew and would not want any family member to do so,” according to data from a recent survey commissioned by Israelis Against Racism. The disturbing data further revealed that “22% believe the Jewish religious identity of Ethiopians is questionable,” and 16% “did not want to live in the same building or even the same neighborhood as Ethiopian Jews.” Despite living as part of Israeli society for more than 40 years, the amount of racism in Israel toward the Ethiopian community is still astounding."
What's your point, Rebecca? Just smearing more mud since you can't make an actual argument? If you think Jewish states are racist by nature but Christian and Muslim states are fine, just come out and say so.
“ Without Israel, the Jewish people no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations, to give one major example and which should be the end of the discussion.”
Is this the Israel who ignores multiple critical resolutions of the United Nations, aided by the US?
Winters, I think the problem with your post lies in its logical leaps.
"Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. That means inequality for the Jewish people as a nation, and therefore it is anti-Semitism."
I'll grant you the first sentence, but I think there are practical nuances that make any pat definition of "anti-Zionism" problematic. Mr. Shuster has pointed out one important one, related to the actual way anti-Zionism cashes out in the context of the past half century--Wikipedia considers that nuance and many more, if you're willing to read beyond the first 20 words of a 5000-word entry.
Why would opposition to "the State of Israel" mean that Jews would be unequal "as a nation?" There are countless "nations" in the world, and only a small proportion control territory in the manner of "nation-states" (many of which include within their borders other nations without a state). The definition of "nation" is, in any event, fluid and not particularly helpful. Whom are you including in "the Jewish people as a nation?" Are the ~60% of Jews who are not Israeli citizens--a majority--members of it? Why don't we get to set Israeli policy at the UN (or Israeli policy towards settlements)?
And I think it's a terrible blunder to insist that all anti-Zionists are, by definition, antisemites? Have you thought about what an upgrade that is for real antisemites? You're elevating David Duke to Noam Chomsky status.
I'm personally a Zionist, and the reasons for that are chiefly my awareness of and response to the history of the Jewish diaspora, from its inception through exile to 1948. I'm aware of how widespread and insidious *actual* antisemitism is--per Wikipedia: "hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews"--to which I'll add: "because they're Jews." I'll also grant that many anti-Zionists, now and earlier, have been antisemites. But the main reason anti-Zionism is spreading now is *not* out of hostility to Jews as Jews, but because of ethical and political opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians. Many secular Jews younger than I whose political understanding of Israel has chiefly been formed through observation of those policies over recent decades view "Zionism" in those terms, and, of course, that's true of younger non-Jews as well. Expulsions, pogroms, and even the Holocaust are less salient to them, and that's only going to become truer as time passes. They've never even heard of Altneuland, much less read it. I think their view is too narrow, but they are looking at real events as they see them presented. They don't think Jews are intrinsically evil, subhuman, or whatever other bigoted riffs underlie actual antisemitism, and I can think of no strategy more foolish than telling them that we can't distinguish them from actual antisemites.
All anti-Zionists are pursuing a cause that will result in anti-Semitism, the stripping of the Jewish people of their nation-state and their rights. That's all I will say about them, because different anti-Zionists approach their cause different perspectives.
"There are countless "nations" in the world, and only a small proportion control territory in the manner of "nation-states" "
But there is only one nation in the world facing an organized and dedicated attempt to rip their territory away from them. An anti-Jewish double standard.
" But the main reason anti-Zionism is spreading now is *not* out of hostility to Jews as Jews, but because of ethical and political opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians."
Opposing Israeli government policy is not anti-Zionism and it never has been. Claiming it is provides cover for anti-Semites.
Winters, you're still conflating "nation" and "state." I'm a member of the Jewish nation. Israel is not my state; America is. I have no right as a Jew to have a state. By the same reasoning, anti-Zionists are not attempting to "rip" my territory away from me. What you're speaking of is Israeli Jews as citizens of a state.
We agree that opposing Israeli policy is not anti-Zionism, but the growth of anti-Zionism has largely been a product of sustained opposition to the nature and duration of those policies on grounds other than antisemitism. I believe claiming that anti-Zionism is antisemitism provides cover for antisemites, because making a patently illegitimate accusation undermines the credibility of Jews who make the claim.
As for your initial response: "All anti-Zionists are pursuing a cause that will result in anti-Semitism." (1) That's different from the claim that anti-Zionists are antisemites. (2) If what you actually mean is that the dissolution of Israel would imperil Israeli Jews because of the reach of antisemitism, then I agree with you (I think it would actually tend to reduce antisemitism, but increase its effective impact on Jews). That is a reason I'm a Zionist.
You need to know that there is a narrative that draws a through line back from today's policies to the war of independence. It pictures the Zionist movement as a violent colonialist seizure of land from an indigenous population, and its power is sustained by what young people, many now much older, have seen in headlines after 1967/1973, for most that's all their lives. The narrative is wrong, but it's not all wrong. When I was younger I thought the best approach was to correct the narrative and deal with the moral complexity of it. I now think that's a blind alley--we're past the possibility of debunking--and the only approach is to erase the narrative with a two-state solution and create a new narrative for the future. Or, if I'm wrong and Peter is right, a one-state solution and a new future.
You'll need to direct your ire equally at the millions of Jewish people who are anti-Zionists. Are they also bigots and anti-Semites? Go to them with your rage.
"Millions" of Jewish people who are anti-Zionists? A completely absurd claim with no basis in reality.
The few Jewish people who are anti-Zionist are supporting an anti-Semitic cause, just as the black Southerners who fought for the South in the Civil War were fighting for a racist cause.
This debate on Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism is worth a look.
Medhi Hasan & Ilan Pappe debate whether
Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, with Times columnist Melanie Phillips & Israeli former member of the Knesset Einat Wilf, in this Intelligence Squared debate from June 2019.
of course. If the Muslim Middle East ever decide to concentrate their military power on Israel, they could destroy it. Its not like anyone would come to the aid of a beleaguered Jewish nation. I suspect many would be gleeful and say under their breath "They had it coming".
The Satmar, who Peter referenced in his piece above as Jews who are legitimate and reputable anti-Zionists, believe that the Holocaust was divine retribution for Zionism. Victim blaming does seem to be a common thread throughout the entire anti-Zionist movement.
Winters, You have insisted, with Mr. Greenblatt, that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. You've defended this by pointing to the consequences that would follow if anti-Zionist objectives were achieved. Yet now you refer to the Satmar as "legitimate and reputable anti-Zionists."
