#do you think israelis are somehow less human than americans? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

faithfromanewperspective · 3 months

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you know who we need to hold israel (defence forces and govt) accountable to do better for? the people. israel. who are more than a genocidal, lying government. yes the apartheid state has been around less than a century. but jews have been around for millennia. descendants of abraham, isaac and jacob have been around for millennia. legend has it the name of israel and 'israelites' as a synonym for 'hebrews' and 'jews' ever since this guy called jacob fought God like 4, 5 thousand years ago. imagine what our ancestors would think. these fathers (and mothers, do i need to talk about sarah and rebekah and rachel and leah?) of israelis and (many) palestinians and other europeans like myself with vaguely jewish descent. don't they deserve to have their name taken back from being something that's used as a force of evil? what about citizens convinced that yes, this is bad, they just want the 'war' to be over but think 'free palestine' means their own death and displacement because that's what they've been told? because after 70 years that's the only thing they can imagine is being called for, because it's what their government, if they were palestine, would do? don't they deserve to have a vision of peace that's beyond their wildest imaginings?

such a power-hungry murder-hungry leadership is never elected through the choice of empowered people. humans are better than that. the only way to have something like this kind of pass is to invoke so much fear and so much misinformation that people think it's the best of bad options. that it somehow represents their interest. a whole nation doesn't want this. no nation of people is bad. only the (numerical) minority who are in power are. most people are just scared. and when you're scared, you tend to be misinformed. easy victims of misinformation. it's hard to be the bigger person and to stand up against something wrong when all you're fed is fear. and yet. someone has to. can't we help out with that?

you know, there's some people in Australia who think if our Indigenous people get their way, all people of European and Asian and African and American and wherever else descent will be kicked out or subjugated somehow. treated the way colonisers treated them for centuries. i've met Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists who tirelessly spend their time saying this isn't true, they only want peace and reconciliation. they only want to be equal and recognised as such. they shouldn't have to say this. it should be obvious. why do (usually white) people believe this? because it's what colonisers would do. get revenge. it's what the West, largely, would do. somehow deep down even if we don't admit it we know we've been in the wrong. we know justice means to some extent suffering for what our ancestors did. we want that suffering to be minimal. it looks bad from an ethics standpoint. terrible, even. but we as humans are wired neurobiologically to defend our own safety. it's what keeps us safe and allows us to persist as a species.

so the number one way to convince someone to override someone else's right to that is to make them believe that someone else's right to exist somehow conflicts with theirs. this is never true. it's just a question of logistics. but if your government is set on killing people, it's going to do all it can to make sure you don't revolt and stop it. it's going to minimise its crimes over the years. do you know how easy it is to normalise the mistreatment of another people group until it's hard to notice up close? think of how we've discussed systemic racism. think of, if you're a white person, how in 2020 when we were all at home and you had nothing to do but be on the internet, you realised how you've benefitted from it, without ever wanting for anyone to get hurt or have it harder than you did. just by simply existing in a system designed to favour you, preferably without you ever noticing and therefore going and dismantling it.

yes this genocide is bloody and violent. yes it shocks those who were already horrified at one, two, three, or even a hundred Black murders by those meant to protect us. human life is precious. black lives matter. indigenous lives matter. palestinian lives matter. we know that deep within ourselves, we know that we're one humanity. fear and division don't help anyone. but peace can't be false, no one can be one with their oppressor. palestine needs to be free. don't you remember the story of joseph, favoured by his father, oppressed by his brothers, separated from them for decades and when they reunited, wanting only to be equal to them even after saving their lives and holding a powerful political position? hierarchies get us nowhere. all they do is disempower. feminism is meant to help men, too. it always has been. men, who have a right to be raised as more than oppressors. israelis, who have a right to a proper informed decision not to be complicit in a genocide too. who have a right to a vision of harmony. in Australia we celebrate harmony day on the 21st of march. it's coming up in a few weeks. many different cultures living together. and yet. it's true no colonisers are innocent. it's true many of us aussies are living off the benefits of our ancestors who were that. we're not quite innocent either. but if we left, where would we go? many of us don't have a homeland anymore, or we have so many that we can never truly belong in any of them. and i know it's not the same. our genocide isn't happening now, at least not at the same rate, despite the disparity in health outcomes and incarceration and the occasional murder. most of us aren't doing the murdering and actually want to do better. i don't know what it's like to be living as an israeli in 2024.

but i do look to the west and i see the conditional help they gave to construct israel after the war. to build something that in the wake of another genocide, is told that their empowerment depends on the same power structures that hurt them to begin with and with no power of their own, the west would give it to them in exchange for the power to build them into a military monster and it's easy to forget how to be kind. it doesn't mean you're innocent. but when you have millions of people being funneled down this path--I think we've seen this before. we know that not all germans believed hitler's beliefs or supported him, and those who did, it was largely out of fear for their own lives and holding misinformation about what he was actually getting up to. because germans are not bad people. misguided means that with guidance to do better, they will do better. this is the same for israelis. for jews, because many identify with both. jews aren't bad people! yet some of us were raised to believe so. some of us don't realise how normalised that belief was but when christianity has gotten to run the path it has for the last century or more, had people within it be misguided by the same ideas that tell them to disagree with someone is for them to be a threat to your life, those with more power are going to be the voices we hear and it's going to be polarising. we're going to pick up some harmful beliefs and it's up to us in our relative safety all over the world to be the ones to unpack them.

isn't it easy to, if you believe jews to be monsters, when you offer them 'help' with something, to only imagine the help they want is help to be what you believe they are? isn't it easy to raise to power the few who actually do live out this stereotype? until all the good people, the majority of them, with all their traditions and customs that deserve to be respected and celebrated and allowed to exist and do good, are so suppressed we wonder if they're even there anymore? isn't this a self fulfilling prophecy? this is how you villainise someone. and if you're usamerica right now (again, i'm not referring to you, the people. i know that most of you don't want this) and to a lesser extent other western countries, some greedy self-interest to provide someone you already believe to be no better than this with the means to behave in ways you would never be caught doing (but it's just far away enough that people might not draw the link, and it retains your fragile sense of power) crops up and all of a sudden this is the status quo. all of a sudden this is how the momentum is going, and to stop what you're doing will cause chaos but nothing is as bad as continuing. but you're not ready for the chaos. because you're going to lose the power you have which was never yours to hold to begin with.

free palestine, free the world, meet the needs of the people. create a world where israelis and usamericans and westerners in general aren't automatically complicit in genocide unless we stand against it. create a world where israelis are free to be good because we're not backing them into a corner of propaganda believing this is who they are and they are no better than that, so they better allow their government to do this in order that they survive. believe that jews can be good. it's about time. believe that usamericans can be good too but that we need to unpack the power dynamics of the world and work at unraveling the threads of colonialism and healing the hurt to the nations. many of us have generational trauma due to it and will continue to do so. make the economic argument if you have to, for we know the price of mental health care now in 2024 and we know how to sustain the capacity of our healthcare systems, not max them out. we need a lot of trauma informed care. and that means that we can learn to process what we've been through and not turn around and let out that repressed hurt to hurt someone else, someone we believe will hurt us and maybe isn't quite human. chances are they're just as human as anyone. sometimes trauma gives you paranoia, even if it's your ancestors' and not yours. the holocaust is still a living memory for many today. through years when mental health care was stigmatised, its need never went away. hurt simply festered. we've got the resources to do better now and the very first step is a ceasefire. followed by a vision. of harmony where no one's rights are taken away, where everyone has the right to a feeling of autonomy but theirs doesn't take that right away from anyone else. it is possible but we're going to have to think differently. we're going to have to see people as people rather than perpetrators of sins that often aren't theirs specifically but belong to those associated with them willingly or unwillingly. we're going to have to realise that being capable of doing better isn't the same as being completely innocent, and in that raising the moral bar higher than we can handle simply removes the hope that we desperately need: that misguided and scared people who don't stand up to Every Wrong Thing can do better. that they need investment, not villainisation, especially if they've been victims of oppression themselves in the past--we can't sweep this under the rug. we ourselves are them. and we have to believe we can do better too.

#decolonise #silver bridges #free palestine #palestine #antisemitism #systemic antisemitism #from the river to the sea #i hope this makes sense #how autonomy and empowerment are for all and for all to do good #indigenous rights #human rights #mental health #so fucking tired of all of this. genuinely hope there's somewhat of a point to this bc i'm so sleep deprived #israel #feminism #it really touches on everything

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girlactionfigure · 4 years

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Trump Gets it Right about Antisemitism (Updated)

Note: since this post was written, the order was issued, and it was not precisely what was expected. Nevertheless, I think the post is still interesting, if not relevant to the same degree. See the update at the end for a full explanation.

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President Trump is expected to issue an executive order that Jews should be treated as a “nationality*” as well as a religious group. This means that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans the use of federal funds for programs or activities that discriminate on the basis of “race, color, or national origin,” will now apply to antisemitism. And an administration official has said that the government would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which the State Department adopted in 2016, as a working definition of antisemitism (a previous working definition in use from 2010 is similar in relevant respects).

This is a big deal, because the extreme anti-Zionism (misoziony) that characterizes the discourse on many Western colleges and universities clearly falls under the IHRA definition, which specifically mentions

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis…

which are all the bread and butter of Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as countless other anti-Israel organizations. Of course, antisemitism in the form of assaults, discrimination, and other more subtle forms of harassment in the guise of “free expression” – incidentally, things that would never be tolerated if their object were other minorities – also will be able to trigger a shutoff of federal funds.

Naturally, the usual suspects are outraged. Some of the outrage comes from those who would be outraged if Trump were to issue an order recognizing motherhood and apple pie, because he is Trump. Halie Soifer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America accused Trump of “hypocrisy,” blamed him for “emboldening white nationalism, perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and repeating stereotypes that have led to violence targeting Jews.” Even if these accusations were true (I am convinced that they are not), they are irrelevant to the reasonableness of this executive order.

But there are more substantive objections. They either deny that Jews are a nationality, or they object to the IHRA definition, usually saying it limits free speech by conflating “legitimate” anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Let’s take the issue of nationality first.

One group that objects to the idea that Jews are a people or a nationality, of course, is the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, who have always insisted that “Jewish” refers only to a religion, not a nation. They have therefore refused to accept the “two states for two peoples” formula or to recognize that Israel is the state of the Jewish people. This is one of the main reasons that the Palestinians have never accepted any of the generous offers of statehood proffered to them. Interestingly, there is also a strong current of “nationhood denial” among liberal American Jews. Some seem to think that attributing nationhood to the Jewish people would mean that they would somehow be “less American.” But of course nobody believes that granting this status to Italian-Americans would make them less American, or that Title VI doesn’t apply to discrimination against them.

This prejudice in the diaspora against the idea of Jewish nationhood goes back to the late 18th and early 19th century when Jews were first beginning to acquire rights in newly-enlightened Europe. The spectre of their “dual loyalty” to their country of residence and to the Jewish nation quickly arose. In 1789, the French Count of Clermont-Tonnerre, in a speech about the treatment of minorities in the new Republic, said “[w]e must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation, and accord everything to the Jews as individuals.” Let them have their religion and their quaint customs, but their national loyalty can only be to France.

