#i understand why the secularism of european countries

[matan4il]

To the person who wants us to differentiate the modern political movement that came to be called Zionism, and the Zionist nature of Judaism, I'll address you politely, even though your assertion that I must be a teenager (quick search of my blog would show you that I work at a Holocaust museum, education and research center, that also studies the history of the Jewish people in general, so... not a sound assumption) is very insulting and condescending.

Sure, we can distinguish the thousands of years old Zionist nature of Judaism from the modern political movement that came to be referred to as Zionism.

But do you understand that the modern political movement wouldn't exist without the fact that Judaism has ALWAYS been Zionist? That the distinction is, to a degree, an artificial one, especially in the context of anti-Zionists claiming that Judaism is incompatible with Zionism, which is a lie. With that claim, they mean to deny the very right of Israel to exist as a liberation and land back movement of the Jewish people, and while they're at it, they are de-legitimizing every Zionist movement ever, whether modern or not, they're de-legitimizing every Jew who had returned to Israel, even just as an individual, because they are denying the very Zionist nature of Judaism.

I'll attach at the end an attempt at demonstrating why the distinction is somewhat artificial in this context.

But before that, I'll address some of your other claims. You said that Zionism is a secular movement, and religious Jews are opposed to it. While some ultraorthodox Jews are indeed opposed to active Zionism, and prefer a passive wait for the Mashiach, they too are Zionist in the non-modern-political-movement sense (they still believe and pray for the Mashich to bring all Jews back to Israel and re-establish Jewish sovereignty in this land, not to keep them in the diaspora). And they do not represent all religious Jews. The modern political Zionist movement was very much joined by religious Jews, such as a political organization called "Ha'Mizrachi," which was established in 1902. Their Zionism was connected to the actions and writings of rabbis who preceded many secular Zionist leaders like Herzl (first published a Zionist pamphlet in 1896), such as Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever (first established Ha'Mizrachi as a spiritual and educational pro-Zionist center in 1893), Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai (published "Minchat Yehuda," a Zionist call for Jews to return to Israel in 1840, and established the Society for the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael in 1852), and Rabbi Zvi Kalischer (asked Mayer Amschel Rothschild to help with the purchase of land in Israel for Jews to return there in 1836, and published the Zionist book Drishat Zion in 1862). Even among ultraorthodox Jews, there are Zionist ones. Some of them were a part of Ha'Mizrachi organization. During the British rule in Israel, there were ultraorthodox Jews who actively helped the Zionist underground movements, the Etzel and the Hagana, and in a 2022 poll, 76% of Chassidic Jews defined themselves as Zionist.

You also made the assertion that the modern political movement of Zionism is European. Again, while many of its founders were from Europe, many Jews from Arab and Muslim countries came to Israel as a part of the modern Zionist movement. Please don't erase them. And why would they be a part of this movement? Because of the intrinsically Zionist nature of Judaism. Yemenite Jews didn't need to be a part of the founding fathers of the modern political movement, in order to be a part of the movement, and to see it as a fulfilment of ancient Jewish prophecies, when they were brought to Israel in a special operation in 1952. In fact, there was a Zionist Yemenite movement of return in 1881, following a verse in the Bible, in the Song of Songs book, that they believed told them they had to return to Israel during this year. Many of them settled in a village close to the Temple Mount, which the Arabs refer to as Silwan, a mispronunciation of the ancient Hebrew name Shiloach (that can be found in the Bible). These Yemenite Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Arabs during the 1936-1939 anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish riots. And when Jews tried to return to Kfar Ha'Shiloach, anti-Zionists attacked that as "colonization," too. Anti-Zionists make NO distinction between Jews returning to Israel from Europe, and Jews returning to it from Arab and Muslim countries. We're all just "Zionists" and "incompatible with Judaism," no matter how much our Zionism is derived from our Jewish identity, and no matter that we are native to this land, not colonizers.

You asked, "how can judaism be 'inherently zionist' when the idea of a jewish state has only existed for less than 200 of those years?" and I will ask you, what's unclear when I say that Zionism is about Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish ancestral homeland, which is an idea that I showed was inherent to Jewish tradition and religion? There were Jewish kingdoms here (the unified kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Yehudah, and the Hasmonean Kingdom), that fulfilled that idea long before there was a Jewish state, and the Jewish state is a direct (and yes, modern) continuation of those ancient Jewish kingdoms (I mean, of course that's the modern reincarnation, we're not going to build a Jewish kingdom now, just so no one can use the accusation that a Jewish state is a modern concept... and I'm sort of weirded out by the fact that I have to defend the right of Jews to implement modern reincarnations of their traditional notions... Also, pretty sure that if we went with the old version and tried to set up a Jewish kingdom, we'd be crucified for being backwards), because it is founded on the same exact principle, that we get to self rule in our own ancestral land. Denying that is erasing Jewish history and parts of Jewish identity.

You said, "our connection to the land does not need to be mediated through a political body the majority of us have absolutely no say in," and I wanna ask you, does every German in the world (or at least most) have to live in Germany, and have a say in it as a citizen, for the nation state of the German people to have the right to exist? Same for every other nation state out there.

You called Israel, "a country younger than our grandparents, and for that matter any other country too," which is untrue on several levels. The state might be younger than some grandparents, but its right to exist is an ancient one, connected to those thousands of years old kingdoms, and in that sense, the modern state of Israel being founded in 1948 is no different to the modern state of India being founded in 1947. Would you tell Indians that their state has no right to exist, erasing its connection to previous forms of Indian self rule in that land, just because those weren't a modern state? Would you offend them by suggesting that the age of their modern state is a factor in its legitimacy? No. But for some reason, you feel comfortable doing that when it comes to the modern Jewish state. While we're at it, whether the current self rule of Palestinians constitutes a state is a matter of debate, but let's say that it counts, and that a Palestinian state started existing when they began self ruling in 1994 following the Oslo accords (the first time ever in history when Arabs in Israel self ruled, rather than be a colony serving a metropole situated in some other Arab or Muslim country), that would make their state not only younger than our grandparents, it would make it younger than quite a few Tumblr users. But I bet you wouldn't say that this de-legitimizes the right of a Palestinian state to exist. Yet you feel it's perfectly okay to say such things about Israel. You should ask yourself why can you accept others, but not a Jewish state. For the record, here's some modern states younger than Israel, that you would never dream to de-legitimize based on their age: Malaysia (1957), Singapore (1965), Zimbabwe (as Rhodesia, 1965), Bangladesh (1971), Guinea-Bissau (1973), Comoros (1975), Lithuania (1990), Latvia (1990), Belarus (1990), Armenia (1990), Georgia (1991), Croatia (1991), Slovenia (1991), Ukraine (1991), Moldova (1991), Uzbekistan (1991), Macedonia (1991), Azerbaijan (1991), Slovakia (1992), Montenegro (2006).

***

Okay, a small demonstration of how artificial the distinction between modern political Zionism and historical Zionism is...

Where do we put the start of the modern political movement of Zionism, what is the date when it began?

A lot of people would suggest that it started with Herzl. He's often referred to as "the father of Zionism" (that's incorrect. It would be more accurate to refer to him as "the father of diplomatic Zionism"). Herzl was actually an assimilationist Jew, who believed Jews in Europe should aspire to be like all other Europeans, erase the difference between them and the non-Jews (relinquishing our tradition, culture, religion, everything that makes us unique and a contribution to the richness of the human experience), and rely on the equal rights that Europeans would grant us. He believed in this, but experiencing antisemitism in the cosmopolitan Vienna, as well as covering the Dreyfus trial (when a Jewish officer was convicted of treason, and shamefully exiled, despite his many years of loyal service to his country, just because he was a Jew), he came to publish (as I mentioned) a Zionist pamphlet in 1896.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1896?

But the term "Zionism" as the name of the movement was actually coined in 1890, by Nathan Birnbaum!

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1890?

But for the term to be coined, it had to describe something that already existed. And in fact, many Zionist groups, counted as a part of the modern political movement, were already active by that time. For example, some people start counting the new Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael as starting with the arrival in Israel of the Zionist Bilu group, in 1882 (they were established in January of that year, and despite being secular Jews, they were drawing from Jewish tradition, naming themselves after a biblical verse from the book of Isaiah. Because like I said, modern political Zionism wouldn't exist without the ancient Zionist nature of Judaism).

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1882?

But that doesn't work either, because by the time the Bilu group arrived in Israel, the first Jewish moshava (a Zionist form of settlement based on values of agriculture and communality), Petach Tikva (sometimes nicknamed "the mother of moshavot"), was already established in 1878.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1878?

But how did this new movement of Zionists know to work the land, if in the diaspora, for hundreds of years, Jews were prohibited from being farmers, so they would have no claim to the land they worked? Well, many young Zionists learned how to do this work thanks to a Jewish agricultural school called Mikveh Yisrael, which was founded in 1870.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1870?

But a part of why Mikvah Yisrael was established, was the poor condition of Jews in Jerusalem. By the time demographic surveys were conducted in the 1840's, Jews were the biggest religious group in the Old City of Jerusalem, and so overcrowded that it made their lives much harder, sometimes even endangered (like when a plague would break out). The Jewish minister Moshe Montefiore started building neighborhoods for Jews outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1860, moving Jews out of the old Yishuv and into a new form of settling in the land of Israel, outside the "protecting" walls of the four cities holy to Judaism, and into the idea that they can and should use agriculture to sustain themselves outside these cities, and re-connect with their land.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1860?

But the first victim of anti-Zionist terrorism in the land of Israel is actually considered to be Rabbi Shlomo Avraham Zalman Zoref, who was murdered by Arabs in 1851 for his Zionist efforts to help in the settlement of Jews in Israel and in the restoring of Jewish religious life in the Old City of Jerusalem through diplomatic efforts vis a vis Muhamad Ali Pasha, the Egyptian occupier of the Land of Israel at the time, and by enlisting the help of the consuls of Russia and Austria (by the way, one of his grandsons was among the founders of Petach Tikva).

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1851?

But his diplomatic Zionist efforts, for which he was murdered, didn't start at the time of his death, they go back to when he managed to get that permit from Muhamad Ali Pasha in 1836 for Jews to re-build the Ashkenazi community in the Old City of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by Muslims over a hundred years earlier.

So, shall we count the start of the modern political movement of Zionism as 1836?

But where did that Ashkenazi Jewish community, which Rabbi Zoref tried to restore, come from? Rabbi Yehuda Ha'Chassid successfully called Jews to return to Israel, and he did manage to inspire many to follow him as he started his own journey to Israel in 1697, and managed to buy land for his community in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was joined by Jews already living there. This WAS a form of a semi-modern Zionist movement. And it IS quite connected to what came later, in more modern times.

Or another example. Dona Garcia Nassi was a crypto Jew from Portugal, whose family had fled the Spanish Inquisition, only for the Portuguese Inquisition to grow stronger and harsher, driving her and a part of her family to Istanbul. There, they could stop pretending to be converts to Christianity, they got to publicly return to their Jewish identity. She did a lot for Jews, and in 1561, she used her financial and political ties to ask the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the First to lease land in Israel, for Jews to self rule there. She first asked for land in Jerusalem, was refused, and so she ended up leasing land in Tiberias instead, helping to re-build the city and the Jewish community there, and allowing for a movement of Jews to return to Israel and settle in Tiberias. It's another type of semi-modern Zionist movement striving for Jewish sovereignty in Israel, in whatever form they could get it.

So where do we draw the line? How do we say, these Jews returning to Israel count as Zionist, but those don't? One of my best friends is a Jew from Morocco, his family was religious and fiercely Zionist, and your ask erased them. How do we accept a narrative that looks at thousands of years of Jews returning to Israel, from all sorts of backgrounds, and from all sorts of countries, and yet doesn't recognize that they all returned for the same reason, drawing from the same Jewish foundation? How do we not see that the separation is an artificial one?

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic in so many ways, and one of them is exactly what this narrative does to so many Jews who were proud, and wanted to be counted as Zionist, precisely because to them it was an expression of their Jewish identity.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #resources

[autolenaphilia]

I pre-emptively block a lot of transmisogynist blogs, to keep them from harassing me. And the notes of any post about trans people that gets popular is such a good source to find blogs to block.

Including the recent posts about Brianna Ghey. The transmisogynists can't keep themselves from spreading their shit on a post about a 16-year old trans girl getting murdered. And it's them defending themselves, saying the typical clichés of "why are you blaming radfems for this, this is male-on-male violence, these men don't read feminist theory."

(note that I use radfem instead of terf, because I have little interest in rehabilitating radfem ideology from its deep-rooted transmisogyny.)

It's just sigh-worthy, and shows such a bad understanding of how structural oppression works.

Yes, transmisogynist violence is overwhelmingly committed by men, as in who directly punches and kills transfems. Yet this violence does not arise in a vacuum, but in the context of a society which is violently transmisogynistic.