If the objective supported by the Satmar were achieved, the consequences would be identical to the case with other anti-Zionists, and you have based your characterization of anti-Zionist "antisemitism" precisely on the nature of those consequences. If you will examine the reasons you think it would be wrong to call the Satmar antisemitic, you will understand why many of us think it is wrong to call some other anti-Zionists antisemitic.
Good, we're in agreement there. But should we conclude that you consider them to be antisemites. I hope not.
Look, we can go on like this forever. I know you can tell the fundamental difference between a Teitelbaum and a David Duke. I'd just like you to reflect on the impact of a discourse that erases that distinction.
No, I don't consider them to be anti-Semites. Not every single anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, but they are all pursuing an anti-Semitic goal. Can we agree about that?
Answer my question and I'll answer yours. Who will represent the Jewish people at the UN, if the bigots have their way and Israel is wiped from existence?
I have my own issues with Greenblatt — the ADL misleadingly obscures hate crime data to ignore the biggest contributors: blacks, Muslims, and college students against fellow students.
But once again, Peter, you need to acknowledge that peace is readily achievable between Israel and Palestine when Palestinians 1) accept Israel’s right to exist; 2) agree to a state of their own next to Israel; and 3) agree to a “right of return” to a new state of Palestine and not to Israel. For over 70 years there have been numerous formal and informal efforts to achieve a two state peace, but all have ended with Palestinian rejection.
But times are changing. Arab countries refuse to be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence and are normalizing relations with Israel.
Your activism is misplaced. It should not be aimed at Israel but rather at the Palestinian leaders who continue to teach children to ‘drive the Jews into the sea.’ Hopefully one day they will instead choose peace so that both peoples can thrive.
There will be peace when all residents of Israel have equality. By far the majority of violence is perpetrated by the IDF and Zionists against Palestinians - surely you cannot deny the huge imbalance in military power and aggression being waged every day, unless you refuse to look. The state of Israel was founded on injustice, as is increasingly understood everywhere. This is one reason for that government's increasing reliance on, and allyship with, far right governments, groups and individuals who will soon be the sole supporters of the Zionist ideal of a settler-colonial state based on ethno-religious principles. Take away those principles, replace them with democracy, freedom and equal rights for all, and you have peace.
Say no more. You’re outed. Nothing will be enough for you. So go ahead and follow this dead end of believing Israel should go away. All you are doing is hurting the Palestinians.
In what way am I 'outed'? The Nakba was an injustice. The settler-colonialism of Zionists at that time was an injustice. You don't seem to have an argument, yet I - like vast numbers of others, including Jewish people - want that injustice to be righted. You seem to want it to continue, as do the far-right allies of the apartheid Israeli state who love the idea of a state excluding people based on race or religion. Israel must change, not 'go away', and become a democracy like other democracies.
"who love the idea of a state excluding people based on race or religion."
Rebecca, are you ignorant to the fact that there are dozens of ethnic and religious based nation states? Or are you aware of them and are simply holding Israel to a higher standard?
No. I want two people living side by side in peace. The Palestinians have rejected that for 70 years and continue to reject it today. The only ‘nakba’ is the Palestinian leadership’s rejection, corruption and leaving its people in this predicament.
Is democracy insufficient for you and your apartheid state? I would reject the two-state solution as well, as it would mean continued apartheid within Israel. If you reject democracy, you reject peace.
Democracy like what the Palestinians offer their people in the West Bank and Gaza??? 95% of Israeli Arabs when polled about whether they would rather stay Israeli or become Palestinian citizens when a state of Palestine is created say they’d stay Israeli. 20% of Israelis are Arab citizens. They attend Israeli universities, become doctors and entrepreneurs and are elected to the Knesset. Yet Abbas when asked whether Jews of the West Bank could remain as citizens of a Palestinian state says definitely “NO”. So Rebecca, stick your head in the sand and think you’re representing a good cause. But you are not.
Peter and the other anti-Zionists don't want peace. Peace means the continued existence of Israel, which is a country ruled by an "ideology that denies people equality and freedom."
It's good to read that you agree with Palestinian people and the many millions of Jewish and non-Jewish people in every nation who, seeing the evidence, have come to accept that Israel is indeed ruled by that Zionist ideology which denies all non-Jewish (and, in practice, Black Jewish) residents of Israel equality and freedom. This British citizen had little understanding or interest in the region for most of my life until the Israeli state's repression and injustice became too obvious to ignore.
All citizens of Israel are equal under the law and have their freedom. And as I already said, there are not "millions" of Jewish people who are anti-Zionist. Tell the truth.
1. Israeli Arabs make up 20% of the population of Israel and they are represented in the Knesset by approximately 20% of their representatives.
2. One Arab party, Raam, the Islamic party, no less, is a member of the coalition government.
3. There is an Arab judge on Israel’s Supreme court.
4. Fully 50% of Haifa University students are Arab students.
5. There are 3,000 Arab students at Tel Aviv University (no.1 in Israel and 132 in the world), how many at Oxford and Cambridge?
6. Arab students accounted for 20% of all students of bachelor’s degree programs last year, up from 10% in 2010.
7. An Arab woman doctor heads the largest Hospital in Northern Israel’s response to COVID. Another Arab woman doctor heads prestigious Hadassah Hospital ER in Jerusalem.
If I can just jump in, Ram. These points are all true and important. But when one things about the rights of Palestinian citizens, it's really important to think about land. And in particular the Israeli Land Authority's control over almost all of it--including the vast swaths of land taken from Palestinians (even those who became citizens)--and the fact that it is a body that allocates and develops land for the well-being of the Jewish people (10/22 seats go the Jewish National Fund and i'm quite sure a Palestinian has never sat on its board). this is why even inside the green line Palestinians live on 2-3% of the land. This speaks to what Oren Yiftachel calls an ethnocracy, a state with some democratic characteristics but which ultimately rests--in its core governmental institutions--on a basis of ethno-religious supremacy.
Peter, how do you respond to the point that there are dozens of ethnic based nation states, of which Israel is only one? How do you also respond to the point that without Israel, the Jewish people will no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations? I'm eager to hear your thoughts, especially on the second point.
