Can we stop calling whatever the fuck Israel's been doing "Zionism"? I'm seeing that a lot in this thread. Wanting a safe homeland for Jewish people, considering their history, is not an inherently genocidal ideology.
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A quote? What are you talking about? Zionism is a colonial and genocidal ideology. Israel's gov is, along with the US, doing a genocide in the name of Zionism. They want a Jewish ethnostate. What part of all of this isn't clear to you? Like read anything ever, please.
"Can we stop calling whatever the fuck Israel's been doing "Zionism"... Wanting a safe homeland for Jewish people, considering their history, is not an inherently genocidal ideology."
What they're doing is Zionism which is genocidal. You're pretending like the genocide they're doing isn't Zionism.
Pages down into an argument I'll realize the person I'm talking to is trying to rationalize gatekeeping "stopping the genocide" behind "abolishing Israel," as though the former isn't worth doing unless it happens in the course of doing the latter. Is that also you?
Whatever non-genocidal Zionism may have existed ceased to be relevant when the rest of them got the UN to approve stealing half of Palestine from Arabs.
Oh, sure, in common use that's usually true. But we're talking about what should be done about that theft and its consequences. A lot of people would like "abolish Israel" to be in the table. That means a non-genocidal Zionism is also on the table.
IDK, I think the vile hand of the English empire and the destructive, racist legacy that it left behind in every country that it touched probably did more damage than just the ideology.
The accounts of Zionism from before that that I've read all seem rather nice.
You're a fucking halfwit. Benjamin Netanyahu is an avowed Zionist. His father was a Zionist terrorist who was secretary to the Zionist terrorist Ze'ev Jabotinsky. His cabinet is made up of Zionists.
Zionism means the belief that Israel has the right to exist. Most Israelis are Zionists. A huge percent Israelis also oppose Netanyahu and their government’s actions in response to 10/7.
That's the definition I was using! Unfortunately, the religious ethnostate was already created most of a century ago, so I'm still having trouble seeing how it's applied to the current atrocity.
"Broadening it's reaches" is just an extra thing you've added on so that you can tie support for Israel's continued existence to support for the continuation of the genocide in Gaza.
And, yeah, down with both of those things. But saying that the latter is necessary for the former is the IDF's line.
White Supremacists use the word "Zionist" as a dog whistle for Jews, yes. HOWEVER there's a real definition of that word outside of Nazis, and it's not a dog whistle for Jewish people. It's referring to
Do you know what that Wikipedia link shows? That Zionism isn't just a dog whistle for Jews and that's so absurdly well known that there's a Wikipedia page for it. In other words: you're embarrassing tf out of yourself.
I don't think they realize it, though. Even people who should know better still think that racism is a choice you sit down and make on purpose, and not usually a result of unexamined beliefs.
Have I said they haven't been? 2000 years because they were expelled from Israel 2000 years ago and this is where persecution of Jews across the world started. And now fuck off, idiot.
did you like, think about this before you said it? the persecution of the Jews did not start in Israel 2000 years ago. this is well documented and actually a fundamental part of at least two of the biggest religions in the world.
And even though there might be even good reasons to criticize BLM, in general people who do it are racist. Same as people who criticize Zionism are in general antisemitic.
Criticizing a movement against police brutality of black Americans and criticizing a colonial entity responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people is not the same thing bestie.
But you sound like a typical racist white guy, who tries to justify his racism. Don't you see the parallels? Oh, there are Jewish anti-Zionists. Yes, and there are Blacks who hate the BLM movement.
Most people are not Jews. Do you deny that Jews express Zionism far more regularly than other ethnic groups? Do you know why that is? It's because Zionism just affirms that Jews have an immutable connection to our homeland!
Before Ghandi, activists used to blow stuff up sometimes. Used to be part of activism. My hero growing up, Augustus Spies, used to walk around with a stick of dynamite in his pocket for in case the cops ever hassled him.
Yeah, sometimes people fuck up a word and you've got to let it go. I'm with you there.