The violence is justified by the claim it's to protect cis women from the tranny menace. Trans women are said to be dangerous perverted rapists, who must be kept separate from real women, by force.

It's men who tend to commit that violence, but it's cis women who provide the justification. They are used as justifications passively by men for violence, but also provide active support for it and benefit materially from transmisogyny. Their cis privilege depends on there being an underclass of transfems who suffer the worst of male violence instead of them. Cis women are directing male violence away from them.

And all of transmisogynist radfem ideology is just one long justification for such male violence. despite claiming to abhor it. The call to "legally protect women's spaces" is in the end a call for the very male profession of cops to violently remove trans women from such spaces. And force us to use male bathrooms, where we are at great risk of extralegal male violence. It's in the end a call to remove trans women from women's spaces all together. When you can't use public bathrooms without risk of violence, it restricts how much you can leave your home.

The supposedly moderate argument for "protecting women's spaces" turns out to be downright genocidal. The calls to ban trans healthcare are even more directly genocidal, as it uses state violence to keep us from the healthcare we need, all in the full knowledge that many trans people will commit suicide without it.

Radfem ideology about trans women is thus useful for the patriarchy, because it provides a secular "common-sense" form of transmisogynistic ideology that can appeal to the liberal middle-class in secularized western european countries, like the UK. It's for people who want to intellectually justify their transmisogyny, but who aren't religious and so appeals to christian values don't work. Radfem ideology is transmisogyny for London-based newspaper columnists.

By appealing to this class, radfem ideology keeps transmisogyny within the overton window of mainstream respectable and liberal opinion. It's establishment backlash against the small gains trans rights activists had made by the 2010s.And it has worked, it has kept transmisogynistic rhetoric mainstream, particularly in the UK. UK media is one long storm of transmisogyny right now.

It's true that the type of man who shout "faggot" at trans women in the street probably doesn't read Kathleen Stock. But she serves a different audience and purpose .What Stock does is to dress up the same transmisogyny in genteel language for a middle-class audience. And they listen to her because she is a university professor, the newspapers review her book positively. It all helps keep transmisogyny mainstream and acceptable. And that has effects that go beyond Stock's book and direct audience.

In the end Stock believes the same things about trans women as the "faggot" shouting ruffian: that trans women are perverted rapist men in dresses who prey on real women. And cis women have to be defended by force. It's the same transmisogyny in the newspapers that also causes the violence in the streets.

That is how structural oppression works. By contributing to the pervasive climate of fear and hatred against trans women, transmisogynist book authors and newspaper columnists and terf social media accounts play a role in transmisogynist violence.

Of course they will answer "but we never directly called for violence against transfems." Some of you did, and the rest of you didn't need to. When you paint a group as a threat to innocent women and children, as perverted pedophile rapists, it's works just as well as a call for violence. You don't need to appear too extreme (and get in trouble on social media) by directly calling for mass murder, it's implicit.

So yes, transmisogynist ideologues in general are responsible for Brianna Ghey's murder. They have a lesser responsibility than the people who stabbed her, but it's there. It's they who gave support to the structural oppression that lead to her murder. It was they who painted Brianna and all girls like her as threatening rapists invading women's spaces. This disgusting murder of a 16-year old girl is the natural result of their ideology.

May Brianna rest in peace

#transmisogyny #brianna ghey #my writings

[mim526]

What Happens at the Coronation

What to expect based on history and current reports

0:33 Five stages of Coronation Ceremony

4:53 Reason for fewer guests

5:53 Discussion of key figures not invited to King Charles III's coronation, and who is coming instead

7:46 Discussion of attire

11:26 Order of procession

12:34 All other 9 European hereditary monarchies have replaced coronations with secular swearing in ceremonies

13:00 Recognition & Oath

13:58 Annointing

15:25 Investing of regalia

17:04 Crowning

18:12 Enthronement and homage (reportedly Archbishop of Canterbury and Prince William)

19:34 Coronation of Queen Consort

21:30 Closing procession

22:32 Back to Buckingham Palace

23:03 Coronation weekend festivities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The video notes that...

scaffolding from previous coronation is not safe, and therefore KCIII's coronation will have many less people than previous.

more British people are invited, while some of the British peers are not ("merit-based" attendance).

Fine. What I do not understand is why British aristocracy -- who are British citizens -- are not invited but foreign crowned heads of state are when foreigners have never been invited to British coronations before.

Bad move, IMO. The monarch is part of the hereditary aristocracy. British people may decide if some aristocrats have insufficient merit, Britain can do without all aristocrats.

Disclaimer: I am not British, merely one who appreciates what the British monarchy represents to Britain and the bulwark it is meant to be against WEF-style changes in the world. Most of my ancestors came from UK countries so I've always been interested in the UK, past, present and future.

#Youtube

[battybiologist]

Hi! I found your account off of a post to r/curatedtubmlr, post is here.

The comments are all talking about how the line "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" should not have been included, what are your thoughts about this?

During the first protests, it was labeled as antisemitic, which the sources for this accusation was the media and occupiers of Palestine. I personally don't believe it, Palestine deserves freedom form their oppressors.

Thanks for your time ✌️🍉

Very much understand and empathize with the Redditor that reposted my thoughts over on your server, but they probably should have thought more about their approach, in particular considering their audience.

I was vaguely aware that this phrase is seen as antisemitic, but to be fair, it sort of became white noise, like "antizionism is antisemitism". Just another tool to bludgeon us into submission. I had no idea that actual antizionists really believed that.

So let me ask this question: Why would "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" be antisemitic?

Let's get something clear: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is almost 30 years older than Hamas. I saw a couple people saying this is a Hamas battle cry calling for Jewish blood to be shed, and I had to dispel this wildly ahistorical notion. In fact, I'd say this is one of the few truly secular ideas Hamas has right now, which is always a good thing in my book.

please bring back leftist secular decolonization rhetoric in the Arab world we really had something going on

If it's not the association, maybe it's the text? "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is just a poetic way of saying "Free Palestine". So no.

Now, the real core argument: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" has the implication of a world where Israel doesn't exist, and that this constitutes antisemitism. And, to be fair, half of this is right.

I do not believe ethnostates should exist under any circumstances, and the only inarguable thing about the Israeli occupation is that its aim is the creation of one. The two-state solution is not a real solution, it just slows down the process of the land being ruled by one nation. I choose Palestine.

What does this mean for current Israelis if Palestine is restored from the river to the sea? Well, a lot of them might have to give up their illegal settlements. The former IDF members are going to be hated to hell and back. Everyone who built their business on cheap Palestinian labor is going to go out of business. The generational trauma is gonna take so long to heal. But there's not going to be another genocide.

What tips me from "gotta be the respectful bougnoule* so my voice can be heard" to "I don't give a shit about some fiche S**, I'm doing this" is that Zionists fucking know this! The only thing that's at stake is the concept of an ethnostate, which they equated with Jewish identity. There have been a couple attempts recently to redefine the Jewish identity around support for Israel. This is a ploy to frame the Palestinian resistance as genocidal: if the country doesn't exist, the Jewish people doesn't exist. But the Jewish people is not defined by the fever dreams of a couple of 19th century Europeans and the antisemitism of the rest of 19th century Europe. They predate these colonialist pieces of shit by a couple millenias.

This is why I think Reddit Reposter should have picked a different post. I do not share the same hatred and disgust towards liberals as my fellow commies, but they are coming at this issue from a deeply imperial core-esque angle. Living in the imperial core warps your vision of the world, since you've been swimming in propaganda all your life (I know, I went through that, nobody is born a communist). In fact, I have a post about the relationship between antisemitism and Zionism (it's not a full analysis, but I still agree with it) that would've been a much better pick

Anyway, to conclude: From the river to the sea, a Palestine full of Jewish and many other kinds of people will be free.

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine

[horizon-verizon]

You're American and you've never heard about Eurovision yet you feel entitled to have an opinion about the participation of Israel in the contest and worse than that, twist it into some antisemitic rhetoric? Hard L O L

Eurovision is not restricted to just European countries, and it's definitely not restricted to just EU members, every single country that is an EBU member and therefore in the eurozone can participate if they wish to. That includes Algeria, Tunisia (attempted to debut), Lebanon (attempted to debut), Jordan, Libya, Sudan, even Egypt. It's why countries like Turkey (debuted 2 years after Israel) up until 2012, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and, yes, Israel have been participating regularly in the contest.

Why don't you do some rigurous "research" on yourself and your entitlement before you start to sound like a clown talking about things you clearly don't understand?

Anon refers to this ask. This post will have historical information and lots of details, so read at your own willingness to learn how I refute everything anon says here.

A) ...You refuse to read properly, or pretend something, so you can claim I said something I didn't.

I said this:

And between them, there have been many nonEU countries that participated from WAsia and Africa, like Armenia and Morroco. Israel, I think was the first non-European state (not racially, geographically, bc those who move and live in Israel or dominate that society is racially white and/or come from the U.S. and Europe) in Eurovision

You claim I didn't say what you are saying now about non-EU countries participating when I absolutely did. You talk about me twisting words, when you are twisting mine--not even twisting, outright denying. When I said the following:

so it's possible that its U.S./Britain/France-backed status as a "nation" or state gave it the privilege to join, and by being already in the EBU, perhaps working on its own propaganda with EU nations. I think that it is a political allegiance sort of thing for the U.S. and those two EU states to publicly solidify their oil-interests and instill their image of supporting "democracy" through Eurovision so people could also see Israel as its own country and brew that Israeli patriotism. Games of athletic sport, music, dance, etc. usually boosts that sort of thing (the Olympics and FIFA).

I was giving first impressions of why Israel's Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was even a part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBA) before other nonEU/Mid East countries' representing competitors & sovereign programs joined them...and with how the U.S. and Englans handled the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the end of WWII, and the Cold War period (neither wanted to rehabilitate or house Holocaust survivors nor Jewish people bc of antisemitism). From my understanding of the post-WWII and Cold War events that led to Israel's creation, this is what I came up with. You could disagree, but history would prove you wrong. It's not a matter of "opinion".

You should look up Arab secular nationalism and its falls within the Middle East to see how Israel, the U.S., and England all created, developed, and promoted the idea of "terrorist = Islam" and "Islamist = Arab" therefore "Arab"/"Muslim" = "terrorist" starting when Israel waged war against the other Arab nations in the area in 1967. even before the Ottoman Empire's fall, the French and English enlisted Arab peoples to fight and revolt against the Ottomans in WWI--the Arab Revolt of June 10, 1916-1918--promising them political independence and sovereignty...only to renege through the May 19, 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up the region under BR/FR's separate "spheres of influence" as they did to the African continent in the "African Partition"/"Scramble for Africa" AND later create Israel out of British-controlled Palestine. Mind you, this Sykes-Picot thing occurred BEFORE the Arab revolt, revealing how these countries never planned to allow Arab sovereignty. Again, this was all BEFORE Islamist vs secular groups even existed to fight against either each other or these powers.

Before Israel was created, the Arab people of the Middle East launched several independence movements and military groups to resist European occupation (Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc). The U.S., BR, and FR all encouraged refugee Jews to go to the BR-controlled Palestine. After the Israelis declared independence, the Nakba was approved and encouraged by those same nations. Funny how they supported Israeli independence, but not the Arabs...no, they couldn't have had vested interests in the Middle East being under their control.

So Arab people/new nations like Jordan, Syria, and Egypt managed to gain independence and looked (rightfully) at Israel as European ploys of occupation and imperialism in the Middle East. We have then the Arab Cold War and the fight between Arab secular nationalists (generally socialist) and Arab conservative, traditionalists (generally monarchies, like Saudi Arabia). The U.S. government, generally anti-socialist and conflating communism with socialism consciously and intentionally, did not want "Soviet communism" to gain a foothold in the Middle East and signed a mutual defense agreement with Saudi Arabia---the U.S. aligned with Islamists against secularists. The 1949-1951 agreements, culminating in the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM)--allowed the United States of America (U.S.) to provide military protection for the Kingdom in SA for an oil supply from the Saudis, its pricing in U.S. dollars, and Saudi support for American foreign policy operations across the world (Colgan, Jeff D. (2021). Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order. Oxford University Press).

And Iraq was one of the few Arab nations to remain secularist until the U.S. supported groups like Saddam Hussein's Islamist one...Iraq war, anyone?

I also never ever said I "never heard" about Eurovision. I said I never watched a single episode and

Mind you, again I (an American civilian) know nothing about Eurovision, much less who is representing what country and at what year.

As in ignorance of specific details of specific Eurovision events in what year and who performed, not ignorance of Eurovision itself, as if I didn't know it existed before yesterday. Just as I know what the U.N. and Tesco are, I have known what Eurovision is for a long time (non-American things).

You are trying to imply that because I am American I am completely ignorant and unaware of current European and English things even out of policies, which is simply not just untrue and stupid but a dangerous generalization that makes American ignorance a product of willful, non-government allowed/aided ignorance and oppression. Ironically, you are a part of the noncritical-thinking, ahistorical, anti-intellectual group of people attacking Americans without knowing U.S. history and politics because you like to feel superior. And you don't even know if I am one of the (mainly white) Americans who claim America is the "best" or "most democratic" country in the world.