Many Jews were happy to agree. In Germany, the newly-created Reform Movement adopted the idea of being “Germans of the Mosaic Persuasion,” nationally identical to their neighbors of the Lutheran persuasion. In America, the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform of the American Reform Movement included this unequivocal statement: “[w]e consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” By 1999, their platform refers to the Jews as “a people.” But many liberal Jews, uncomfortable about the possibility (and often the actuality) of accusations of dual loyalty, take pains to insist that they do not see themselves as anything other than Americans (or Canadians, or Britons). Their Jewishness is only a matter of religion, ethnicity, or some cultural artifacts.

They have a right to say that if they wish, and to distance themselves from the Jewish nation, but they do not have the right to say that there is no Jewish nation. The Jewish people, in fact, are the paradigm case of a nation: if you want to know what the characteristics of a nation are, look at the Jews. The Jewish people have

A common geographical origin and a connection to their aboriginal home.

A shared genetic heritage.

A unique ancestral language.

A unique religion.

A shared culture.

A shared historical experience.

Self-identification as a nation.

It’s ironic that the Palestinian Arabs, who have multiple origins, a relatively short period of shared history, no unique language or religion, a culture based entirely on opposition to the Jews, and who have only self-identified as a nation since the mid-1960s, have the chutzpah to deny nationhood to the Jewish people!

What about the argument that the IHRA definition conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism and thus limits speech that is critical of Israel? Despite what some say, it is actually quite easy to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. The criteria were provided by Natan Sharansky, who called it the “3D Test of Antisemitism.” I’ll quote him:

The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism.

The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.

I call irrational, extreme hatred of Israel misoziony. Misoziony is a form of antisemitism, the traditional Jew-hatred raised to a higher level of abstraction. And there is no better test for misoziony than Sharansky’s 3D criteria, which are implicit in the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. There is no reason to oppose the IHRA definition, except to enable antisemites to disguise their poison as legitimate political speech.

The growing phenomenon of antisemitism in Western universities – where it usually takes the form of misoziony – has given rise to a great deal of consternation and hand-wringing on the part of university administrators, who have in general done nothing practical to reduce it. Yet again, Donald Trump has come along and cut what appeared to be a Gordian Knot, just as he did when he finally fulfilled the promise of the US Congress to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

And just as they did last May, Jewish progressives displayed their remarkable ability to cut off their own noses to spite their faces.

Update [12 Dec]:

This post was written on Wednesday morning in Israel, after news reports indicated that President Trump was going to issue an order that, among other things, would treat Jewishness as a “nationality” as well as a religious group.

It was thought that this would broaden the applicability of Title VI to prohibit discrimination against Jews, as Jews.

Apparently the reports were wrong. The final version of the order says nothing about treating Jews as a nationality, and reemphasizes that Title VI applies only to discrimination on the basis of “Race, color, or national origin.” It does note – something that the Justice Department already recognized back in 2010 – that belonging to a “group sharing religious practices” does not disqualify someone from being protected against discrimination on the basis of the initial three criteria.

This means that the applicability of Title VI has not been broadened.

However, as Prof. Avi Bell has noted (correspondence), the incorporation of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism into the order is important. The examples in the IHRA definition, in which Sharansky’s 3D criteria are implicit, clearly show what kind of “criticism of Israel” constitutes antisemitism. Therefore a university (e.g.) will not be able to excuse its inaction on complaints of antisemitism by groups like SJP on the grounds that they are “just” engaging in “criticism of Israel.”

The official text of the order can be found here.

______________________________________ * It should be understood that “nationality” is used in the older and broader sense of belonging to a people, or nation, and not in the narrow modern sense of citizenship in a country.

Abu Yehuda

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Can you believe ...?

Perhaps no question has been repeated more times in reaction to more events this year than that one.

The most recent major outrage in the Jewish community, now several news cycles behind us, came on the Shabbat before Yom Kippur—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar—when many American Jews seemed dumbfounded by what was to me predictable news: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, progressive superstar, had pulled out of an event honoring Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister assassinated because of his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians. Rabin was, as Bill Clinton said at his funeral, “a martyr for his nation’s peace.”

…

But it wasn’t AOC who was mixed up. The savvy politician had read the room and was sending a clear signal about who belongs in the new progressive coalition and who does not. The confusion—and there seems to be a good deal of it these days—is among American Jews who think that by submitting to ever-changing loyalty tests they can somehow maintain the old status quo and their place inside of it.

Did you see that the Ethical Culture Fieldston School hosted a speaker that equated Israelis with Nazis? Did you know that Brearley is now asking families to write a statement demonstrating their commitment to “anti-racism”? Did you see that Chelsea Handler tweeted a clip of Louis Farrakhan? Did you see that protesters tagged a synagogue in Kenosha with “Free Palestine” graffiti? Did you hear about the march in D.C. where they chanted “Israel, we know you, you murder children too”? Did you hear that the Biden campaign apologized to Linda Sarsour after initially disavowing her? Did you see that Twitter suspended Bret Weinstein’s civic organization but still allows the Iranian ayatollah to openly promote genocide of the Jewish people? Did you see that Mayor Bill de Blasio scapegoated “the Jewish community” for the spread of COVID in New York, while defending mass protests on the grounds that this is a “historic moment of change”?

Listen, it’s been a hell of a year. We all have a lot going on, much of it unnerving and some of it dire. Moreover, many of these stories only surface on places like Twitter; they don’t make it into the pages of The New York Times or your friends’ Facebook feeds, which is where most Americans get their news these days. Reporters don’t cover these stories adequately, contextualizing them, telling readers which ones are true and which ones aren’t, which ones matter and which ones don't.

So it makes sense that many smart, well-intentioned people are confused. Or rather: Looking for someone to explain why an emerging movement that purports to advance the ideals they have always supported—fairness, justice, righting historical wrongs—feels like it is doing the opposite.

…

To understand the enormity of the change we are now living through, take a moment to understand America as the overwhelming majority of its Jews believed it was—and perhaps as we always assumed it would be.

It was liberal.

Not liberal in the narrow, partisan sense, but liberal in the most capacious and distinctly American sense of that word: the belief that everyone is equal because everyone is created in the image of God. The belief in the sacredness of the individual over the group or the tribe. The belief that the rule of law—and equality under that law—is the foundation of a free society. The belief that due process and the presumption of innocence are good and that mob violence is bad. The belief that pluralism is a source of our strength; that tolerance is a reason for pride; and that liberty of thought, faith, and speech are the bedrocks of democracy.

The liberal worldview was one that recognized that there were things—indeed, the most important things—in life that were located outside of the realm of politics: friendships, art, music, family, love. This was a world in which Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be close friends. Because, as Scalia once said, some things are more important than votes.

Crucially, this liberalism relied on the view that the Enlightenment tools of reason and the scientific method might have been designed by dead white guys, but they belonged to everyone, and they were the best tools for human progress that have ever been devised.

Racism was evil because it contradicted the foundations of this worldview, since it judged people not based on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin. And while America’s founders were guilty of undeniable hypocrisy, their own moral failings did not invalidate their transformational project. The founding documents were not evil to the core but “magnificent,” as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, because they were “a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” In other words: The founders themselves planted the seeds of slavery’s destruction. And our second founding fathers—abolitionists like Frederick Douglass—made it so. America would never be perfect, but we could always strive toward building a more perfect union.

I didn’t even know that this worldview had a name because it was baked into everything I came into contact with—my parents’ worldviews, the schools they sent me to, the synagogues we attended, the magazines and newspapers we read, and so on.

…

No longer. American liberalism is under siege. There is a new ideology vying to replace it.

No one has yet decided on the name for the force that has come to unseat liberalism. Some say it’s “Social Justice.” The author Rod Dreher has called it “therapeutic totalitarianism.” The writer Wesley Yang refers to it as “the successor ideology”—as in, the successor to liberalism.

…

The new creed’s premise goes something like this: We are in a war in which the forces of justice and progress are arrayed against the forces of backwardness and oppression. And in a war, the normal rules of the game—due process; political compromise; the presumption of innocence; free speech; even reason itself—must be suspended. Indeed, those rules themselves were corrupt to begin with—designed, as they were, by dead white males in order to uphold their own power.

…

Critical race theory says there is no such thing as neutrality, not even in the law, which is why the very notion of colorblindness—the Kingian dream of judging people not based on the color of their skin but by the content of their character—must itself be deemed racist. Racism is no longer about individual discrimination. It is about systems that allow for disparate outcomes among racial groups. If everyone doesn’t finish the race at the same time, then the course must have been flawed and should be dismantled.

…

In fact, any feature of human existence that creates disparity of outcomes must be eradicated: The nuclear family, politeness, even rationality itself can be defined as inherently racist or evidence of white supremacy, as a Smithsonian institution suggested this summer. The KIPP charter schools recently eliminated the phrase “work hard” from its famous motto “Work Hard. Be Nice.” because the idea of working hard “supports the illusion of meritocracy.” Denise Young Smith, one of the first Black people to reach Apple’s executive team, left her job in the wake of asserting that skin color wasn’t the only legitimate marker of diversity—the victim of a “diversity culture” that, as the writer Zaid Jilani has noted, is spreading “across the entire corporate world and is enforced by a highly educated activist class.”

The most powerful exponent of this worldview is Ibram X. Kendi. His book “How to Be an Antiracist” is on the top of every bestseller list; his photograph graces GQ; he is on Time’s most influential people of the year; and his outfit at Boston University was recently awarded $10 million from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

…

And just in case moral suasion is ineffective, Kendi has backup: Use the power of the federal government to make it so. “To fix the original sin of racism,” he wrote in Politico, “Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals [sic]: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.” To back up the amendment, he proposes a Department of Anti-Racism. This department would have the power to investigate not just local governments but private businesses and would punish those “who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.” Imagine how such a department would view a Jewish day school, which suggests that the Jews are God’s chosen people, let alone one that teaches Zionism.

Kendi—who, it should be noted, now holds Elie Wiesel’s old chair at Boston University—believes that “to be antiracist is to see all cultures in their differences as on the same level, as equals.” He writes: “When we see cultural difference we are seeing cultural difference—nothing more, nothing less.” It’s hard to imagine that anyone could believe that cultures that condone honor killings of unchaste young women are “nothing more, nothing less” than culturally different from our own. But whether he believes it or not, it’s obvious that embracing such relativism is a highly effective tool for ascension and seizing power.

It should go without saying that, for Jews, an ideology that contends that there are no meaningful differences between cultures is not simply ridiculous—we have an obviously distinct history, tradition and religion that has been the source of both enormous tragedy as well as boundless gifts—but is also, as history has shown, lethal.

By simply existing as ourselves, Jews undermine the vision of a world without difference. And so the things about us that make us different must be demonized, so that they can be erased or destroyed: Zionism is refashioned as colonialism; government officials justify the murder of innocent Jews in Jersey City; Jewish businesses can be looted because Jews “are the face of capital.” Jews are flattened into “white people,” our living history obliterated, so that someone with a straight face can suggest that the Holocaust was merely “white on white crime.”

This is no longer a fringe view. As the philosopher Peter Boghossian has noted: “This ideology is the dominant moral orthodoxy in our universities, and has seeped out and spread to every facet of American life— publishing houses, tech, arts, theater, newspapers, media,” and, increasingly, corporations. It has not grabbed power by dictates from above, but by seizing the means of sense-making from below.

Over the past few decades and with increasing velocity over the last several years, a determined young cohort has captured nearly all of the institutions that produce American cultural and intellectual life. Rather than the institutions shaping them, they have reshaped the institutions. You don’t need the majority inside an institution to espouse these views. You only need them to remain silent, cowed by a fearless and zealous minority who can smear them as racists if they dare disagree.