You could convince me with this argument.
That said, I think enough people think of Zionism as "Jewish people having a homeland" that using it in a negative context hurts approval from unengaged non-antisemites
And what is the purpose of having a special word for daydreaming and not having a word for turning that daydream into violence? And what of the people who call themselves Zionists and claim to be doing violence in the name of Zionism? Are they also wrong?
We have a word for turning it into violence. That word is colonialism. Back when it was just a loose diaspora trying to accomplish their goals through diplomacy it was fine.
Jewish people lived in Palestine before Israel existed. Zionism, and by extension the nation of Israel, is specifically saying that that arrangement was not good enough, there must be a genocide of the native people and establishment of an ethno-nationalist government.
"Wanting a safe homeland for Jewish people" = (in this case) "Wanting a homeland which is ONLY safe for Jewish people, the original inhabitants be damned!"
Genocide is a logical result of that attitude.
"Considering their history" SHOULD mean that ALL Jews have EMPATHY with Palestinians. Some do:
That's easy. You forget about superiority and just make it so that members of that group are allowed to move there if there's ever a repeat of the SS St Louis. Safe spaces aren't racist.
Before England came in and drew a line there were Palestinians who were pretty on board with the idea, actually.
Less about what could have been, you just put it in your constitution like any other law, and then get military aid from America for as long as you don't remove it.
There was talk of doing it in different places, back when it was popular in Russia during the pogroms. The Palestine thing has religious connotations that a lot of people want to force, but it's not something all Zionists have historically agreed on. A lot of people just wanted a homeland.
so it's not about superiority but also one ethnic group has such an exceptional right to live in the state that they have precedence over anyone else, including people that have already lived there for decades.
The Vatican isn't genociding its neighbors, so I'm pretty sure it's the colonialism that's the problem, not whatever other gripes you've got with the setup.
This is literally what I'm complaining about. Zionism was not founded on May 14th, 1948. That's the Israeli government. They are different things. The fact that they are different things is what I'm trying to explain. Pointing to Israeli laws to define Zionism does not rebut this point at all.
Many of the original Zionists considered themselves colonists and they attacked Jews who spoke Yiddish instead of Hebrew because they believed poor eastern European Jews were culturally inferior and moving to Israel and learning Hebrew would fix them. And that’s Zionism and it is very fucked up.
If you have to have strong negative opinions of Yiddish due to a classist chauvinist disdain against Eastern European jews in order to be a Zionist, then barely anyone's a Zionist.
Zionism is inherently colonialism. There is no place on the planet where nobody is already living aside from places where nobody wants to live. So a Jewish homeland would by definition involve displacing the people already living there to set up a Jewish state. It's Manifest Destiny with a kippah.
If you want to be pedantic, nothing that has happened since the founding of Israel has been Zionist, since founding such a state was the goal of that project.
If you don't want to be pedantic, why the heck are you so insistent on using an ethnicity specific term for this colonialist genocide?
are you going to say "real zionism hasn't been tried"
making a place that's the only safe place for jewish people instead of making it so they're safe in the communities they're already in- do you think that's good? zionism began with murder. that land wasn't empty of people!
It’s colonialism. It literally is inherently genocidal ideology. Jewish people already have a safe homeland. It’s called the United States. Israel only exists so that western ally’s can have a piece of control in the Middle East. It is not their land, they need to leave.
Uh what no the United States is not a Jewish homeland. Jews are a diasporic people and we exist in countries across the globe. The United States is increasingly run by end times evangelicals who want to see us murdered to bring about their vision of the rapture.
I’m saying the US is a good home for them. We have the largest population of Jewish people in the world. They either need to give Palestine their land back and learn to live peacefully among them and if they don’t want to they can move.
I’m anti-Zionist and think Israel needs to be abolished, so I am not at all defending Israel or the colonists who claim to be indigenous there while committing genocide of the actual indigenous people. Just saying that the US is not a Jewish homeland and it flattens things to reduce us to USians.
