#he was firm about Hezbollah being more of an existential threat than any of the reactionary groups in Palestine

[canichangemyblogname]

Israel ignoring Egypt's warnings, Israel's chaotic "recovery" (a.k.a. their explicit non-recovery and bombing of hostages), and the IOF's chaotic engagement with Hamas fighters on Oct. 7th and 8th that caught hostages and civilians in crossfire should be proof enough that Israel cannot and will consistently fail to provide for the security and welfare of Jewish people. It should also be proof enough that Netanyahu's government doesn't give a shit about Israeli lives unless they can be weaponized to serve his political and regional goals.

The argument that the only way for Jewish people to have safety and comfort is through a Jewish ethnostate ignores how the violence necessary to establish an ethnostate breeds extremism and a cycle of violence. It ignores how Israel consistently fails to protect and provide for its citizens, how vulnerable the Israeli state would be without US support, and how politically and numerically insecure settler-colonial populations are without ethnic and genocidal violence to reproduce their position in the social hierarchy. This argument also allows countries in the Global North to wipe their hands of their own country's antisemitism. For them, Israel is the solution to their country's "Jewish Question."

Some of Zionism's basic assumptions about Jewish people and the need for a Jewish state come from antisemitic assumptions. Advocates for a Jewish state frequently invoke antisemitic stereotypes to make their case. Like... literal fucking fascists in the US support Zionism because they want to empty their country of Jewish people and then watch them die in Israel.

The largest group of Zionists in the US are Evangelical Christians. Not just in sheer numbers, but as a percentage of their population. And you know what they believe? They believe that all Jews need to return to the Holy Land to be massacred and raptured so Jesus can return. The majority of Zionists in the US are Zonists because they're antisemitic. Their antisemitism informs their support for Zionism, and their belief in Zionism informs their antisemitism.

It boggles me how the US government, literal fascists, and Evangelicals have so many of you legitimately believing that critiquing a man and a government that throws their lot in with Holocaust deniers is antisemitic.

There are experts out there who attest that Zionism encourages and spreads antisemitism around the globe and that it is a contributing factor to increases in antisemitism in the Global North. Some have gone so far as to say it is a literal threat to the well-being of Jews worldwide and a roadblock in the fight against antisemitism.

#israel #zionism #in college the professor who taught me about authoritarianism and right-wing violence stressed that Zionism would get Jewish people killed #he is a Jewish man himself #he spoke about how few in the region actually support extremist groups in the area #and about how Zionism and the violence in the West Bank was poking a great bear #he talked about how if the radicalization from violence mobilized. it could mean the blood of Jews worldwide #especially as the Zionism popular in the Global North encouraged and reproduced common antisemitic tropes #he explained that if the Israeli state does not agree to two people of equal rights under one democratic & pluralistic state #they would be faced with both Jews and Palestinians living under the authoritarian and reactionary rule of an extremist govt. #i remember him talking about the (at the time) regional insecurity of the position of the Israeli state #he was more concerned about the exportation of extremism from Saudi Arabia or Iran than a group like Hamas or Islamic Jihad #he was firm about Hezbollah being more of an existential threat than any of the reactionary groups in Palestine