Not that, as a probable race-denying European you will care, but:

Do you understand that Black, and brown people, especially children and grandchildren of Africans and Asians, and Polynesian immigrants live in various parts of America? Have you ever heard of Native Americans and native Hawaiians? Have you heard of the crazy tourism of Hawaii stymying native Hawaiians' ability to rebuild after the most recent hurricanes and storms and the activities involved in pushing that back which comes with its knowledge of American colonialist and imperialist ideology/history? Do you understand the timeline of how guns in the states became more legal to have than reproductive rights? Can you name 10 American Black women who shaped and defined the parameters of civil activism in queer, feminist, and labor spaces & communities?

I bet you don't think it's "worth" knowing anything about American history or current American politics, yet you expect me to do the same for Europe as if European culture(s) or society(ies) is the "best" of what humans have had, have, & will continue to contribute to the complex of humanity...it's hypocritical, but more than that, it's white supremacy on your part...

You don't see the racial struggle and divides that give many Americans perspective that grants them the ability to criticize Israel's colonial actions? No? Then please, stfu.

B) To be against Israel is not to be antisemitic. And you showed your hand when you claimed so.

You: "yet you feel entitled to have an opinion about the participation of Israel in the contest and worse than that, twist it into some antisemitic rhetoric".

Israel brutalizes even Jewish people, as this video shows Israeli police slamming and punching pro-Palestinian Orthodox Jews as they take down Palestinian flags. Israel has bombed one of the oldest Christian churches in Gaza City, Saint Porphyrius Church, killing several Palestinians and Arab Christians and decimating old Christian bloodlines that (doesn't matter if they are Catholics or Orthodox Christians or whatever, they all believe in Christ being the Messiah, and yet we have Christian evangelicals supporting this, and supporting Israel's war crimes). These are articles, posts, etc. about the Church being hit and people sheltered there dying in that bomb: #1; #2; #3.

Several Jewish people, including Holocaust survivors, condemn both Israel and Zionism in the past and in the present. Here is another anti-Zionist holocaust survivor, Dr. Hajo Meyer. There was a whole Jewish protest shutting down Grand Central Station and many were arrested or escorted out en masse by police. To this day, there are Jewish people in pro-Palestinian protests. Here is a Jewish person who grew up in a Zionist home describing and explaining how Zionism works to justify itself and target Palestinians. Here is another article about a Jewish people separating themselves from Israel and being anti-Zionist listing and who and how Israel characterized Palestinians as nonhumans and admitted to targeting Palestinian civilians. There are videos of Israelis threatening to murder "Arabs" and claiming "all Muslims" should die. Israel and Zionists alike have gone on to say that Holocaust survivors are "weak":

In the early days of their country, many Israelis also had mixed feelings about Holocaust survivors. "We saw the Holocaust survivors as a very weak population," says Nava Ein-Mor, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1945, the year World War II ended. "We were very different from them. We were strong, and we were not going to allow ourselves to be in that position."

This particular article tells us that many Holocaust survivors in Israel are poor some rely on charities, and some are because in its inception the Israeli government made a cutoff of gov aid for Holocaust survivors migrating to Israel, which was 1953. Here's another article. I ask, how in the hell do you have 1/3 of Holocaust survivors be poor and rely on charities in the state supposedly meant to house Jews exclusively and protect them from another Holocaust?! If this was the point of Israel, how the hell do zionists claim that such survivors are inherently weak when their state's entire purpose is supposedly for Jewish protection?! So these people, most Israelis, and all zionists must have a very different definition of "strong" and "weak", something equal to the fascist definition of those things, where to be strong is to militarily expand borders and kill swathes of people to claim land and resources, NOT to fall victim to that. Textbook victim blaming as well.

There are Mizrahi Jews--or North African and Middle East-originated/living Jews--yet when we go to Israel we mainly see white Jews in office, in those advocating for Zionism in its media. The Mixrahi Jews are comprised of two main groups: Mashriqi -> Jews from the Arab Mashriq region that covers parts of North Africa and Western Asia AND Maghrebi -> ethnic Jews who had traditionally lived in the Maghreb region of North Africa under Arab rule during the Middle Ages. Ethiopian Jewish women were sterilized the same way many Black women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent upon arrival to or to get into Israel, which is clearly a eugenist act.

It was never about religion, it was about race and white supremacy. And even if it were about religion, that would never be a good excuse for people to perform a genocide ("genocide" can also be used if one religious group fatally targeted another religious group regardless of race).

It is about using the Holocaust as an excuse to develop colonial, imperialist projects to give the U.S. and a few European countries like France an economic foothold in the Middle East concerning oil, gas, and a new canal. Countries that made lines almost as they did to Africa for their own imperialist, colonial interests to access certain resources. These same countries actively have and/or continue to enable and fund groups like the M23 to kill and rape mass numbers of Congolese men, women, and children while forcing them to work in life-threatening physical conditions and exposing them to lifelong health issues. It is modern-day slavery AND genocide and Israel is also directly involved through its production and sale of weapons the U.S. buys, distributes, etc to groups like these or for themselves, and for what? A mineral that keeps phones and laptops like the ones you and I are using to go into debates over how we've all failed these people.

the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a program where Georgia officers and Israeli soldiers exchange materials, training procedures, and technology to be used in police brutalization in the U.S. and for Israeli IOF/IDF to use against Palestinians and any group it would choose to dominate and suppress -> the U.S. police itself is a product of slavery in the U.S., "slave patrol"

Just for this last bullet point alone, yes I absolutely have the right to have an "opinion" of a fucking singing competition Israel participated in, much less Israeli fascism and Zionism.

Conclusion

Israel, by even being a part of a huge world event, will be part of the global community or indicates its desire to participate in such; I am a part of the global community that social media has tightly woven apart from other historical international relations and events ever since the two World Wars, esp with the U.S. being one of the countries having veto power in the U.N. (I must know what my government is doing in international relations when it has made itself the political and economic head and dependent for its own interests as China and France has); Israel, as it shows through its garbage attempts of propaganda, is thus subject to critique from any country on this Earth.

My being an American citizen with African parents actually behooves me to be concerned and--if I see it--criticize colonial, imperialist behaviors from a colonial state like my own. And unless you and anyone can prove Israel is not a colonial state (which a simple Google search will always debunk until a government shuts down the internet and promotes pro-Israel bullshit), this "opinion" of mine has ground (actually a factual statement -> you don't seem to understand that or much more likely, you are willing to accept that and are trying to discredit me through my nationality, as white Europeans, Canadians and British folk are wont to do nowadays without knowing U.S. history).

I do not have an "opinion" about what kind of state Israel is. I state facts about its history and applying facts, I suggested that Israel had the privilege and ability to use a singing competition to advertise itself as a true, legitimate nation people should "respect".

Israelis still base much of their identity on white supremacy. Israel has argued that it is an ME country with a people who have an ancestral claim to ME lands...yet it wants so badly to be part of a European program because it understood, from its BR-Arab controlled origins, that to stay the colonial power that it is, it could be more entrenched in Palestine by establishing themselves as a future partner in European imperialist ventures in the Middle East, buying their way into having their own fascist dominion in the ME through the sparkly tableau of Israeli talent. It's "soft" power for Americans & Europeans to be affected into believing that Israel is =both a great wonder and also a worthy project to be invested in.

That and Israeli people see themselves as European, not Middle Eastern, especially when a lot of them are first-second-generation Americans or Europeans who moved there & in the illegal settlements in the West Bank. Not speaking a hint of Hebrew, some of them.

#ask #eurovision #israel #coltan #congo #palestinian genocide 2023 #facism #zionism #sudan

[silvermoon424]

Random topic, but I was thinking about black American soldiers were treated by Europeans during WWII. Many soldiers spoke about how shocked they were white people treated them so warmly, and Europeans themselves expressed dismay at how white Americans (especially fellow soldiers) treated their countrymen so poorly. There's even an old PSA out there for training soldiers to get them prepared for life in England that literally says "Now, don't be shocked if a Brit is friendlier to a black person than you're used to."

All that is very sweet, because yeah, the way black Americans- especially black Americans fighting for their country- were treated throughout American history is atrocious. And it's very nice that Europeans actually afforded them some amount of dignity and respect. But it takes on a darker meaning when you remember how Europeans treated their own colonial subjects, who were also people of color. Those people were treated horribly. In particular, the colonial troops during WWII who fought for the Allies were treated terribly by the countries they fought for.

I wish I could remember the source where I read this, but it makes a lot of sense. Basically, the reason why Europeans treated black Americans and colonial subjects so differently was this: they saw one as civilized and the other as uncivilized. Skin color didn't matter as much as "civility." Black Americans were "civilized" because they spoke fluent English, were Christian, and had been assimilated in American culture for hundreds of years. Therefore Europeans couldn't understand why white Americans treated them so terribly. But subjects of the various empires were "uncivilized" because many of them still spoke their own languages, practiced their own religions (or hadn't been converted for very long), and retained their own cultural customs.

From what I understand this is still a major issue in Europe today, with immigrants who try to retain a lot of their culture being looked down on for not assimilating totally into the dominant culture. This is especially a big deal in France, which places great importance on the French language and even bans religious symbols in public schools in the name of preserving secularity.

Idk, I just thought this was an interesting example of European racism looking different than American racism.

#racism #wwii #history #europe

[nebris]

Was America founded as a Christian country? The Constitution is pretty clear

The best way to understand where we are today, and where we might be headed tomorrow, is to look at where we came from yesterday. That is particularly helpful for all parties in the ever-growing argument as to whether America is, was, or will be a Christian nation.

Of course, as we all have experienced, religion, and especially Christianity, has been used as an excuse for putting others in their place, as a call to arms, and as a justification for getting what we want from those less strong and not part of a particular brand of Christianity. Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals all have ideas on how the world should center on their own beliefs and interpretations.

Christianity in America has served numerous political causes since July 4, 1776. These have included both legalizing persecution by some and aiding runaway slaves by others. We fought Nazis, Communists and their ilk, because it was the Christian thing to do.

Going back to America’s formative years during colonization, every type of religious group came to America so that each could practice its own religious beliefs without the threats of kings, popes and other strong-arm European and Asian leaders. Then, of course, rivalries among these same groups sprung up across the new land.

When the Constitution was written, it was based on Christian principles, but not the practice of Christianity or any other religion. In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution states that everyone in the United States has the right to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all.

Our country's founders were of varying religious backgrounds and felt that the better way to protect religious freedom was to keep the government out of religion. That’s the reason for the First Amendment to the Constitution and its guarantee of separation between church and state.

This separation has served us well. Other countries have had to deal with armed conflicts between various religious factions, but we have avoided much of that in the U.S.

More:Franklin County nursing home among 2 ordered to pay more than $513K in back wages, damages

The First Amendment has two major clauses.

The first is the Establishment Clause that prohibits the government from encouraging, promoting or establishing religion in any way. That's why Christianity is not the official religion of the United States, and why our government may not give financial support to any religious organization, including school voucher programs that favor schools that promote religion.

The second is the Free Exercise Clause that gives us the right to worship or not as each of us chooses. The government can't penalize us because of our religious beliefs.

Our American freedom of religion has been challenged repeatedly throughout our history. In 1801, a group of Baptists felt compelled to lobby president-elect Thomas Jefferson complaining about having to pay fees to support the Congregationalist majority. These Baptists felt compelled to lobby for religious freedom in spite of the Constitution’s guarantees. They argued to make all religious expression in America a fundamental human right and not a matter of capricious government approval at will.

This resulted in Jefferson writing that the First Amendment's original intent established a "wall of separation between church and state." This phrase has for 200 years become a major constitutional bulwark. Jefferson was clear about his support for religious freedom, “(I)t does me no injury for my neighbor to believe in twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Differing views of Christianity erupted in the arguments over slavery which came to a head and resulted in our Civil War. Today’s ideas about America’s founding as a Christian nation originated from these efforts during the 1800s to overcome secular principles and constitutional guarantees that were essential to America’s founding. And as communication methods began to mature in the 1950s, so did the arguments for Christian nationhood particularly among evangelicals.

It all seems so simple. But it is not. The Supreme Court decreed in Lemon v. Kurtzman three tests to determine when a government act or policy unconstitutionally promotes religion. To pass muster, a policy must have a non-religious purpose; not promote or favor any particular set of religious beliefs; and not overly involve the government with religion. Not everyone is happy with the results.

We are pulling on various ends of the rope. Today the Supreme Court has veered to the right and could well threaten our freedom of religion. This would be to the delight of those who wish us to believe and worship as they would dictate. Others continue to push for the status quo of religious freedom.

A smattering of what’s at stake can be put in real terms.

