#progressive Zionism

[mauricedharris]

My Israel/Palestine Learning Curve Is a Zigzag

Part 1: My Moroccan-Israeli family I am the child of a family of Moroccan Jewish refugees who found refuge in Israel. My mom was 16 on the day in 1956 when her entire life in Morocco abruptly ended — the day that her father was tipped off by an Arab friend that he was marked for death by the Moroccan liberation fighters (who were trying to oust their French colonizers) because he was discovered…

[luthienne]

Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick, from Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

[thewoodbine]

Someone asked me in good faith if I believe in a land for both Palestinians and Israelis then why do I seem to speak more to the benefit and defense of all Jewish people than I do for Palestinians and I think it's worth a bigger discussion.

Y'all the hate and misinformation in the pro-palestine movement is off the CHARTS.

A large portion of the stuff I see claiming to support Palestinians on this website that I could reblog is either:

Completely untrue and not based on anything factual

Potentially even intentional misinformation or propaganda by malicious parties

Calls for increased violence or hatred

Zealous, fanatical, fascist, or pro-terror rhetoric

Wildly unproductive and beneficial to absolutely no one. Such as things that are not in the interests of Palestinians while also managing to harm the most Jews as possible

Logical fallacies, false dichotomies, useless or offensive comparisons

Conflating Israeli government with Israeli peoples and Jews on the whole

Absolutely raging blatant antisemitism

Using the term "Zionist" as the justification for their violence, hatred, racism, and antisemitism while still feeling like they can masquerade as pro-peace love and justice without actually being critical of the systems that led to where we are now

It's a major major problem. The things we balked against in the far right in 2016 are becoming main-stays for this movement more and more and it's distressing.

I never defend Israel because...well... I don't personally support its actions. But I also cant sit silent while people seem to blindly and passionately fall for all of the traps above and feel like they're doing the progressive compassionate thing. So I try do what I can- speak out as much as possible against the flaws I see popping up in the pro palestine movement with the hope it doesn't snowball into something monstrous and far warped from its original intention. I want Palestinians to thrive but it can't and won't be through antisemitism.

We MUST find a way forward that is better than the sort of thinking that got us here.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Palestinian activists in Ontario are asking you to email your reps about Bill 166. The wording of the bill is extremely vague, but it seems like the Ford government wants to open itself the possibility to meddle in mental health services provided by Universities and to change their anti-racism policies. It is very likely - with the timing - that these policy changes are going to be saught to arrest / institutionalize Palestinians for divulge during therapy, or to deny them service altogether. They want to control University campus mental healthcare, something no other province does.

@newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

[that-rad-jewish-girl]

In the midst of rich kids screaming “fuck the Jews” and “burn down Tel Aviv”, proof of life was offered for Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Not that those kids will care.

The hostages were fake, but then the hostages fell in love with their captors?

They want Israeli women to speak out about the rape to believe them, but the women were lying when they spoke out anyway?

Hamas are just innocent freedom fighters for the liberation of Palestine, but also “fuck the Jews” and “burn Tel Aviv to the ground” “by any means necessary”.

There was no real violence on Oct. 7th, but also we have a video of a man’s arm blown off before being taken into Gaza. And his proof of life was released yesterday with a mangled arm and shaved head.

Just know, in your desperate search for oppression, you have alienated every Jewish person in the world. You have shown us your true colors. We will never trust you again. You began these protests before an Israeli response was even started. You don’t protest for people in any other part of that region. You don’t even protest for Palestinians when it’s their own people killing them.

It was never about Israel. And we will never forget that.

[mithwitch]

FOR YOUR ZIONIST BLOCKLIST

zygodactylus/jewish-kulindadromeus/a-dinosaur-a-day DEFINITELY NOT BEING RACIST below:

DONT WORRY THIS PERSON’S A

N O N Z I O N I S T !!!!!!!!!!!! Believe it :)

one more time:

[chelledoggo]

please don't mistake American evangelical Zionism for solidarity with Jewish folks.

the majority of American conservative evangelicals are anti-Semitic to at least some degree. like... even the ones who don't outright hate Jewish folks will still tie them into conspiracy theories or believe they need to "come to Jesus."

conservative "Christians" only really care about Israel because they think that, according to the book of Revelations, if it's secured as a state it means Jesus will come back.

it's not about respecting Jewish folks. it's about fulfilling a "prophecy" which was never actually written to be a forecast of the future and was more of an epic tale to inspire oppressed Christians under Rome at the time of its writing.

(something something my ted talk)

[blastlight]

every so often i think about how if i ever make a post or something that blows up, i'll immediately be harassed en masse by people claiming i'm a zionist

[p0ison-moon]

said it before & I’ll say it again Zionists are terrified of a free Palestine because to them that has to mean violently exiling all Jews in the area, ethnic cleansing and genocide. because that is exactly what they did/are trying to do to Palestinians right now. they can’t imagine liberation that isn’t predicated on oppressing someone else.

