I was raised reform Jewish and am half Jewish by family history. I have ancestors who were victims of the pogroms in the Russian pale of settlement – specifically, all four of my great-grandparents on my father’s side, along with their parents (my great-great-grandparents). When they were children their families fled and eventually resettled in the USA.

There is another place that they could have gone instead: Palestine. At that time it was still part of the Ottoman Empire, and some of the displaced Jews of that time did elect to go to Palestine. As it happens, my ancestors chose the US, but they could have gone to Palestine if they’d wanted to.

The fashionable posture on the left to take towards Israeli Jews recently has basically been a combination of glibness and vitriolic hatred, often reaching the point of wishing death upon them (examples: 1 2). I don’t know… I just can’t really feel good about stuff like that. The fact that my family ended up in the US and not Palestine is really just a quirk of fate. I don’t think that my ancestors were, like, morally better people for choosing the US over Ottoman-era Palestine. (And given the recent uptick in “Turtle Island” discourse, it seems like a fair number of leftists believe my ancestors shouldn’t have been allowed to resettle in the US either.)

I think that Zionism (with the possible exception of cultural Zionism) has generally been a noxious idea throughout its history. I don’t think the state of Israel should continue to exist as it is currently constituted, and I think the near-ubiquitous racism among Israelis is shameful. But I also don't think that every Jewish person who moved to Palestine in the last 150 years was a bad person for doing that, and I’m not prepared to circle-jerk over the deaths of people that I have a fair amount in common with historically.

Am I missing something? Have I been hoodwinked by Zionist propaganda?

  • hello_hello [comrade/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    you elaborate on what you mean by this?

    The use of armed conflict, enslavement, and settlement of lands. You'll hear Zionists say that since they've been in the land for over 70 years that they have a right to it and you cannot take them away.

    It's ironic because really no one is going to take them away. But they've internalized this view of the world of being the oppressor, that they can only see Palestinians as being the same oppressors to them.

    Is the exact same paranoia that is common in all settler countries in Western Europe, in the United States of America and Australia.

    For instance, would you consider.

    Yeah, Europeans don't know how to do diplomacy.

    What view of statecraft do you support as an alternative?

    I'm hugely in favor of the Chinese view of diplomacy, especially in the win-win diplomacy, where foreign policy is non-interventionist and seeks the best interests of all parties.

    China has demonstrated that this type of diplomacy is not only possible but highly valuable in creating a better, more just world.

    While the US stays paranoid that its enemies that it's created will do the same sort of crimes to it, China doesn't seek revenge but only to make amends.