Is it OK to teach religion in public schools? Public schools are run by the government and must follow the tenets of the First Amendment and can not promote religious beliefs or practices.

Is it OK to start a day, meeting or class with prayer? Anything that promotes religion violates the First Amendment. However, individuals have the right to pray whenever they want provided others are not disrupted or forced to pray.

What happens if a community unanimously votes to include religion in school activities? Every one of us is guaranteed rights under the Constitution. And one of these rights is freedom of religion. Nothing changes that except a change to the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers did not want the American government to be Christian or any other religion, for that matter. They made it clear in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.

The Treaty of Tripoli announced clearly and succinctly to the world that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” The document was initiated by George Washington, signed by John Adams, and ratified unanimously by the Senate, which included a majority of signers of the Constitution.

Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx software coordinates and drives communication, specifying, approval, procurement or production, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, marketing materials, promo and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: America is not a Christian nation. The Founding Fathers said so

[tanadrin]

National Convention: are there local political and material conditions that might make the civil oath for the clergy and the uniform rule of the country from Paris a poor fit for some outlying départements?

National Convention: no, it’s the Vendéeans who are wrong

National Convention: *starts a civil war that kills 200,000 people and permanently destabilizes the republic*

#like #i understand why the secularism of european countries #has most often manifested itself in explicitly subordinating the church to the state #rather than merely disestablishing it #but this is an area where i think the american model is definitely superior #it would have been sufficient to simply end the privileges of the clergy #to tax church property as all other property #and not to exempt the church from any national land reform #but no #we have to provoke an unnecessary war #that will hemhorrage lives and resources #while attempting to stave off repeated invasions

[ladymazzy]

The antisemitism animating Putin’s claim to ‘denazify’ Ukraine

I don't share the writer's confidence in Western Liberalism as we know it. The 'great civilised west' was built on the exploitation and oppression of millions around the globe, and the line between it and overt fascism can be blurred to the point of non-existence whenever it's convenient whether through expediency (the 'useful' ally), or passivity ('they don't have much support). Ironically enough, the very promotion of the western Liberal democracy is usually laden with the very same European chauvinism that we see with the far-right

Suffice to say, we really do need to tackle the rise of antisemitism and fascism, and look at where it's coming from

It's worth remembering that Holocaust revisionism is being propagated widely across Europe, erasing the murder of millions of Jewish, Roma, disabled and LGBTQ people from the narrative. This is part of how and why Zelenskyy being Jewish is barely relevant within Putin's rhetoric; he's manipulating the memory of the losses suffered by the Soviet Union in ww2, and appealing to a warped nostalgia for the Soviet era

Putin claims to be on a mission to 'denazify' despite the fact that on his home turf, he persecutes the LGBTQ community, enacts misogynistic patriarchal policies, extinguishes opposition, heads a police state, and aligns himself with fellow autocrats

From the article;

'Vladimir Putin is himself a fascist autocrat, one who imprisons democratic opposition leaders and critics. He is the acknowledged leader of the global far right, which looks increasingly like a global fascist movement.

Ukraine does have a far-right movement, and its armed defenders include the Azov battalion, a far-right nationalist militia group. But no democratic country is free of far-right nationalist groups, including the United States. In the 2019 election, the Ukrainian far right was humiliated, receiving only 2% of the vote. This is far less support than far-right parties receive across western Europe, including inarguably democratic countries such as France and Germany.

Ukraine is a democratic country, whose popular president was elected, in a free and fair election, with over 70% of the vote. That president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.

Putin’s claim that Russia is invading Ukraine to denazify it is therefore absurd on its face. But understanding why Putin justifies the invasion of democratic Ukraine in this way sheds important light on what is happening not only in eastern Europe, but worldwide.

Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by ethnic or religious minorities, liberals, feminists, immigrants, and homosexuals. The fascist leader claims the nation has been humiliated and its masculinity threatened by these forces. It must regain its former glory (and often its former territory) with violence. He offers himself as the only one who can restore it.

Central to European fascism is the idea that it is the Jews who are the agents of moral decay. According to European fascism, it is the Jews who bring a country under the domination of (Jewish) global elite, by using the tools of liberal democracy, secular humanism, feminism and gay rights, which are used to introduce decadence, weakness and impurity. Fascist antisemitism is racial rather than religious in origin, targeting Jews as a corrupt stateless race who seek global domination.

Fascism justifies its violence by offering to protect a supposedly pure religious and national identity from the forces of liberalism. In the west, fascism presents itself as the defender of European Christianity against these forces, as well as mass Muslim migration. Fascism in the west is thus increasingly hard to distinguish from Christian nationalism.'

#ukraine #russian politics #antisemitism #guardian articles

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

From: Ali A. Rizvi. “The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason.”

“Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to offend!” a born-and-raised American Muslim friend says to me, in reference to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, protesting my telling him that I’m a free speech absolutist. We’re at a small party, and I am ideologically outnumbered by a group of young, bright, and inebriated American Muslims, all of whom have condemned the shootings but have taken issue with the content of the satirical French magazine, articulating some version of an argument beginning with the words, “I believe in freedom of speech, but…”

“On the contrary,” I reply, making an argument I sadly have to make too often. “Freedom of speech is the freedom to offend. Without the freedom to offend, what is the point of free speech?” Indeed, the most transformative revolutionaries throughout history could not have achieved what they did without offending a lot of people. This doesn’t just include scientists like Darwin and Galileo, or visionaries like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr.—it includes Jesus Christ himself, not to mention Muhammad, who was chased out of Mecca for gravely offending the Quraysh, the merchant tribe that ran the city.

The conversation now veers toward hate speech. “Doesn’t hate speech cross the line? Or do you think that should be protected too?” I understand why my friend is asking this. Even France, where the attacks happened, has laws against hate speech. Shortly after the attacks, the French comedian Dieudonné was arrested for Facebook posts sympathetic to the views of the terrorists. And in 2011, fashion designer John Galliano was famously arrested, tried, and fined for anti-Semitic hate speech. Is France right to criminalize hate speech?

I don’t think so.

In the United States, you can deny the Holocaust all you want. You can join the Ku Klux Klan and hold white supremacist rallies with police protection. You can print cartoons of Muhammad (the self-censoring of some American media outlets being a separate matter) and not be prosecuted for it. You can buy Mein Kampf or borrow it from a library. You can join the Westboro Baptist Church and picket the funerals of slain soldiers with signs reading, “God hates fags,” backed by the full support of an eight-to-one Supreme Court decision in your favor.1

In the United States, hate speech is protected as free speech, and for good reason.

France, like many other European countries, does not understand free speech. It enforces secularism by banning the wearing of religious symbols. It arrests people like Dieudonné for nonthreatening Facebook posts, as vile as they may be. To me, this feels like more of a Saudi Arabia / Iran thing, and really shouldn’t be a France thing. France is inconsistent—an inevitable consequence when you get into the business of legislating what is and isn’t hateful. There is a legitimate (though flawed) debate about why anti-Semitic cartoons are a crime while cartoons offensive to Muslims and other minority groups are considered fair game under “free expression.” Here, the apologists who say France has double standards on free speech may have a point. France should be consistent. To Islamists, this means France should ban all hate speech. To me, it means France should allow all of it.

In case you’re wondering why I’m standing up so vehemently for hate speech, I’m not. What I’m standing up for is not letting your government define “hate speech” for you. That should be your decision, not theirs. The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were frequently targeted by the French government itself, which used its hate speech laws to justify telling them what to do. Islamists in the West who denounce infidels and spout jihadist rhetoric in their Friday mosque sermons invoke these hate speech laws to silence any criticism of their beliefs by calling it “bigotry” or “Islamophobia.” The supposed parameters of where free speech ends and hate speech begins (an imaginary distinction) are too important for you to let someone else define them.

Criminalizing hate speech like France does infantilizes people. It doesn’t just take away someone’s right to speak; it takes away your right to form your own opinions and response to them. By supporting a ban on hate speech, you’re allowing your government to regulate not just what someone can say, but what you can hear.

Moreover, banning hate speech is a slippery slope. Consider the following.

Deuteronomy 22:20–21 says that nonvirginal brides should be stoned to death on their fathers’ doorsteps. Leviticus 20:13 says that any two men having sex with each other should be killed. Verses 5:72–73 in the Quran say that anyone who believes in the Trinity or that Jesus is the Son of God is a blasphemer or disbeliever doomed to eternal hellfire. Verse 5:51 says not to take Jews and Christians for friends. Verse 9:5 endorses the slaying of polytheists.

Is there a doubt in anyone’s mind that these ideas would be considered hate speech if voiced by someone today? Yet these words appear in holy books considered sacred by billions around the world.

“From a hate-speech perspective, which would you say is more offensive?” I ask my friend. “Those verses? Or a Charlie Hebdo cartoon?”

The uncomfortable truth is this: if you really wanted to ban all hate speech, the Bible and Quran would be the first to go. Next would be the preachers who read from them and quote them in their sermons. Without hate speech, freedom of religion can’t really exist.

I grew up in countries where simply speaking your mind could get you sent to prison, flogged, or even executed. Early on, I promised myself that when I got to a place where I had the freedom to speak, I would. And I wouldn’t take my freedom of speech for granted, not even for a day. But when I finally arrived in North America, I saw that things weren’t that simple.

#Ali A. Rizvi #The Atheist Muslim #free speech #freedom of speech #orthodoxy #freedom to offend #freedom of expression #free thought #hate speech #religion is a mental illness #long post

[dontgiveupukraine]

What you have to know about Russia - Bogdan Pankevych

A couple of days ago Bogdan Pankevych wrote a small piece for ‘foreigners’ about his view on the relationship of Russia and Ukraine. Mr. Pankevych will be my guest next Thursday on our Don’t Give Up Ukraine talks: “Thirty Years of Hope”. 

What you have to know about Russia - Bogdan Pankevych

Why does Russia want to attack Ukraine? The threat of a great war, Russia's ultimatums to NATO and the United States have made the world pay attention to Ukraine. Russian propaganda has created a misunderstanding of the state of affairs in Central and Eastern Europe. And now everyone is scared. It is worth taking this opportunity to talk about the causes and historical roots of the danger from Russia. Some will believe, some will not, but they will at least give it a thought. I would like to use the opportunity for helping people outside Ukraine to understand the real Russia, its motives and priorities. And make them understand that this threat also applies to them. 1. Historical aspect - Russians believe in the historical falsification they have created, spreading it all over the world for a long time already in denial of the actual truth.The Russian state emerged and was formed thanks to the Golden Horde of the Mongols, having adopted their authoritarian foundation and the way of exercising power. Independent Ukraine, which has a long history beginning from the medieval European State of Rus, by its very existence denies this false identity invented by the Russians, thus harming their self-esteem.Therefore, the Russians are trying to persuade the whole world that there is no separate Ukrainian people at all.

2. Economic aspect - The values of the Russian government are not integral and European - like, prosperity of their people and development are not priorities for them. Poverty of their own citizens is useful to the government, they assure maximum dependence on the state. Poor, dependent people are easy to manage and manipulate. Foreign investment is used as a tool of influence on the countries of investors. The security and profitability of investments depend on the loyalty of the respective governments to Russia and Putin. Therefore, the crimes of the Russian authorities are often overlooked or justified. 3. Political aspect - Russia claims world leadership. To exercise it, Russia resorts to intimidation, to the threat of aggression of a nuclear country, as well as energy blackmail. Russia has no other effective instruments of influence. The example of a successful democratic Ukraine refutes the claim that only an authoritarian type of government is possible for post-Soviet countries. Ukraine's success is a threat to the existence of this Russian government. Angela Merkel's sincere surprise when Putin became president again after Medvedev’s tenure, demonstrated a complete lack of understanding by Western elites of the peculiarities of Russia and the nature of its power. 4. Religious aspect - The Church in Russia is completely subordinated to the secular authority, sacralizing it and helping to keep the people in subjugation. The Moscow Patriarchate claims leadership in the Orthodox world, using financial and political leverage.The Moscow Church in Ukraine has always been an instrument of colonization and spiritual enslavement of Ukrainians. Almost half of the human and financial potential of the Moscow Patriarchate is concentrated in Ukraine. That is why Russia is strongly opposed to the independence of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. 5. Mental aspect - Ukrainians are democrats. Russians are autocrats. Ukrainians are individualists. Russians are much more communal. Ukrainians are freedom-loving. The Russians obey the tyrants. Ukrainians have the European mentality. Russians are closer to the Asian mentality. 6. International aspect - Putin understands very well the mentality of the civilized world, their desire for peace at all costs. He observes that Western governments are increasingly prioritising the GDP growth, even at times at the cost of fundamental principles and values. When freedom, democracy, independence of other countries can be sacrificed for the welfare and peace of their own citizens. The world did not react properly when Russia attacked Georgia in 2008. This prompted Putin to annex Crimea and attack Ukraine in 2014. The world hardly reacted to this international crime either. The infantilism and toothlessness of the civilized world are prompting Putin to commit new crimes. It now threatens Europe's security. Ukraine has given up the world's third nuclear capability for peace and security. The security guarantees given to Ukraine in return turned out to be null and void. This example encourages other countries to develop their own nuclear programs without relying on any global security guarantees. Conclusions - Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as an independent European democracy. Ukraine must exist as a vassal of Russia, completely dependent politically and economically, where the government will be elected by agreement and instructions from Russia. Russia is using all means to achieve this goal, including the 2014 military aggression. Ukraine's civil society will never allow the Ukrainian government to come under any pressure from Russia or other countries to the detriment of Ukraine's independence, its European path of development and its prospects of joining NATO. We will defend our freedom with weapons in hand, not succumbing to the temptations of a comfortable and peaceful life at the cost of losing even a small part of our own freedom and sovereignty.