There are many states with crosses on their flags and some with preferentially immigration policies. But, first of all, I oppose all that. It's one of the reasons I never felt nearly as comfortable in the UK as I do in the US. Second, Israel version is far more extreme than European countries with crosses on their flags. The immigration policy--any Jews can become a citizen on day one but no path to citizenship essentially for Palestinians, even those born in the country and expelled. And the almost complete control over land by a body devoted to the well-being of one ethno-religious group. No parallel to that in democratic countries that I'm aware of.
Thank you for the lead to Oren Yiftachel. I have been studying the land issues but currently still focused on the 19th century, so I will add him to my list, which currently includes Shafir, Grossman and others. Nonetheless, I am always suspicious of such data points. It is a given that the minority will own less land than the majority. Land ownership is not unimportant but in a country like Israel where the state owns 90% of the land it is by definition skewed. I will not dispute the fact that Israel will favor Jewish ownership over Arab ownership. Israel was designed as a haven for Jews not for others. I also believe that Israel’s Arab citizens have long been neglected and discriminated against. But it is clear by most measures especially of the kind I provided above that the lot of Israeli Arabs has improved and continues to improve. Another measure is the rise among Israeli Arabs in joining not only the police forces but also the IDF. But just for comparison Blacks own less than 1% of land in America. I am not so sure such data is all that significant.
None of which adds up to a good deal for the entire Palestinian people, as Mr Beinart explains for you. Apartheid Israel was founded as an openly racist, settler-colonial state in 1948 by means of the Nakba in which 700,000 Palestinian people were subjected to terrorism, violence and murder. The Palestinian people deserve to have their land returned to them, and Israel needs to give up its nightmarish ideal of a single, ethno-religious-nationalist state which privileges white, Jewish people and replace it with an equitable democracy.
“700,000 Palestinian people were subjected to terrorism, violence and murder.” Again, Ms. Turner I have to ask you where you get your “facts”. To be clear the 700,000 is a disputed number. Has it occurred to you that more than half the Palestinians fled? Why did they flee? People flee from war zones, look at Ukraine. People leave war zones even when their leaders stay and fight as is now happening in Ukraine. In Palestine the leaders fled first. There is of course another reason why people flee. They are worried what might happen to them. After all they know what their brethren did to the Jews in parts of Palestine exactly “terrorism, violence and murder" and let me add rape took place. And then finally Ms. Turner there is the matter of almost 1 million Jews who lived in Arab countries being subjected to terror and expulsion at the same time. This was a population exchange. Similar to the kind the UK engineered in India (between Muslims and HIndus). Only the one in Palestine was a lot less violent.
The only reason the Palestinian refugees aren't allowed to return to their country is because Israel wants to gerrymander a demographic Jewish supermajority. If they were Jewish there would magically be space in Israel for them tomorrow.
"A plan was devised to attack Deir Yassin before dawn on April 9, expel all of its residents and kill those who refused to leave in order to seize the village and terrorize Arabs throughout Palestine into flight. In language horrifically reminiscent of the recent Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Irgun officer Ben-Zion Cohen recounted how Lehi members proposed “liquidating” the entire village. Fortunately, the proposal was rejected, although Deir Yassin was indeed ultimately “liquidated,” like more than 400 other destroyed Arab villages in 1948-49.
Women and children were meant to be spared, and residents were meant to be warned by loudspeaker to encourage their escape. However, the armored vehicle carrying the loudspeaker crashed early during the attack and the 120 attackers encountered fierce resistance, including sniper fire, from the village guards and other residents, many of whom were armed. The inexperienced Jewish fighters resorted to going from house to house, tossing grenades indiscriminately into each one before storming inside and spraying survivors with submachine guns and other weapons."
I’m just asking questions, unless that’s antisemitic now too. So here are 20 questions for Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL. There will be more.
1. Why do Jews get to go home after 2,000 years, but Palestinians can’t after 74?
2. Isn’t there a racist subtext to the counterfactual belief that Jews and Palestinians can’t live together?
3. Why is a one state solution more unrealistic than dividing Jerusalem, evacuating the settlements, and expecting Palestinians to give up their right of return?
4. How will two states create more security for Israeli Jews than one state?
5. Have we learned nothing from our history of being treated as a demographic threat?
6. Is counting how many little Jewish and Palestinian babies there are a good measure of “security?”
7. Why can’t we have law of return and right of return in the same country?
8. Why can’t Jews and Palestinians both enjoy individual and national equality in one country?
9. Where is Israel’s water coming from when the State of Palestine comes into existence?
10. However legal it may be, is it just to expect Palestinians to live on 20 percent of the land- and not the best land from an economic perspective- when their population is nearly twice that of Israeli Jews?
11. Is it reasonable to expect Palestinians to forget the coastal cities that were the seat of their civilization, because they’re on Israel’s side of the imaginary line?
12. Is it reasonable to expect Jews to forget their ancestral homeland, because it’s on Palestine’s side of the imaginary line?
13. What new wrinkle are you going to add to the two state formula to make it work after nearly a hundred years of failure?
14. How will Palestinians fare under the paradigm of separation when 300 billion worth of land and other assets was stolen from them at the creation of the State of Israel?
15. Given the location, is it rational to believe that Jews will be the majority in Israel/Palestine one hundred years from now?
16. Is it moral to permanently exile and dismember another people in order to create an unsustainable majority?
17. Is it moral to keep people trapped in Bantustans in their own country?
18. Is it moral to bomb densely populated besieged cities within an inch of their life, even if the enemy is using human shields?
19. Can there be such a thing as a “White and democratic state?”
20. Is there a Magic Torah you are using to justify Israeli lawlessness, or are you simply keeping two sets of weights: one for Israel, and one for literally everywhere else on planet Earth.
International conventions such as the UN Charter state clearly that the right of return is for persons to return to their country. Not their homes and not someone else's country. Example, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
The Palestinians, and only the Palestinians, are demanding the right to "return" not to their own country of Palestine but to someone else's country of Israel, a country none of them have citizenship of. This is unprecedented and has no basis in international law or convention.
"The Jews of all people" (what was that about anti-Semitism again) did not have a right to return to British Mandatory Palestine. Are you saying that they did? It would be the first I'm hearing of it.
The Jews of all people should know what it means to be the refugee and the stranger and what it‘s like to be treated as a demographic threat.
I can’t claim to know the mind of God, but if Israel is going to do something they know is wrong, like ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland and prevent their return to maintain a demographic supermajority, it’s so much better if they're honest and say “It’s wrong but we’re going to do it anyways.”
