Zionism is jewish terrorism
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
You are misunderstanding my comment Zionism is Jewish terrorism do not mean all jews are Zionist or are doing terrorism. As a Muslim i do not have an issue with people saying ISIS ideology is Islamic terrorism
What’s more concerning is that this is an “Opinion” piece. That’s a section the NYT invented in the 70’s as a good faith effort to provide “other side” context.
In other words, anything in the “Opinion” section is considered not the view of the NYT. The NYT really really should be team reality on this one.
I am pretty sure it was a bad faith effort
It was basically the very first shot at a curated message board in the newspaper. Writers unaffiliated with the newspaper were invited to share their opinions on topics “opposite the editorial page”. Other papers adopted it after the fact.
So yeah, it’s an invite-only comments section. You only ever hear about the fucking horrible ones because you probably don’t read the NYT cover to cover every edition.
There’s examples of the opposite as well:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-896131
I’m just pointing out that it’s a tool explicitly used to basically say “This is what people not affiliated with our newspaper are saying”.
My point is that the NYT should absolutely be saying this themselves, not just inviting others to say it in an opinion article.
(headline change notwithstanding, that was probably lawyers IMHO)
It is easier to spread propaganda by labeling it opinions article not associated with the media
Wow, looks like a screenshot from that New York Times Headline Simulator game!
Completely forgot about that absolute gem thanks for linking it
I feel like the concept of “ethnoreligion” does more harm than good. Not every Jewish person is judaist, not every judaist is Jewish. Not every judaist is zionist.
It would be nice if we could focus on individual choices instead of broadly applying inaccurate labels.
It’d be great if we could stop indulging in baseless superstition altogether. Kind of impossible to hold anyone accountable otherwise.
I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
Also, in context… Is “Jewishness” an institution, a system? I think it’s a descriptive category humans came up with for humans. Race is kind of arbitrary.
I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
True. And individuals are making selfish choices rhat sustain these systems and institutions.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
My goals include minimizing suffering. We are each in different positions, we each have different choices available to us. It is worthwhile, maybe even necessary, for us to strive to make the best choices we can, choices that will benefit everyone the most. I admit it is not easy, which is why cooperation is so important. Religion divides us based on what we want to be true instead of what is measurably most likely true.
We are limited by our physical forms, brains included. But I have seen enough to stake my life on the idea that we can do better than we are doing, and we should; the sooner we respect reality, the more lives we can save.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
There’s a dialectical relationship between the individual and the system, but the system is the dominant variable. Zionism exists as it does because critical masses of people in key positions make individual decisions that support it, and they make those individual decisions because of a complex network of systemic influences on them, from the material (they financially benefit from stolen land/resources) to ideological (their worldview justifies and selects for variables that reaffirm Zionism) to social (their peer groups and trusted others are Zionist), et cetera.
Out of all of those influences and any I didn’t list, material interests tend to dominate, with the other influences usually being subordinate to them. People have a strong (but not inevitable or deterministic) tendency to justify or orient their worldview around how their bread is buttered.
Ideologies like Zionism are superstructural, meaning they’re downstream of and oriented around the systemic engine that they subsist on. At the core of Zionism isn’t Jewishness, it’s settler-colonialism, which would function and has functioned very similarly regardless of the set-dressing/religion it coats itself with.
You can try to, one-by-one, ask people to act against their own interests and hope the idea spreads and they all individually decide to change. But mass movements need to be primed by changing material circumstances in order for the ideas to resonate with a critical mass of people.
Wow! Very well put.
I still think it makes a difference, like adding a little more kindling so a campfire is easier to light.
We all need to think more about our choices and their consequences. We must break the cycle of abuse. It’s not easy. I wish I knew how.
Thank you for your responses. 🙂
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out. Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds. Coordinated systems of people have disproportionate power, like a hammer is more effective than the innumerable molecules that comprise it.
Working to help organize oppressed groups is usually more progressive because they’re primed by their material conditions to be progressive, unlike the oppressors or those that benefit from the oppression.
Thanks for the discussion!
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out.
I am a determinist, and also I think it is morally reprehensible to do nothing while innocent people are being murdered. Our choices are not some magical product of free will, they are biological inevitabilities. But we evolved our feelings for good reason.
Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds.
We live in the information age. We can talk to each other faster than ever. It’s why the fascists keep poisoning social media, they fear it.
I think we need to get ahead of the curve. They are ahead of us in some ways. We need to subvert their plans and their backup plans. We need to move faster than they think is possible, faster than they can keep up with.
Easier said than done, admittedly. But maybe we can use the speed of information to our advantage.
Oh piss off. White supremacy is an issue, why is calling out jewish supremacy any different?
I just want to be specific. Much like not all white people believe in white supremacy, not all Jewish people believe in Jewish supremacy.
Some believe they are god’s chosen people, and I think that is baseless and harmful.
Some believe god promised certain land to them, just as baseless and even more harmful.
But many do not believe in magic at all, and do not deserve to be thrown under the bus. I prefer to focus on individual decisions, generalizing is reductive.
Whiteness as a concept is built entirely on colonialism, every atom of it is supremacist and has been from the start. That isn’t true for Jewish culture, which is itself being colonized by Zionism.
Whether the term Jewish supremacy is useful is another argument, but they very clearly aren’t comparable in this sense.
Zionism is not colonizing jewish culture, that’s like saying that the nazis colonized german culture. Supremacists are brutal against people within their own culture who go against them, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t part of it. The Nazis sacrificed huge parts of german culture, anything that was deemed bolshevik or jewish was purged. Frakturschrift being but one of the cultural examples. Nazis also terrorised “their own” to strengthen their position, they were willing to throw “their own” youth into the line of fire with little to no chance of it being even useful to their effort. But no one would say they “colonised” Germany, that would be ridiculous since “colonisation” is what a nation does to another.
Supremacism rises from contradictions within a group of people that understand themselves as a nation. It is predicated on a hyperidealised notion of nations (look like this, are more disposed to that) and that ridding oneself of “foreign” elements (people, practices, cultural elements) that don’t fit the ideal of ones own nation and “retvrning” to said ideal will make that group more cohesive and thereby eliminate a lot of the issues going on in society.
Zionism comes from within european jewish culture same as the christian colonialists came from within european christian culture. Zionism was not put on to the jewish culture from without, it comes from the adoption of an idealised view on what a “nation” is by some Jews, which is really prevalent in europe, especially at the time, and gained material support from a desire to form a colony. As an example of why I strongly believe that zionism fits this description there is Herzl’s “Mauschl” rant, where he is shunning a lot of Jews that he thinks inferior and not in line with his idea of what a Jew should be.
Zionism isn’t the sole essence of Judaism or Jewish culture the way colonialism is to whiteness. There isn’t a history of oppression of whites, there isn’t a common otherized experience for whites, nor has externalization of whiteness ever been used as a seed for fascism. Whiteness and Jewishness thus aren’t directly comparable. That’s what my original comment is saying, and nothing you said addresses that.
Colonization can describe what one nation does to another and is also commonly used to describe cultural, psychological, social, biological, or whatever other processes of encroachment or exploitation. Words can have multiple meanings and/or be used figuratively. “Mold couldn’t have colonized your petri dish, it’s not a nation!” Be serious.
The spread of Zionism in Jewish institutions isn’t just some natural, inevitable thing inherent to Jews, it’s artificially bolstered by its synergy with an external force, Western imperialism via the US and Israel. Or do we think culture is independent from its material base?The mechanism of co-opting a shared experience and narrative of oppression in favor of the oppressors is a fundamentally colonial process.
There’s a semantic struggle going on to equate Zionism with Judaism/Jewishness, and it’s really weird to see supposed Marxists repeatedly side with Israel against anti-Zionist Jews. Especially given the widespread, fullthroated secular and Christian Zionism that dominates the West.
Zionism isn’t the sole essence of Judaism or Jewish culture the way colonialism is to whiteness.
In the west, it is for a lot of Jewish people. Most jews in the west are non-religious or atheist. I’m not making a generalization, but there are very little anti-zionist third-spaces or organizations that Jewish youth can attend that isn’t separated from zionism.
I knew jewish people who never even stepped foot in a synagogue, never celebrated hanukah or passover, their only connection to judaism is their connection to “israel” because they have some cousins who live there.