#dontgiveupukraine #pankevych #russia-ukraine relations

[nevermindirah]

Ok it's Jewish Booker o'clock, I can no longer stop myself, let's do this!

Why Jewish Booker? Dude was born in Marseilles in 1770, which happens to be a FASCINATING time and place in Jewish history, and it adds ridiculous layers to his character (without excusing a damn thing). Alternately just because I think he’s neat :)

Jewish Booker headcanons that make me happy:

not to be all "real Jews do X" but Jews fuck with candles hard. Book of Nile thrives on old/modern analog/digital giggles. Booker lighting Shabbat candles, lighting yarzeit (memorial) candles for his wife and sons (sob), lighting a menorah, lighting candles just because he's feeling emotional even though it's not chag (a holiday) or a yarzeit and Nile thinks he's trying to be sexy but he's really just in his feelings. just like. so many candles.

maybe Booker was the person who punched Richard Spencer at Trump's inauguration, just bringing back that time somebody punched a famous neonazi in the street and said neonazi has all but stopped appearing in public after a few rounds of public punching

were the Old Guard in Charlottesville in 2017? how many times has Booker the Blond Jew infiltrated North American white nationalist / Klan type activities and then stolen their weapons and/or killed them? likewise there's plenty of horrifying white nationalist shit happening across Europe this century, how many Pim Fortuyn types has he been involved in taking down? (I Am Of Course Not Endorsing Violence TM ;) ;) )

SINGING. Mattias Schoenaerts sings in Away From the Madding Crowd but it's church shit, sigh, anyway he has a nice voice. a lot of Jewish prayer is sung/chanted (depending on when/where you are and the gender rules of the community you're in) and there’s been a lot of innovation to Jewish singing in Booker’s lifetime, and I just want Nile to overhear him singing to himself on Friday afternoons

Nile Freeman was four years old when The Prince of Egypt came out, she grew up on that shit, she would want to introduce her new family to that shit. Please join me in picturing Booker, Nicky, Joe, and Andy all shouting "that's not how it happened!!" throughout this beautiful nightmare of a movie with lovely animation and songs but where white people voice most of the Egyptian and Jewish characters, because Booker Nicky and Joe's religious texts all frame the Exodus story a little differently and Andy was probably there when it happened (except for how it didn't actually happen it's an important story but it's just a story pls just let me giggle about Andy being super old)

Read below the cut for sad Jewish Booker headcanons, French Jewish history (mostly sad), context on antisemitism (enraging/sad), and all the way to the very end for a himbo joke.

Jewish Booker headcanons, I made myself sad edition:

he is a forger. who was alive. in 1939. visas. VISAS. V I S A S. how many of us did he save? how many more could he have saved if he didn't sleep that night? how heavily does that weigh?

how do we think he BECAME a forger? most likely he was doing what he needed to do to support his family, which gets extra poignant if he was also trying to help his people, forging documents as well as money even during his mortal life

Booker raised Catholic by crypto-Jews adds ANOTHER layer to the forgery thing, no shit he'd get good at falsifying paperwork and coming up with plausible cover stories

do we know how Booker made it back home after his first death in 1812? his route between the Russian Empire and Provence in 1812 would've been a patchwork of laws about Jews, in case starvation and frostbite weren't enough for him to have to deal with, he's blond and could maybe get away with pretending not to be Jewish if he had to, alternately maybe synagogues and yeshivot took him in on his way home

the structural and sometimes-interpersonal dynamics of antisemitism cause many individual Jews to experience feelings of teetering on the fence between a valued member of a not-exclusively-Jewish community and a scapegoat/outcast/problem. HOLY SHIT BOOKER. "what do you know of all these years alone" is the most Jewish loneliness-in-a-crowd shit I've ever heard. fear that we're not wanted, or only wanted so long as we're useful — that's something that basically all people struggle with under capitalism, but it's especially poignant for many Jews because of the particular way antisemitism operates. (NOTE this can tip from a legit Jewish Booker reading to woobification of the sad white man who couldn't possibly be held responsible for his own actions because he's so sad, which, NOPE. it's very understandable for him to feel left out and misunderstood and not as wanted, as the youngest and not part of an immortal couple and maybe Jewish, but NONE OF THIS excuses his betrayal.)

Crusaders murdered a lot of Jews on their way to the ~holy land~. how many of Booker's people did Nicky kill on his way to kill Joe's people? has Booker ever actually talked to either of them about it?

I read this really beautiful fic about Joe needing to circumcise himself after getting run over by a cart (ouch) — this is a hell of a thing for Joe and Booker to have in common

just generally Jewish Booker adds more layers to him and Joe so clearly being such close friends, ugh that look Joe gives him when they're leaving the bar at the end of the movie, and I very much do not mean this in a gross Arab-Israeli-conflict way because Joe is Amazigh not Arab and Booker is Jewish not Israeli (and also a lot of Jews are Arabs) (but most importantly there's no ~eternal conflict~ between Muslims and Jews) (more about OP Is Not A Zionist below)

like, the UK and France (and to a certain extent Italy) carved up the former Ottoman Empire after WWI; among other things, the UK took Palestine, and they could've worked on eradicating European antisemitism so Jews wouldn't have to leave but instead they used their control of Palestine to encourage Zionist emigration of Jews out of Europe, and France took what is now Iraq, which has some pretty direct implications for US military involvement in that country in Nile's lifetime; France colonized Tunisia in the late 19th century and still held it during the Vichy era which means Tunisian Jews were subject to Nazi anti-Jewish laws which is just layers upon layers of colonial racist Islamophobic and antisemitic nightmares for Joe and Booker to live through

to be crystal clear before anybody gets ooh Muslim-Jewish conflict up in here, antisemitism is an invention of European Christians that they imported to the places they colonized, the European colonial powers encouraged Zionism because it was easier for them to encourage Jews to leave Europe and set us up as middle agents between the colonial powers and the ~scary brown people~, the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim governments historically have had a second-class citizenship category for non-Muslims that rankles my American first amendment freedom of religion sensibility but was very much not targeting Jews specifically, and these two men who've lived for a long-ass time through many varieties of geopolitical awfulness (and alongside a certain unwashed Crusader who has since learned his lesson) would have Things To Say about how our current mainstream discourses frame these things

getting off my soapbox and back to this action movie I'm trying to talk about, the ANGST of Booker's exile, which is simultaneously a very valid decision for Andy Joe and Nicky to make, an extremely long time for Nile who is only 26 years old to be separated from the one person on the planet in a position to really understand the crisis she's going through, and holy shit expelling a Jew from your group when he's already been expelled from mortality and his family and being expelled from places and continually having to start over somewhere new is THE curse of surviving through antisemitism, OUCH MY FEELINGS

Some French Jewish history:

France, like basically all of Europe, periodically expelled its Jews, but Provence (where Marseilles is) wasn't legally part of France during the expulsions up through 1398 so Provence had a continuous active Jewish community; about 3,000 Iberian Jewish refugees ended up in Provence after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s

the 1498 expulsion of French Jews DID apply to Provence but many "converted" to Christianity and reestablished a Jewish community when enforcement of the expulsion chilled out (which was in the government's interest because they were really into taxing Jews at higher rates, so much so that they taxed "new Christians" at higher rates once they realized expelling Jews meant they wouldn't be around to overtax, ffs) — by the mid-18th century Provence had notable communities of Jews and crypto-Jews (forced converts and their descendants who still kept some Jewish practices in secret)

Booker would've been 21 when revolutionary France granted equal legal rights to Jews in 1791 — his mortal life and first century of immortality happens to line up almost perfectly with the timeline of legal emancipation of Jews across Europe

the American and French Revolutions happened pretty much concurrently and took different approaches to religious freedom that make Book of Nile with Jewish Booker and canon Christian Nile extra interesting — French emancipation, at least from my American sensibility, is about secularism and religion not "interfering" (hence French Islamophobic shittiness about banning hijabs), whereas American religious freedom is more of "the government can't stop me from trying to evangelize / religiously harass people at my school/workplace/etc" — to be clear I think both countries' approaches to religious "freedom" are hegemonic as shit and have devastating flaws, but they're different models that emerged at the same time in Booker's youth and Christianity is clearly a source of emotional support for Nile and there's so much to explore here

Napoleon tried to ~liberate~ the Jews of places he conquered for his dumbass French Empire, but liberation from ghettos came with strings attached (like banning us from some of the only jobs we'd been legally allowed to have for centuries, and liberating us for the stated purpose of getting us to assimilate and stop being Jews) and many places that were briefly part of the French Empire reinstated their antisemitic laws after Napoleon was gone, can you imagine being a French Jew forced to fight and die in Russian winter for that jackass and then have to trudge back through a dozen countries whose antisemitism was all riled up by French interference?

Some facts about antisemitism:

antisemitism operates differently than many other oppressions, it doesn't economically oppress the target group in the same way as antiblackness or misogyny or ableism etc — the purpose of antisemitism is to create a scapegoat to blame when European peasants are mad at the king / the church / the people actually in charge, and structural antisemitism encourages a system where some Jews become visibly successful so that those individuals and our whole community are easier to make into scapegoats

one of the historical roots of antisemitism is stuff in the Christian Bible about moneylending as sinful — Jews in medieval Europe were often barred from owning land and Christians barred from moneylending, so some Jews found work in finance and some of us became very visibly successful for working with money — a few individual Jews running a particular bank or finding success as jewelry dealers turns into "Jews control global financial systems" scapegoating — a more recent example of this is the participation of nonblack Jews in white flight and the role of Jewish landlords doing the visible dirty work of non-Jewish institutions in American antiblack housing discrimination, Nile grew up on the South Side of Chicago and would have seen some shit along these lines and might repeat hurtful ideas out of a lack of knowledge, here's Ta Nahesi Coates on some of these dynamics

Booker canonically being a forger (specifically of coins in the comics?) needs a little extra care to avoid antisemitic tropes about Jews and money, I will happily answer good-faith asks about this if you want to check on something for a fic/etc

antisemitism in the United States where I live in October 2020 isn't institutional in the sense of targeting Jews for police violence or anything like that. it IS systemic, however, for example in all the antisemitic conspiracy theories the Trump administration and several other Republicans peddle (ie QAnon), and in how the Trump administration points to support for Israel as if that means support for Jews (it doesn't, it's evangelical Christians who push the US government to support the Israeli government because they think Jews need to be in the ~holy land~ for Jesus to come back that's literally why the United States funds Israel at the level it does). antisemitism also gets weaponized to encourage white Jews (those of us of European descent, who in the United States are definitely white because the foundation of US racism is slavery and antiblackness as well as anti-indigenous genocide, maybe European Jews aren't included in whiteness everywhere but we definitely are where I live) to side with white supremacy instead of building solidarity with other marginalized people (ie a lot of mainstream Jewish groups shit on the Movement for Black Lives because of its solidarity with Palestinians)

the Nation of Islam has a major presence in Chicago and its leader Louis Farrakhan who lives in Chicago has long spread a variety of antisemitic as well as homophobic bullshit but there are genuine good reasons many Black people find meaning/support in the Nation of Islam and Nile would've grown up with that mess in the air around her, this is a good take from a Black Jew about the nuance of all that

the way the Old Guard comics draw Yusuf al Kaysani is HOLY SHIT ANTISEMITISM BATMAN I hate it please summarize the comics for me because I DO NOT WANT to look at that unnecessarily caricatured nose why the fuck did they do that human noses are beautiful there is absolutely no need to draw Joe like a Nazi would

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a local NYC group that recently developed a fantastic resource for understanding and fighting antisemitism (pdf) 11/10 strongly recommend

Zionism disclaimer: A lot of Jews feel strongly that we need a Jewish-majority country in order to be safe from antisemitism. I strongly disagree with this idea on its merits (Jews disagree about who is a Jew and making Jewish status a government/immigration matter means some of us are going to get left out; also non-Jews aren't fundamentally dangerous and separatism isn't going to end antisemitism) but I have a lot of empathy for the very valid fear that leads a lot of my people to Zionism. Whether I want a Jewish-majority country or not, what Israel has done and continues to do to Palestinians is a deal breaker. Emotions run very high on this subject — I spend a lot of my not-Tumblr life talking to other Jews about Zionism and I'd rather not have this Jewish Booker headcanons post become yet another place where fellow Jews yell at me in bad faith. Block me if you need to, you're not going to change my mind. Call me self-hating if you want, I know I love us.