It is why California attempted to pass an ethnic studies curriculum whose only mention of Jews was to explain how they, along with Irish immigrants, were invited into whiteness.

It is why those who claim to care about diversity and inclusion don’t seem to care about the deep-seated racism against Asian Americans at schools like Harvard.

It is why a young Jewish woman named Rose Ritch was recently run out of the USC student government. Ms. Ritch stood accused of complicity in racism because, following the Soviet lie, to be a Zionist is to be nothing less than a racist. Her fellow students waged a campaign to hound her out of her position: “Impeach her Zionist ass,” they insisted.

It is why the Democratic Socialists of America, the emerging power center of the Democratic Party in New York, sent a questionnaire to New York City Council candidates that included a pledge not to travel to Israel.

It is why Tamika Mallory, an outspoken fan of Louis Farrakhan, gets the glamour treatment in a photoshoot for Vogue.

And this is why AOC, the standard bearer of America’s new left, didn’t think Yitzhak Rabin was worth the political capital, but goes out of her way, a few days later, to praise the Black Panthers. She is the harbinger of a political reality in which Jews will have little power.

It does not matter how progressive you are, how vegan or how gay, how much you want universal health care and pre-K and to end the drug war. To believe in the justness of the existence of the Jewish state—to believe in Jewish particularism at all—is to make yourself an enemy of this movement.

…

If you’re nearing the end of the essay wondering why this hasn’t been explained to you before, the answer is because, yet again, we find ourselves in another moment in Jewish history at a time of great need and urgency with communal leadership who, with rare exception, will not address the danger.

I understand why people have been blind to this. Life has been good—exceedingly good—for American Jews for half a century. Many older communal leaders seem to lack the moral imagination to see this threat. It’s also hard for anyone to hear the words: They’re just not that into you.

So when I try to discuss this with many Jews in leadership positions, what I face is either boomer-esque entitlement—a sense that the way the world worked for them must be the way it will always work—or outright resistance. Oh please, wokeness isn’t important anywhere but in silly Twitter microclimates. When you explain that no, in fact, this ideology has taken over universities, publishing houses, the media, museums and is now making quick work of corporate America, you hit another roadblock: Isn’t this just righting some historical injustices? What could go wrong? You then have to explain what could go wrong—what is already going wrong—is that it is ruining the lives of regular, good people, and the more institutions and companies fall prey to it, the more lives it will ruin.

…

Last month, I participated in a Zoom event attended by several major Jewish philanthropists. After briefly talking about my experience at The New York Times, I noted that if they wanted to understand what happened to me, they needed to appreciate the power of that new, still-nameless creed that has hijacked the paper and so many other institutions essential to American life. I’ve been thinking about what happened next ever since.

One of the funders on the call launched into me, explaining that Ibram X. Kendi’s work was vital, and portrayed me as retrograde and uncool for opposing the ideology du jour. Because this person is prominent and powerful enough to send signals that others in the Jewish world follow, the comments managed to both sideline me and stun almost everyone else into silence.

These people may be the most enraging: those with the financial security to oppose this ideology and demur, so desperate to be seen as hip; for their children to keep their spots at the right prep schools; so that they can be seated at the right tables at the right benefits; so that they are honored at Brown or Harvard; so that business does well enough that they can renovate their house in Aspen or East Hampton. Desperate to remain in good odor with the right people, they are willing to close their eyes to what is coming for the rest of us.

Young Jews who grasp the scope of this problem and want to fight it thus find themselves up against two fronts: their ideological enemies and their own communal leadership. But it is among this group—people with no social or political capital to hoard, some of them not even out of college—that I find our community’s seers. The dynamic reminds me of the one Theodor Herzl faced: The communal establishment of his time was deeply opposed to his Zionist project. It was the poorer, younger Jews—especially those from Russia—who first saw the necessity of Zionism’s lifesaving vision.

Funders and communal leaders who are falling over themselves to make alliances with fashionable activists and ideas enjoy a decadent indulgence that these young proud Jews cannot afford. They live far from the violence that affects Jews in places like Crown Heights and Borough Park. If things go south in one city, they can take refuge in a second home. It may be cost-free for the wealthy to flirt with an ideology that suggests abolishing the police or the nuclear family or capitalism. But for most Jews and most Americans, losing those ideas comes with a heavy price.

#bari weiss #tablet magazine #anti-semitism #cancel culture

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quakerjoe · 5 years

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JOE BIDEN:

has been personally involved in nearly every bad policy decision of the last 50 years. Currently coasting on name recognition and association with Obama, he can only go down from here as people realize he is more comparable to Trump than he is to anyone else. With all the negatives of Hillary’s failed campaign but none of the positives, he would almost surely see us lose the general election again. If you love your grandchildren at all please do not vote for Biden.

TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:

Led the fight against desegregating schools

Voted for the disastrous Iraq War and still says he’d “do it again”

Wrote the racist Crime Bill that intentionally led to record-breaking mass incarceration, positioning himself to the right of even Reagan and Bush

Opposed Roe v Wade and voted to allow states to overturn it like they are now, worked to undermine the ACA’s coverage of birth control, does “not view abortion as a choice and a right” and still opposed federal funding for it multiple times including during this election

Long history of creepily groping/sniffing/kissing women and young girlsjust so many times, even including intimidation and continuing even now after his non-apology

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:

Racist comments like this and fondness towards if not impassioned support for so many of the worst racists and segregationists like this whom he chose to work with, as well as Republicans like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mike Pence, and Jeb Bush

As part of his crusade against desegregating schools he was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two black appointees to the Department of Justice

Lies about marching in the Civil Rights movement

Horrible treatment of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas hearing

Supports cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age on multiple occasions, backing Paul Ryan’s efforts to do so, while voting to gut welfare

Led the disastrous War on Drugs, and somehow still opposes cannabis legalization, yet two of his children escaped consequences for drug use

Pushed to expand death penalty, even to those on drug charges

Sided with banks to overturn Glass-Steagall and deregulate, leading to financial crisis

Led the disastrous Bankruptcy Bill resulting in increased debt and dismisses the plight of Millennials who are now the most indebted generation ever

Defends billionaires hoarding wealth and promises to ensure it keeps happening at the expense of everyone else while voting to slash the top income tax rate and cripple the estate tax, resulting in $83 billion lost annually

Opposes Medicare for All, says he “doesn’t have time” to propose another healthcare plan, and wants to bring back penalizing those who can’t afford to pay for insurance [Expanded 7/6]

Opposed equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community until very recently

Supported NRA in passing massive anti-gun control legislation

Opposes meaningful action on the climate crisis like the Green New Deal, instead pursuing the “middle ground” while his campaign attacks publications for accurately reporting this. He’s rated D- by Greenpeace

Plagiarized fossil fuel groups’ language in his woefully inadequate climate crisis plan after his climate advisor made $1 million from one natural gas company alone

Voted to expand deportations and indefinite detention for immigrants multiple times, has opposed amnesty for immigrants and supports requiring them to learn English, and helped expand the system Trump now uses to commit human rights violations by 3,600%

Voted to build border walls and supported sending military to the border long before Trump

Voted to ban immigrants with HIV, locking Haitian refugees up in Guantanamo Bay

Spearheaded the Alliance for Prosperity which increased deportations, border militarization, privatization, and oil pipelines for American exploitation while worsening the refugee crisis

Architected Plan Colombia, internationalizing the War On Drugs resulting in mass death, displacement, and destruction of food crops, while opening the country to US business interests

Voted to authorize invasion of the Netherlands if an American is tried for war crimes by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, refusal to participate in UN peacekeeping unless the US obtains immunity, and withdrawal of aid to countries that ratify ICC treaty

Supports Israel’s right-wing regime and apartheid in Palestine purely to protect US interests. A self-described Zionist, he blames Palestinians for multiple US-backed Israeli massacres, including an attack that killed 9 peace activists. Calls BDS “anti-semitic” and has a 100% rating from AIPAC [Expanded 7/4]

Sides with Trump in backing right-wing coup in Venezuela

Recklessly threatens nuclear war with North Korea

Voted against abolishing the electoral college that undemocratically elected Bush and Trump

Took $200,000 to help a Republican beat a Democrat to Congressdespite being anti-abortion

Voted against enhancing labor protection enforcements

Voted for NAFTA, supports TPP, is generally to the right of Trump on trade

Works with union-busters and voted to cut union pensions and is generally bad for workers

Consistently sides with special interests and corporations against antitrust regulation and voted for the first antitrust exemption since 1922

Opposes net neutrality

Driving force behind the Patriot Act, supports warrantless wiretaps / mass surveillance while his son partially owns the Chinese government’s mass surveillance system

Personally tried to prevent Ecuador from providing asylum for Edward Snowden

Says the CIA torture report is not a “black stain on this country” but a “badge of honor”

Worsened the opioid epidemic and made it harder to treat

Wants to make up reasons to jail anyone associated with a rave and literally bulldoze it down while his RAVE legislation lets kids die from preventable drug overdoses

Has questionable electability based on receiving less than 0.22% in 3 previous Democratic primary elections. He has a history of insulting voters and is currently skipping major party events, hiding from the press, and holding only between a quarter and half as many public events as his rivals

Plagiarized law school papers and campaign speeches (in which he lied about having coal miner roots), which ended his 1988 presidential run

His anti-progressive campaign surrogate Ed Rendell is a sexist, pro-fracking, pro-AIPAC Fox News supporter who approved bombing a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, killing 5 children and 6 adults [Added 6/26]

Used Charlottesville as a prop in his campaign video despite never even visiting once

Is still openly courting Republican billionaires for donations, including John Catsimatidis, who’s compared taxing the wealthy to Nazi persecution of Jews

Endorsed by Alan Dershowitz, the millionaire Trump supporter accused of taking part in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex ring, after Biden’s son ensured a similar billionaire pedophile avoided prison after raping his own toddler

Voted to deregulate the credit card industry while a credit card company was his top donor from 1989–2000 and then hired his son

His administration awarded a $1.5 billion contract to his brother’s construction firm despite his brother having no prior residential construction experience

Funded by lobbyists and special interests, and very openly partakes in general corruption

Hasn’t released any tax returns since 2015, which people seem to care about now

Unconvincingly co-opted Bernie’s education plan and slogan, and a Biden PAC plagiarized Kamala Harris’ slogan for its name

“A lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don’t come out with a liberal rating. I’m really quite conservative…”

Meghan and the McCain family and Strom Thurmond have endorsed him, and Trump has donated to him

The worst part? He’s still not sorry for any of this (but wants a black man to apologize to him)

(READ MORE)

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schraubd · 5 years

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My Thoughts on Jewish Organizations