Yes, it was an external effort by “israel” to force the bastardized language of “modern hebrew” onto Jewish people. My partner’s father was the victim of that, his Yiddish school turned into a “hebrew” school within a few years due to a push made by the zionist entity. There are very few actual jewish people in the west who have any connection to judaism that isn’t excrement forced onto them by the zionist entity.
For many jews in the west, zionism is the sole essence of Judaism.
there isn’t a common otherized experience for whites, nor has externalization of whiteness ever been used as a seed for fascism.
A majority of white jewish people in the west are indistinguishable from other white people. Antisemitism in the west is a joke, it is laughable for people to even consider it an issue comparable to other types of racism in this country.
There is no systematic racism that affects Jewish people in the west. Banks do not deny people for being Jewish, Jewish people aren’t being illegally searched in the middle of the streets. Jewish people aren’t interrogated for hours when they travel abroad.
When the ADL mentions “antisemitic incidents”, a majority is instances of antizionism online or in public. You can go to the ADL page right now and send a report in saying hamas pooped your pants and it will be tracked as an official metric of antisemitism.
Yes, there are real instances of hate crimes happening to jewish people for the sole purpose of being jewish, but it is such a minuscule fraction of the hate put onto other ethnic groups, while sharing such a large percentage of media coverage.
I was an Arab raised in a post-9/11 society. The amount of racism that my community faced, the blatant, to-your-face racism. None of that got reported to the press, nobody gave Muslims or Arabs a platform to discuss the hate they received on a daily basis.
In the UK alone, a mosque is attacked every five days. We have men and women being stabbed in the streets for the sole purpose of walking while brown. Antisemitism is such a non-issue in the west, while having a monopoly on race-based hate.
The spread of Zionism in Jewish institutions isn’t just some natural, inevitable thing inherent to Jews, it’s artificially bolstered by its synergy with an externalforce, Western imperialism via the US and Israel.
If all but four mosques in the US were supportive of ISIS, even so-called western “principled Marxists” would be calling for the dismantling of them all, calling Islam a terror ideology, and at best, sending all Muslims to re-education camps.
When you apply the same calculus to Jewish institutions in the US, which are actually true, we have to hear tirades about how it isn’t the same, how Jewish people (many of which don’t even have direct family that has witnessed a crumb of antisemitism in their lives), are eternally oppressed, and how it is different, actually.
and it’s really weird to see supposed Marxists repeatedly side with Israel against anti-Zionist Jews.
Nobody is doing that. I have met and befriended many anti-zionist jews in recent years due to our shared activism, they are risking their futures for what they believe in and I cherish them deeply as allies.
They are still a minority of Jewish people though. They are the ones who have to come home to their zionist parents and extended family on holidays, if they aren’t disowned, that is.
Which raises another point, I don’t believe zionism can be separated from judaism, at least for a majority of western jews. Children of Jewish people are getting disowned and ostracized from their communities and families for their anti-zionist beliefs. Putting a “country” they don’t even live in over their own blood.
Nobody is doing that.
Four sentences later:
I don’t believe zionism can be separated from judaism
So you do agree with Zionists, got it.
None of your tired talking points address the issue at hand. You’re arguing that Zionism exists within Judaism. Of course it does, I never argued otherwise. You’re arguing Zionism dominates western Jewish institutions. Of course it does, it dominates all western institutions.
The point isn’t whether it exists within Jewish culture or how oppressed white Jewish people are in the west, it’s are there aspects of Jewish experiences, culture, and identity that aren’t Zionist? And of course there are. Anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews prove as much. These are aspects that Zionists are attempting to subsume into Zionism and people like yourself seem happy to cede them that ground.
It’s fundamentally a category error and an idealist theoretical deviation. How much it matters, I don’t know, which is why I didn’t make a claim about that. Just that anti-whiteness and anti-semitism are not in any way comparable, since the latter actually exists as a reactionary deviation and subcurrent. So it warrants some semantic precision to avoid making bedfellows with the likes of Tucker Carlson or Nick Fuentes.
You’re acting in bad faith. I said zionism can’t be separated from judaism, not the other way around.
I don’t care for your opinion anymore, stop responding
Also wtf… without judaism zionism wouldn’t exist, so yes no it can’t be separated.