Instead what happens is responses such as yours, steeped in denial and legalese, that always remind me of Adam hiding in the garden.
Saudi Arabia has unlimited money (none of which they or other wealthy Arab nations give as aid to the Palestinians — think about that) and invest it around the world. They are normalizing relations with Israel and investing in Israeli companies because they no longer agree to be held hostage to the Palestinian delusional narrative of one day destroying Israel and controling the land from the river to the sea. Instead they are looking to establish a Middle East trading bloc where countries and people thrive in the modern world. Guess who won’t be a part of it? The Palestinians because of their corrupt leaders who reject peace and their supporters like Peter and his followers who enable them. Shame, shame, shame…
In a democracy, all the citizens of a country are represented at the UN. Who represents Scots, Welsh, English and Northern Irish people at the UN? Stop demanding special treatment at the expense of others.
Rebecca, are you seriously not aware of the Scottish Independence movement, a movement calling for an independent Scottish state, and that in 2020 the BBC reported that 58% of Scots would vote in favor of an independent Scotland? Are you not aware of Sein Finn and the long, bloody history of northern Ireland seeking to leave the UK and join Ireland (which is an ethnic based nation state)? Are those two nations also demanding "special treatment"? Are the Kurds? Heck, are the Palestinians?
Calling Jews racist and wanting special treatment for wanting the same thing as dozens of other nations is appalling anti-Semitism. The double standards are blatant and obvious, so you might as well just own them.
Ireland is not an "ethnic based nation state". I doubt anyone living there would want it described as such. It is a democracy with equal rights for all and cannot be compared with Israel, only contrasted. There is no Irish Defence Force murdering non-Irish children. You're going to have to admit, sooner or later, the vast injustice that is the apartheid Israeli state which is unlike any other.
Let's put aside for now the breathtakingly ignorant comments about Ireland and instead let's answer my question. Are the Scots demanding special treatment when they seek independence? Did the Irish when they broke away from the British Empire and formed the country of Ireland? How about the Indians in India?
Is every nation demanding special treatment when they want to rule themselves, or should only the Jews receive that particular criticism? I really really want to know.
The issue is not Zionism in the abstract, which is a noble idea. The issue is what are the consequences for the people who were already living there, and are those consequences morally justified.
Bravo Peter. Thank you for being a voice of reason and fairness, which is the only way for any of us to find lasting peace, in the middle east or elsewhere. The US has much to answer for worldwide, for giving militancy, instead of diplomacy, primacy in its foreign policy and policing of domestic issues. I hope we can still turn the tide toward cooperative coexistence for us all.
Thank you Peter for your clear reasoning on Greenblatt and the ADL, and for your interview with MSNBC. You are opening space on these issues that is encouraging. THe key rests with mobilizing the grass roots, as you rightly stated with Mehdi. Wonder if we will get there before its too late with the upper levels of the Democratic party? The violence in Jerusalem and Israel's dismantling of the Status Quo for not only religious institutions but the settler colonial theft of land in E. Jerusalem and the West Bank continues without accountability to international norm or regulating institution.
The single most egregious lines in your essay here is: “Greenblatt seems to be suggesting that anti-Zionism requires rejecting the Jewish connection to what our texts call the land of Israel. But that’s not convincing either. For most of the last two thousand years, most Jewish religious authorities affirmed that connection while opposing a Jewish state.”
As any reasonably knowledgeable person knows for 2,000 years the Jews have been waiting for a sign or for the Messiah to lead them to the promised land. And in fact, many Jews ignored Palestine when a bunch of Marxists and Socialist decided not to wait and got the ball rolling—even before the Zionism.
As I recall it was not until the June 1967 war that religious Jews finally decided that Israel’s stunning victory was G-d’s way of letting Jews know that he approves of Israel. And then of course all the crazies, mostly from America, moved into the West Bank.
Of course, in all fairness there really was no one to talk to on the other side. Never mind the three NO's from Khartoum. There really wasn’t anyone on the Palestinian side who was ready to agree to an Israel side-by-side Palestine and the Oslo accords were not followed up on because there was always an Intifada to show the Israeli left that the Arabs are not serious about anything other than Israel’s destruction.
Your audience was mostly dismissive of Olmert, his plan was to essentially give all of the West Bank and the Arab section of the Jerusalem to the Palestinian state and the resounding answer was? NO. So, if the other side is not willing to settle for anything less than the end of Israel why does Israel have to agree?
Finally, I suspect you are probably too young to recall the NLF (National Liberation Front) of the Vietnamese people. When I was at Wisconsin, we in the anti-Vietnam war faction routinely supported the NLF because we understood it as the voice for Vietnamese nationalism. Zionism is similarly the organization that was the guiding philosophy for the creation of a Jewish state. Being against it is being against a Jewish state. Is that antisemitism? You can call it what you wish but being anti-Zionist does mean you are for the dismantling of the Jewish state. I suppose those folks can go back to where they came from. Show me the model where this happed in the past. I might be persuaded right after all the white folks in the Americas return to where they came from.
Most of the Hasbara coming out of IDF nowadays is about how "diverse" the IDF is with Muslims and Arabs being part of the force. And of course, the "peace" deals with authoritarian regimes that help these dictators spy on journalists and activists (sometimes kill them in the case of Khashoggi). Why isn't diversity and "Peace" taken to the next step in reality?
Hoo boy, where to begin on this one? If I had my own Substack, I'd go line by line and debunk the multitude of lies and false equivalences above, but since I'm confided to the comment section, I'll cut right to the heart of the matter.
""If anti-Zionism is “rooted in rage,” so is opposition to any ideology that denies people equality and freedom"
I'm going to state this as plainly and clearly as I can: Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. That means inequality for the Jewish people as a nation, and therefore it is anti-Semitism.
If you oppose the existence of the Jewish state of Israel, which is what anti-Zionism means, you support inequality for the Jewish people on a global level. Without Israel, the Jewish people no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations, to give one major example and which should be the end of the discussion. Anti-Zionism is no different than heading down to your local college and demanding the Jewish student group be banned from campus while completely ignoring the Christian and Muslim groups alone.
If Peter actually loved Jews and equality so much, he wouldn't be defending anti-Zionists. He'd be first in line for condemning them as the bigots and anti-Semites that they are.
