So...given this topic has come up again, this time in the context of the republican civil war, I do want to discuss the whole concept of being critical of Israel without being anti semitic. Because when I look at the context of the debate on the right, it seems like we got where we are by having the pro Israel faction crying wolf over "antisemitism" whenever criticism of Israel comes up. Like, you can't criticize israel AT ALL without the pro israel faction just screaming ANTI SEMITISM and just trying to beat down all critics. And much like when the left tried it over racism and sexism, eventually beating people over the head with this stuff so hard you end up with people on the right who REALLY ARE racist, sexist, and don't give AF. Ironically, they're the same ilk that are the Nick Fuenteses of the world. And Nick Fuentes is the guy who arose on the right is literally IS anti semitic and doesn't give AF.
This is what happens when you cry wolf. You dont actually eliminate your political opposition. You just silence them for a time, making bad faith arguments, and allowing that resentment to fester and radicalize into the kinds of extremism we want to prevent in the first place. If you don't allow good faith criticisms of, say, Israel, or the democratic, you eventually just create extremists who hate them for all the wrong reasons.
Even my own politics are an example of this. "You just want free stuff", "you just don't wanna work", you're right, I don't. And I do want to redistribute the wealth and create a post work economy because screw your trickle down BS. See? It works for me too. You eventually beat us over the head with it eventually you end up creating the very thing you hate. When you dont allow for nuanced criticisms that are willing to give you good faith argumentation part of the way, you end up creating more radical people down the line who actually are the polar opposite of you. What resists, persists.
So...if we dont want to create a bunch of people who are LITERALLY anti semitic, we want to allow nuance and now just scream ANTI SEMITISM any time anyone criticizes Israel. So let's discuss this.
First of all, Jewishness is a race AND a religion. We want to keep the criticism to the latter. Criticizing people based on their race is bad. We don't wanna do that. So let's take that off of the table first and foremost. If you're criticizing Jewish people as a race, you're being racist, plain and simple.
So...religion. We wanna criticize the religion. Religions are belief systems based on ideas. And, let's face it, being a secular humanist myself, Ive been critical of ALL the abrahamic religions, and even a lot of non abrahamic ones. ideas are on the table. if you can't defend your ideas in the marketplace of ideas, maybe they're not good. Still, Jewish people have a lot of cultures and customs, and obviously, most of them are pretty benign. Are we really gonna criticize Jewish people for wanting Saturdays off, or celebrating certain holidays, or having bar mitzvahs? Like come on. People are gonna have their cultural practices, they're not harming anyone, let them do their thing. A lot of people from the dominant culture in America (Christianity) love to just try to impose their beliefs on others via Christian nationalism, and that's the problem. That's my primary problem with Christianity. It's fine to have christian beliefs and to have your practices, but if you try to force people into your belief system, that's where we have a fight.
So...we wanna criticize religion (ideas), not race, and we mostly wanna focus on ideas that are harmful, rather than attacking people for their benign cultural beliefs. So...this is where we get to where the criticisms start. The core problem with Israel is its zionism. Zionism is functionally....Jewish nationalism. It's the idea of the Jews having their own state in the eastern mediterranian region. They believe that the land was given to them by God, historically, it's worked out very badly for others who live in that region.
like in the Bible, there's lots of stories of them conquering that land, and they've done it through literal genocide. Like, God basically commanded the Israelites to kill everyone else there, and they did. And that creates a massive moral quandry both within Judaism, and Christianity. Like reconciling a moral god with....genocide. And I couldn't do it. And I left christianity.
But yeah, a lot of zionism in the modern day has similar beliefs. Beliefs that the Israelis alone are entitled to the land, and being willing to treat the other inhabitants of the land like garbage and genocide them. And then when you criticize them for it they call you anti semitic and say they have a right to "defend themselves." And they do have a right to defend themselves. Dont get me wrong. I'm not opposed to Israelis using force to defend themselves. But theres a line between defending yourself, and committing literal genocide and human rights abuses. And that's what those of us who are operating in good faith are discussing.
I'm not even going to argue the whole colonialism thing. The far left, yeah, they have their own criticisms, claiming that the establishment of the state of israel was a settler colonial project. I mean, it is, but it happened 80 years ago, and it's about time to get over it. It's about as water over the bridge as the native american genocides of the 19th century for me. Dead people are dead, the dead people who did it are dead, I dont wanna relitigate the past beyond our current lifetimes, what happened happened. Get over it. Okay, so, with that said, I'm not opposed to Israel existing, I do think that those who argue against such a thing should be criticized. Im not sure I'd call them anti semitic outright, although i would argue their ideas are stupid, irrational, and would amount to the equivalent of a genocide or forced relocation of those who live there. So let's not go there. The left is barking up the wrong tree with that one and yeah, they do deserve criticism for it.