There are a lot of Jewish organizations out there. And I have thoughts on them. Some I like a lot. Some I like less. I'm a progressive Zionist with more of an academic than a political bent, which means I don't like anti-Zionist or right-wing groups, and all else equal I prefer groups who are "wonkish" or "scholarly" to "political" or "activist". But the former part matters more than the latter -- I understand the importance of political organizing, even if it isn't my style; whereas groups which actively back settlements or BDS go a ways beyond "not my style". Anyway, these are just my opinions -- do with them what you will. * * * AIPAC: Kind of an old, creaky battleship at this point. I actually think AIPAC probably does see the threats to its core mission -- namely, the growing partisanization of Israel as an issue -- but is too large and unwieldy to actually do anything about it. For all its supposed power, it's actually not that effective anymore (though it's very effective at being a boogeyman for "the all-powerful Israel Lobby"). Ameinu: I like them a lot. The former Labor Zionist Alliance has the right political orientation and tends to take a careful approach to things, which I appreciate. Its "Third Narrative" initiative is definitely my cup of tea. American Jewish Committee: Deeply uneven. Sometimes stands out in front on human rights. Sometimes falls over itself to praise Jair Bolsonaro. Definitely not adjusting with the times, and definitely needs to fire whoever is running their Twitter account. American Jewish Congress: Are they still a thing? Americans for Peace Now: Of the true "left" groups, definitely my favorite. That's probably because its the only one that's still okay with Zionism, but also because it does genuinely important and substantive work and provides a much needed critical progressive voice inside Jewish communal structures. Anti-Defamation League: My favorite of the major "mainline" groups. Does it bat 1.000? No. But it's right more often than it isn't, and it takes a lot more flak than it deserves. The effort by conservative voices to place it in the pocket of the left is ludicrous. A Wider Bridge: In late 2015/early 2016, I started looking up which Jewish organizations not specifically focused on Mizrahi/Sephardic issues nonetheless mentioned Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews. My methodology was pretty basic and the bar was pretty low: do a google site search for "Mizrahi" or "Sephardic". The results were ... disappointing. A Wider Bridge was an exception. Generally does very good work, and the fact that it does good work is probably why its opponents are so desperate to smear it with the "pinkwashing" label. Be'chol Lashon: Can't rave about them enough. They deserve infinitely more attention, resources, and support from the rest of the Jewish community. I dare say the future of the vitality of diaspora Judaism depends on the success or failure of Be'chol Lashon's work. Bend the Arc: Another group I'm generally positively disposed towards, though I have little to say on them specifically. Conference of Presidents: More of an umbrella group, but it needs mention because for too long it's been far too solicitous of its right-wing members (see ZOA). American Jews vote for the Democratic Party at the same proportion as Idahoans vote Republican -- our conservatives should have exactly as much communal power as an Idaho Democrat. HIAS: If you don't like HIAS, you're a monster. Hillel: Desperately needs a dose of democracy. They're still the center of Jewish life on many campuses, and that's important in its own right. They're not the evil leviathan Open Hillel makes them out to be, but because they're not accountable to the student population they serve, they constantly fall into easily avoidable pitfalls. They certainly can't be trusted with something as sensitive as a partnership guideline. In my dream world, they become the bureaucratic arm of the American Union of Jewish Students. IfNotNow: Everything you don't like about BernieBros, but trying to rip apart the Jewish community instead of the Democratic Party. Sanctimonious, smug, hackish, theatrical, and almost unfathomably self-righteous. For them, sparking a civil war within the Jewish community isn't a risk they hope to avoid; it's the point of the movement. "Some people have never met a forest fire they didn't ache to pour gasoline on." I went from "cautious optimism" to "deep disdain" in a hurry. Israel Policy Forum: Somehow I'm always overlooking them. Don't know why -- they do really good work. Overall, I take a positive view. Jewish Community Relations Councils/Jewish Federations: Depends on the federation, naturally. As always, I worry about democracy deficit. Are they responsive to genuine community sentiment, or are they responsive to their donor base? Jewish Voice for Peace: Ugh. JFREJ: Everytime I read something from JFREJ, my reaction is always "meh". It's never particularly bad. It's never particularly good. It's meh. I'm if anything impressed by how consistently they make me shrug. JIMENA: Sometimes takes a more conservative line than I would like, but overall an important voice for the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish community. When I've worked with them, I've had no trouble integrating my progressive Zionist positions into what we've done together. J Street: Overall I like J Street (I definitely like this statement it just released on its commitment to Israel's future). It's a political lobbying shop, which means it makes certain compromises I wouldn't (less on issues, and more on using rhetoric that is mobilizing more than it is precise), but that comes with the territory -- a classic "not my style, but someone needs to do it" case. And, far and away, no group is maligned further out of proportion to its actual sins than J Street. It's not even close. OneVoice: Not exclusively a Jewish organization, but it's so important I'll give them a pass. You want durable and just peace in Israel and Palestine? Do the hard work of building grassroots support and political infrastructure for non-extremism and co-existence. That's what OneVoice does. Partners for Progressive Israel: I don't end up citing them a lot -- Ameinu ends up filling their niche -- but I'm generally positively inclined. T'ruah: Another very good progressive organization. Their commentary on the UN resolutions criticizing Israeli settlements is one of my favorite statements by a prominent Jewish organizations on any Israel-related topic, ever. Definitely endorse. Zioness: Came in deeply suspicious of them. Current posture is cautiously okay. They've filed off some of the rougher edges, and they haven't done what some groups in its niche love to do -- spend 90% of their time wailing about how mean people treat Israel before "proving" their progressive bona fides by writing a post about how terribly Saudi Arabia treats women (*cough* Women's March For All). They actually spend most of their time advocating for progressive ends that have no clear relation to Israel. Good on them! Still think they need to confirm that their progressivism extends to Israel itself, though. Zionist Organization of America: It's tough competition, but Mort Klein might be the worst. And since ZOA has become almost exclusively a vehicle for his hard-right, racist, xenophobic, anti-Palestinian politics, they're the worst too. The only difference between them and JVP is that ZOA gets to be the worst from inside the communal tent -- which goes to show how systematically biased the Jewish community in favor of our fringe right-wing voices. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2DEjdCu

#Jews

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sarenstuff · 7 years

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Israel and the Palestinians, part 2

@angrybell So, picking up from where we last left off:

The League of Nations granted mandates to the British and the French. The Mandates required them to exercise control until they could grant independence to new countries. Among those, they decided that one of the territories would be a Jewish National Home.

And what right did they have to give the ancestral homeland of the Palestinian people to people who didn’t even have any provable ancestral connection to the land? Please explain.

What we are left with is this: Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria is entirely legal.

So all of the UN resolutions passed declaring the occupation completely illegal have nothing to them, then? They’re all bullshit?

Until the Arabs and Israel arrive at a settlement on the territory Israel is willing to give to a new Arab state

There isn’t going to be any “settlement” as long as Israel chooses to exist as a Jewish state. There can’t be any settlement unless Israel agrees to respect the three basic rights of the Palestinian people as set forth by the BDS movement.

there are no de facto or de jure borders for the mythical “Palestine”, but there are for the State of Israel.

No, there aren’t. Israel has no borders. It doesn’t recognize its own borders. Doing so would mean recognizing the complete illegality of its settlements in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

Now, if Israel was truly eradicating all signs that Arabs had been living in the region, why would Arabic be on the road signs?

Non-Jewish Palestinian citizens of Israel don’t have the same rights as Jewish citizens do. Israel has recently been making efforts to make Arabic a lower status than Hebrew across the entire country.

And why would [the Dome of the Rock] be allowed to remain if Israel was actually destroying Arabic connections to Israel?

Because there’s only so much that even Israel could get away with. If they did that, even the US wouldn’t be able to protect them.

However, you cannot ignore that Israel is an inclusive society, despite what some fringe elements call for, which has not erased the connection of the Arabs to the region.

No, it is not an inclusive society:

Also, are you familiar with these lovely statements from Israeli leaders and founders?

“Palestinians are beasts, they are not human.” - Deputy Minister of Defense, Eli Ben-Dahan

“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.” - Ehud Barak, when he was Prime Minister of Israel

“The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs.” - Menahim Begin, Former Prime Minister of Israel

“When we have settled the land, all the Palestinians will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.“ - Rafael Eitan, Former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces

”We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.“ - Rafael Eitan, Former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces

“There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.” -Golda Maier, Former Israeli Prime Minister

“We shall reduce the [Palestinian] Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters.” - Uri Lubrani, Former Israeli Prime Minister’s special adviser

“We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” - Shlomo Lahat, former mayor of Tel Aviv

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its [Palestinian] Arab population.” -Yosef Weitz, a former director a the Jewish National Fund in the 1940s, a group that’s responsible for organizing Zionist settlements

And that doesn’t even include Ayelet Shaked’s infamous “little snakes” comment. So, yeah: please explain how it is an “inclusive society”?

But according to you, that’s stealing.

No, according to me, the Nakba was stealing (and ethnic cleansing, and mass murder).

So how good was the economic conditions? By far, the Mandate territory had the best per capita income and daily wages in the region. It was causing a flood of illegal immigration.

Palestinians are not illegal immigrants:

http://jurhfalastini.tumblr.com/post/162977518288/hey-you-know-angrybell-has-claimed-that-most

Under your thesis, Arabs and Muslims get a pass because, after blowing their chance to ethnically cleanse and create apartheid states of their own, they now seek to smear Israel with the crimes that they they attempted. And that this somehow differentiates their anti-semitism from the Nazis and others.

No, under my thesis, the Palestinians were resisting Zionist colonization, whereas the Nazis just wanted to straight-up fucking murder every single Jew in the world.

It does not matter whether the person trying to extirminate the Jews from some part of the globe wears a swastika, crescent moon, or a funky looking cross. The methods they use may be different, but in the end, they are fundamentally the same: they are antisemites.

No, they are not. Anti-Zionism will never, ever, ever be antisemitism, no matter how much you fucking screech about it!

And then there was the Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, who proclaimed,

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”

Kinda sounds like they wanted to exterminate all the Jews in Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azzam_Pasha_quotation

Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism. Its simple.

No, it isn’t.

You are denying Jews the right to their ancestral homeland for one simple reason: they are Jews.

There’s not a Jew on the planet who can trace his or her ancestry back to the Ancient Hebrews. I think that Jews belong in the countries in which they are born. I believe that a Swedish Jew is a Swede and an American Jew is an American. You Zionists don’t. You believe that Jews will forever be strangers in their actual homelands!

You can criticize Israel and not be anti-Semitic.

Yeah? That’s exactly what I’ve been doing all along!

However, to attack Zionism is to effectively deny Judaism because so much of Judaism is wrapped up in the idea that someday all the Jews will be back in Israel. It is part of our prayers. It is part of festivals and holidays. It is part of our scripture.

I don’t care. You do not get to ethnically cleanse an entire population and steal their land based on what your religion tells you. If the Zionists had merely immigrated, that would not have been a problem. The problem is what they did to the Palestinians in 1948.

And to you, Jews exercising their freedom of speech is the same as declaring war.

No, to me, ZIONISTS committing ETHNIC CLEANSING is the same as them committing ethnic cleansing.

Then you claim that the BDS movement is the best representative of the Arab people in the disputed territories.

Yeah, it is. Without a doubt.

These are the same people who forced the closure of businesses in PA controlled territory that provided the best salaries, working conditions, and benefits by far.

Yawn! Palestinian civil society - when they called for a global boycott - already decided that this is a very small price to pay in order to achieve their freedom. Oh, and also:

https://palestinianliberator.tumblr.com/post/140378641412/the-independent-jew-jewishwarriorprincess

Anything else?

But hey, creating discontent and discord is good if you want to keep the fighting going.

Israel created discontent and discord, not BDS.

Preventing Israel from creating bridges and harmony with the Arabs is the priority.

Oh, just fuck off! The only necessary bridges already exist: the bridges leading from Jordan into the West Bank. They’re the bridges which I expect the Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Syria will use when they finally get to go home.

But I guess living in Sweden, you could care less about the plight of the Arabs because you can assuage your feelings by knowing that you are morally pure by supporting BDS.