Hoo boy in deed! Let me just state as plainly and clearly as I can (even though I know you will not hear it) that anti-zionism means opposition to the state of Israel as a state that discriminates against its citizens who are not Jewish. The same way that the fight against apartheid in South Africa was not about opposition to the country of South Africa but to the racist nature of the country.
No, wrong. Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel.
Wikipedia: " The term is broadly defined in the modern era as opposition to the State of Israel"
Collins Dictionary: [opposition to] "a movement which was originally concerned with establishing a political and religious state in Palestine for Jewish people, and is now concerned with the development of Israel."
I understand that it's necessary to redefine anti-Zionism so its anti-Semitic nature isn't obvious, but you're fooling nobody.
not a big surprise that you resort to wikipedia as your source of knowledge! And you are not convincing anybody.
Who should I believe, Wikipedia and multiple dictionaries or a random person on the Internet?
All Israeli citizens are equal under the law. Palestine and its anti-Semitic allies have made it clear that their opposition is to Israel's existence as a Jewish state. They're quite honest about it, so why can't you be?
Calling a Jewish state "racist by nature" but having no problem with the dozens of Christian and Muslim states in the world today is a blatant anti-Jewish double standard. Can we agree about that?
"Upon their arrival in Israel, Ethiopian Jews faced appalling racism and discrimination from the Israeli establishment. Many in the religious establishment even dared to question their Judaism.
One of the early incidents that exposed this approach was the revelation in the 1990s that the Israeli national blood bank had routinely destroyed blood donated by Ethiopian Jews for fear of HIV. Ethiopian Jews also suffer from the highest poverty rate among the Jews in Israel, and suffer much higher levels of police stop-search, arrests and incarceration. Unemployment among Jews of Ethiopian descent is also significantly higher than any other Jews in Israel."
(Anadolu Agency, 2019)
"One third of Israelis “would not marry an Ethiopian Jew and would not want any family member to do so,” according to data from a recent survey commissioned by Israelis Against Racism. The disturbing data further revealed that “22% believe the Jewish religious identity of Ethiopians is questionable,” and 16% “did not want to live in the same building or even the same neighborhood as Ethiopian Jews.” Despite living as part of Israeli society for more than 40 years, the amount of racism in Israel toward the Ethiopian community is still astounding."
(The Times of Israel, 2020)
What's your point, Rebecca? Just smearing more mud since you can't make an actual argument? If you think Jewish states are racist by nature but Christian and Muslim states are fine, just come out and say so.
“ Without Israel, the Jewish people no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations, to give one major example and which should be the end of the discussion.”
Is this the Israel who ignores multiple critical resolutions of the United Nations, aided by the US?
Yes it is. Can you address my point now?
Winters, I think the problem with your post lies in its logical leaps.
"Anti-Zionism means opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. That means inequality for the Jewish people as a nation, and therefore it is anti-Semitism."
I'll grant you the first sentence, but I think there are practical nuances that make any pat definition of "anti-Zionism" problematic. Mr. Shuster has pointed out one important one, related to the actual way anti-Zionism cashes out in the context of the past half century--Wikipedia considers that nuance and many more, if you're willing to read beyond the first 20 words of a 5000-word entry.
Why would opposition to "the State of Israel" mean that Jews would be unequal "as a nation?" There are countless "nations" in the world, and only a small proportion control territory in the manner of "nation-states" (many of which include within their borders other nations without a state). The definition of "nation" is, in any event, fluid and not particularly helpful. Whom are you including in "the Jewish people as a nation?" Are the ~60% of Jews who are not Israeli citizens--a majority--members of it? Why don't we get to set Israeli policy at the UN (or Israeli policy towards settlements)?
And I think it's a terrible blunder to insist that all anti-Zionists are, by definition, antisemites? Have you thought about what an upgrade that is for real antisemites? You're elevating David Duke to Noam Chomsky status.
I'm personally a Zionist, and the reasons for that are chiefly my awareness of and response to the history of the Jewish diaspora, from its inception through exile to 1948. I'm aware of how widespread and insidious *actual* antisemitism is--per Wikipedia: "hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews"--to which I'll add: "because they're Jews." I'll also grant that many anti-Zionists, now and earlier, have been antisemites. But the main reason anti-Zionism is spreading now is *not* out of hostility to Jews as Jews, but because of ethical and political opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians. Many secular Jews younger than I whose political understanding of Israel has chiefly been formed through observation of those policies over recent decades view "Zionism" in those terms, and, of course, that's true of younger non-Jews as well. Expulsions, pogroms, and even the Holocaust are less salient to them, and that's only going to become truer as time passes. They've never even heard of Altneuland, much less read it. I think their view is too narrow, but they are looking at real events as they see them presented. They don't think Jews are intrinsically evil, subhuman, or whatever other bigoted riffs underlie actual antisemitism, and I can think of no strategy more foolish than telling them that we can't distinguish them from actual antisemites.
All anti-Zionists are pursuing a cause that will result in anti-Semitism, the stripping of the Jewish people of their nation-state and their rights. That's all I will say about them, because different anti-Zionists approach their cause different perspectives.
"There are countless "nations" in the world, and only a small proportion control territory in the manner of "nation-states" "
But there is only one nation in the world facing an organized and dedicated attempt to rip their territory away from them. An anti-Jewish double standard.
" But the main reason anti-Zionism is spreading now is *not* out of hostility to Jews as Jews, but because of ethical and political opposition to the policies of successive Israeli governments towards Palestinians."
Opposing Israeli government policy is not anti-Zionism and it never has been. Claiming it is provides cover for anti-Semites.
Winters, you're still conflating "nation" and "state." I'm a member of the Jewish nation. Israel is not my state; America is. I have no right as a Jew to have a state. By the same reasoning, anti-Zionists are not attempting to "rip" my territory away from me. What you're speaking of is Israeli Jews as citizens of a state.
We agree that opposing Israeli policy is not anti-Zionism, but the growth of anti-Zionism has largely been a product of sustained opposition to the nature and duration of those policies on grounds other than antisemitism. I believe claiming that anti-Zionism is antisemitism provides cover for antisemites, because making a patently illegitimate accusation undermines the credibility of Jews who make the claim.
As for your initial response: "All anti-Zionists are pursuing a cause that will result in anti-Semitism." (1) That's different from the claim that anti-Zionists are antisemites. (2) If what you actually mean is that the dissolution of Israel would imperil Israeli Jews because of the reach of antisemitism, then I agree with you (I think it would actually tend to reduce antisemitism, but increase its effective impact on Jews). That is a reason I'm a Zionist.
