Just saw a friend post this and I was wondering if people have resources to counter some of these statements I can send their way.
Some highlights:
Do not claim that Jews are white: Portraying Jews as “white” is done to make them fit more easily fit into the narrative that Zionism is a “white colonialist” project. There are Jews of every skin color. Only 30% of Israelis are Ashkenazi (European) Jews. Almost 45% are indigenous Mizrahi Jews. There are many others, such as Maghrebi Jews and Ethiopian Jews. Almost half of Israeli Jews are ethnically mixed. Jews outside of Israel are diverse, too.
Avoid using the terms Zionist or Zionism to describe the Israeli Government or Jews: These terms have become pejorative and are too broad to be useful. A Zionist is one who believes Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel. That includes Jews of all political persuasions, most Evangelical Christians, and anyone who supports a two-state solution (such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia or China). Israel is a modern nation-state. Its people are simply Israelis, much as people in Australia are simply Australians. Rather than referring to “the Zionists”, refer to “the Israeli Government” or “the Netanyahu Government”.
Do not lie about Jews’ connection to Israel: This is a delegitimization tactic. Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. There have always been Jews in Israel, although they have rarely had sovereignty or been the majority. While some of Israel’s enemies accuse it of being colonialist, many Jews view Israel’s creation as decolonization (it was Jewish insurgents who drove the colonialist British out of Palestine). This historicity of Jews being from Israel does give them a claim to the land, but it does not mean Palestinians have no claim.
Do not call for Israel’s destruction: Racists have weaponized the Palestinian independence struggle, making anti-Zionism the new anti-Semitism. Claiming to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish is like saying you are not anti-Japanese, but just want to destroy Japan. It is anti-Semitic to say that Jews are the only people in the world without the right to a homeland. Calling for Israel’s destruction with rabid chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or “By any means necessary” is to call for the death of millions. That is disgusting. Calling for serious solutions is welcome.
Those things that undermine every premise of our racist settler-colonial project... you can't say them... because... you just can't, okay? Instead you have to confine yourself to a form of protest that accepts every single one of my premises.
These people are not serious and should simply be ignored. I just want to zero in on one thing:
It is anti-Semitic to say that Jews are the only people in the world without the right to a homeland
What the actual fuck, no, ethnostates are universally bad actually.
There have always been Jews in Israel
The ones who remained are now referred to as Palestinians, after converting to Christianity by the 4th century and largely converting to Islam over the past millennia.
The idea that Palestinians are not indigenous to Palestine, calling them “Arab Palestinians”, is not correct.
Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine and framing their oppression as anti-colonialism is an extremely perverse myth.
writer literally has a post titled ANTI-ZIONISM IS THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM, these people are not serious
the antisemitic form of antizionism is that which equates jews with israel. unsurprisingly, this is also something that zionists do. if you want to "criticize israel without being antisemitic" you must reject the premise that a genocidal ethnostate legitimately represents the jewish people.
There are many others, such as Maghrebi Jews and Ethiopian Jews.
Yeah the Israeli treatment of Ethiopian Jews doesn’t exactly counter the white settler colonial narrative.
Or the hundreds of Yemeni Jewish children that were taken from their biological families and given to Ashkenazi childless couples.
Only 30% of Israelis are Ashkenazi (European) Jews. Almost 45% are indigenous Mizrahi Jews. There are many others
Oh? And how does Israeli society treat the non-Ashkenazi Jews? How do they treat the Beta Israel?
Not well. There is a clear hierarchy in Israeli society and the Ashkenazi Jews are at the top.
Portraying Jews as “white” is done to make them fit more easily fit into the narrative that Zionism is a “white colonialist” project. There are Jews of every skin color. Only 30% of Israelis are Ashkenazi (European) Jews. Almost 45% are indigenous Mizrahi Jews. There are many others, such as Maghrebi Jews and Ethiopian Jews. Almost half of Israeli Jews are ethnically mixed. Jews outside of Israel are diverse, too.