[aeolianblues]

hey man if converting to a new religion means you need to suddenly turn ultra-conservative and become okay with transgressions that you wouldn't have accepted outside of religious contexts and you constantly are walking on eggshells for them to accept you then WHAT is the fucking point. What's the point. 'Point of religion is peace and love and keeping a conscience and society in check' but the entry point is trial by murder. Sure. This is 100% a good, peaceful, stable and non-violent idea. 100% not a cult and brainwashing.

[ohmerricat]

anybody else really disappointed in ezra furman

oppression of israelis? what on earth are you talking about? where have the radical-judaism-as-philosophy-of-revolution core tenets your lyrics have been suffused with gone?

[syn0vial]

yesterday, i learned that one of my acquaintances from church is like, gleefully and unreservedly supportive of the gazan genocide despite going to a church where every sermon for the past few weeks has been about the horrors and tragedy of said genocide. like, i could not fucking believe how hilarious he seemed to think it is that innocent palestinians are dying, just grinning and laughing and shaking his head and rolling his eyes when my pastor and i expressed horror at the innocent people being killed. just remembering it makes me choke up with anger.

anyway, i'm going to be very stupid and try to talk to him about it this coming sunday. i'll use all my teacherly tricks to try and gently lead him to feel one single scrap of empathy for the victims of israel's civilian massacre, but lbr: he'll probably respond with the same amount of glee and condescension as last night and it's going to end with me making me a scene at church.

but i know i shouldn't. so here are some things i should NOT say, no matter how angry he makes me:

i've always hated the sound of your voice, even before you said such horrible things. you say everything with such condescension. when you read the gospels in church, i have to hide my face behind my program to hide my grimacing. you make the words of christ himself sound like a grift of some oily used car dealer who thinks he's smarter than he actually is. i pity you for going through life with such a voice, and pity you even more for thinking it charming.

it baffles me that you'd allow something as basically human as compassion for the suffering of others to be so utterly sanded away by propaganda. it's pathetic that you could laugh at innocents dying. you've let yourself be lobotomized by a clumsy surgeon and style yourself wise with the icepick still sticking from your skull.

i've always thought your face looks like an easter island head sculpted from a raw chicken breast.

see? none of those would be productive, no matter how truly they express my feelings about this person.

thus: people of faith, pray that god grants me the wisdom and restraint to not light this motherfucker up in the middle of coffee hour. amen.

[infiniteglitterfall]

pretty please, my fellow progressives

Could we please all keep in mind that the concept of "The Jews In General, or A Specific Type Of Jew, Controls Education, Government, Media, and/or Banking", is a longstanding antisemitic trope?

And most of all, that it is false??

No, a marginalized group does not also control education, the government, the media, and/or banking?

No, Jews do not secretly control these things and just pretend to be marginalized? No, Jews have not secretly been accumulating power since the Holocaust, granted by too-generous gentiles, out of pity?

No, it isn't better if you just mean a specific subgroup or kind of Jews. It's still specifically Jews.

It's like when people who hate trans/queer people are fine with rich white cis gay men. So they think it's not bigoted to blame "people with blue hair and pronouns" for the downfall of society.

We all know this means, "I only see some of you as human like me. You have to speak and act a certain way to count. Everyone in your group has to pass a test to get into the Good group."

Doesn't work.

Sure, it gives them plausible deniability to the people who matter to them. But everyone else can see exactly how they feel.

We've all known for years that it's bad to think of a marginalized group as having some "good ones." Rein it the heck in, please.

Because YES, all of those examples are ones I've seen implied, or stated outright, over and over, within the progressive community. This month alone.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hamilton MPP Sarah Jama is threatening to sue Premier Doug Ford for accusing her of antisemitism over comments she made in support of Palestinians.

Jama's office served the cease and desist letter to Ford on Thursday, said a statement from her lawyer Stephen Ellis and the Legal Centre for Palestine. The letter says if Ford does not remove his social media post, and publicly apologize, Jama will pursue legal action for defamation. 

"Ms. Jama maintains the post was reckless and malicious," the statement said. "Ms. Jama will not tolerate Premier Ford's attempts to tarnish her reputation in such a public manner."

NDP leader Marit Stiles responded to Jama providing legal notice to Ford, stating in an email "the premier made inflammatory accusations against MPP Jama." She declined to comment further as it is a legal matter. 

"Though I would call out this government for repeatedly and cynically fanning the flames of division during such a painful time," she added. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[workersolidarity]

Even Wikipedia admits there was only a small Jewish population in Palestine before the creation of Israel as a "national home for the Jewish People" in Palestine.

Would we want to help ISIS create a Caliphate that segregates and inflicts violence on non-Arab civilians and then provide Military and Financial assistance to enforce this Apartheid?

It's completely insane