You need to know that there is a narrative that draws a through line back from today's policies to the war of independence. It pictures the Zionist movement as a violent colonialist seizure of land from an indigenous population, and its power is sustained by what young people, many now much older, have seen in headlines after 1967/1973, for most that's all their lives. The narrative is wrong, but it's not all wrong. When I was younger I thought the best approach was to correct the narrative and deal with the moral complexity of it. I now think that's a blind alley--we're past the possibility of debunking--and the only approach is to erase the narrative with a two-state solution and create a new narrative for the future. Or, if I'm wrong and Peter is right, a one-state solution and a new future.
You'll need to direct your ire equally at the millions of Jewish people who are anti-Zionists. Are they also bigots and anti-Semites? Go to them with your rage.
"Millions" of Jewish people who are anti-Zionists? A completely absurd claim with no basis in reality.
The few Jewish people who are anti-Zionist are supporting an anti-Semitic cause, just as the black Southerners who fought for the South in the Civil War were fighting for a racist cause.
This debate on Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism is worth a look.
Medhi Hasan & Ilan Pappe debate whether
Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, with Times columnist Melanie Phillips & Israeli former member of the Knesset Einat Wilf, in this Intelligence Squared debate from June 2019.
https://youtu.be/K1VTt_THL4A
Are there factual reasons to believe Israel is going to be wiped from existence ?
of course. If the Muslim Middle East ever decide to concentrate their military power on Israel, they could destroy it. Its not like anyone would come to the aid of a beleaguered Jewish nation. I suspect many would be gleeful and say under their breath "They had it coming".
The Satmar, who Peter referenced in his piece above as Jews who are legitimate and reputable anti-Zionists, believe that the Holocaust was divine retribution for Zionism. Victim blaming does seem to be a common thread throughout the entire anti-Zionist movement.
Winters, You have insisted, with Mr. Greenblatt, that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. You've defended this by pointing to the consequences that would follow if anti-Zionist objectives were achieved. Yet now you refer to the Satmar as "legitimate and reputable anti-Zionists."
If the objective supported by the Satmar were achieved, the consequences would be identical to the case with other anti-Zionists, and you have based your characterization of anti-Zionist "antisemitism" precisely on the nature of those consequences. If you will examine the reasons you think it would be wrong to call the Satmar antisemitic, you will understand why many of us think it is wrong to call some other anti-Zionists antisemitic.
I was being sarcastic about the Satmar. They are religious fanatics who in any other context besides this one would be ignored as extremists.
Good, we're in agreement there. But should we conclude that you consider them to be antisemites. I hope not.
Look, we can go on like this forever. I know you can tell the fundamental difference between a Teitelbaum and a David Duke. I'd just like you to reflect on the impact of a discourse that erases that distinction.
No, I don't consider them to be anti-Semites. Not every single anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, but they are all pursuing an anti-Semitic goal. Can we agree about that?
Answer my question and I'll answer yours. Who will represent the Jewish people at the UN, if the bigots have their way and Israel is wiped from existence?
There is no limit to hypotheticals , pursuing them may lead to more darkness than light and not getting answers to real issues .
No answer, how typical. The answer is no one. I find stripping the Jewish people of their voice and vote to be anti-Semitic. How about you?
I have my own issues with Greenblatt — the ADL misleadingly obscures hate crime data to ignore the biggest contributors: blacks, Muslims, and college students against fellow students.
But once again, Peter, you need to acknowledge that peace is readily achievable between Israel and Palestine when Palestinians 1) accept Israel’s right to exist; 2) agree to a state of their own next to Israel; and 3) agree to a “right of return” to a new state of Palestine and not to Israel. For over 70 years there have been numerous formal and informal efforts to achieve a two state peace, but all have ended with Palestinian rejection.
But times are changing. Arab countries refuse to be held hostage by Palestinian intransigence and are normalizing relations with Israel.
Your activism is misplaced. It should not be aimed at Israel but rather at the Palestinian leaders who continue to teach children to ‘drive the Jews into the sea.’ Hopefully one day they will instead choose peace so that both peoples can thrive.
There will be peace when all residents of Israel have equality. By far the majority of violence is perpetrated by the IDF and Zionists against Palestinians - surely you cannot deny the huge imbalance in military power and aggression being waged every day, unless you refuse to look. The state of Israel was founded on injustice, as is increasingly understood everywhere. This is one reason for that government's increasing reliance on, and allyship with, far right governments, groups and individuals who will soon be the sole supporters of the Zionist ideal of a settler-colonial state based on ethno-religious principles. Take away those principles, replace them with democracy, freedom and equal rights for all, and you have peace.
“The state of Israel was founded on injustice”
Say no more. You’re outed. Nothing will be enough for you. So go ahead and follow this dead end of believing Israel should go away. All you are doing is hurting the Palestinians.
In what way am I 'outed'? The Nakba was an injustice. The settler-colonialism of Zionists at that time was an injustice. You don't seem to have an argument, yet I - like vast numbers of others, including Jewish people - want that injustice to be righted. You seem to want it to continue, as do the far-right allies of the apartheid Israeli state who love the idea of a state excluding people based on race or religion. Israel must change, not 'go away', and become a democracy like other democracies.
"who love the idea of a state excluding people based on race or religion."
Rebecca, are you ignorant to the fact that there are dozens of ethnic and religious based nation states? Or are you aware of them and are simply holding Israel to a higher standard?
You know what you write is simply untrue, or you are deluding yourself. I'm done with you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state
Read and weep, Rebecca.
No. I want two people living side by side in peace. The Palestinians have rejected that for 70 years and continue to reject it today. The only ‘nakba’ is the Palestinian leadership’s rejection, corruption and leaving its people in this predicament.
Is democracy insufficient for you and your apartheid state? I would reject the two-state solution as well, as it would mean continued apartheid within Israel. If you reject democracy, you reject peace.
Democracy like what the Palestinians offer their people in the West Bank and Gaza??? 95% of Israeli Arabs when polled about whether they would rather stay Israeli or become Palestinian citizens when a state of Palestine is created say they’d stay Israeli. 20% of Israelis are Arab citizens. They attend Israeli universities, become doctors and entrepreneurs and are elected to the Knesset. Yet Abbas when asked whether Jews of the West Bank could remain as citizens of a Palestinian state says definitely “NO”. So Rebecca, stick your head in the sand and think you’re representing a good cause. But you are not.
