Ben Burgis bothsides the colonization of Palestine. (Jacobin)
Ben Burgis bothsides the colonization of Palestine. (Jacobin)
Arguments over whether Israelis or Palestinians count as “really indigenous” are beside the point. No one’s human rights should depend on their ethnicity or religion or where their ancestors come from.
"The great German socialist thinker August Bebel famously said that antisemitism is “the socialism of fools,” since antisemites tend to scapegoat cabals of “Jewish bankers” for the problems of an entire economic system. To tweak Bebel’s observation a bit, this kind of rhetoric about all Israelis being “settlers” whose presence in their country is illegitimate represents the anti-Zionism of fools."
What the fuck is this liberal zionist bullshit. 
This anger leads them to indulge in ugly rhetoric about how the entire population of seven million or so Israeli Jews, the great majority of whom were born in the country, are “settlers” and “colonizers.”
Silly, once settler-colonialism lasts for longer than a generation, the settlers can no longer be settlers nor colonizers. "Ugly rhetoric." Anger leads Native Americans to indulge in ugly rhetoric about how the white population, many of whom were born in the country, are "settlers."
As if succeeding at a genocidal project somehow makes the outcome just. Would people also write articles defending the rights of the descendants of Nazis living in the lebensraum after all the Slavs were transported east of the Urals in an alternate history? Who am I kidding, of course they would. You can't even get this people to agree to stop the genocide happening right now, the idea that you might inconvenience one group of people who were born in those lands to give some modicum of justice to another group who were also born in those exact same lands... well, that's just unthinkable apparently.
Michael Brooks died, and the people in his orbit really went off the fucking rails
Burgis is a prime example of the dangers of engaging in online debate bro-ism
For real. He made everyone in his orbit better. With him gone there was no one to hold them to a better standard. They just scattered toward whatever grift seemed most convient.
Ben Burgis has been on my shitlist for a long time now.
He's been comfortable courting the audience of The Serfs (really??) and I have a strong distrust of anyone who is unwilling to commit to an ideological line - think the people who openly call themselves socialist.
He's been relegated to the dustbin of my mind so this is my best attempt to retrieve deleted files and nobody should take this as gospel but I vaguely recall him doing that civility-policing of the left, in adopting a comprador position by conflating what socialism actually is to appeal to a broad audience by talking about shit like how universal healthcare is socialism or like how the current system is "socialism for the rich" or how the USSR wasnt actually socialism etc. etc.
I recall that he has worked to sheepdog the left too.
I'm not surprised that he has taken a shitty line on Israel's genocide tbh.
(Disclaimer that I may be remembering things about him incorrectly or incompletely and it's based on what I have heard from him a fair while ago so I am not able to pinpoint when or where he said anything of the above, so apply all due skepticism to my take on Burgis and treat this as if its rumour and not hard truths.)
Considering what he's said in this thing he linked in the article and that other article under this titled "Palestinians are not a Monolith." I would be surprised if what you said wasn't accurate.
When I figured out he was a pedantic ultra, it really saved me time from listening to his takes
What flared anti-semitism in surrounding countries, ben?
But anyway, its kinda correct (realistic) global position
they should live in one country where palestinians can sue for houses destruction and expropriation, and israelis have to pay for it (monetarily). maybe with some reeducation camps thrown in, if the kids videos are not isolated thingsanybody who thinks NJR and jacobin are important left allies should read this and have a real hard think about themselves
This is exactly why I posted this here. I don't think anyone here actually thinks this but now you can bring this up in response to anyone who does. This article is apparently even being shared by "liberal" zionists so...
Oh, there's definitely regular longtime users on this site who are ardent NJR defenders. One of them sincerely dropped the "no investigation, no right to speak" bit on me when I refused to read a painfully long, badly written defense of NJR's behavior by NJR's personal friend. I tried to explain that he sucked before the "unionization" flap and my dislike isn't contingent on it and they went hard into telling me about Stalin's important allies. Real touch grass moment there.
I don't think they've posted in response to this (or previous NJR articles posted recently) but I have them blocked to prevent myself from accidentally taking them seriously ever again.
I was just thinking about resubscribing. I forgot how bad they are.
more like Ben Bougie
Im going to go do something else instead of fedposting. Here's an archive link in case something happens. https://archive.is/N6OVABen Buttkiss
What the fuck is this liberal zionist bullshit.
This is the result of Marxist-Philistinism or neo-Kautskyism being formed...
Now all the Western chauvinists are now "Marxists" (don't laugh)...
What did I tell you about social democrats?