What does me living in Sweden have to do with anything?

By the way, are you using a computer with an Intel processor? Perhaps you use Bing or Google for your searches?

All developed in Israel.

I don’t think you understand what BDS actually means. Also, would you be okay with someone throwing you out of your house and living in it instead, as long as they invented some stuff while they were there?

Then you go on to say that Hamas has suddenly decided to not want to destroy Israel because of making one statement.

They do want to destroy Israel - but not Israelis.

Well, Ras al-Naqurah is a town on the border with Lebanon. Umm al-Rashrash is Eilat, the southern tip of Israel. The River Jordan is pretty self explanatory as is the Mediterranean. So basically, Hamas is still claiming all the land that is Israel.

Yep. Because that is their ancestral homeland.

So Hamas is not in a struggle with Jews, just Zionists, but almost all the Jews who live in Israel are considered Zionists. Great. So a fraction of Israel is now safe from the depredations of Hamas.

Do you expect them to not be in conflict with the people who have been oppressing them for seven decades?

To you,the answer to all the problems is simple: Zionism is the problem. Well, does history back that up? Absolutely not. The Arabs have been regularly conducting pogroms and massacres of Jews long before Herzl ever started the Zionist movement. There was, and this is not the full list, the

1834 Looting of Safed (Arabs attack and looted Safed’s Jewish community)

1838 Safed attack (Again, the Jews are attacked and robbed)

1847 Jerusalem pogrom (started because of a blood libel rumor)

1850 pogrom Aleppo (Eretz Israel was at that time part of the Syria Vilayet)

1848 Damascus pogrom

1862 Beirut pogrom (Again, this was part of Syria Vilayet)

1875 Beirut pogrom

1875 Aleppo pogrom

1890 Damascus pogrom

But hey, Zionism was responsible, right? Or maybe its because the Arabs anti-Semites who can’t stand to live with Jews.

That was antisemitism. What has happened between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea since the passing of the criminal and immoral Balfour Declaration, however, is because of Zionism.

You claim that the Arabs had access to all the land that held by the government prior to Israel’s independence. I have seen nothing that supports that. Some of the areas, probably. All of it? No. And even if you were right, which I do not believe, that did not create ownership rights for them. If it did, I would have ownership rights to several interstate highways because I travel on them regularly.

I don’t own all of Sweden. Yet I have access to the entire country - my home country (which incidentally is also the home country of about 18,000-20,000 Jews).

Furthermore, the Arabs, like every other country, wish to control who can enter their land. To that end, they have banned Jews with certain exceptions. So why then is it wrong for Israel to not allow foreign Arabs to freely roam land that is within Israel’s borders? Oh that’s right, its because they are Jews and Jews are not allowed the same rights as everyone else.

LOL, “foreign Arabs”…

Then you make the claim that Israel never existed before. To an extent, this is true. A nation called Israel did not exist. However, a Jewish political entity did. There was the confederation of the tribes. There was Kingdom of Israel. This was broken up by civil war into the Kingdom of Israel (aka Northern Kingdom of Israel) and Kingdom of Judah. Eventually it was reunited, and it was the Hasmonean Kingdom.

And the Palestinians are the direct descendants of those people - Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.

So “the State of Israel” did not exist. But as a political entity, the Jewish nation did and does exist. Hence why it is Israel’s independence is a reestablishment of the Jewish state.

I don’t follow your logic here.

And then you dodge the question of proof. You make the assertion that the reestablishment of Israel did not have the support of the Jewish community. Its a statement you have made time and again without giving any support. Prove it. Otherwise, its as false as the rest of your drivel.

Are you dense? I’ve already told you that I’m not going to prove a negative! Once again: the burden of proof is entirely on you. You have to prove that most Jews did support a Jewish state in Palestine at the point of Israel’s creation or in the preceding decades. But you won’t be able to do that, because they didn’t.

Then, because you don’t like DNA studies, claim that Jews cannot be related because we do not look like each other.

They can be related in the sense that they might have had a common ancestor, but they are not in any way, shape or form a single people. They lived thousands of kilometers apart, in different countries, on different continents, speaking different languages and eating different foods - and yes, they also looked completely different.

The Jewish people were exiled from their home in Eretz Yisrael. And quite literally we were scattered to the four corners of the planet. So yeah, I’m not going to look like a Cochin Jew. Hell, even though I am Ashkenazi, I don’t look like any other Ashkenazi Jew. But that does not matter.

Nonsense. Why would the Roman Empire have expelled an entire population after the Bar Kokhba revolt instead of keeping them on the land and taxing them? It makes no sense. A land without a people is worthless as a province.

That means “I am a Jew.” And the studies show that the Jews come from Israel. So whether I look like Jackie Mason, Paul Newman, or Peter Sellars, is irrelevant. I am Jewish. I am part of the tradition, religion, and nation that goes back five millennia, just as anyone else who joined up along the way is.

What studies? And do those same studies also show that Palestinians don’t come from that same area?

The Tsar’s subjects, the Roman soldiers, Nazis, and the Arab terrorists never cared about how far back my family goes in the community. They attacked us all the same. So I do the same when I consider whether someone is “Jewish enough”. Its an in or out thing which someone like you does not get to decide.

When did I ever try to decide that?

As far as Rafeef Ziadah is concerned, I suspect she supports terrorism. After all, this is a woman who has no trouble avoiding directly answering her family’s history.

What about her family history? Why should she even have to answer that?

She also has promoted the lie, which has long since been debunked, that the IDF regularly rapes Arab women and attempts to harvest Arab organs for sale.

Why do Palestinians have to be infallible to you in order to speak for their own liberation?

She has been calling for the repudiation of the Oslo Accords.

Of course she has. The Oslo Accords are completely unjust.

#jews #israel

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rapmillionaire · 7 years

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MY CONVERSATION WITH AN ORTHODOX JEW

As I walked through the main center atrium at UVA Hospital I saw an elderly Orthodox Jewish man sitting at a table by himself with a book open and headphones plugged into his ears. I walked a few feet, reluctant to approach before i called upon myself to turn around and find a way to talk to this man. I sat there at first awaiting for him to sense my presence thereby looking up at me to make eye-contact. He didn't do that for the first 5 minutes, so I sat patiently, just relaxing a bit. As it turned out, he was on the phone hearing another(s) on the other end speaking to him, following in the book. He looked up to me, I nodded with a smile, he reciprocated, and then about 3 minutes later he said bye to those on the phone-line. I approached and asked him if I could conversate with him for a moment. He said, yes, “but only for a moment as I have to go back up to see my son in the hospital room.” So i went and joined him at his table, and began with the rhetorical affirmation: "so you're Orthodox Jewish correct?" "yes”.. And then I asked him if he had ever been to Israel before? And he said yes, he was there a couple of months back. And then i asked him what his thoughts were on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He said, various people have various perspectives on the issue. He began describing how there are liberal orthodox Jews and conservative orthodox Jews, and that the Messiah will land in Israel. I interjected and said, but first the state of Israel must be established, and he agreed. He then went on to say how Christians and Jews have a lot in common in their beliefs. He spoke about there being Jews for Zionism, and Jews for a state of Israel “but they're not Zionists”. I asked him, “but isn't the essence of Zionism the establishment of a state of Israel?” And he concurred, yet said not all Jews consider themselves Zionists who may still agree/support a state of Israel existing. He spoke on how certain sects supported Donald Trump based upon their religious values. He thought I was Christian. I told him i am actually an American Muslim born to Palestinian immigrant parents. He then went on to say how Palestinians, many of whom are employed by Israel, enjoy much freedom, prosperity, and peace in Jerusalem, a city where Muslims and Christians and Jews live well together. He noted how in fact many Palestinians are at peace living and working with Jews in Jerusalem and Israel. I noted to him that in fact there is a lack of relations between Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. He noted that in the Gaza Strip, “the government there, which only constitutes about less than 1% of the Palestinians, is Hamas”, and as a result tensions and frictions rise. <<<I invite all to read Khaled Hroub’s “Hamas: A Beginner's Guide”. This work was written in the perspective of what Hamas is: a political and armed group of refugees resisting a most brutal and illegal occupation. It is designed to provide an understanding of Hamas's identity, their origins and their aims. It is also not without its criticisms.>>> Soon thereafter we got up from the table and began walking toward the elevators some 40 yards away. He also stated that, "but the media shows a different story, that Palestinians don't like Jews at all." I wanted to ask him why he thought the media does this, especially if the media is in favor of the Zionist agenda. I would have loved to hear his genuine opinion on that point, however the topic of conversation moved right along. He asked me what the population of Charlottesville was, and I told him about 40 thousand, maybe now 50 thousand, and he thought it was 90+ thousand; I wasn't sure so i concurred saying perhaps it's grown very fast over the past few years. He noted there not being many Jews in the area; and for Muslims, I noted there is a mosque down the road and that quite a few refugees have landed in Charlottesville the past few years.

My take from the dialogue was that this elder was pro-Israel establishment. And that many Palestinians, as he stated, are also OK with having Israel existing in “Palestine”, except for the Hamas government. Another question I wanted his opinion on was the lack of relations between Palestinians and Israeli's, between those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the rest of the Israel populace. For security reasons Israel establishes pre-cautions against those in Gaza Strip (governed by Hamas ideology) from having access to Israel and Israeli’s - a state which is now established and has first-world programs in the sciences, technology, and other fields while Gaza Strip remains in the stone ages whilst under the constriction of occupation and an anti-Israeli ideology founded upon by Hamas.

Interestingly enough, the Jews have come and established a system for the Palestinians to work in, all the while profiting upon the infrastructure they have set up (as well as enjoining upon the land they have taken for their own sovereignty). They are like owners who preside authority and also work, and have others work under them, under their system of workings; the Jews are intelligent in that they organize and establish and create foundation in a place that benefits them first, and then the other may benefit if they buy into the system and "play their position" therein, with the opportunity to rise (if so cautiously aware as to not "bite the hand that feeds"). This is just like in America, as it reminds me of Obama’s rise to power as an inherent ‘other’ - and hence “the First” of the demographic he “represented”. Obama established himself via Harvard accreditation. His volunteering in the streets benefited him two-fold: it helped him develop as a social leader and thus as a political character, and it gave him respect/accreditation by his own black people via his grassroots reputation. For many politicians this has come through the form of serving in the Military, for Obama it came through the form of closely establishing himself with the disenfranchised part of the city of the Chicago. The system is established based upon interests. Interests with sovereign influence. The benefit of the one is to play the game, for then the whole may find a way to prosper, and once integrated, may establish a means of locomotion. The Jews however, will maintain sovereign authority in a way that somehow-someway undermines Palestinians - an establishment blacks have found themselves entangled within here in America.

Will Palestinians turn against Palestinians in a way similar as to what has happened to the black and urban communities in America, particularly during the Reaganomics and crack epidemic era; an impact that is present to this day?

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Palestinians may very well have a greater chance of survival in Israel than what the blacks and other minority groups have been dealt here in America. By sheer geographical factors such as colloquial "Palestine" being such a small piece of land; you will not see homelessness, for it will not be in the benefit of the Jews ruling in Israel to create a place in their home-state of homelessness for the Palestinian "other".. If so, they know what Palestinians are even capable of; and that is the reminiscent reminder that their land was stolen and taken, thus making a Palestinian that much quicker counter the unjust system with an uprising spirit. Thus it is in the interest of Israel to ensure peace abides and prosperity encompasses for the greater good of the populace, by ensuring some sort of position to be played by each person, whether a second class Palestinian citizen, or a “first class” Zionist-Jew citizen. Whence the Palestinians integrate themselves therein (away from a "wipe Israel of the map" perspective), they will have abilities and opportunities. I think we may very well see Israel begin to make friends with Palestinians in places where settlements will begin to be built, perhaps by sheer default of Jews and Palestinians working together in close concerted quarters - this in itself establishes a sense of human brotherhood/sisterhood among the populace.

