joelhs.bsky.social
Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College. PhD in Religious Studies, University of Chicago. One of those liberal arts professors JD Vance calls “the enemy.” Probably a globalist elite. Thing-in-itself hating Jew. He/Him/הוא/ער
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By this line of reasoning, that Mamdani is associated with "Globalize the Intifada" because some of his vague political allies have used it, then every single reporter needs to ask Trump why he did a Nazi salute.
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Maybe I'll write it!
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My Romanian Jewish friends tell me all about how impossible it has become for them to keep insisting that Romania’s Holocaust revisionist far-right party is unacceptable in Romanian political culture, when the Israeli government is out there telling everyone how great that party is.
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I taught Adorno in an undergrad class last semester, and one of my students raised her hand during a class discussion and asked, "Adorno didn't really like things, did he?"
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And just as the coalition gov collapsed in part because of its basic ideological incoherence, containing anti-settler liberals and settler right who could not agree on legalizing WB settlements, bringing Netanyahu back, I have warned Hungarian opposition activists I know to be wary of the same fate.
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The Hungarian anti-Orbán opposition actually closely resembles the brief anti-Netanyahu coalition govt of 2021-2022 - you have a figure who has dominated national politics for so long, and become so corrupt, that "do you support him" becomes the only relevant electoral question anymore.
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One of the most radicalizing experiences for me was something that got little attention nationwide: Seeing leftists defeat a corrupt machine incumbent in the Democratic primary for Buffalo mayor, only for the state Dem party to get behind the corrupt incumbent's independent campaign in the general.
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In both cases, you are saying: We think there is something in this theoretical vision that is worth holding onto, even though in practice the states that claim this ideology have tended to do awful things with it.
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YES the comparison between Liberal Zionists and anti-Soviet Marxists is a really good one that both sides for different reasons tend to dislike.
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Pro-Israel and American Jewish orgs seem deeply upset with how many anti-Zionists define Zionism in terms of its victims, and not as an aspirational call for Jewish self-determination. If they can see that, they should be sympathetic to why Palestinians might feel the same about the First Intifada.
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What's so frustrating for this is that if the organized pro-Israel community weren't so determined to turn this into a point scoring opportunity, there could be a real opportunity for empathy here in the way the word "Intifada" and the word "Zionism" parallel each other.
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Moreover, worth noting that if Orbán does go down in elections next year, his main challenger, Peter Magyar, is an ex-Fidesz party member who only broke with Orbán over corruption issues, and is quite socially conservative on queer issues.
This protest means a lot, but the fight is just beginning.
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And what's so frustrating to me is that it is an inherently unfalsifiable argument - if you are sufficiently committed to the narrative that "Every NGO and every media source is biased against Israel," then there is no evidence that can counter that, because it just reinforces their view further.
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There's that, but with my family it's also a lot of more willful denial - they've so constructed a worldview where every media source is biased against Israel, that when I send evidence of Israeli war crimes, it just gets cited as more evidence to reinforce their "everybody hates Israel" narrative.
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The logic here is simple: "If this were happening, then only bad people could support it, and I am a good person, ergo this must not be happening."
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During my time in Ukraine, as the only American in most every space I went, I worried Ukrainians would associate me with their rightful anger at the US government and be angry at me. But it was just the opposite - they said I showed solidarity by showing up, so they simply assumed I hated Trump.