#Jewish Anti-Zionism

[libertariantaoist]

As a progressive Jew, I find that many of my family members and friends are still what we call “PEP,” progressive except Palestine. Amid ever-worsening injustices created by the Israeli system of apartheid and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, it is past time for this to change.

I am hopeful that the firestorm sparked by Michelle Alexander’s recent New York Times column, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” will finally generate the heat necessary to force more people and groups on the left to overcome the fundamental hypocrisy of the “progressive except Palestine” approach.

I was deeply inspired by Alexander’s column and her decision to speak so honestly about the difficulty of overcoming the fear of backlash over taking a public stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Striking a comparison between the risk taken by prominent critics of Israel and the risk Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took by publicly criticizing the Vietnam War, Alexander observes, “Those who speak publicly in support of the liberation of the Palestinian people still risk condemnation and backlash.”

Invoking Dr. King’s exhortation that “a time comes when silence is betrayal,” Alexander reflects on “the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine.”

Alexander’s words resonated with me, a Jew who uncritically supported Israel for many years until I saw the parallels between U.S. policy in Vietnam and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. My activism and critical writings have followed a trajectory from Vietnam to South Africa to Israel to Iraq to Afghanistan and other countries where the United States continues its imperial military actions.

Although many of my articles are controversial as they criticize the actions of the U.S. government — under both Democratic and Republican regimes — I get the most pushback from my writings about Israel-Palestine. When I analyze Israel’s illegal occupation and crimes against the Palestinians, I am often called a “self-hating” Jew.

Read More

[shoshanaa]

it’s always “the only people who can decide what is disrespectful to a group (ethnic, racial, sexual etc) are the people who are in this group” until a jew tells you antizionism is antisemitism

“white person cannot decide what is racist towards black people and what is not” i agree

“straight person cannot decide what is homophobic and what is not” i agree

so why non jews can decide what is antisemitic and what is not? why they feel like they can speak over us? the double standards are real

i just want people to practice what they preach.

[arabian-batboy]

Emily Wilder, a Jewish journalist at The Associated Press, has just been fired by the AP after conservatives rallied to get her fired for having tweets critical of Israel and for being part of Students for Justice in Palestine while she was in college

The Associated Press not only had their offices literally bombed this month by Israel’s strikes, but they even had previous journalists/cameramen shot dead by Israeli soldiers while in work and wearing journalist-identifying vests, yet they still bowed to pressure from the Israeli lobby and fired a reporter for having criticized the same entity that bombed their offices/killed their workers.

Source for Emily Wilder being fired: X

Source of the AP’s offices being destroyed: X

Source for the AP having journalists/cameraman killed by the IDF: X 

[scorpion-flower]

Solidarity is beautiful

[dikleyt]

For a growing number of leftists, "Zionist" doesn't just mean someone who supports a Jewish state in the Land of Israel; it means any Jew who doesn't renounce all Jewish history and all Jewish ties to that land, a land that has always been inextricable from Judaism. A land has been inextricable from Judaism since before there was a notion of Palestine (though "Peleshet", the Semitic root of the Greek term, dates back further and originally referred to the Mediterranean coastal region). It's not going to stop being essential to Judaism.

It’s important to note that it isn't inherently Zionist for Jews to pray for / talk about a desire to return to Eretz Yisrael - or even to go and do so, as many non-Zionist Haredi groups attest - that's just Jewish, and has always been Jewish. It's a mitzvah to live in the Land of Israel. Some fringe Jewish groups renounce their attachment to the land entirely, but they're outliers. Zionism involves a Jewish state in the land, which is separate from the historical reality of Jewish origin in, and attachment to, the land. People who deny the latter are wrong and often malicious.

I'm saying this mainly to counter a distressing tendency to view a growing number of normal Jewish things, things that are essential to Judaism, as Zionist. Often this is enabled by the Jewish left, who often invents new excuses for doing so out of thin air. It's not only untenable, but it's violent, an attempt at cultural genocide and historical erasure.

[eretzyisrael]

The third way in which antisemitism has manifested itself is as opposition not primarily to Jewish religion or Jewish life but to Jewish sovereignty — as hatred of a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland. In biblical times this was rampant, but during the long era of Jewish exile, when Jews had no state and no national political power, this type of anti-Jewish hostility became largely a dead letter.