Racism in fandom disclaimer: I feel weird about increasing the volume of meta about Booker in this fandom. Nile Freeman is the main character and deserves lots of attention and adoration from the fandom — and she deserves emotional support from as many friends and orgasms from as many partners as she wants. I think Jewish Booker makes her friendship and potential romantic relationship with him even more interesting, hence this post. Ship what you ship, but be aware of the racist impact of focusing your fandom activity on, for example, shipping two white men while ignoring awesome characters of color especially the canon man of color one of those white dudes has already been with for a millennium. Please and thanks don't use my post for shenanigans like sidelining Joe so you can ship Booker with Nicky.

Oh and a non-disclaimer fun fact, Matthias Schoenaerts was born in Antwerp which apparently has one of the largest Jewish communities still remaining in Europe?? ~Jewish Booker headcanons intensify~

In conclusion: Jewish Booker! Just because it's fun! It exponentially increases the angst of his mortal lifetime and it puts his first century of immortality smack in the middle of the most intense changes to Jewish life since the fall of the Second Temple (aforementioned emancipation, also founding of Reform Judaism, the Haskalah, Zionism, and then of course the Holocaust). It makes his relationships with Nile, Joe, and Nicky more interesting and potentially angstier and with more intense commonalities and tenderness about their differences. It's very common for Jews to not believe in God (this confuses the shit out of a lot of Christians) and this would probably have further endeared him to Andy.

One more thing: Booker as golem. (A golem is basically an earthenware robot of Jewish folklore.) He's tall and blond and the most Steve Rogers-looking of all of them and from the Himbeaux region of France. THE trope of Book of Nile is he will do WHATEVER Nile wants or needs him to do. I was today years old when I learned that Modern Hebrew speakers use golem figuratively to mean "mindless lunk" and I'm choosing to squint and read that as "hot kind and dumb as rocks" because it amuses me.

#sebastien le livre #tog meta #jewish booker #book of nile #i couldn't stop myself #antisemitism #genocide cw #antiblackness #european imperialism #us imperialism #antizionism #hi i'm an antizionist jew no i don't really wanna talk about it #except i just did #jewish things #jewish history #tog #mine

[eretzyisrael]

Nationalism vs. Empire

Recently I’ve had some arguments with Jewish anti-Zionists (although they sometimes claim they are Zionists). These are not the ones who wear Palestinian keffiyes and say kaddish for dead terrorists. These are the “moderate” ones who say that they totally understand why Israel should exist, but think that it should repeal the Nation-State Law and become a “democratic state of all its citizens” instead of one that privileges one group at the expense of others. It makes them nervous that Israel has a Jewish symbol on its flag, and refers to the “Jewish soul” in its national anthem.

They believe that ethno-religious nationalism, of which Zionism is a sub-species, has been the cause of great trouble in the world, giving rise to wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the recent past.

This is a common view today. Humans are apparently genetically wired to feel trust for and loyalty to their immediate family, their extended family, and to broader and broader circles (clans, tribes, and nations) of people that are in some sense like them. But many people believe that this is a negative characteristic that leads to hatred and violence. They believe that social progress requires eliminating it, at least for circles wider than the family. In particular, the loyalty of individuals to national groups has been blamed for the destructive wars of the 20th century. Indeed, the European Union was intended from the beginning to grow into a super-nation that would ultimately absorb the loyalties of the various European peoples, and thus make future wars unlikely.

Yoram Hazony, in his book “The Virtue of Nationalism,” argues that in fact the main cause of the world wars was not nationalism, but rather imperialist expansionism. Hitler, according to Hazony, wanted to destroy the order of independent sovereign states and replace them with an empire, the “Third Reich,” modeled on the “First Reich,” the Holy Roman Empire. Hazony contrasts two divergent ideas of the best way to bring about peace and prosperity: “an order of free and independent nations, each pursuing the political good in accordance with its own traditions and understanding; and an order of peoples united under a single regime of law, promulgated and maintained by a single supranational authority.” The former, he believes, provides the best opportunity to maximize each individual’s liberty and opportunities for self-realization. Empires come into being and maintain themselves by coercion of their subject nations, which naturally inhibits personal freedom.

In the best case, an independent nation’s population shares a common language, religion, and other cultural features, along with a shared vision of the kind of society it wants to have. Such a nation can provide a high degree of autonomy for its citizens, because they work toward common purposes. In the worst case, you have Lebanon or Syria, where ethno-religious strife tear a nation apart, allow despotic regimes to take power, and sink into a state of daily hell for their people.

Empires, on the other hand, invariably stratify their populations into advantaged groups, who make the rules and consume the fruits of empire, and those who make do with what the elites allow to trickle down to them. The latter have little autonomy, because they must be guided – coerced – to act in ways that promote imperial objectives, and prevented from rebelling. Today there are several empires or aspiring ones: the US, Russia, China, and the European Union.

The nations that consistently score highest on the World Happiness Reportscale are not the richest or largest nations, but smaller, ethnically and religiously homogeneous ones, like the top three: Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. Of course there are many other factors that affect rankings, but there is no doubt that their homogeneity plays an important part in their people’s satisfaction.

“But that’s racist!” I hear. No, it’s just fact. Anyway, skin color or other genetic properties have nothing to do with it except as markers for culture in the broadest sense, including language and religion and numerous other things. I suspect that the desire and ability to live together with others who are like youis a property that developed by an evolutionary process, and as I suggested, is now hard-wired into the species. Those who want to change it, to create a new kind of human who will totally free of bias won’t be pleased to hear this, but they are fighting hundreds of thousands of years – going back to pre-human species – of evolutionary development.

I suggest that we should work with the nature of our species. Nations should be small nation-states of similar people. Countries like Iraq that were created by strokes of a pen on a map without consideration of who lives in the area circumscribed by those strokes, are bound to have problems, as well as artificially balanced multiethnic constructions like Lebanon. Empires can provide stability, but at the cost of the exploitation and oppression of the majority of imperial subjects. A majority in the UK decided that they would prefer full sovereignty to attenuated self-rule as part of an empire, and voted to leave the EU.

Not every group with national aspirations can have a state. Some people will live in countries like the US, which are defined as states of all their citizens. Others will live as members of a minority in someone else’s nation-state.

Jews have a special reason to need a state of their own; their unique history of ever-mutating persecution. It takes a surprising degree of historical ignorance, or something less innocent, to deny that today. The Jews got their state at the cost of an enormous amount of blood, and then had to defend it again and again. And their enemies, both the local ones who simply want to take their land and their wealth, and the European empire for which the Jewish state stands as a reproach, show no evidence of giving up.

Israel did pretty well in the World Happiness Report, coming in 11th out of 149 (the US was 14th and the UK 17th). That is despite the fact that Israel is not Finland: there is a large Arab minority (one out of five Israelis is an Arab) that is excluded from the national mission of the Jewish state. They are not, however, excluded from economic and political life the way minorities often are, as (for example) America’s black minority was for many years. There is a very delicate balance here that the state needs to maintain in order to thrive, or even survive, with such a large national minority within its borders. One doesn’t have to go very far here in the Middle East to see what can happen as a result of unhappy minorities.

One of the reasons that Israel has been so successful, despite the challenges it has faced from its external enemies, the tension between religious and secular Jews, and the complications created by its internal minority, is its sense of national purpose as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I cannot imagine the state would survive the cancellation of this national purpose, even if it maintained, for a time, its Jewish majority. Why would it be more desirable for a Jew to live in Israel, with its mandatory army service and periodic wars, than to live in Europe, America, or Australia? Many of those who had the option to leave would do so. And why would those that stayed have a desire to improve anything in the public sphere, anything beyond their personal situation?

Nationalism, including Zionism, is not anti-democratic, racist, or otherwise evil. I would rather see a world of independent sovereign states coordinating their activities by means of treaties of mutual advantage, than the one governed by one or several powerful, coercive empires toward which we are tending.

Abu Yehuda

#Europe #post-zionism #The Jewish People #Zionism

[considerthehorses]

Heterosexuality Is A Misleading Term For "No Homo"-Moids. Men Do Not Feel Attracted To Women, They Do Not Like Women, And They Do Not Love Women.

1.) Men are not attracted to women.

Men constantly talk about how disgusting vaginas look, smell, taste, and how much they hate the idea of going down on women. If they have the choice, they prefer female genitals that are mutilated: either via "old-fashioned" techniques like in some African and Islamic communities or via "modern" cosmetic surgeries that some women in porn have performed on them. The goal of this is always a kind of sexless, "genitalless", pedophilic look of a pink little slit.

Men also hate any amount of natural body hair on women although (or because!) it is a sign of sexual maturity. Men hate normal amounts of body fat on women although (or because) it is a sign of sexual maturity and fertility as well.

Men want babies with big tits.

And what do they want to sexually do to these babies with big tits? Fuck them in the ass, fuck them in the throat, beat, rape, torture, and humiliate them until they cry.

Male sexuality is nothing but fetishized violence against women. They love anal sex because it is hurtful to women and doesn't give women a chance to orgasm themselves. And the moment they realized that some women actually enjoy giving blowjobs have they come up with "throat fucking" and "deep throat": they HATE women, they HATE female bodies, and they HATE the idea that a woman could enjoy sex.

It is often said that "Porn tells lies about women, but it tells the truth about men". And the truth is that if you take the brutal anal/throat penetration out of male sexuality, what's left is men casually beating, hurting, whipping women. The distinction between "vanilla" and "kink" doesn't make sense in the case of men. It's just a matter of degree. "Vanilla" men want to rape women and beat them - "kinky" men want to rape women and beat them and electroshock and water torture and mutilate them.

Men are not attracted to actual female bodies. Men only enjoy the idea of DESTROYING female bodies: both through absurd beauty norms that effectively destroy these bodies and turn them into absurd dolls and through sexual practices that are always about hurting, beating, whipping, raping, anal fucking, throat fucking female bodies.

Men are MONSTERS. There is some creepy shit in nature: viruses and predators and parasite larvae that eat their host alive. And, of course, other animals also rape women. But nothing is as cruel and disgusting as the human moid: at least a lion doesn't masturbate over the idea of a female lion being torn to pieces by an elephant or whatever. A predator just wants to eat you, a coronavirus just enter a cell nucleus and replicate ... but the human moid gets erections and masturbates to the thought of women being humiliated and tortured and hurt until they cry and bleed or even die.

2.) Men do not like women.

Men do not feel attracted to real women. And men do obviously not LIKE women. They hate women so much that the moment women like something, men hate it: if women like flavored-coffee drinks from Starbucks, men hate it BECAUSE women like it. (As if bacon and bacon memes are funnier or better than women making memes about pizza or enjoying pumpkin-spice lattes!)

If women join a fandom, men leave because the moment women like it, they start hating it. Some sociologist has coined the term "gender pollution": it is a sexist term itself but it describes a real phenomenon: the more women enter a particular space (e.g. a profession or a hobby), the more it is "polluted", the less it is valued and the less people in this job get paid. I think in some Eastern European countries this is actually the case with doctors even: but as there are many women in this field - both among nurses as well as among doctors - doctors are also not valued anymore.

The moment women became good in school was the moment boys increasingly dropped out. Men now associate doing your homework and reading books with women - and they rather ruin their lives than to be engaged with something women like! So instead of doing their homework are they now playing video games 24/7. But now women have obviously started playing video games as well. So now they become mass shooters because they hate the idea of female video game characters.

3.) Men do not love women

Winston Churchill famously said that you have the Germans either at your feet or at your throat.

Now, I’m not sure about the Germans, but I think that this is definitely true for males: they are always either at your throat or at your feet. Males fall in "love" with e-girls … but the moment they find out that those women already have boyfriends they want to kill them. (I’m not even sure if I have to put "love" in quotation marks here because the idea of a REAL love in contrast to quotation-marks-love feels a bit like the idea that only "men" in quotation marks are toxic and shitty while REAL men are all these heroes and these supermen…)

I think pornsickness and “lovesickness” are, in a way, two sides of the same coin. “Love” feels like the surrogate religion of a secular age. I’m not a Buddhist but I agree with this part from a text, explaining why this religion is critical of the concept of “romantic love”:

The love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man is often the floor to which people fall after the collapse of other dreams. It is held to be solid when nothing else is, and though it frequently gives way and dumps them into a basement of despair, it still enjoys a reputation of dependability. No matter that this reputation is illogical — it still flourishes and will continue to flourish regardless of what is said in any book. Love, or possibly the myth of love, is the first, last, and sometimes the only refuge of uncomprehending humanity. What else makes our hearts beat so fast? What else makes us swoon with feeling? What else renders us so intensely alive and aching? The search for love — the sublime, the nebulous, the consuming — remains sacred in a world that increasingly despises the sacred. When the heroic and the transcendental are but memories, when religious institutions fill up with bureaucrats and social scientists, when nobody believes there is a sky beyond the ceiling, then there seems no other escape from the prison of self than the abandon of love. With a gray age of spiritual deadness upon us, we love, or beg for love, or grieve for love. We have nothing higher to live for.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/price/bl124.html

I couldn’t agree more. Just consider how many males murder others and/or end their own lives because of love. Just like being pornsick makes it hard for males - and for women - to develop a realistic understanding of human sexuality with its possibilities and limitations, being “lovesick” makes it hard for males - and for women - to develop a realistic understanding of human relationships. People these days expect love to do what previous generations expected miracles and gods to do. “All you need is love” vs “All you need is Jesus”.

