Here Are All the Democrats Who Voted for the “Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism” Bill
Here Are All the Democrats Who Voted for the “Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism” Bill
The resolution makes a dangerous conflation—and quite a few Democrats gave their wholehearted support.
“The resolution suggests that all anti-Zionism—it states—is antisemitism. That’s either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong,” said New York Representative Jerry Nadler, who voted present. “The authors if they were at all familiar with Jewish history & culture should know about Jewish anti-Zionism that was and is expressly not antisemitic. This resolution ignores the fact that even today, certain Orthodox Hasidic Jewish communities … have held views that are at odds with the modern Zionist conception.”
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The problem with this sort of language is that there are a few different things that people call "anti-Zionism". One is saying Israel does not have a holy right to the entirety of the land of Israel. Another is saying Israel has no right to exist at all. A third is any criticism of Israel or the Israeli leadership.
Only the second is antisemitism, as it implies that Jewish people and their nation should not exist.
Trouble is, it all gets lumped together. Any criticism of the Israeli leadership is fodder for the anti-semites who would wipe out the Jewish people given the opportunity. Any defense of the nation of Israel or the Jewish people is taken as tacit endorsement of the atrocities they are commiting.
This is an unsustainable level of intransigence that leaves no path forward resolving in peace.
No.
Saying the state of Israel has no right to exist is not antisemitic either.
You're continuing the deliberate mistake of conflating Israel (a political entity) with Judaism (a religion). Not every Israeli is Jewish, nor is every Jew Israeli. Likewise Israel is not Jewish peoples nation, Jewish people live all over the world and call many nations their home.
Also why do you believe people should have an ethno-state of their own?
How do you eliminate the state of Israel without killing a bunch of Jewish people?
I don't believe there should be any ethno-states, but that's not the world we got.
It's very easy to replace Israel with another state in the same place without killing or moving everyone.
Israel is an ethnostate. Ethnostates are bad. Ethnostates that are religiously motivated are doubly bad.
Israel could be a secular state that treated all ethnicities equally with zero loss in life or need for anyone to leave the area.
They chose not to.
It's not antisemitism to acknowledge this.
Oh nation building. The US is pretty good at that. I mean, isn't that how we got here in the first place? Moving a bunch of religious fanatics out of their holy land to make room for the displaced victims of a genocide?
Deflecting, are we?
Not at all, I just don't think your solution is feasible. The Israeli leadership will not step down peacefully, and Hamas will not accept anything less than total victory. You're suggesting a third party take control? Or do you think suddenly everyone involved will just forget all the murder and start singing "kumbaya"?
Lol. Really bad attempt at pivoting.
What pivot? That's the argument presented. "The end of Israel does not require violence because Western nations can build a better nation for the Jewish and Palestinian peoples to live in harmony." Does that actually deserve a full rebuttal?
That's not how it started at all, the Brits have a lot more to do with this one.
Naturally, but do we expect to be better at it?
I think I may have misunderstood you, I thought you were saying that America was responsible for Israel.
No that's my fault, I see why that's what it sounded like. It was intended as two different points.
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The US has a bad record of nation building.
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Israel exists because of failed nation building, specifically how the UK controlled Palestine and started encouraging Jewish migration to the holy land, displacing Palestinians.
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How do you eliminate the state of Israel without killing a bunch of Jewish people?
Destroying a state is not genocidal - no matter how much you want to pretend it to be.
Buddhists doesn't have a state. They seem to be doing ok.
I'm not trying to argue against you here, I was just curious about the info and wanted to share it.
So, it turns out that Buddhism is actually the official religion for 4 countries: Bhutan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. It's also the majority religion for 3 more states: Thailand, Mongolia, and Laos. Total population of Buddhists exceeds 500 mil, about 7-8% of the world's population according to 2010s data.
How does this relate to Israel? Precisely fuck all. I just thought it was interesting to share how widespread Buddhism is.
None of those states claim to be "the Buddhist state" or that an attack on them is an attack on Buddhism.
Indeed. It has nothing to do with the current situation. I mentioned that.