That changed with the birth of modern Zionism and the movement to reestablish a Jewish homeland. In the 20th century, campaigns of national liberation and self-determination changed the map of the world, bringing scores of new countries into existence in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Of all those countries, only Israel has had to face a decades-long campaign of demonization and delegitimization. At bottom, anti-Zionism has very little to do with criticism of Israel’s policies or sympathy for Palestinian Arabs, both of which are perfectly in order. It has everything to do with denying to Jews a right that Slovaks, Chinese, Iranians, and Mexicans take for granted: a state of their own.

To anti-Zionists, Jewish sovereignty is as intolerable today as it was in 1948, when five Arab armies invaded the newborn state of Israel, vowing “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.” That war wasn’t launched to achieve a two-state solution but to prevent one: The Arab world rejected the United Nations decision to partition Palestine into two countries, one Jewish and one Arab. What animates Israel’s enemies is not the desire to establish a 22nd Arab state but to disestablish the world’s lone Jewish state.

Anti-Zionism need not express itself in hateful or violent rhetoric to be antisemitic. It is antisemitic by definition. A relentless obsession with Israel’s sins, real and imagined; the denial that Jews are entitled to Jewish sovereignty — these are not mere expressions of opinion, they are expressions of bigotry against the Jewish people. O’Brien’s words are part of the rising tide of antisemitism in America and around the world. They deserved the condemnation they received, and then some.

[awkward-fangirling-potato]

😘

[hematite2]

To everyone trying to excuse their anti-semitism behind veiled cries of 'Zionism'

Zionism is the belief that Jews have both a right and need to self governance. That they have a right to a homeland.

'Zionism' is not a system of government. It is not Netanyahu. It is not settlements. When you say 'I don't hate Jews, I just hate Zionists' or talk about murdering 'Zionists', that's what you're referring to. You're saying Jews don't have a right to a homeland.

You don't get to use it as a catch-all for 'People I don't like'.

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

I am a five foot dynamite Jewish bitch and I say free Palestine!

[libertariantaoist]

Why does Palestine matter? It’s a question I ask myself nearly every day. Another way to put it is, “Is the devotion of major attention to the plight of the Palestinians an obsession worthy of suspicion or an appropriate response to a grave historic and continuing injustice?

No one will be surprised when I reply that major attention is an appropriate response. Palestine matters and should matter. I will try to explain why. 

First, perhaps most basically, the sheer cruelty — the scope of the violation of human, i.e., natural individual, rights — of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians warrants the concern of all who favor freedom and other (classical) liberal values: justice, social cooperation, free exchange, and peace.

Let’s start with the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, says front and center on its website: “Israel’s regime of occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations.” No one who sheds the blinders of the Official Narrative can help but feel pain over the institutional barriers to normal life, not to mention the literal destruction of life, that are regular features of Israel’s rule in the West Bank (with nearly 3 million Palestinians), East Jerusalem (over 300,000), and Gaza Strip (nearly 2 million). It is no exaggeration to describe the system as an instance of apartheid, which is the word used by Israeli human-rights organizations and former government officials.

[Read More] (https://libertarianinstitute.org/tgif-why-palestine-matters/)

[shoshanaa]

Anti-Zionism =/= criticism of Israeli policy

Criticism would be "Israel should stop building in J+S" or "Israel's human rights record must improve"

Saying "Israel should be dismantled and replaced with another Arab colony" isn't criticism. It's a call for genocide.

[magicwithineleteo]

because they would support it too.

because they are against oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

because elena knows how it feels to have her home being ripped away from her.

because you don’t have to be a muslim/arab to support palestine.

because there are many jews around the world who condemn the israeli government.

because it’s not anti semitic to be anti zionist.

because they need freedom.

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free.

so you might have a few questions, and i will be answering them here :)

how long did it take you?

- i made it in a span of 5 days. according to procreate, i spent 5 hours on it.

is this the wip you sent in the elena of avalor fandom discord server?

- yep! i had just done elena's dress then and i was really proud of it :)

did you draw the background?

- no i just used a picture i saved and lowered the opacity

now i know those weren't the questions you had in mind, so here are the REAL questions and my answers:

how did you get this idea?

- i had been watching one of rashida tlaib's speeches on the situation and i thought of this concept and immediately became obsessed with it.

why did you make it?

- because they deserve freedom from the oppression they have been facing since 1948. innocent civilians should not die everyday, families should not have to worry about dying in different rooms. couples should not have to worry about one of them dying before their wedding. children should not be used to the sounds of bombs. children do not deserve to have their parents taken from them. parents don't deserve their children being taken from them. no one deserves any of what they are facing. that is why i made it. and it is infuriating when people dismiss the palestinian struggles and/or normalize the violence in the middle east. it is not fair to them. include muslims and palestinians in your activism please.

is it antisemitic to be antizionist?