There are also studies that show that males fall in love easier and earlier than women. And they surely fall out of love easier as well. Males are like the flickering flame of a candle that burns brightly for a second and then goes out again. This is why it’s so super common for women to think that they do not know their husbands anymore because they feel that these males are completely different persons suddenly.

Males can be lovesick and pornsick at the same time. They masturbate to torture porn in one moment, and the next moment they write a 20-page love letter to some e-girl and emotionally vomit all over them, confessing their undying love. (Many women receive as many rape threats as they receive cringe love letters in which males emotionally vomit all over them.) And one moment later do they already want to kill those terrible “e-thots” again: males are always either at your throat or at your feet: the romantic concept of "love" is a literary construct at best and a religious tool at worst but it's simply not true that men are able to "love" women in the sense women dream about being loved.

Men are not attracted to actual women.

Men do not like actual women.

Men do not love actual women.

PS - Quote from the Reddit Comments:

Regarding love, this is hormonal thing. The feeling of romantic love, of falling in love, "the honey moon period" etc is caused by hormone called Oxytocin. Oxytocin induced social bonding including bonding with sexual partner, and maternal love. It is found in women in far higher amounts than in men and it is major reason why women exhibit more pro-social behavior, are less selfish, more empathic, better parents, more generous, more trusting, more romantic etc. Men do not normally have much Oxytocin, but they get a temporal boost when they fall in love, which makes them bond to their partner and mellows them down, making them less dangerous and more attentive partner and father. But the effect is always temporal and only lasts few months.

PROOF : The results showed that OT plasma levels (pg ̸ ml, mean ± SD) were significantly higher in women than in men (4.53 ± 1.18 vs 1.53 ± 1.19, p ˂ 0.001).

[ultraviolet-techno-ecology]

One of the tension points in decolonization that has never sat right with me (see Tuck and Yang (2012)) is that there seems to be a levying of colonial blame on black descendants of enslaved Africans. We did not choose to come here. We were abducted by the millions. Our ties to our Mother--as Sadiya Hartman puts it--was severed. We were forced to make a new one through the Middle Passage and the hellish inferno of chattel slavery. So where would we go, as Tuck and Yang seem to demand? Why blame us and not the white slavers who forced us to come here? We have no place to call our own, except for the small enclaves such as Harlem. But that is stolen land.

(Part 2) But that's from like a single article. I'm not exactly sure how indigenous people reconcile legacies like that over stolen land. So I am genuinely trying to understand how it's dealt with. Especially since my work has been on black urban anthropology and the right to stay (vis-à-vis gentrification and 'bleaching' in Central Harlem). =============================================

TW: SHOAH Alright so back in WW2, a very wealthy Jewish family is pulled from their western European estate and executed in the streets by SS. You might even say that in a sick way - that it was a courtesy. They were spared the camps in the east. The only survivors are those who were away representing the family on foreign business matters. 

On the other side of the world, obscure mixed race siblings hear about the approach of Japanese forces closing in on the Dutch East Indies. Their father is a high ranking member of the colonial government (A direct descendant of a Governor-General whose legacy is the bloody conquest of Jakarta and the establishment of the capital city Batavia), their mother is one of the many slaves in his possession - they are deemed to be neither Dutch nor Indonesian, they are Indo, a thing treated as both between and neither. I even have a great-aunt who was permanently disabled when the ship attempting to escape to Australia was categorically rejected - rejected because the Australian government did not consider them to be White. The USA was one of the only countries which permitted the more obviously mixed race Indo people shelter and even then it was conditional to the idea that Indo people had been in proximity to the colonial government enough to be White-Like. 

I’m describing my family just before they came to the USA seeking shelter where they were greeted with poverty and alienation as Others. Foreigners who were not seen as white in that historical time period. Yet still very priviledged to escape at all. 

So with that background in mind - It’s easy to see how someone like myself would be very uncomfortable with the idea that the answer to colonialism is simply telling every non-indigenous person to leave the continent and find somewhere else to live. To share equal blame for atrocities that happened at the hands of those who oppressed us. 

Like many Africa-Americans there is no “Home” that I could return to. I have no known surviving family in Europe - and as a secular person Yisroel or Indonesia would be as foreign to me as the Ivory Coast to the descendants of American slavery. Things are complicated even further when my whiteness is entirely conditional - even the whiter part of my American family going as far as to see my particular branch as impure blood. 

So what is my relationship to decolonization? I’m of the opinion that the conditions of my arrival do not in any way change the fact that the US (+Canada and others, but I’m specifically speaking from a US perspective.) government has no authority to grant residential permission for my inhabitation. Now I’m sure some people would be bothered by my de-racialization of the decolonization project - but to me that’s the real issue that stifles conversations about the subject. It’s like you say - we need to focus on the white colonizers and the largest force in colonization comes from the US government itself. 

That is - in my opinion - where the blame must be made. I’m an impoverished nobody with a blog, I will never own property and at times I’ve been literally homeless since even my immediate family disowned me for being LGBT and disabled. I have no meaningful way - nothing to give back - no impactful power - as an individual to decolonize the USA. My death or absence in this hour would probably be a step backwards because at the very least I am a voice that advocates for those who are ignored. I am - despite everything I have said - someone who had the priviledge to not specifically face the post-apocalyptic horror that native Americans experience every day. 

I strongly believe that to completely racialize the subject of decolonization is a foolish error that promotes far right thinking of blood purity and similar subjects - a dangerous error that will particularly harm mixed race people as my family personally experienced in both the Dutch and Japanese occupation of the diverse islands now lumped together into the Indonesian monolith.

To fight for justice - for the African, Jewish, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, every flavor of oppressed people and most importantly of all for this specific conversation - the indigenous people of North America... it means opposing the actual people who wield the power to declare the If, When, and How justice will even be permitted let alone manifested. 

#tw shoah #tw genocide #colonization #decolonization

[theculturedmarxist]

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has run a fascinating long report this week offering a disturbing snapshot of the political climate rapidly emerging across Europe on the issue of antisemitism. The article documents a kind of cultural, political and intellectual reign of terror in Germany since the parliament passed a resolution last year equating support for non-violent boycotts of Israel – in solidarity with Palestinians oppressed by Israel – with antisemitism.

The article concerns Germany but anyone reading it will see very strong parallels with what is happening in other European countries, especially the UK and France.

The same European leaders who a few years ago marched in Paris shouting “Je suis Charlie” – upholding the inalienable free speech rights of white Europeans to offend Muslims by insulting and ridiculing their Prophet – are now queuing up to outlaw free speech when it is directed against Israel, a state that refuses to end its belligerent occupation of Palestinian land. European leaders have repeatedly shown they are all too ready to crush the free speech of Palestinians, and those in solidarity with them, to avoid offending sections of the Jewish community.

The situation reduces to this: European Muslims have no right to take offence at insults about a religion they identify with, but European Jews have every right to take offence at criticism of an aggressive Middle Eastern state they identify with. Seen another way, the perverse secular priorities of European mainstream culture now place the sanctity of a militarised state, Israel, above the sanctity of a religion with a billion followers.

Guilt by association

This isn’t even a double standard. I can’t find a word in the dictionary that conveys the scale and degree of hypocrisy and bad faith involved.

If the American Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote a follow-up to his impassioned book The Holocaust Industry – on the cynical use of the Holocaust to enrich and empower a Jewish organisational establishment at the expense of the Holocaust’s actual survivors – he might be tempted to title it The Antisemitism Industry.

In the current climate in Europe, one that rejects any critical thinking in relation to broad areas of public life, that observation alone would enough to have one denounced as an antisemite. Which is why the Haaretz article – far braver than anything you will read in a UK or US newspaper – makes no bones about what is happening in Germany. It calls it a “witch-hunt”. That is Haaretz’s way of saying that antisemitism has been politicised and weaponised – a self-evident conclusion that will currently get you expelled from the British Labour party, even if you are Jewish.

The Haaretz story highlights two important developments in the way antisemitism has been, in the words of intellectuals and cultural leaders cited by the newspaper, “instrumentalised” in Germany.

Jewish organisations and their allies in Germany, as Haaretz reports, are openly weaponising antisemitism not only to damage the reputation of Israel’s harsher critics, but also to force out of the public and cultural domain – through a kind of “antisemitism guilt by association” – anyone who dares to entertain criticism of Israel.

Cultural associations, festivals, universities, Jewish research centres, political think-tanks, museums and libraries are being forced to scrutinise the past of those they wish to invite in case some minor transgression against Israel can be exploited by local Jewish organisations. That has created a toxic, politically paranoid atmosphere that inevitably kills trust and creativity.

But the psychosis runs deeper still. Israel, and anything related to it, has become such a combustible subject – one that can ruin careers in an instant – that most political, academic and cultural figures in Germany now choose to avoid it entirely. Israel, as its supporters intended, is rapidly becoming untouchable.

A case study noted by Haaretz is Peter Schäfer, a respected professor of ancient Judaism and Christianity studies who was forced to resign as director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum last year. Schäfer’s crime, in the eyes of Germany’s Jewish establishment, was that he staged an exhibition on Jerusalem that recognised the city’s three religious traditions, including a Muslim one.

He was immediately accused of promoting “historical distortions” and denounced as “anti-Israel”. A reporter for Israel’s rightwing Jerusalem Post, which has been actively colluding with the Israeli government to smear critics of Israel, contacted Schäfer with a series of inciteful emails. The questions included “Did you learn the wrong lesson from the Holocaust?” and “Israeli experts told me you disseminate antisemitism – is that true?”

Schäfer observes:

The accusation of antisemitism is a club that allows one to deal a death blow, and political elements who have an interest in this are using it, without a doubt… The museum staff gradually entered a state of panic. Then of course we also started to do background checks. Increasingly it poisoned the atmosphere and our work.

Another prominent victim of these Jewish organisations tells Haaretz:

Sometimes one thinks, “To go to that conference?”, “To invite this colleague?” Afterward it means that for three weeks, I’ll have to cope with a shitstorm, whereas I need the time for other things that I get paid for as a lecturer. There is a type of “anticipatory obedience” or “prior self-censorship”.

Ringing off the hook

There is nothing unusual about what is happening in Germany. Jewish organisations are stirring up these “shitstorms” – designed to paralyse political and cultural life for anyone who engages in even the mildest criticism of Israel – at the highest levels of government. Don’t believe me? Here is Barack Obama explaining in his recent autobiography his efforts as US president to curb Israel’s expansion of its illegal settlements. Early on, he was warned to back off or face the wrath of the Israel lobby:

Members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as “anti-Israel” (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.

Corbyn, it seems, has found an unlikely ally in former US President Obama. In his new autobiography, he writes of the Israel lobby's power: 'Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as "anti-Israel" (and possibly anti-Semitic)' https://t.co/tKmy8q3Cws

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 26, 2020

When Obama went ahead anyway in 2009 and proposed a modest freeze on Israel’s illegal settlements:

The White House phones started ringing off the hook, as members of my national security team fielded calls from reporters, leaders of American Jewish organizations, prominent supporters, and members of Congress, all wondering why we were picking on Israel … this sort of pressure continued for much of 2009.

He observes further:

The noise orchestrated by Netanyahu had the intended effect of gobbling up our time, putting us on the defensive, and reminding me that normal policy differences with an Israeli prime minister – even one who presided over a fragile coalition government – exacted a political cost that didn’t exist when I dealt with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, or any of our other closest allies.

Doubtless, Obama dare not put down in writing his full thoughts about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the US lobbyists who worked on his behalf. But Obama’s remarks do show that, even a US president, supposedly the single most powerful person on the planet, ended up blanching in the face of this kind of relentless assault. For lesser mortals, the price is likely to be far graver.

No free speech on Israel

It was this same mobilisation of Jewish organisational pressure – orchestrated, as Obama notes, by Israel and its partisans in the US and Europe – that ended up dominating Jeremy Corbyn’s five years as the leader of Britain’s leftwing Labour party, recasting a well-known anti-racism activist almost overnight as an antisemite.

It is the reason why his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, has outsourced part of Labour’s organisational oversight on Jewish and Israel-related matters to the very conservative Board of Deputies of British Jews, as given expression in Starmer’s signing up to the Board’s “10 Pledges”.