Peter and the other anti-Zionists don't want peace. Peace means the continued existence of Israel, which is a country ruled by an "ideology that denies people equality and freedom."
It's good to read that you agree with Palestinian people and the many millions of Jewish and non-Jewish people in every nation who, seeing the evidence, have come to accept that Israel is indeed ruled by that Zionist ideology which denies all non-Jewish (and, in practice, Black Jewish) residents of Israel equality and freedom. This British citizen had little understanding or interest in the region for most of my life until the Israeli state's repression and injustice became too obvious to ignore.
All citizens of Israel are equal under the law and have their freedom. And as I already said, there are not "millions" of Jewish people who are anti-Zionist. Tell the truth.
Where do you get your facts?
1. Israeli Arabs make up 20% of the population of Israel and they are represented in the Knesset by approximately 20% of their representatives.
2. One Arab party, Raam, the Islamic party, no less, is a member of the coalition government.
3. There is an Arab judge on Israel’s Supreme court.
4. Fully 50% of Haifa University students are Arab students.
5. There are 3,000 Arab students at Tel Aviv University (no.1 in Israel and 132 in the world), how many at Oxford and Cambridge?
6. Arab students accounted for 20% of all students of bachelor’s degree programs last year, up from 10% in 2010.
7. An Arab woman doctor heads the largest Hospital in Northern Israel’s response to COVID. Another Arab woman doctor heads prestigious Hadassah Hospital ER in Jerusalem.
If I can just jump in, Ram. These points are all true and important. But when one things about the rights of Palestinian citizens, it's really important to think about land. And in particular the Israeli Land Authority's control over almost all of it--including the vast swaths of land taken from Palestinians (even those who became citizens)--and the fact that it is a body that allocates and develops land for the well-being of the Jewish people (10/22 seats go the Jewish National Fund and i'm quite sure a Palestinian has never sat on its board). this is why even inside the green line Palestinians live on 2-3% of the land. This speaks to what Oren Yiftachel calls an ethnocracy, a state with some democratic characteristics but which ultimately rests--in its core governmental institutions--on a basis of ethno-religious supremacy.
sorry, meant to write "Ran"
Peter, how do you respond to the point that there are dozens of ethnic based nation states, of which Israel is only one? How do you also respond to the point that without Israel, the Jewish people will no longer have a voice and a vote at the United Nations? I'm eager to hear your thoughts, especially on the second point.
There are many states with crosses on their flags and some with preferentially immigration policies. But, first of all, I oppose all that. It's one of the reasons I never felt nearly as comfortable in the UK as I do in the US. Second, Israel version is far more extreme than European countries with crosses on their flags. The immigration policy--any Jews can become a citizen on day one but no path to citizenship essentially for Palestinians, even those born in the country and expelled. And the almost complete control over land by a body devoted to the well-being of one ethno-religious group. No parallel to that in democratic countries that I'm aware of.
Thank you for the lead to Oren Yiftachel. I have been studying the land issues but currently still focused on the 19th century, so I will add him to my list, which currently includes Shafir, Grossman and others. Nonetheless, I am always suspicious of such data points. It is a given that the minority will own less land than the majority. Land ownership is not unimportant but in a country like Israel where the state owns 90% of the land it is by definition skewed. I will not dispute the fact that Israel will favor Jewish ownership over Arab ownership. Israel was designed as a haven for Jews not for others. I also believe that Israel’s Arab citizens have long been neglected and discriminated against. But it is clear by most measures especially of the kind I provided above that the lot of Israeli Arabs has improved and continues to improve. Another measure is the rise among Israeli Arabs in joining not only the police forces but also the IDF. But just for comparison Blacks own less than 1% of land in America. I am not so sure such data is all that significant.
Five apartheid reports, lots of facts, Ran.
UNESCWA REPORT ON APARTHEID
https://www.badil.org/phocadownload/Non-Badil_Research_and_Reports/Reports/un_apartheid_report_15_march_english_final.pdf
B'tselem report on Apartheid
https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid
Human Rights Watch report on Apartheid
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Amnesty report on Apartheid
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
Michael Lynk report on Apartheid
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights
None of which adds up to a good deal for the entire Palestinian people, as Mr Beinart explains for you. Apartheid Israel was founded as an openly racist, settler-colonial state in 1948 by means of the Nakba in which 700,000 Palestinian people were subjected to terrorism, violence and murder. The Palestinian people deserve to have their land returned to them, and Israel needs to give up its nightmarish ideal of a single, ethno-religious-nationalist state which privileges white, Jewish people and replace it with an equitable democracy.
“700,000 Palestinian people were subjected to terrorism, violence and murder.” Again, Ms. Turner I have to ask you where you get your “facts”. To be clear the 700,000 is a disputed number. Has it occurred to you that more than half the Palestinians fled? Why did they flee? People flee from war zones, look at Ukraine. People leave war zones even when their leaders stay and fight as is now happening in Ukraine. In Palestine the leaders fled first. There is of course another reason why people flee. They are worried what might happen to them. After all they know what their brethren did to the Jews in parts of Palestine exactly “terrorism, violence and murder" and let me add rape took place. And then finally Ms. Turner there is the matter of almost 1 million Jews who lived in Arab countries being subjected to terror and expulsion at the same time. This was a population exchange. Similar to the kind the UK engineered in India (between Muslims and HIndus). Only the one in Palestine was a lot less violent.
The only reason the Palestinian refugees aren't allowed to return to their country is because Israel wants to gerrymander a demographic Jewish supermajority. If they were Jewish there would magically be space in Israel for them tomorrow.
"A plan was devised to attack Deir Yassin before dawn on April 9, expel all of its residents and kill those who refused to leave in order to seize the village and terrorize Arabs throughout Palestine into flight. In language horrifically reminiscent of the recent Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Irgun officer Ben-Zion Cohen recounted how Lehi members proposed “liquidating” the entire village. Fortunately, the proposal was rejected, although Deir Yassin was indeed ultimately “liquidated,” like more than 400 other destroyed Arab villages in 1948-49.