- no, it's not. i have a post where i reposted things about that. here it is ! there are unfortunately many people who have used the free palestine movement to throw out their antisemitism. let me assure you that the true community does not support anti semitism. we have been very careful to not be anti semitic, as we are NOT targetting all jews for this oppression. i do sincerely apologize on behalf of the ridiculous people who are anti semitic, however i can confidently say that i have not been anti semitic.

there are jews who support palestine's freedom?

- yes! yes there are! this instagram account, @/jewishvoiceforpeace is full of support for palestinians and have many examples of jews who support it, like this lovely woman . that is why i included rebecca in this drawing, because it's okay to be jewish and be antizionist. there are also palestinian jews (and christians) facing this same persecution all because they are palestinian.

was this post targetted at anyone?

- no. i made this because i had the idea and i wanted to share it w the world. i know it may cause some trouble, but i made this accepting that. i am not going to change my beliefs for anyone and no amount of convincing could change my mind.

what about israel's side?

- what ABOUT israel's side? they are the oppressors in this situation. no one ever considered the oppressors' sides in any previous genocides. so why are we starting to ask that now? when it's been clear who has been the oppressor and who isn't? the innocent civilians, the young kids who throw stones at the idf. they're the oppressors??? compared to the army, with many guns and weapons? tanks and bombs vs kites and flags…yeah, okay. not to mention how they constantly throw out people from their homes, families who have lived there for generations, aggressively remove children from their classrooms, as well as bomb hospitals and media stations, all under the guise of the incomparable threat of “hamas.” history has seen this before, namely the Holocaust; it is foolish and honestly reprehensible to ignore it when it is happening right in the open.

this is not a matter of politics, rather a matter of human rights and social justice.

i don't know what else to add, but i just wanted to say thank you if you made it this far. i appreciate it a lot. if you want to help out palestine, you can check out my pinned post as it has resources on there to help. i haven't updated it since may so some of the donation links may have already closed.

if you want to learn more about the situation, you can visit this website as it teaches the history very well and easily :)

thank you for reading, and i hope you are able to feel inner peace :)

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free.

[scorpion-flower]

I said what I said.

[progressivejudaism]

Here’s your #CasualReminder on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day that...

The Jews are TIRED y’all. Using this day to promote an anti-Israel agenda IS ANTISEMITISM.

Was the modern State of Israel around while 6 million of my ancestors were slaughtered in the Holocaust?

Arguing that Israel is committing a “genocide” or “another Holocaust” against Palestinians is antisemitic. And frankly, is not true. As an activist, when you use this sort of language you promote an incorrect and dangerous comparison. You’re not helping Palestinians and at the end of the day, you’re only hurting Jews.

Y’all, we’re exhausted. We American Jews just lived through an administration that constantly gaslit us and used us as an antisemitic ping pong ball. Antisemitism has steadily rissen in the United States over the past four years as an affinity for nationalism, white nationalist talking points, and fascism has grown.

Y’all, if you’re not Jewish, not Israeli, and not a Palestinian living in Palestine, Israel, or the diaspora, your first job in this conflict is to listen. If you want to work to upend the Occupation, listen to Palestinian, Israeli, and otherwise Jewish activists who are doing the work.

Listen to the people who deeply care about this land, who deeply love this land, and who are from this land.

Listen first. Learn from your listening. And he’ll us combat systemic inequalities at home and abroad.

** Anyone who seeks to add anything antisemitic, racist, or islamophobic to this post will be immediately blocked. But beyond that, please reblog this message if you can.

[dikleyt]

Every time you beat up or harass a Jew for wearing a Magen David or a kippa, you're convincing at least hundreds of Jews that they really aren't safe in the Diaspora.

If it were up to most of the people who emigrated to Israel, they would’ve stayed in the Diaspora. They weren’t ideologues, idealists, or fundamentalists. Most really didn’t want to go start a new life in a new country, even if it was the one they’d been praying to return to forever. They didn’t want to learn a new language, find a new job, serve in the f’ing army. They were refugees fleeing terrible antisemitism that expressed itself in moralistic terms.

Don’t repeat this dynamic. Break the cycle. Make your country a safe place for Jews to proudly and openly be Jews and you’ll eliminate the main reason most Jews end up making aliyah.