Lmao. Doesn’t matter if they were 100% black Jews. Zionism would still be a white European colonial project.
Everything else will be ignored and laughed at.
Actually, before I do that
Do not lie about Jews’ connection to Israel: This is a delegitimization tactic. Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. There have always been Jews in Israel, although they have rarely had sovereignty or been the majority. While some of Israel’s enemies accuse it of being colonialist, many Jews view Israel’s creation as decolonization (it was Jewish insurgents who drove the colonialist British out of Palestine). This historicity of Jews being from Israel does give them a claim to the land, but it does not mean Palestinians have no claim.
The first Zionists explicitly called their projects colonial, planned on selecting a bunch of different countries and states as being the “homeland”, and called themselves outsiders compared to the native Palestinians. This was during a period where colonialism was something to be proud about and openly discussed
Seems like you're trying to let the genociders tone police your criticism of their genocide.
In a nutshell, criticise the specifics of the settler colonial project but don't question the illegal occupying entity.
This begs the question, how many Palestinians have to starve before we can acknowledge the zionist entity is acting exactly as any other fascist state? How draconian must its class laws become until it can be called apartheid? How many murdered children do they need for the families and neighbours of those victims have the right to question the legitimacy of the zionist entity?
Calling Palestinians "rabid" kind of gives away the game there, buckaroo.
Portraying Jews as “white” is done to make them fit more easily fit into the narrative that Zionism is a “white colonialist” project.
Tell Israel to stop hiring eastern Europeans to portray their IDF thirst traps, then
Its people are simply Israelis, much as people in Australia are simply Australians.
Yeah, about that
Portraying Jews as “white” is done to make them fit more easily fit into the narrative that Zionism is a “white colonialist” project.
So I don't know the name of logical fallacies but I think this would be considered a strawman? He's slightly twisting criticism of Israel to make it easier to attack. First of all, let's say for the sake of argument Jews are not white - the key word in "white colonialist" is not "white" but "colonialist." It's still a colonial project. And secondly, it might be more accurately said to be a "European colonialist" project or a "settler colony" which is what I usually hear from people. He's trying to get you bogged down in some argument about whether or not Jews are white which is not really the issue here. With regards to claims about colonialism, he doesn't even address them.
These terms have become pejorative and are too broad to be useful. A Zionist is one who believes Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel.
This one is weird. He says zionism is too broad then goes on to pretty much accurately define zionism and name a bunch of zionist entities. People have referred to the U.S. government, maybe not as "zionism," but at least as "supporting zionism" - which is like the same thing. I've usually seen zionist or "supporting zionism" used for zionist entities or those entities supportive of the Israeli state. I don't really understand his criticism here. He himself shows that zionism is not too broad and in fact has a specific definition, and people/organizations are being criticized for supporting zionism as defined by him.
Do not lie about Jews’ connection to Israel: This is a delegitimization tactic. Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. There have always been Jews in Israel, although they have rarely had sovereignty or been the majority. While some of Israel’s enemies accuse it of being colonialist, many Jews view Israel’s creation as decolonization (it was Jewish insurgents who drove the colonialist British out of Palestine). This historicity of Jews being from Israel does give them a claim to the land, but it does not mean Palestinians have no claim.
This one is one I hate. What is implicit here is that Palestinians are not indigenous - it's the Jews that are indigenous. Firstly, that's nonsense - the Palestinians are descendants of people who have always lived in the area. Their ancestors were likely Jews, way back before both Islam and Christianity.
But secondly, this is like changing the subject. He's trying to get you bogged down in an argument over whether or not the Jews are indigenous or not. Stick to the real problem at hand - the treatment of Palestinians by Israel.