It is part of the reason why Starmer recently suspended Corbyn from the party, and then defied the membership’s demands that he be properly reinstated, after Corbyn expressed concerns about the way antisemitism allegations had been “overstated for political reasons” to damage him and Labour. (The rightwing Starmer, it should be noted, was also happy to use antisemitism as a pretext to eradicate the socialist agenda Corbyn had tried to revive in Labour.) It is why Starmer has imposed a blanket ban on constituency parties discussing Corbyn’s suspension. And it is why Labour’s shadow education secretary has joined the ruling Conservative party in threatening to strip universities of their funding if they allow free speech about Israel on campus.

Disturbing to learn from this article that Labour backs threatening funding to universities to bully them into adopting the IHRA re-definition of antisemitism – a definition that protects Israel from criticism and would ban most forms of solidarity with Palestinians on campus

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 8, 2020

Two types of Jews

But the Haaretz article raises another issue critical to understanding how Israel and the Jewish establishment in Europe are politicising antisemitism to protect Israel from criticism. The potential Achilles’ heel of their campaign are Jewish dissidents, those who break with the supposed “Jewish community” line and create a space for others – whether Palestinians or other non-Jews – to criticise Israel. These Jewish dissenters risk serving as a reminder that trenchant criticism of Israel should not result in one being tarred an antisemite.

Leading Palestinians warn: 'The fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalised by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimise the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights' https://t.co/Shu1Z7XYM1

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 1, 2020

Israel and Jewish organisations, however, have made it their task to erode that idea by promoting a distinction – an antisemitic one, at that – between two types of Jews: good Jews (loyal to Israel), and bad Jews (disloyal to Israel).

Haaretz reports that officials in Germany, such as Felix Klein, the country’s antisemitism commissioner, and Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, are being allowed to define not only who is an antisemite, typically using support for Israel as the yardstick, but are also determining who are good Jews – those politically like them – and who are bad Jews – those who disagree with them.

Despite Germany’s horrific recent history of Jew hatred, the German government, local authorities, the media, universities and cultural institutions have been encouraged by figures like Klein and Schuster to hound German Jews, even Israeli Jews living and working in Germany, from the country’s public and cultural space.

When, for example, a group of Israeli Jewish academics in Berlin held a series of online discussions about Zionism last year on the website of their art school, an Israeli reporter soon broke the story of a “scandal” involving boycott supporters receiving funding from the German government. Hours later the art school had pulled down the site, while the German education ministry issued a statement clarifying that it had provided no funding. The Israeli embassy officially declared the discussions held by these Israelis as “antisemitic”, and a German foundation that documents antisemitism added the group to the list of antisemitic incidents it records.

Described as ‘kapos’

So repressive has the cultural and political atmosphere grown in Germany that there has been a small backlash among cultural leaders. Some have dared to publish a letter protesting against the role of Klein, the antisemitism commissioner. Haaretz reports:

The antisemitism czar, the letter charged, is working “in synergy with the Israeli government” in an effort “to discredit and silence opponents of Israel’s policies” and is abetting the “instrumentalization” that undermines the true struggle against antisemitism. 

Figures like Klein have been so focused on tackling criticism of Israel from the left, including the Jewish left, that they have barely noted the “acute danger Jews in Germany face due to the surge in far-right antisemitism”, the letter argues.

Again, the same picture can be seen across Europe. In the UK, the opposition Labour party, which should be a safe space for those leading the anti-racism struggle, is purging itself of Jews critical of Israel and using anti-semitism smears against prominent anti-racists, especially from other oppressed minorities.

Extraordinarily, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, one of the founders of Jewish Voice for Labour, which supports Corbyn, recently found herself suspended by Starmer’s Labour. She had just appeared in a moving video in which she explained the ways antisemitism was being used by Jewish organisations to smear Jewish left-wingers like herself as “traitors” and “kapos” – an incendiary term of abuse, as Wimborne-Idrissi points out, that refers to “a Jewish inmate of a concentration camp who collaborated with the [Nazi] authorities, people who collaborated in the annihilation of their own people”.

In suspending her, Starmer effectively endorsed this campaign by the UK’s Jewish establishment of incitement against, and vilification of, leftwing Jews.

The aggressive purge of Jews from the Labour Party under the repressive rule of @Keir_Starmer marches on.

I haven't seen a sustained campaign of overt anti-Semitism quite like the effort of Labour centrists to create lists of Good Jews & Bad Jews and purge the latter. https://t.co/wVwnu47QJP

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2020

Earlier, Marc Wadsworth, a distinguished black anti-racism campaigner, found himself similarly suspended by Labour when he exposed the efforts of Ruth Smeeth, then a Labour MP and a former Jewish official in the Israel lobby group BICOM, to recruit the media to her campaign smearing political opponents on the left as antisemites.

In keeping with the rapid erosion of critical thinking in civil society organisations designed to uphold basic freedoms, Smeeth was recently appointed director of the prestigious free speech organisation Index on Censorship. There she can now work on suppressing criticism of Israel – and attack “bad Jews” – under cover of fighting censorship. In the new, inverted reality, censorship refers not to the smearing and silencing of a “bad Jew” like Wimborne-Idrissi, but to criticism of Israel over its human rights abuses, which supposedly “censors” the identification of “good Jews” with Israel – now often seen as the crime of “causing offence”.

Ok, we've now officially moved from Alice Through the Looking Glass into the Twilight Zone.

Ruth Smeeth, ex-Israel lobbyist for Bicom and a key player in outlawing solidarity for Palestinians in the Labour party, is the new CEO of free speech group Index on Censorship! https://t.co/UmHXbTQETS

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) June 15, 2020

Boy who cried wolf

The Haaretz article helps to contextualise Europe’s current antisemitism “witch-hunt”, which targets anyone who criticises Israel or stands in solidarity with oppressed Palestinians, or associates with such people. It is an expansion of the earlier campaign by the Jewish establishment against “the wrong kind of Jew”, as identified by Finkelstein in The Holocaust Industry. But this time Jewish organisations are playing a much higher-stakes, and more dangerous, political game.

Haaretz rightly fears that the Jewish leadership in Europe is not only silencing ordinary Jews but degrading the meaning – the shock value – of antisemitism through the very act of politicising it. Jewish organisations risk alienating the European left, which has historically stood with them against Jew hatred from the right. European anti-racists suddenly find themselves equated with, and smeared as, fledgling neo-Nazis.

If those who support human rights and demand an end to the oppression of Palestinians find themselves labelled antisemitic, it will become ever harder to distinguish between bogus (weaponised) “antisemitism” on the left and real Jew hatred from the right. The antisemitism smearers – and their fellow travellers like Keir Starmer – are likely to end up suffering their very own “boy who cried wolf” syndrome.

Or as Haaretz notes:

The issue that is bothering the critics of the Bundestag [German parliament] resolution is whether the extension of the concept of antisemitism to encompass criticism of Israel is not actually adversely affecting the battle against antisemitism. The argument is that the ease with which the accusation is leveled could have the effect of eroding the concept itself. 

The Antisemitism Industry

It is worth noting the shared features of the new Antisemitism Industry and Finkelstein’s earlier discussions of the Holocaust Industry.

In his book, Finkelstein identifies the “wrong Jews” as people like his mother, who survived a Nazi death camp as the rest of her family perished. These surviving Jews, Finkelstein argues, were valued by the Holocaust Industry only in so far as they served as a promotional tool for the Jewish establishment to accumulate more wealth and cultural and political status. Otherwise, the victims were ignored because the actual Holocaust’s message – in contrast to the Jewish leadership’s representation of it – was universal: that we must oppose and fight all forms of racism because they lead to persecution and genocide.

Instead the Holocaust Industry promoted a particularist, self-interested lesson that the Holocaust proves Jews are uniquely oppressed and that they therefore deserve a unique solution: a state, Israel, that must be given unique leeway by western states to commit crimes in violation of international law. The Holocaust Industry – very much to be distinguished from the real events of the Holocaust – is deeply entwined in, and rationalised by, the perpetuation of the racialist, colonial project of Israel.

In the case of the Antisemitism Industry, the “wrong Jew” surfaces again. This time the witch-hunt targets Jewish leftwingers, Jews critical of Israel, Jews opposed to the occupation, and Jews who support a boycott of the illegal settlements or of Israel itself. Again, the problem with these “bad Jews” is that they allude to a universal lesson, one that says Palestinians have at least as much right to self-determination, to dignity and security, in their historic homeland as Jewish immigrants who fled European persecution.

Keir Starmer needs to listen to the 'proudly pro-Israel' Americans for Peace Now. They reject the IHRA definition for 'weaponising' antisemitism and allowing 'McCarthyite witch hunts' of Israel critics. Only those living in a 'black hole' could support it https://t.co/mNCj0LqCky

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 6, 2020

In contrast to the “bad Jews”, the Antisemitism Industry demands that a particularist conclusion be drawn about Israel – just as a particularist conclusion was earlier drawn by the Holocaust Industry. It says that to deny Jews a state is to leave them defenceless against the eternal virus of antisemitism. In this conception, the Holocaust may be uniquely abhorrent but it is far from unique. Non-Jews, given the right circumstances, are only too capable of carrying out another Holocaust. Jews must therefore always be protected, always on guard, always have their weapons (or in Israel’s case, its nuclear bombs) to hand.

‘Get out of jail’ card

This view, of course, seeks to ignore, or marginalise, other victims of the Holocaust – Romanies, communists, gays – and other kinds of racism. It needs to create a hierarchy of racisms, a competition between them, in which hatred of Jews is at the pinnacle. This is how we arrived at an absurdity: that anti-Zionism – misrepresented as the rejection of a refuge for Jews, rather than the reality that it rejects an ethnic, colonial state oppressing Palestinians – is the same as antisemitism.

Extraordinarily, as the Haaretz article clarifies, German officials are oppressing “bad Jews”, at the instigation of Jewish organisations, to prevent, as they see it, the re-emergence of the far-right and neo-Nazis. The criticisms of Israel made by the “bad Jew” are thereby not just dismissed as ideologically unsound or delusions but become proof that these Jews are colluding with, or at least nourishing, the Jew haters.

In this way, Germany, the UK and much of Europe have come to justify the exclusion of the “wrong Jew” – those who uphold universal principles for the benefit of all – from the public space. Which, of course, is exactly what Israel wants, because, rooted as it is in an ideology of ethnic exclusivity as a “Jewish state”, it necessarily rejects universal ethics.

What we see here is an illustration of a principle at the heart of Israel’s state ideology of Zionism: Israel needs antisemitism. Israel would quite literally have to invent antisemitism if it did not exist.

This is not hyperbole. The idea that the “virus of antisemitism” lies semi-dormant in every non-Jew waiting for a chance to overwhelm its host is the essential rationale for Israel. If the Holocaust was an exceptional historical event, if antisemitism was an ancient racism that in its modern incarnation followed the patterns of prejudice and hatred familiar in all racisms, from anti-black bigotry to Islamophobia, Israel would be not only redundant but an abomination – because it has been set up to dispossess and abuse another group, the Palestinians.

Antisemitism is Israel’s “get out of jail” card. Antisemitism serves to absolve Israel of the racism it structurally embodies and that would be impossible to overlook were Israel deprived of the misdirection weaponised antisemitism provides.

An empty space

The Haaretz article provides a genuine service by not only reminding us that “bad Jews” exist but in coming to their defence – something that European media is no longer willing to do. To defend “bad Jews” like Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is to be contaminated with the same taint of antisemitism that justified the ejection of these Jews from the public space.

Haaretz records the effort of a few brave cultural institutions in Germany to protest, to hold the line, against this new McCarthyism. Their stand may fail. If it does, you may never become aware of it.

The fraudulent 'Labour antisemitism' controversy has empowered the most thuggish elements in the organised British Jewish community.

Case in point: the Campaign Against Antisemitism effectively calls for Professor David Feldman to keep quiet or be sacked. https://t.co/QWvNg84c2E

— JamieSW (@jsternweiner) December 4, 2020

Once, the “bad Jews” have been smeared into silence, as Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them largely have been already; when social media has de-platformed critics of Israel as Jew haters; when the media and political parties enforce this silence so absolutely they no longer need to smear anyone as an antisemite because these “antisemites” have been disappeared; when the Jewish “community” speaks with one voice because its other voices have been eliminated; when the censorship is complete, you will not know it.

There will be no record of what was lost. There will be simply an empty space, a blank slate, where discussions of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians once existed. What you will hear instead is only what Israel and its partisans want you to hear. Your ignorance will be blissfully complete.

#palestine #israel #BDS #antisemitism #weaponized antisemitism #bibi netanyahu #protests against netanyahu #haaretz #AIPAC #good jews #bad jews #jews #jewish people #israelis #holocaust #jeremy corbyn #witch hunt #mccarthyism #labour #censorship #israel lobby #BICOM #political speech #obama #german politics #european politics #middle east politics #us politics