Women and children were meant to be spared, and residents were meant to be warned by loudspeaker to encourage their escape. However, the armored vehicle carrying the loudspeaker crashed early during the attack and the 120 attackers encountered fierce resistance, including sniper fire, from the village guards and other residents, many of whom were armed. The inexperienced Jewish fighters resorted to going from house to house, tossing grenades indiscriminately into each one before storming inside and spraying survivors with submachine guns and other weapons."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/12/deir-yassin-the-massacre-that-sparked-the-nakba/
I’m just asking questions, unless that’s antisemitic now too. So here are 20 questions for Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL. There will be more.
1. Why do Jews get to go home after 2,000 years, but Palestinians can’t after 74?
2. Isn’t there a racist subtext to the counterfactual belief that Jews and Palestinians can’t live together?
3. Why is a one state solution more unrealistic than dividing Jerusalem, evacuating the settlements, and expecting Palestinians to give up their right of return?
4. How will two states create more security for Israeli Jews than one state?
5. Have we learned nothing from our history of being treated as a demographic threat?
6. Is counting how many little Jewish and Palestinian babies there are a good measure of “security?”
7. Why can’t we have law of return and right of return in the same country?
8. Why can’t Jews and Palestinians both enjoy individual and national equality in one country?
9. Where is Israel’s water coming from when the State of Palestine comes into existence?
10. However legal it may be, is it just to expect Palestinians to live on 20 percent of the land- and not the best land from an economic perspective- when their population is nearly twice that of Israeli Jews?
11. Is it reasonable to expect Palestinians to forget the coastal cities that were the seat of their civilization, because they’re on Israel’s side of the imaginary line?
12. Is it reasonable to expect Jews to forget their ancestral homeland, because it’s on Palestine’s side of the imaginary line?
13. What new wrinkle are you going to add to the two state formula to make it work after nearly a hundred years of failure?
14. How will Palestinians fare under the paradigm of separation when 300 billion worth of land and other assets was stolen from them at the creation of the State of Israel?
15. Given the location, is it rational to believe that Jews will be the majority in Israel/Palestine one hundred years from now?
16. Is it moral to permanently exile and dismember another people in order to create an unsustainable majority?
17. Is it moral to keep people trapped in Bantustans in their own country?
18. Is it moral to bomb densely populated besieged cities within an inch of their life, even if the enemy is using human shields?
19. Can there be such a thing as a “White and democratic state?”
20. Is there a Magic Torah you are using to justify Israeli lawlessness, or are you simply keeping two sets of weights: one for Israel, and one for literally everywhere else on planet Earth.
Gish gallop isn't an argument. If you want to discuss these issues honestly, ask one question in good faith.
None of these questions except the last one are rhetorical. They’re genuine queries seeking genuine answers.
Like I said, gish gallop isn't an argument. I'd be happy to discuss any of them with you, is there one you think is more important than the rest?
It blows my mind how the Jews of all people can be so quick to disregard right of return.
OK, let's discuss the right of return.
International conventions such as the UN Charter state clearly that the right of return is for persons to return to their country. Not their homes and not someone else's country. Example, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
The Palestinians, and only the Palestinians, are demanding the right to "return" not to their own country of Palestine but to someone else's country of Israel, a country none of them have citizenship of. This is unprecedented and has no basis in international law or convention.
"The Jews of all people" (what was that about anti-Semitism again) did not have a right to return to British Mandatory Palestine. Are you saying that they did? It would be the first I'm hearing of it.
The Jews of all people should know what it means to be the refugee and the stranger and what it‘s like to be treated as a demographic threat.
I can’t claim to know the mind of God, but if Israel is going to do something they know is wrong, like ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland and prevent their return to maintain a demographic supermajority, it’s so much better if they're honest and say “It’s wrong but we’re going to do it anyways.”
Instead what happens is responses such as yours, steeped in denial and legalese, that always remind me of Adam hiding in the garden.
While you rejectionists for peace continue making noise, progress continues with more Arab countries normalizing relations with Israel, unwilling to play into the Palestinian obstructionist game plan. Now the Saudis are moving forward and all but publicly acknowledging their alignment with Israel…https://www.wsj.com/articles/jared-kushners-new-fund-plans-to-invest-saudi-money-in-israel-11651927236
Richard, we all know that money talks and bullying sometimes works. You just have to look no further than the US Congress.
Saudi Arabia has unlimited money (none of which they or other wealthy Arab nations give as aid to the Palestinians — think about that) and invest it around the world. They are normalizing relations with Israel and investing in Israeli companies because they no longer agree to be held hostage to the Palestinian delusional narrative of one day destroying Israel and controling the land from the river to the sea. Instead they are looking to establish a Middle East trading bloc where countries and people thrive in the modern world. Guess who won’t be a part of it? The Palestinians because of their corrupt leaders who reject peace and their supporters like Peter and his followers who enable them. Shame, shame, shame…
There is no limit to hypotheticals .
“ without Israel , the Jewish people no longer have a voice and a vote at theUnited Nations “ Really ?
Yes, really. Who will represent the Jewish people at the UN, if the bigots have their way and Israel is wiped from existence?
In a democracy, all the citizens of a country are represented at the UN. Who represents Scots, Welsh, English and Northern Irish people at the UN? Stop demanding special treatment at the expense of others.
Rebecca, are you seriously not aware of the Scottish Independence movement, a movement calling for an independent Scottish state, and that in 2020 the BBC reported that 58% of Scots would vote in favor of an independent Scotland? Are you not aware of Sein Finn and the long, bloody history of northern Ireland seeking to leave the UK and join Ireland (which is an ethnic based nation state)? Are those two nations also demanding "special treatment"? Are the Kurds? Heck, are the Palestinians?
Calling Jews racist and wanting special treatment for wanting the same thing as dozens of other nations is appalling anti-Semitism. The double standards are blatant and obvious, so you might as well just own them.
Ireland is not an "ethnic based nation state". I doubt anyone living there would want it described as such. It is a democracy with equal rights for all and cannot be compared with Israel, only contrasted. There is no Irish Defence Force murdering non-Irish children. You're going to have to admit, sooner or later, the vast injustice that is the apartheid Israeli state which is unlike any other.
Let's put aside for now the breathtakingly ignorant comments about Ireland and instead let's answer my question. Are the Scots demanding special treatment when they seek independence? Did the Irish when they broke away from the British Empire and formed the country of Ireland? How about the Indians in India?
Is every nation demanding special treatment when they want to rule themselves, or should only the Jews receive that particular criticism? I really really want to know.
The issue is not Zionism in the abstract, which is a noble idea. The issue is what are the consequences for the people who were already living there, and are those consequences morally justified.