So, a certain zionist argument often goes like this: Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, they got kicked out at some point (? or something, somehow they left), the Palestinians moved in (untrue, see above, they were always there), Israel is just the Jews taking back their rightful homeland, shouldn't they have a right to a homeland? And so then you come in and say well Israel shouldn't exist - because their argument for the state of Israel is founded upon this idea of a Jewish homeland, they start arguing with you about "well the Jewish people were there first" and suddenly you are having an argument about the indigeneity of Jewish people and who has more of a claim to the land. But your criticism of Israel is not starting from "Jewish people aren't indigenous" or "Jews don't have a right to a homeland" or whatever words zionists are trying to put in your mouth - your criticism of Israel begins from Israel as a European settler colony and Israel's treatment of Palestinians as constituting genocide. This guy's argument about Jewish indigeneity is just skirting the issue - he's just trying to get you to argue on his terms.
Claiming to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish is like saying you are not anti-Japanese, but just want to destroy Japan
It's not, but this person has no understanding of zionism. Except this person is starting from the belief that Israel is not a settler colony so his logic does make sense. But your logic is different since it's beginning from the idea of Israel as a settler colony.
A Zionist is one who believes Jews have a right to a homeland
in IsraelThere I fixed it.
And what did Israel do to the Ethiopian Jews?
Big Input
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon
US government was also involved in the organization of the airlift. The decision of the Ethiopian government to allow all the Falashas to leave the country at once was largely motivated by a letter from President George H. W. Bush, who had some involvement with Operations Joshua and Moses. Previous to this, Mengistu intended to allow emigration only in exchange for weaponry
Ethiopian women in Israel 'given contraceptive without consent'
Jews lived there just fine in peace with the Muslims until the Zionist ethno-fascists hijacked the place. It isn't about "the Jews". It is about Zionism and ethno-fascist theocratic governments. Why do they insist on a theocracy and aparthied. Zionist is not too "broad" and as
states "you don't need to be Jewish to be a Zionist".Zionism - Revionist Zionism - and their Greater Israel project are very defined and it is toxic for Hasbara to deal with because they are forced to confront textbook fascism and genocide - which also are defined. If you want to really twist their nipples you can go into the early formation of the modern state and it's ruling party Likud. That's an even more toxic.
There was the Balfour Declaration of 1917
In which Lord Rothschild of the British aristocracy said OK to the Zionists.
A part that clearly discates as long as there is religous and political equality
it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
You have Einstein letter to the NYT warning the Zionists wanting to colonize Palestine exhibit fascistic terrorist qualities akin to Nazism.
Snip -
The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.
With the Einstien bit you might get pushback that Einstien was a Zionist too. Enter Labor Zionism which originally wanted a homeland for the Jews, but in cooperation. Einstien still called out the fascists for what they are today and that's the point. Labor Zionists are still colonizers.
Albert Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish–Arab cooperation. Fred Jerome in his Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East argues that Einstein was a Cultural Zionist who supported the idea of a Jewish homeland but opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine "with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power." Instead, he preferred a bi-national state with "continuously functioning, mixed, administrative, economic, and social organizations."
However, Ami Isseroff in his article Was Einstein a Zionist argues that Einstein was not opposed to the state of Israel given that Einstein declared it "the fulfillment of our dreams." Perceiving its vulnerability after independence, he again set aside his pacifism in the name of human preservation, when president Harry Truman recognized Israel in May 1948. In the November 1948 presidential election Einstein supported former vice-president Henry A. Wallace’s Progressive Party, which advocated a pro-Soviet foreign policy – but which also at the time (like the USSR) strongly supported the new state of Israel. Wallace went down to defeat, winning no states
You have the precursor to Likud - the Zionist terrorist movement Irgun
Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" is written above the map, and "raq kach" ("only thus") is written below.
Then again these are fanatical racist fascists colonizers you're
There's a cute UwU term they call colonizing - Aliyah
They want it to only be about "The Jews" as cover for their crimes. They are ethno-fascists, colonizers, thiefs. If they want to live in Palestine, then they have to honor the Belfour agreement and integrate with the Palestinians with equal rights for all. Probably why they don't have a constiution either. Remember our OG constiution only reguarded Blacks as 3/5 a person. But if you purge the Palestinians then no worries right?
