r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • Oct 09 '24

AAJ "Ask A Jew" Wednesday

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

Please remember to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate! Thanks!

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u/Artistic-Vanilla-899 Non-Jewish Ally Oct 09 '24

I've always wanted to ask this, so this seems like the opportunity...what are some aspects of the anti-Zionist movement among non-Jews make you kind of uneasy or that go too far? I mean, fundamentally, we're against the occupation and the human rights abuses and mass atrocities committed by officials of the State of Israel and pro-self-determination for Palestinians, not against the idea of a Jewish state, which i think is more of an issue that concerns Jews more so than us non-Jews should be concerned about

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 09 '24

not against the idea of a Jewish state

I mean a lot of anti-zionists are though. If being a zionist means you support a Jewish state, being an anti-zionist implies you do not support a Jewish state. That said, I think anti-zionists do need to be clear that even if they are against a Jewish ehtnostate, that they do not mean expelling all Jews from the region and installing a fully Palestinian government, which seems to be what a lot of young angry progressives are demanding without really understanding the implications. Personally it doesn't bother me because I know they mostly mean well and have very little sway in politics, but I really can't support the expulsion of Israelis from the region. I think the demands that are more practical and popular for those who are anti-zionist and anti-ethnostate is a coalition government in the region and giving citizenship to non-Jews.

The other tendency that makes me a little uneasy is how many anti-zionists seem to fall back on rhetoric about colonizers/indigenous people, mapping American ethno-politics onto a very different situation. First of all, the "colonizer" language won't get you anywhere because Zionists believe they are indigenous to the land. Second of all, a huge portion of the Israeli population are Arab who have almost the same racial makeup as the people living in Gaza. Talking about Israel with the language of American race politics is both ineffective and inaccurate, and most concerning, ends up painting the Jews as oppressors, rather than Israelis as oppressors, in the same way as progressives talk about white people as inherently oppressors by the nature of American systemic injustice. When you apply this to Jewish people it ends up sounding a like "the Jews run the world." South African apartheid is much more useful of a comparison in my opinion.

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u/conscience_journey Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

The colonizer/indigenous discussion is not American. It is international, applying to conflicts and oppression around the world.

Talking about the “genetic makeup” of Israelis, however, is applying a racial perspective rather than an anti-colonial one. It doesn’t matter what “genetic makeup” Israelis or Palestinians have.

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

What I'm saying is that the way Americans talk about colonizer/indigenous issues is generally through the lens of Native American/White Colonial dynamics. There is a lack of understanding of the history of the region and the involvement of the British in establishing Israel. This leads to an oversimplification of the issues that paints Israelis as essentially white cowboys who showed up to push the poor Arabs out. Obviously there are elements of that but it is far too black and white, adds a troubling and inaccurate racial element in, and ignores the role of other world powers in the formation of Israel. But also, I'm saying that rhetorically it simply is ineffective, because if you try to argue this to Zionists you won't change any minds because they see the Jews as the indigenous population who is simply returning to their rightful homeland. I find it far more effective to talk realistically about the atrocities being committed now, not debating historical precedence, and what a practical de-escalation would be to the conflict.

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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

This leads to an oversimplification of the issues that paints Israelis as essentially white cowboys who showed up to push the poor Arabs out.

I mean...that is basically true of proto-Israel. It becomes quite a bit more complex after World War II and the Nakba, granted, but it's also true of modern olim, especially anglo olim.

With the advantage of perspective I think what we're seeing is that the Shoah generation and its immediate successors produced a distorted (undesired by the Zionist movement, this is part of why they hate Shoah survivors) view of the Zionist project. What we are seeing is that pre-1945 Israel and post-2015 (let's go for round numbers) Israel is far, far more continuous than many of us find comfortable to admit.

The two previous versions of the Balfour Declaration contained language (verbatim from the Zionist Organization) that immediately transferred full control of Palestine to the Zionist Organization, and which established Palestine as the homeland of the Jewish race.

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u/watermelonkiwi Raised Jewish, non-religious Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

I was listening to a podcast interviewing an Israeli and the host said, the other week he had a Palestinian on and that person said that things won't end until all the Israelis leave. And the Israeli said, where are they going to go? They are mostly refugees from WWII and have nowhere to go back to. I understand the perspective that this is settler colonialism, and that they stole the land from the Palestinians, and now oppress them, so I completely understand why the Palestinians are fighting back, and don't think that Israelis should be there at all, but at the same time, after WWII these Israelis were refugees with nowhere to go. I think the creation of Israel was misguided, and I wish that the US had invited all the Jewish refugees to come live in the US instead of creating Israel. I think that the fault is with the white supremicist, colonial ideology of all of the western world, thinking that they could just create a Jewish state in Palestine and it would be find and dandy, and that the people already living there didn't matter. My question for you is how do you expect these two groups to have one state together, when the hatred runs this deep? Especially after a genocide, I don't understand how the Palestinians are supposed to create a government with those who genocided them.

