Alright, I'll just address what you brought up here, feel free to screengrab and post somewhere ig.
zionist is any one who supports the existence of a self proclaimed Jewish ethnostate
I generally agree with this definition. Going by it, Ethan would not be a zionist. Because at no point he proposed/defended a jewish state of Israel. He mourned the lives of people who died in the Oct 7 attack and complained about the "optics" and "timing" of the support of Palestinians, and how it can be misinterpreted as support for murder. This is textbook lib behavior, because that's what Ethan is (especially on this issue) - a liberal. Just like the vast majority of the people living in the imperial core. This is why I think he is both an important public-facing person and a great representation of the trope. Seeing where his opinion might be based on a lack of historical knowledge, where is it misinformed, or where he is simply unaware of the atrocities carried out by the Israeli state, we can learn how to more efficiently educate and agitate libs. That was roughly the point behind my comments on the other post, and so I'll leave it at this.
we should care about support from the “western world” and “Israeli citizens”. You are justifying continuing settler colonialism by crying about Israelis
If we presume that our goal is the cessation of hostilities and liberation of Palestinian peoples from the 75-year-old occupation - we absolutely should care about that support. Not to care about their feelings, not to sit on a fence with both sides, but from a material perspective. The support from both the Israeli and US governments is what perpetuates the oppression. So naturally, if we wanted to undo it - we should either alter the incentives for that support or hope for even more support for the Palestinian side. The latter is entirely impossible, considering that the offenders are the largest military forces worldwide and in the Middle East. And so the only possible avenue for changing that monetary and military support is changing the public opinion that allows it. Not in a "just vote" sense, but in a sense that introduces the suffering of Palestinian people on an understandable level to the regular neo-liberal person (whose taxes sponsor all of this). No modern American conflict - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - was stopped because of the unwavering moral support from the progressive comrades around the world (or the internet, for that matter). They weren't even stopped because of the material support from other nation-states. The only thing that consistently initially allowed and eventually wound these conflicts down (I'm omitting the struggle of people on the ground) was popular support at home. This is what I think is important to target and appeal to. Because I believe no sane human being with empathy would be against the Palestinian cause if they understood enough about it. Untangling the decades of propaganda and unwavering and uncritical support is what we can do, what could help, and therefore, in my opinion, what we should focus on. Bar any on-the-ground help and support, which most commenters on the internet and English-speaking people in general can not provide.
“a secular state for everyone” but this is not what I want
if Islamists are the only ones fighting for the freedom of Palestine then we should support them in doing so
should zionist war criminals be allowed?
Way to build a strawman argument. A secular state for everyone means a state that does not discriminate on religious or ethnic grounds. We should support the Palestinians in building such a state that spans from the river to the sea. As my comment in the OP says, with emphasis on righting the wrongs done to Palestinians. Simple as that. If you're advocating for an exclusively Jewish state - fuck you. If you're advocating for an exclusively Muslim state - fuck you. Punishments against the settlers and the occupying military forces, the said zionist war criminals, would be carried out as necessary and as is just by that secular state. Without the extra seasoning of "a Jew/Muslim did it, so it's worse". Otherwise, we're just playing a game of ethnic cleansing tag.
Why should anyone care about what settlers or imperialists think? They are NOT going to concede just because we speak softer or criticise less.
The "softer" or "less" here should be in regard to the international laws (which libs love and respect to an extent). Laws that already call Israel an apartheid state, laws that call the West Bank settlements illegal, the blockade of Gaza inhumane, and laws that say that Palestinian people are well within their rights to defend themselves through armed struggle. This is what we need to pull the baseline of the conversation to, this is what should be the default. Because right now the general narrative is "those terrorists are not human and every telegenically dead child and medic were actually human shields". There is a lot of work to be done before we bring your average normie to the position of the Geneva Convention, UN, or Amnesty International. Once we're there, we can expand the conversation to the basis on which Israel was originally founded. Skipping that step is impossible.
the vast majority of people here understand this position
That's also something I addressed. With this specific issue, you either talk to the minority that already agrees with you or try to educate and bring to your side those who don't. I think the second is ultimately more important.
Alright, I'll just address what you brought up here, feel free to screengrab and post somewhere ig.
I generally agree with this definition. Going by it, Ethan would not be a zionist. Because at no point he proposed/defended a jewish state of Israel. He mourned the lives of people who died in the Oct 7 attack and complained about the "optics" and "timing" of the support of Palestinians, and how it can be misinterpreted as support for murder. This is textbook lib behavior, because that's what Ethan is (especially on this issue) - a liberal. Just like the vast majority of the people living in the imperial core. This is why I think he is both an important public-facing person and a great representation of the trope. Seeing where his opinion might be based on a lack of historical knowledge, where is it misinformed, or where he is simply unaware of the atrocities carried out by the Israeli state, we can learn how to more efficiently educate and agitate libs. That was roughly the point behind my comments on the other post, and so I'll leave it at this.
If we presume that our goal is the cessation of hostilities and liberation of Palestinian peoples from the 75-year-old occupation - we absolutely should care about that support. Not to care about their feelings, not to sit on a fence with both sides, but from a material perspective. The support from both the Israeli and US governments is what perpetuates the oppression. So naturally, if we wanted to undo it - we should either alter the incentives for that support or hope for even more support for the Palestinian side. The latter is entirely impossible, considering that the offenders are the largest military forces worldwide and in the Middle East. And so the only possible avenue for changing that monetary and military support is changing the public opinion that allows it. Not in a "just vote" sense, but in a sense that introduces the suffering of Palestinian people on an understandable level to the regular neo-liberal person (whose taxes sponsor all of this). No modern American conflict - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - was stopped because of the unwavering moral support from the progressive comrades around the world (or the internet, for that matter). They weren't even stopped because of the material support from other nation-states. The only thing that consistently initially allowed and eventually wound these conflicts down (I'm omitting the struggle of people on the ground) was popular support at home. This is what I think is important to target and appeal to. Because I believe no sane human being with empathy would be against the Palestinian cause if they understood enough about it. Untangling the decades of propaganda and unwavering and uncritical support is what we can do, what could help, and therefore, in my opinion, what we should focus on. Bar any on-the-ground help and support, which most commenters on the internet and English-speaking people in general can not provide.
Way to build a strawman argument. A secular state for everyone means a state that does not discriminate on religious or ethnic grounds. We should support the Palestinians in building such a state that spans from the river to the sea. As my comment in the OP says, with emphasis on righting the wrongs done to Palestinians. Simple as that. If you're advocating for an exclusively Jewish state - fuck you. If you're advocating for an exclusively Muslim state - fuck you. Punishments against the settlers and the occupying military forces, the said zionist war criminals, would be carried out as necessary and as is just by that secular state. Without the extra seasoning of "a Jew/Muslim did it, so it's worse". Otherwise, we're just playing a game of ethnic cleansing tag.
The "softer" or "less" here should be in regard to the international laws (which libs love and respect to an extent). Laws that already call Israel an apartheid state, laws that call the West Bank settlements illegal, the blockade of Gaza inhumane, and laws that say that Palestinian people are well within their rights to defend themselves through armed struggle. This is what we need to pull the baseline of the conversation to, this is what should be the default. Because right now the general narrative is "those terrorists are not human and every telegenically dead child and medic were actually human shields". There is a lot of work to be done before we bring your average normie to the position of the Geneva Convention, UN, or Amnesty International. Once we're there, we can expand the conversation to the basis on which Israel was originally founded. Skipping that step is impossible.
That's also something I addressed. With this specific issue, you either talk to the minority that already agrees with you or try to educate and bring to your side those who don't. I think the second is ultimately more important.