Who causes the division of the Palestinians in west bank and those in Gaza Strip, from not being in relations with the Jews in Israel? Perhaps it is both the Palestinian’s old-way of thought, and the Jews’ abiding preservation of self ofttimes executed through practices of apartheid. For in my mind, when this is solved, hatred and fear done by ignorance will subside...

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Sunday, April 23, 2017

#palestine #jews #muslims #israel #hip-hop #reaganomics

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friend-clarity · 5 years

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The Equation That Explains Evil

Communism, the greatest mass murder ideology in history, was for almost all its rank-and-file supporters rooted in their desire to do good. (This was rarely true for its leaders, whose greatest desire was power.)

The Equation That Explains Evil, Dennis Prager, 10 September 2019 Our age loves scientific equations. Here's one you weren't taught at college but which affects you as much as the law of gravity:

GI - W = E Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).

You weren't taught this rule at college because the modern university believes only science has rules. "Rules of life" is another term for wisdom, and there is no wisdom — or even pursuit of wisdom — at our universities.

Life has rules just like the natural sciences do. Examples include:

Ingratitude makes happiness impossible.

Corrupt people think everyone else is as corrupt as they are.

Human nature is not basically good.

Feelings are far less important than actions.

Most men need a woman to mature. Most women need a man to mature.

The list is long. And the more life rules people know and live by the better people they'll be — the better the world will be.

There is a reason Jordan Peterson's book "12 Rules for Life" has sold millions of copies, mostly to young people. It is the same reason PragerU has a billion views a year, mostly among people under 35. Many young people are sensing they have been cheated by the adults that have taught them, for example, to pursue self-esteem rather than self-control — a "rule" guaranteed to lead to moral and professional failure.

But one rule almost no one was taught, that explains most organized evil and the left in particular, from the Bolsheviks to Mao to Castro to Chavez to your everyday leftist in New York or Iowa: Good intentions without wisdom leads to evil.

The many millions of people all over the world who supported communism did not think they were supporting unprecedented levels of mass murder and torture or an equally unprecedented deprivation of the most fundamental human rights of a substantial percentage of humanity. They thought they were moral, building a beautiful future for humanity — eliminating inequality, enabling people to work as hard or as little as they wanted, providing their fellow citizens "free" education and "free" health care. They were convinced that the moral arc of history was bending in their direction and that they were good because their motives were good.

That's why leftists have such moral contempt for those who differ with them. Because those on the left are so good, only bad human beings could possibly oppose them. That is the position of virtually every editor and columnist at The New York Times.

The problem with communists and with leftists who don't consider themselves communists is not that none of them mean well. It's that they lack wisdom. There are wise and foolish liberals, wise and foolish conservatives; but all leftists are fools. Every one of the Democrats running for president is a fool. This is not, however, a description of their totality as a human being. Fools may be personally kind and generous, may be loyal friends and devoted spouses, and of course, they may be well-intentioned. But in terms of making the world worse, there is little difference between a well-meaning fool and an evil human being. Tens of millions of well-intentioned Westerners supported Stalin. The Westerners who supplied Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb were not motivated by evil. They were simply fools. But few evil people did as much to hurt the world as they did.

They are fools partly because they believe good intentions are all that matter. Therefore, they never ask perhaps the most important moral question one can ask: What will happen if my policy is enacted? Leftist supporters of communism never asked.

Democrats who push the country-bankrupting Green New Deal provide a contemporary example. They not only deny the economy- and society-crushing consequences of the Green New Deal, they deny any price will be paid. Every home, office, hospital, school and business will be forced to stop using fossil fuels, yet only good will come from that. Giving that amount of coercive power to the state is of no consequence to leftists. In their make-believe world, no one will suffer. On the contrary, America will become richer, and millions of jobs will be created while we destroy our economy. Poor Africans trying to electrify their countries will be told not to — yet they, too, will somehow become rich using only wind and sun.

If the Green New Deal is enacted, the American economy will tank — and with it, much of the rest of the world. Tyrannies like China and Iran will be emboldened, as will dictatorships like Russia.

On every issue in which the left differs from conservatives (and often from liberals), they are fools. They push for a Palestinian state although even Israelis on the left know this would mean a Hamas-Hezbollah state on the Israeli border. But they know they mean well.

They routinely label the beacon of freedom on Earth racist, misogynistic, homophobic, imperialistic, genocidal; cheapen the label "Nazi"; promote all-black dorms and graduations; promote preteen boys' performing drag shows; tell young women career is more important to happiness than marriage; believe a country can remain a distinct nation with open borders; condemn parents who try to reassure their 3-year-old son that he is a boy; and ruin the university, the arts, late-night comedy, pro football and religion.

But they mean well.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles.

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newsfundastuff · 5 years

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It never fails. Whenever a Republican president makes a controversial or contentious move to support Israel -- such as moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, or yesterday’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights -- you’ll see various “explainers” and other stories that purport to inform progressives why the American Evangelical community is so devoted to the nation of Israel.The explanation goes something like this -- Evangelicals believe that the rebirth of Israel is hastening not just the second coming of Christ, but a particular kind of second coming, one that includes fire, fury, and war that will consume the Jewish people. The pithy, tweet-length version of this analysis comes from progressive Young Turks host Cenk Uygur:> You know what's REAL anti-semitism? Right-wing Evangelical Christians supporting Israel because they think it will bring about the End Times where all of the Jews die. Worst anti-Semitism in the world!> > -- Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) March 7, 2019Thus, the political marriage between American Evangelicals and Israelis represents a cynical form of mutual exploitation. Evangelicals support Israel to hasten the apocalypse, while Israelis (who obviously don’t believe Christian eschatology) are happy to humor the Evangelical community and milk that support for tourist dollars and political power.But the true narrative of American Christian support for Israel is substantially different. The intellectual and theological roots of Christian Zionism do not rest in end-times prophesies but rather in Old Testament promises. Last month Samuel Goldman at Tablet wrote an outstanding piece explaining the centuries-old history and legacy of Christian support for Jewish claims to the Holy Land. After tracing Christian support for a Jewish Israel to the Reformation, he writes this:> These arguments were products of the emphases on the plain meaning of Scripture and the theological significance of covenants that characterized Calvinism. Before the Reformation, most Christians read prophecies like Ezekiel’s as allegories for the transformation of the “carnal” Israel descended from the patriarchs into the “spiritual Israel” represented by the Church. Calvin and his followers, by contrast, insisted that allegorical interpretations were permitted only when literal ones made no sense. But why was it nonsensical to believe that the Jews might be reconstituted as a nation and return to their own land?In addition, I’d argue that Romans 11 has enduring significance in the American Christian mind. It begins, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” Paul declares that God “has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” The chapter continues with the assertion that Gentiles have now been “grafted in” to the same spiritual tree, and it concludes with the promise not that all Israel will be burned up in the apocalypse, but rather with the statement that “all Israel will be saved.”Now, the precise theological meaning of these verses has been and will be debated for some time, but the practical impact in contemporary American Christian culture has been to create a bond between American Christians and Jews that would be utterly mystifying to the vicious Christian persecutors of Jews in the not-so-distant European past.The end result is a community -- including a political community -- that believes two things with firm conviction. First, God has reserved Israel as the Jewish homeland, and second, that the creation of modern Israel was an act of divine providence. While there are many Christians who believe this act of divine providence may be a prelude to the Second Coming (whenever that may be), that is miles and miles away from the belief that Jews will burn in a fiery apocalypse.These beliefs are then reinforced by experience and basic morality. It’s difficult to overstate the profound impact that a visit to the Holy Land has on a believing Christian. I’ll never forget my time in Israel. Not only was it moving to stand where Jesus stood and to walk where Jesus walked, other aspects of the visit bring the miracle of Israel’s rebirth into sharp focus. How can you visit the ruins of the fortress of Masada and not grasp the improbability of the journey from total destruction to diaspora to renaissance?Then there’s basic morality. As I’ve written before, from the very moment of its founding, Israel has been subject to repeated, genocidal threats to its existence. It has defended itself in the face of overwhelming odds, faced enduring terrorist threats that we in the United States can’t imagine, and built an imperfect but well-functioning democracy that grants all its citizens (Jewish and Arab) a greater degree of individual liberty than the citizens of any other Middle Eastern nation.The pernicious persistence of anti-Semitism heightens the moral case for supporting Israel. There is zero justification for the U.N.’s obsessive focus on alleged Israeli crimes. Actual genocidal tyrants face less condemnation by the U.N. Human Rights Council than does the state of Israel. The Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement proudly holds Israel to higher standards than it holds the entire rest of the Middle East and most of the rest of the world. Some of its founders and leaders hope to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.Finally, the fact that Evangelical support for Israel is rooted in part in Christian biblical interpretation does not mean that it is somehow less legitimate than purely secular support. In a nation full of believers, religious arguments have always been a part of our national life, and they always will be. They should be weighed and measured just like any other belief. Nor are religious arguments a right-wing phenomenon. There are liberal religious arguments for gun control, for laxer immigration policies, and for welcoming refugees, to take just a few, easy examples. And who can forget the mighty power of the Christian argument in the American civil-rights movement?Yes, you can find Christians who obsessively focus on the end times and try to match each and every significant news story in Israel with biblical prophecies. Those people are out there, no question. But the vast bulk of Evangelical support for Israel rests on faith in ancient promises, wonder at modern miracles, and a deep conviction that evil forces must not prevail against the Middle East’s most vibrant democracy.

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orendrasingh · 5 years

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worldviraltrending · 5 years

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from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2On8IqJ

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theconservativebrief · 5 years

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Bari Weiss and Eve Peyser thought they would hate each other and are now friends. I’m glad they’re happy, but I’m not sure what the rest of us are supposed to learn from their experience.

Weiss is a staff editor/writer at the New York Times opinion section, where she’s developed a reputation for making arguments that maximally annoy the online left (example headlines: “We’re All Fascists Now”; “Three Cheers for Cultural Appropriation”; “Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader.”). Charitably, she’s a provocateur; less charitably, she’s a troll with a huge platform.

Peyser, on the other hand, is a reliably left-of-center writer at Vice. Weiss describes her as “like the caricature of the person I know hates me on the internet: Gawker Media alum, probable Democratic Socialists of America member, many tattoos.”

So, naturally, they met up. Weiss insisted on going swimming so that Peyser wouldn’t wear a wire, a very normal precaution. And — surprise, surprise — they got along. Swimmingly, one might even add!

The piece, published in the New York Times and structured as a conversation, is ultimately about the deleterious consequences of Twitter on interpersonal relationships — how it can create enmity and contempt where none would exist in person. So the authors would probably view the hostile response the article has received in some corners of Twitter as evidence for their thesis.

The piece’s critics make some good substantive points: Journalists are supposed to be able to build productive relationships with a wide range of people; Peyser and Weiss are actually quite similar to each other and even agree on most of the topics they discussed; the piece treats disagreements on issues that matter as peripheral to whether you’re a good person or not.