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

So I totally agree with all of this. I will say, that a very large portion of the modern Israeli population have moved there (primarily from Eastern Europe) in the last few decades, they aren't all decedents of refugees. But even then, it would still be a horrible thing to drive all of them out of the country.

As for your question, I can't pretend I have a great answer. The best I can come up with is to look at what happened after World War II. The US now has great relationships with Germany and Japan. Why? Because we pumped tons of money into rebuilding their countries. In an ideal world, I think that the result of this conflict needs to be the Israeli government reforming as a non-ethnostate, allowing Muslim citizenship, and rebuilding the infrastructure in Gaza (likely with US funding). But that would require the Israeli government accepting responsibility, and ultimately defeat. But if people were serious about de-escalation this is what they would do. However, unlike WWII, the US benefits from this kind of chaos- our foreign policy goals have explicitly been to disrupt the potential for any regional hegemon who might be able to control the region's resources. Weak, splintered states in the middle east benefit the US government.

The reality is that Israel is not on a good trajectory even if the war ended tomorrow. They are experiencing brain-drain as the middle-class and wealthy leave the country, their economy has been stagnant because of the war, and they have a massive population of orthodox who don't contribute to the economy. Investors will not be keen to put money back into the country after this.

Radicalism tends to arise out of poor material conditions, so the best way to de-radicalize a population is to lift the population into the middle-class to the point where they aren't desperate enough to commit acts of violence. As I said, people have created governments with people that genocided them. After World War II there were still tons of former Nazis who worked in the government even as they were "de-nazifying." But if Israel and the west refuse to accept responsibility and reorganize the Israeli state then the cycles of violence will just start over again. And next time I suspect Israel will seem like even more of a radical fringe state.

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u/watermelonkiwi Raised Jewish, non-religious Oct 10 '24

After World War II there were still tons of former Nazis who worked in the government even as they were "de-nazifying."

Yeah, but there were basically no Jews left in Germany at that point, so it wasn't the genocided trying to work with those that did it.

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

Totally, and the dynamics were much different. We don't really have a good comparison for this situation. Still, there have been governments formed out of very hostile factions.

Frankly, whatever happens I don't see a peaceful path forward without some sort of outside coalition like the UN stepping in to moderate. And those institutions have been shown to be so toothless that I can't imagine even that happening at this point. It seems like things are going to get even worse before they get better.

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u/watermelonkiwi Raised Jewish, non-religious Oct 10 '24

Yes. It's pretty awful. So many international institutions that do nothing. If they functioned we could have already arrested Netanyahu, Putin etc, tried and convicted them. Do you know much about Rwanda? I don't, but my impression is that places who have peace after genocide, it's because the place succeeded in wiping out the targeted population, but could be wrong as I really don't know much about it.

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

I don't know a lot about Rawanda, no. But I think it's too broad to say that it's impossible to have peace after a genocide without wiping out the population, especially when the world has changed so much in recent years. Armenia and Turkey still exist, for instance, and Cambodia cooperates with China despite China supporting Pol Pot (though China has a much different approach to diplomacy than the west). But in this case I do think the only potential for peace would be for Israel to make massive concessions that they are not likely to do without tons of international influence. Giving back territory in Lebanon and giving Palestinians easy access to their holy sites at the very least. These things could be seen as a win for Palestinians and might smooth things over for a time, but it would require Israel accepting responsibility and losing the perception of invincibility that they desperately trying to maintain. Unfortunately much of this comes down to the fact that it's not just genocide, it's fighting over territory that is nearly impossible to share without peaceful relations.

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u/watermelonkiwi Raised Jewish, non-religious Oct 10 '24

 I think the demands that are more practical and popular for those who are anti-zionist and anti-ethnostate is a coalition government in the region and giving citizenship to non-Jews.

So one, non-ethnostate government?  At this point, after a genocide, I don't see how these two groups are going to be able to exist together in one state. The hatred between them is too strong. I don't know how the Palestinians are supposed to work together with the people who genocided them. As far as the comparison to South Africa goes, the ruling white people were only about 10% of the population, so it is pretty different to Israel/Palestine, where it's closer to 50/50.

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

I mean do you find the prospect of the Israelis being pushed out of the region all together more realistic, even if it was desirable?

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u/watermelonkiwi Raised Jewish, non-religious Oct 10 '24

Do you mean do I find it desirable, or do I find it realistic? I don’t know to both questions. Why don’t you support a two state solution? 

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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 10 '24

Back up to the context of the question I was answering, which was "what are some aspects of the anti-Zionist movement among non-Jews make you kind of uneasy or that go too far?" So my only real point was that people who are pushing for a one-state solution need to be clear that they are not asking for the Israelis to be forced out of the region but for the end of the ethnostate. Personally I'm a realist and don't have a strong feeling toward a one or two state solution, I just want peace. A two state solution is probably more realistic at this point, but what some anti-zionist activists seem to be asking for (to turn Israel into Palestine and run all the Jews out of the region) is neither desirable nor realistic.