Jews live around the world, including in Palestine prior to Israeli colonization, and as a diasporic people the cultural differences between geographically diverse groups of Jews are significant. I also think the US is not as safe for Jews as many people think it is.
Post holocaust Jewish survivors couldn’t safely go back to homes without risking being killed by the neighbors who stole their homes. The USA only allowed a small number to emigrate. People felt fortunate to get to go to the USA or Israel. There weren’t loads of options.
Israel is a particular zionist project that has been underway since at least the late 1800s; a project that you know (by looking at Israeli actions since conception) is not yet complete. "Whatever the f... Israel is doing" = genocide and ethnic cleansing of lands these zionists crave.
It's not worth using in the way it's being used in this thread. I'm making the case for reclaiming it, but I'd be happy if people just stopped using it as an exoticized synonym for colonialism. What Israel is doing isn't novel, and treating it like it is lets antisemites in to play.
It's not a fucking term it is a political ideology you can't reclaim a term that's connected to a racist genocidal political ideology stop trying to divorce it from what it is.
If we lived in a world where the names of political ideologies were whatever you mean by "not a term" and couldn't get turned into slang for different shit from their definition, then I wouldn't have bothered to make the first reply in this thread in the first place.
My DNA shows that I have ancestry from France and Italy, but that does not give me any right to go to Paris or Rome and murder people so I can steal their property.
Sionisme has done nothing but crimes, eccentric before they stole others land, they knew they would ethnically cleanse it. Sionisme is one long trail of crime. Being next to it bringes everybody in danger.
How does destroying entire ecosystems make for a safe homeland? How does ignoring international law and brutalizing noncombatants, effectively radicalizing another generation of people against you, make for a safe homeland?
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What they're doing is Zionism which is genocidal. You're pretending like the genocide they're doing isn't Zionism.
The accounts of Zionism from before that that I've read all seem rather nice.
You: nuh uh, Zionism existed before the foundation of Israel!
Me: stops responding
Is that what you're saying right now
by giving financial aid and munitions to netanyahu,
biden and congress are perpetuating zionism in the middle east
youre being intentionally dense here
Revisionist Zionism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism
And, yeah, down with both of those things. But saying that the latter is necessary for the former is the IDF's line.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
as it always will be...
around here...
we let the faves do the talkin
It's so ANNOYING
It's such a a DOGWHISTLE
stop being a dumb fuck you damn loser
the internet is right there bud, use it.
Are Jewish antizionists who helped organize and lead many of the pro Palestinian protests antisemites?
Are Gazans antisemites for not supporting the country that’s destroying them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
be/c people took it, executed it, and fucked up the word by being ghouls
it's a problem that we don't really have a home, but unfortunately Zionism now has a concrete meaning
until there's another concrete example it's gonna get all the airtime
You could convince me with this argument.
That said, I think enough people think of Zionism as "Jewish people having a homeland" that using it in a negative context hurts approval from unengaged non-antisemites
Israel is an inherently genocidal state.
Genocide is a logical result of that attitude.
"Considering their history" SHOULD mean that ALL Jews have EMPATHY with Palestinians. Some do:
Less about what could have been, you just put it in your constitution like any other law, and then get military aid from America for as long as you don't remove it.
but not in a superior way.
i'm sorry, do you think the vatican is an ethnostate. or even functionally a state anymore.
and genocide was very much part of their deal back when they *were* a state!
By the way:
https://bsky.app/profile/israelhistory.bsky.social/post/3lfwsy6nqbc2n
Honorable mention: anime avatar
If you don't want to be pedantic, why the heck are you so insistent on using an ethnicity specific term for this colonialist genocide?
making a place that's the only safe place for jewish people instead of making it so they're safe in the communities they're already in- do you think that's good? zionism began with murder. that land wasn't empty of people!
This is the goal.
The thing is, they decided to set up their colony on top of existing villages and people.
Zionism is [wanting a homeland...AND being willing to exterminate the native population you covet in order to get it]
The foundational myth of Israel is ridiculous.