But I want to make a much simpler point: You do not have to do this. You do not have some kind of civic duty to reach out to and actively befriend people you disagree with, and doing so is a very high-cost and ineffective way to address political polarization.

The undercurrent driving the Weiss/Peyser team-up is that what they’re doing is, in some way, a model for how we all should be behaving. Their piece ends with an ask from the Times: “Maybe you have a political nemesis whom you subtweet.… If so, we’ve got a challenge for you: Invite that person to have a beer or coffee, or join you in a FaceTime chat. Tell us how it went.”

That goes quite beyond what even Weiss and Peyser themselves are arguing. If they want to be friends, fine, do your thing. But the Times op-ed page as a whole appears to believe this is something you — not journalists but you, the reader, average person — should be doing, part and parcel of good citizenship.

This notion has spread widely since Trump’s election: that Americans just don’t talk to each other enough, that we need to build friendships that reach across our personal info bubbles if America is ever going to heal. You see this in Mark Duplass’s abortive attempt to build bridges with right-wing polemicist Ben Shapiro. You see it in the group Better Angels, which aims to “reduce political polarization in the United States by bringing liberals and conservatives together.” The group holds workshops that function as scaled-up versions of the Peyser/Weiss meeting, and it’s gotten copious press coverage for its efforts, including a whole David Brooks column.

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For journalists, understanding what other people are thinking and why is part of the job. For average citizens and voters, it’s another burden to add to the list after work, schlepping the kids to and from school, taking care of elderly family members, and attending PTA and church/synagogue/mosque meetings, etc.

What the call for cross-partisan friendships asks people to do, essentially, is to make an altruistic sacrifice of time, perhaps money, and definitely emotional energy, in an attempt to heal our politics.

But if we’re going to make that ask, we should be pretty confident that good things will come of it, because the cost is not trivial. And there is no good evidence, to the best of my knowledge, that these efforts are effective at scale.

It would be one thing if this attempt at depolarization were an attempt to persuade participants of certain specific, socially beneficial beliefs. Insofar as individual beliefs are deforming our politics, the beliefs that do so the worst involve bigotry — especially, in the American case, racist sentiment. There’s a role for small-scale persuasion in trying to reduce prejudice, as well as large-scale structural changes.

But the “can’t we all get along” gambit of Better Angels and the NYT op-ed page isn’t that. This is a small-scale attempt to make people nicer to each other, with a hope that this will somehow improve political outcomes in the United States.

And that can be a big ask. Asking a Muslim mother to sit and listen patiently as a white Trump voter explained why the “Muslim ban” appealed to him — that’s not a trivial request.

It’s not clear to me what exactly that conversation is accomplishing. The Muslim mom knows there are people who hate her and her family. She doesn’t need to be reminded face to face. She isn’t learning anything. And when the goal of the conversation is “depolarization,” not prejudice reduction, it’s far from clear that her white interlocutor will emerge with less socially deleterious views either. There’s some evidence that contact with people from a vulnerable group can reduce prejudice against that group — but notably, a recent meta-analysis concluded that the effects are weakest for racial prejudice, and the evidence sparsest when it comes to adults.

There’s also some reason to think that interventions like this, in certain circumstances, could do harm. In a wonderful paper, evocatively titled “When Going Along Gets You Nowhere and the Upside of Conflict Behaviors,” the psychologists Mina Cikara and Elizabeth Levy Paluck argued that promoting cooperation and avoiding social conflict can backfire — and promoting conflict between groups can, on occasion, bring positive change. The authors write, citing this study:

For example, an intervention, in which low-power groups (i.e., Mexican immigrants, Palestinians) were able to voice their grievances to the high-power group (i.e., White Americans, Israelis), and in which the high-power group had to take their low-power perspective, resulted in more positive regard between the groups compared to when grievances were not voiced or heard.

It seems plausible to me that Twitter could serve a purpose like that. From its very inception in the late 2000s, Twitter was massively appealing to journalists and had a disproportionately large and influential black community. This happened, probably not coincidentally, after a large “white flight” of wealthier white users from MySpace to Facebook. And it pushed white journalists into contact with black voices in a way that they (we) hadn’t been before. It was a more even playing field, where a group with less power had the same claim to a voice as a group with more power. If we should expect that forcing high-power groups to hear the perspectives of low-power groups promotes tolerance, on net, then maybe we should expect that on Twitter too.

That’s not to say Twitter is perfect; using it makes me wildly unhappy much of the time. But it does make me wonder if the Weiss/Peyser hypothesis, that Twitter prevents us from listening to each other and we should really just try to get along as people outside it, is right. And if we’re not sure that hypothesis is right, then asking that people bear significant personal costs to reach out and befriend their political enemies starts to make less sense. That goes not just for takesters but for politicians like Barack Obama, who often emphasize the value of civil discussion and collaboration ahead of heated disagreement and confrontation. We need both.

We have a tendency, as a culture, to equate morality with bearing a heavy burden. Actually running and operating an orphanage and taking care of orphans day to day looks more saintly than funding 15 orphanages while living in a mansion does. And this kind of reasoning makes for effective, click-friendly articles. “Befriend people you disagree with” seems like the kind of thing you should do but is something you probably resist doing for one reason or another (it’s hard, it’s unpleasant, etc.). That tension, between duty and revulsion, has the makings of good content.

But I don’t think it makes for good moral reasoning. If you want to heal America, donate to and vote for candidates you think can do that. Give cash to poor people in the US, or people working to reduce prejudice. Do what you feel you can. But don’t let anyone guilt you into befriending people you don’t actually want to befriend. Don’t force yourself to listen to people spouting hate against you and your family in the name of civil comity. Life is too short, and the costs are real.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

Original Source -> The “why can’t we all just get along” theory of politics

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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Tucker Carlson vs. Cornel West on Democratic Socialism: How Do Slave Descendants Benefit From Illegal Immigration? | Video

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=5498

Tucker Carlson vs. Cornel West on Democratic Socialism: How Do Slave Descendants Benefit From Illegal Immigration? | Video

CARLSON: OK. So, democratic socialism is the future. But what is democratic socialism? We thought it would be worth pausing for a minute to find out.

Democratic socialism is not, by the way, a wing of the Democratic Party. At least not yet. It’s an entirely separate movement with its own national organization, the Democratic Socialists of America.

Two years ago, the DSA endorsed Bernie Sanders and opposed Donald Trump, but did not endorse Hillary Clinton. So, at times, it has been antagonistic to the Democratic party.

What did democratic socialists believe? There’s no formal platform, but the outlines are pretty clear. Democratic socialist support socialism, state ownership of major industries. That would include healthcare, technology, manufacturing, some of them explicitly support communism.

The co-chair of Portland, Oregon’s chapter of the DSA recently tweeted this, “As a DSA chapter co-chair, I just want to set the record straight for a minute – communism is good.”

But democratic socialism is about more than economics. The DSA’s official Twitter account demands reparations for African-Americans in the form of free and open enrollment at public colleges, retroactive forgiveness of student loans and a guaranteed lifetime minimum income. The DSA has also called for an end to all immigrant deportations everywhere in the United States.

In New York, the DSA has demanded the abolition of profits, prisons, cash bail and borders. Not all democratic socialists have the same views on everything, but that gives you some idea. Unlimited uncontrolled immigration into the US, coupled with race-based reparations, the abolition of prisons and, by extension, law and order and a massive expansion of a welfare state financed by an economic system that does not recognize profit.

How would that exactly? Has it ever worked in any country in the world? Those suddenly seem like relevant questions. And at this pace, democratic socialists could get the Democratic nomination at some point and be elected president.

So, we thought it was a perfect moment to speak to possibly the most famous of all advocates for democratic socialism, Cornell West. He is a professor at Harvard. He’s an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and he joins us tonight.

Cornell, thank you for coming on.

CORNELL WEST, DSA HONORARY CHAIR: Thank you. And it’s good to be in dialogue with you once again.

CARLSON: Yes, it is. So, give us some sense of what democratic socialism is. Can you point to an example, and extant example of it, that works? Venezuela seems like a an example of democratic socialism? Would you say that it is? And if so, does it work?

WEST: No, I don’t think that democratic socialism as an ideal has been able to be embodied in a larger social context.

There’s different forms of it. Some are bad, some are medium, some are better. But the fundamental commitment is to the dignity of ordinary people and to make sure they can live lives of decency.

So, it’s not an ism, no, brother. It’s about decency. It’s about fairness. It’s about the accountability of the powerful vis-a-vis those who have less power at the workplace, women dealing with a household, gays, lesbians, trans, black people, indigenous peoples, immigrants.

How do we ensure that they are treated decently and that the powerful don’t in any way manipulate, subjugate and exploit them.

CARLSON: I mean, if that’s democratic socialism is, then I’m basically on board. I do think that ordinary people, middle-class people ought to have dignity.

WEST: Absolutely.

CARLSON: And I think that our current systems make it hard for them to have dignity. So, I agree with all of that.

WEST: Absolutely.

CARLSON: But the details matter.

WEST: That’s precisely why – that’s why Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Norman Thomas, Eugene Debs, Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, we can go on and on, they’re all democratic socialists. Michael Harrington, one of the great founders of Democratic Socialism of America –

CARLSON: I understand. But has it struck as interesting that it’s never actually worked anywhere. So, the question is not what are our goals. Our goals are the same. How do we get there is the question.

So, what happened in Venezuela? They called that democratic socialism, but they don’t have toilet paper, and it’s less equal than ever.

WEST: Part of the problem is, though, brother that anytime there’s been attempts of ordinary people to engage in self-determination, they can get crushed by external nations. Look at US policies toward Venezuela, has been very, very ugly. Nicaragua in the same way.

We saw that in so many other instances where countries tried to engage in self-determination and they either get crushed, they either get coerced and they end up oftentimes responding to that kind of authoritarian treatment.

So, we never had a chance to really pull it off. So, it’s only been a movement so far. It’s an attempt to resist the greed at the top, the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the various ways in which humanity is violated rather than affirmed.

CARLSON: So, here’s a gist of the details quickly. The DSA of New York, which is certainly one of the biggest in the country, recently said –

WEST: Thank god for sister Alexandria. She’s my sister comrade –

CARLSON: So, they said that they’re against borders, profits and prisons. What would a country without prisons look like? What would you do with murderers, for example, or rapists? Where would you put them with no prisons?

WEST: Well, when they prisons, they’re talking about the kinds of prisons we have at the present. If you have sites of rehabilitation, education, ways in which transformation can take place, you and I ourselves – you’re Episcopalian, I’m Baptist, we’re Christians, right? – we believe all human beings are made not just in the image of God, but they can be changed, they can be transformed when the right kind of intervention takes place.

That’s what people mean in the socialist movement when they talk about the elimination of the kind of prisons that are in place.

CARLSON: So, what they really want is better prisons. Maybe they should be more – OK, so what about borders, though?

WEST: You’re going to have isolation, you’re going to have distance, but you don’t give up on them. And most importantly, you don’t view them in the vicious – through the lens of being less than human, that they can bounce back, they can be better.

CARLSON: So, if a government’s obligation is to its own citizens and you dropped the borders and have no border enforcement at all, what would happen to this country, what would happen to the poor people in this country? Would their lives get better? Would they become more prosperous?

No, this country become poorer, dirtier, impossible to manage, it would be flooded with the poor of the world, and it would destroy our country instantly. So, why would you say no borders.