Again, with me, it's "where do we go from here?" How do we make a peaceful solution for both? And I'm not sure we can. Mostly because both the palestinians (make of which are palestinian nationalists and who want their own country there) and the israelis are intractable. They both want the other faction gone, they're both genocidal, they're both extreme. And this is why I hate delving into the issue these days, everyone has a super strong opinion about who should rightfully control the land, and again, I'm just operating from a "well where are we now and how do we achieve a reasonable solution for both sides?"And quite frankly, I'm going to condemn either side for committing acts of terrorism or genocide against the other.
Israel, is gonna have to do military action sometimes, and that can be messy. But again, they have a moral obligation to at least try to keep it within some level of sanity. And that's where the problems lie. They have not. And they deserve criticism of that. I'm sorry, but they so. They also deserve criticism for their settlements into palestinian land which is provoking palestinians too. Like, Israel is not innocent in this war, they arent always the good guys, and they deserve criticism when they act immorally.
Now, the other issue of criticism, and that involves the US. The state of Israel actively lobbies the US government for support, and they actively seek to control the narrative here. They are very aggressive in lobbying congresspeople and destroying their opposition, and the same applies to the world of political streamers, especially on the right. The left is a bit more muddled. Among the establishment types yeah they might toe the line on Israel, but the anti establishment faction is a lot more willing to criticize them. Now Trump seems to be cracking down on that to some degree. Like if you're an IMMIGRANT and you criticize Israel, especially if youre here on a student visa, Trump will LITERALLY deport you. That is messed up. But yeah, that's how strong the Israel lobby's influence is in our government. And on the right, they actively have been suppressing right wing voices from rising up and not playing ball with Israel. We kinda saw that with Nick Fuentes. He started off relatively benign, but because the Israel lobby tried to destroy his career, he turned into the Nazi he is today over time. Again, what resists, persists.
I know there's a lot of old school conspiracy theories talking about Jewish people controlling the world, those are dumb and anti semitic. But again, I dont think actual documented and obvious influence to lobby the US government, and to control the political narrative in the US is beyond reproach. It's fair game for criticism. And there are various reasons why we would be for criticisms. One reason might be we dont want to fund a genocide. That's fair. Another reason might be, hey, we're isolationist and we dont want a foreign country having this much influence over our government. Or even if we're not isolationist. If this were russia doing this, or china, we'd be screaming holy hell, but Israel? it's like we act like people are anti semitic just for pointing it out. It's not. What's the difference between legit and illegit criticism? If you go into crazy trope and conspiracy theory crap, it's illegitimate. If you're focusing purely on actual lobbying efforts of AIPAC and other similar groups, it's legit. Or weird behavior trying to deplatform people who dont toe a certain line on the issue. I mean, that's crazy. Why should a foreign government have so much influence over our government or our own internal discourse? It's not hating all jewish people to point out that the state of israel should not be interfering with this stuff like they are.
And again, that's what my own criticisms are focused on. The state of Israel, its government, its current administration, and its current actions against both ethnic minorities in its own country, and its actions with manipulating the US government to get what it wants, and to manipulate the discourse within our country. It's not anti semitic to point ANY of that out. Again, attacking Jewish people as a race, bad. Attacking the culture, especially benign aspects, yeah, anti semitic, bad. But criticizing the darker aspects of Jewish nationalism (zionism) and its propensity for genocide, or criticizing actions of the Israeli government? That's fair fricking game. Sorry, not sorry. Israel doesn't get a pass from every criticism ever on the basis of past persecution. They just don't. And refusing to allow nuanced criticisms is how we get Nick Fuentes types who are everything you DONT want in terms of criticisms of Israel.
Really, by not giving legitimacy to more legit criticisms, we give more power to the nutcases. What resists persists. You beat down people long enough and hard enough and eventually you'll end up creating the exact people you wanna prevent, because those people have no shame. Shaming and the like should be reserved for harder criticisms. You overuse it on the mildest of things and eventually you'll just end up creating the nutcases you REALLY dont wanna deal with. The left needs to learn this lesson with the racism/sexism accusations within wokeism, and the Israel supporters need to learn this with them claiming everyone who doesnt like them is inherently anti semitic. And yeah, that's my views on this matter.
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