Ask the Dalai Llama how Buddhists are doing in Tibet, and whether they'd like to have their country back.
That works both ways. At different times in history both Arabs and Jews have lived in the areas now called Israel and Palestine.
The problem is snatching land from the present to punish deeds of the past just creates more sorrow.
I agree completely.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiations_to_end_apartheid_in_South_Africa
One of the most popular arguments against the end of apartheid in South Africa was that the previously-ruling white minority would face violence and persecution. While South Africa has not come all its way in ending the disparity of apartheid since its transition to democracy, those claims that white people would be killed by the nonwhite majority have certainly not panned out
You're gonna compare Nelson Mandela to Ismail Haniyeh?
bestie when did i ever compare nelson mandela to ismail haniyeh
You brought up South Africa as an example of a nonviolent end of apartheid. Do the Palestinians have a leader who believes in a nonviolent end to the conflict in Israel?
Do you think South African apartheid was brought to an end by one guy?
There have been lots of nonviolent protest movements in Palestine and there are prominent Palestinian and Israeli advocates for one democratic state
Do you think the end of South Africa apartheid would have been nonviolent without nonviolent leaders?
A one-state secular democracy sounds great. How do you get there from where we are now? There are prominent advocates for a lot of things, but none of those people are in power on either side. As long as Israel is indiscriminately bombing Gaza and Hamas is using their blood to "awaken the revolutionary spirit," we can't reasonably expect anyone to compromise without being forced.
There are nonviolent Palestinian leaders, in the West Bank, in the diaspora, and probably in Gaza outside of Hamas. And the movement for Palestinian rights is finally being heard on the global stage.
Israel and Hamas will need to be forced. Nonviolent protest, boycotts, sanctions, are ways of exerting force without fueling the flames of war.
I know it's hard to believe in the goodness of people and their power to change things for the better, but it is essential when the alternative is brutality
I know it's worth trying, but I don't believe it will work, and I don't believe that everyone calling for an end to Israel thinks that it can be achieved without brutality. That's my whole point.
Only the second is antisemitism
No. No theocracy or ethno state has a right to exist. Brutal apartheid is baked into these concepts. For some reason most of the world can get on board when it comes to oppressive governments like Iran or even China spreading Han culture. If the myth of "a people without a land to a land without a people" were true there might be a case, but there is no such land, and certainly not in Palestine.
as it implies that Jewish people and their nation should not exist.
This is wildly incorrect. The only inherent implication of saying the state of Israel has no right to exist is that the state of Israel has no right to exist. That is, a state foundationally for and only for a certain ethno-religion, forcibly and violently founded in a land already full of people who aren't a part of that ethno-religion. Such a state is oppressive by its nature, given that the majority of people within its borders of control (and especially people within those borders and displaced from within those borders) are disenfranchised and do not have equal rights under the law or under the enforcement of law.
Another is saying Israel has no right to exist at all.
Only the second is antisemitism, as it implies that Jewish people and their nation should not exist.
Completely disagree. It's a nation like any other. It has as much right to exist as the USA or Constantinople.
I'm not entirely on board with the idea of nations having rights at all. The people living in them do, but I don't see how an abstract entity should have rights that the people it represents don't have on their own.
To give a concrete example: the people of Iraq have a right to exist. But it's a country composed of ethnic groups that don't especially like each other, so having them all live in a single country isn't necessarily great. I don't think Iraq has a right to be a country, especially if it's interfering with the right to self-determination of the people living there. Maybe as a practical matter it's better for the country to exist, but rights aren't supposed to be contingent on practical concerns.
I’m not entirely on board with the idea of nations having rights at all.
Well... they did make corporations "people" - so there is that kind of lunacy around.
Constantinople was a city, not a nation.
But other than that, I agree that Israel has as much right to exist as any other nation. Saying Israel should not exist is implicitly antisemitic because you can't get rid of the nation of Israel without wiping out the Jewish people living there.
Saying Israel should not exist is implicitly antisemitic
Bullshit. Jewish people have a right to exist - Israel doesn't.