WEST: Well, I mean, again, no, you’ve got a variety of voices in the Democratic Socialists of America. We’re like a jazz orchestra. You’ve got different perspectives and orientations. We all don’t agree on one particular policy all the time.

This is true in terms of Israeli occupation of Palestinians, some are in the middle, some are much more critical like myself.

The question is, how do you keep track of the rich humanity of Mexican brothers and sisters, of those coming from Latin America, those coming from Africa, those coming from Haiti, and those coming from Europe and Asia. That’s the important thing.

We know the history of America that indigenous peoples and Africans who’ve been enslaved was to open the borders, to bringing folk in, to allow people to getting answers. But it’s not a matter of no borders at all. It’s a matter of how do you ensure that their dignity is affirmed when they arrive so that you don’t end up having the kind of neofascist policies of the Trump administration separating these precious children from their mothers and fathers.

CARLSON: That’s silly as you well know. But how you think that the descendent of Americans – hold on, but how do you think the descendants of American slaves benefit when you bring in 25 million illegals – illegal immigrants from the Third World, does that elevate poor Americans?

I don’t see any evidence that they get richer or happier when you bring in more poor people. You ignore their problems. That’s why we pay any attention to their problems anymore.

WEST: But if we were having this discussion 100 years ago and you had millions of people coming from Jew-hating Europe, Irish-hating Britain and Ireland, all the folk who came into the making of slices of this nation, they did not allow for the kind of coming together with poor and working people would be able to straighten their backs up and speak with dignity and decency about issues that affect all of us, that’s the history of the nation with the exception of the African slaves and the precious indigenous people.

So, the idea that somehow now that the immigrants are here, and a lot of the immigrants who’ve only been here one or two generations, now become the definitive authority defining what it is to be an American, how hypocritical can you get.

I’ve been here nine generations, coming out of enslaved people, and I can still embrace my Mexican brothers and sisters. I can embrace the whole host of others coming from around the world.

But it’s not just a matter of no borders. I don’t know believe in just no borders myself. It’s a question of making sure their dignity is affirmed when they get here.

CARLSON: Then you’ve got to get a hold of the DSA of New York’s Twitter account because they’re saying some pretty reckless things over there.

WEST: Well, we’ve got a number of voices in DSA. I love them. We believe in disagreement. We believe in disagreement. You were just talking about disagreement in terms of defending civil liberty. I believe in protecting civil liberties, yours, mine, Page’s, Bernie Sanders’, (INAUDIBLE), a whole host of folks. But we have to be consistent.

CARLSON: You always lose me at the end, Cornell. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope you will come back. Cornell West.

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: It feels as if world events are in overdrive, and sometimes it’s hard to escape the thought that there is no longer much point in trying to analyse, or make sense of, a trajectory increasingly out of control. I see little evidence that those of us in the segment of the world political spectrum likely to read these words need much persuasion — nor that those who consider us dupes of the Evil Vladimir, or apologists for what was once called the “Yellow Peril”, could ever have any inclination to even glance at the arguments and sentiments of those they consider so utterly deluded. In fact, the plethora of information (both truth and lies), and the amazing communicative possibilities most of us now have at our disposal, have brought with them a world in which no one is very often persuaded of anything: for every fact we present, they have access to an official or cleverly crafted lie with convincing-looking documentation that demonstrates our ostensible mendacity and subversion. What pre-internet thinker – is it possible that bygone age ended only 20 years ago for most of us? — would have ever thought that a technological world in which every voice can be heard worldwide would solidify, rather than threaten, the role of propaganda in public life? Or that near-universal access to technology enabling impressively thorough research at incredible speed would be one of the major factors in eliminating political consensus and rendering nearly obsolete the recognition of facts as such? Well, perhaps there are brilliant minds out there who foresaw it all. But consider me dumbfounded. While there is a range of similarities between our world today and those described by Orwell and Huxley in their famous novels of future horror, there are other aspects that render this a different universe altogether, and one that continues to shock me. Assuming that it WERE, in fact, possible to persuade people who accept their governments’ colossal lies and distortions that those same lies are, in fact, exactly that – lies — one would be required to acquaint most of them with the most basic facts of recent history. For remarkably, almost unbelievably, in a world where all of us have limitless information and history at our fingertips, most people know nothing about recent history – and the vast majority is not even curious about it. Pointless though it may be, I continue to attempt to jog the memory of these amnesiacs. It seems somehow therapeutic to my own shaken sensibilities as well to see this recent history on paper or on the screen from time to time. Perhaps it is an act of self-defense against the fear that soon I, too, will be unable to remember what really happened. And so, repeatedly, I write about the real face behind the moral masks worn by the empire’s minions. “Enemies” Custom Made to Order While You Wait While I am not a Muslim, nor a Russian — as a matter of fact, I am American with no religion whatsoever — I feel it only fair to point out the following to those who view US-NATO-Israeli-Saudi propaganda as credible: 1. In 1953, American President Dwight Eisenhower used the CIA (which has admitted this) to overthrow Iran’s democratically-elected leader Mossadegh, who wanted to nationalize the oil companies. The CIA and its allies put Shah Reza Pahlavi on the throne. The Shah murdered and tortured opponents and/or imagined opponents via his secret police SAVAK. He was eventually overthrown by Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini and the mullahs who transformed the nation into the Islamic Republic of Iran. Everyone in Iran knows all about this, but most Americans and many Europeans do not. Obviously, the USA had a major role in shaping modern Iran, whatever one thinks of Iran’s policies (I for one consider most of what the USA and Israel and Saudi Arabia say about Iran to be utter bollocks, largely in support of Israeli angst and Saudi Wahhabi-Sunni hostility to Shi’ism). 2. ISIS evolved out of the terror group “Al-Qaeda in Iraq”, which emerged AFTER the US invasion of Iraq and was led by former officers in Saddam Hussein’s army, an army that was disbanded and left to its own devices by the American forces in Iraq. Some of these officers developed the newer ISIS model while they were held in the infamous American torture prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib. Obviously, the USA bears major responsibility for the creation of ISIS, WHETHER OR NOT it is true that the US and Israel continue to work with ISIS consciously for strategic purposes. US ally Saudi Arabia is also known to have put much funding into ISIS through private channels, as Hillary Clinton and others have publicly admitted. 3. The original Al-Qaeda, like much else which is dangerous in today’s world, developed directly out of American — and interestingly, also Polish — hostility to the Soviet Union and Russia. US National Security Adviser to the President, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American and passionate Russia-hater, persuaded US President Jimmy Carter to attack the Soviet-supported communist government of Afghanistan in the 1970s by arming and funding Osama bin Laden and other jihadis (sound familiar?). Later, bin Laden turned against America because (in his own words) the US stationed troops in Islam’s Holy Land of Saudi Arabia, and Al-Qaeda was born. A huge percentage of modern Islamist terror evolved from this seed, not only in the Hindu Kush and Middle East but now in Africa as well. Obviously American catastrophic imperial foreign and military policy are responsible, both directly and indirectly, for much of the unrest and violence in the Islamic world and exported out of it, not to mention the colossal refugee crisis associated with that violence and the American wars there. Red Alert: Unfiltered Truth on MSNBC I posted a video of it in social media twice because I consider it so significant: famous economist Jeffrey Sachs stated emphatically on national American TV this week (“Good Morning Joe”, MSNBC) that the US and President Barack Obama started the war in Syria via the CIA. I have a feeling that they would never have allowed him on the show if they had known he was going to say that. TABOO BROKEN … imperialist media twits sit stunned with egg on faces, military man stutters incoherent bullshit in response … Sachs is not exactly a radical, and he is too renowned and respected to simply be told he is full of it by such habitual sycophants. Too bad he didn’t go even further and tell the show’s co-host Mika Brzezinski that her father put into action the policies that resulted in the existence of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and have left half of the Middle East and Hindu Kush in ruins and/or at war, millions dead, and created a horrific refugee crisis. But I am grateful for what he did say. On the Value of Human Lives Outside of the USA and the EU I should be used to it by now, but I continue to be stupefied by the following dynamic: As John Steppling, in his recent article “The Sleep of Civilization” wrote: Most White Americans, as a general statement, think they are better than the rest of the world. And most Americans have scant knowledge about the rest of the world. So the belief in cultural (and moral) superiority is based on what? The answer is not simple, but as a general sort of response, this trust in “our” superiority is built on violence. On an ability to be effectively violent. Most British, too, think they are superior to those “wogs” south of their emerald isle. But since the setting of the sun on Empire, “officially”, the British hold to both a sense of superiority and a deep panic-inducing sense of inferiority — at least to their American cousins. They are still better than those fucking cheese eating frogs or the krauts or whoever, but they accept that the U.S. is the sort of heavyweight champ of the moment. Meanwhile, the tragic and criminal fire at Grenfell Towers in London elicited a public discourse that perfectly reflected the class inequality of the UK, but also reflected, again, the colonialist mentality of the ruling party and their constituency … But that is exactly it. The colonial template is one etched in acid in the collective imagination of the West. At least the English-speaking West. Expendable natives…which is what Jim Mattis sees everywhere that he dumps depleted uranium and Willy Pete. It is what Madeleine Albright saw in Iraq or Hillary Clinton in Libya or Barack Obama in Sudan, Yemen, and…well… four or five other countries. It is what most U.S. police departments see in neighborhoods ravaged by poverty. As in those old Tarzan films, when the sound of drums is heard, the pith helmeted white man notes…”the natives are restless tonight”. When one discusses Syria, the most acute topic this week, remember that for Mad Dog and Boss Trump, or for the loopy John Bolton, these are just natives in need of pacification. Giving money to ISIS or Daesh, or whoever, as a cynical expression of colonial realpolitik, is nothing out of the ordinary. It is what the UK and US have done for a long while. It’s Ramar of the Jungle handing out beads to the *natives*. Although every indicator and every new disaster outside of US-EU-NATO countries confirms once again, clearly and unmistakeably, that most citizens of the United States and Europe consider the lives of those in other parts of the world to be worth far less than their own … astoundingly (at least to me), it nonetheless continues to be possible for the US and European governments to build public support for military strikes in those parts of the world by feigning horror over civilian casualties in wars in such places – casualties occurring in many cases, as now in Syria, in wars for which the United States itself is responsible, wars which the USA encouraged quite deliberately with arms and money and CIA involvement. But in this new presstitute House of Mirrors media world, no large media entities call the insane Nikki Haley to account when she stands in the United Nations Security Council holding up pictures of dead children in Syria – whether real (and there certainly are plenty of dead civilians there) or once again faked by Western-supported jihadis and their associates – and blames Russia for their deaths in a war organized and kept going by the US and Saudi Arabia. Recently Haley closed one such nauseating and vulgar mountebank performance by stating, “But pictures of dead children mean nothing to countries like Russia.” I’m sure that would come as news to the parents and families of the vast numbers of Russian children who died during World War II while the USSR was defeating Hitler, during most of which time America sat back and waited, hoping Hitler would conquer the Soviet Union. It is now estimated that 26 million Russians died before their time in that war, known euphemistically in the USA as “The Good War” and widely thought to have been won by the American military. Ms Haley’s Dead Children Show contains no mention of Yemen where, according to the NGO Save The Children, 50,000 children are believed to have died from disease and starvation in 2017 alone as a result of the genocide against the Houthi people carried out by Saudi Arabia with massive support from allies including the USA, the UK, France, and Germany. But those who wear the Moral Mask are shameless and highly selective. http://clubof.info/

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