Zionism isn’t the sole essence of Judaism or Jewish culture the way colonialism is to whiteness.
Correct, I completely agree and this is not a claim I would make, which is why I said “Zionism comes from within european jewish culture same as the christian colonialists came from within european christian culture.”. When people talk about “white supremacy” they aren’t talking about a class of white people in the dialectical sense, a class in contradiction with non-white people, but an ideology rooted in an idealist view of what being “white” is. Similarly when people say “Jewish supremacism” they aren’t talking about a class of Jews, but about the ideology that has an idealist view of what a Jew is, best described by Herzl in that article I believe.
I find that article the best example for this honestly, compare it with how fascists have been describing their nation. There is always this notion of an Übermensch, the “pure” example of ones nation (hard-working, family-oriented, in some cases devout), that stands in contrast to the people of the same nation that are practicing bad habits (liars, free-loaders, drunks etc.), who have compromised their “purity”, who need to be fought to regain that purity or at least need to shape up so that ones nation can rise above the others. This is a through-line in italian, german and japanese supremacist thought as far as I understand them.
Colonization can describe what one nation does to another and is also commonly used to describe cultural, psychological, social, biological, or whatever other processes of encroachment or exploitation.
Also true, however when applied to society, colonizing involves extracting from one group to another in which case I don’t see this “other” group that is the main beneficiary of the alleged colonization of Jews. What people usually mean when they talk about colonialism is that there is an element of distance that the oppressors have to the oppressed, however the main benefactors of the zionist project are Jews. Jews are not getting oppressed by zionists unless they get in the way and are heavily encouraged to share in the spoils. Of course there are non-jewish zionists who also benefit largely from zionism but “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” mainly centers jewish zionists.
The spread of Zionism in Jewish institutions isn’t just some natural, inevitable thing inherent to Jews
Definitely not what I think or am trying to say! Just like how I don’t think being a nazi is some natural, inevitable thing inherent to Germans. I think you have a rather mechanical understanding how contradictions within a society or nation work?
The mechanism of co-opting a shared experience and narrative of oppression in favor of the oppressors is a fundamentally colonial process.
How so?
The question of this specific conversation is whether white supremacism is directly comparable to Jewish supremacism, as a response to someone advocating for categorical precision. The category of whiteness is defined by supremacism, so the two terms signify the same concept. That is not true for Judaism/Jewishness, a signifier or signifier-cluster that contains multiple concepts, one of which is Zionism. Anything else here is tangential to that point.
colonizing involves extracting from one group to another
Sure, this definition is fairly workable for this context. In this case it is the coalition of western imperialists and middle east plunderers devouring social capital and narratives and culture and institutions to bolster support for their materially unrelated settler-colonial/imperialist project. A similar process to how capitalist superstructure co-opts/colonizes hard-fought victories by queer people when it pinkwashes its war machines. Queer labor produced social value that is being extracted and transformed into imperialist propaganda. A community that formed around a common experience of otherization is hollowed out to make space for Otherization machines. Those that can’t or won’t participate in the new otherization are expelled from their own space.
Jewishness as a category is not useful in defining the category benefits from Zionism because the latter category includes most white westerners regardless of cultural experience and excludes Jews that aren’t white and western, as well as excluding aspects of Jewishness that aren’t useful to imperialism/colonialism/Zionism.
We by necessity tolerate and smooth over imprecision in language all the time, that’s not a problem in and of itself. But in this case the network of meaning and symbols is deliberately obfuscated and confounded (as fascism is wont to do), so precision is at the very least justified, and I’d argue tactically correct. The concepts that can be pointed to might be broadly, fuzzily categorized as anti-imperialism/anti-capitalism, Israel-first American exceptionalism/apologism, or anti-semitism. The latter two directly contradict the first! So signifiers should be carefully selected to deliberately preclude the latter two and precisely point to the first. Otherwise we see the encroachment of nazbol and similar deviations into anti-imperialist spaces, a trend that’s become not-so-subtle on capitalist-mediated social media like Reddit.
Again, I didn’t argue against the term Jewish supremacist, just that it is functionally dissimilar to white supremacist in this context. Whether it’s useful and precise enough as a signifier is another discussion.