How do you get rid of Israel without killing a lot of Jewish people?
Did the US commit genocide by toppling the Taliban, Clyde?
You wanna try something else to prop up your bullshit apologetics or are we done here?
The fuck are you talking about? Did the US topple the Taliban? Last I checked, Afghanistan is still a country, and it's still run by the Taliban. How is that in any way analogous to Israel? Also, not for nothing, but the US has indiscriminately killed a lot of people in the Middle East, but nothing I would categorize as a genocide.
Last I checked, Afghanistan is still a country
And Palestine will still exist when the white supremacist settler-colonialist state squatting on it is dismantled. You know... Palestine? That place that has been home to Jewish people since before Jesus?
So, again, Clyde - do have something other than white supremacism apologetics to offer?
You've lost me. How is Palestine analogous to Palestine? The Israeli leadership will literally die before they cede control of the nation to the Palestinian Authority.
I don't know who the fuck Clyde is, or why you seem to think anything I've said is white supremacy, but it makes me doubt your grasp on reality and wonder if I'm wasting my time on you.
You’ve lost me.
No, Clyde - I didn't. You were lost a long time ago, and it has nothing to do with me.
or why you seem to think anything I’ve said is white supremacy
It's really simple - if you engage in apologetics for a white supremacist settler-colonialist state that makes you a... what?
It's about as simple as political math gets, Clyde.
Whoops. Didn't know much about Constantinople except the song. Yugoslavia on the other hand was a country but no more. There was violence involved but not out and out genocide.
That's OK, I had to look it up myself because there were a lot of city states during the Roman empire, and I wasn't sure if Constantinople was one of them.
Also, there was the Bosnian genocide.
Funny you picked Yugoslavia where there was definitely an out and out genocide.
Not only was there genocide/ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, the US (through NATO) was directly involved in trying to end it.
You don't have to kill all the Israeli's to get rid of Israel. Nations are made by people accepting that they exist. Before Israel was Israel it was just a bunch of politically savvy zionists who started telling people to move there. With a lot of wealthy Jewish investors they just started buying land and refusing to let Palestinians work on it. Over time and with enough established countries recognising Israel as its own thing, that's what it became.
If tomorrow the entire world just decided that Israel didn't exist then it would cease to, they may object but they'd be invaders occupying land that doesn't belong to them. It might sound silly but this is how Israel was created.
In theory, sure, but Israelis believe that they have been chosen by God to defend their holy land. They believe they are under attack (which isn't unfounded, given Hamas' horrific attacks October 7th) and they believe that if they are not in power, that the Arab world will begin another Holocaust (also not unfounded, considering the rhetoric used by Islamic leaders in the region).
And Israel has nuclear weapons.
Before Israel was Israel, it was under British control, and the British army defended the Zionists displacing Palestinians. There were several violent revolts, and many people were killed. They didn't just buy property until they owned Tel Aviv. Land was taken by force.
Westerners see Israel as an ally, surrounded by jihadists and terrorists and despots fighting tooth and nail to merely continue to exist. And all of that is true, but it creates the false impression that Israelis are somehow more reasonable than the jihadists. That the Jewish people will listen to a rational argument and act responsibly and with reverence to human life. That, if American support goes away, the Israeli leadership will see the writing on the wall and seek a peaceful solution rather than face oblivion.
There is no peaceful end to Israel. You won't have to kill all the Jewish people living there, but you will have to kill many of them.
I see what you're saying, and perhaps you're right. I am more hopeful, though. Plenty of Israelis support Palestine and in the early days the Palestinians welcomed the Jews. It's not fair to simply dismiss vast groups of people as irrational or terrorists. At one point in time these people got along, and even though a lot has happened since then I don't think it's impossible to get back there.
I think Western support does play a large role, it's the reason why the Israeli military is what it is and probably why Israel feels free to indiscriminately attack Palestine. If our support was more conditional and not so one sided it would encourage cooperation and more peaceful resolutions.
Correct because nobody who has any actual power wants peace. What those with power want is to assert their influence.