A big part of why 🇮🇱/🇵🇸 discourse is so insane is that most American Jews are cosmopolitan liberals so they don't want to believe that they're making the same bog-standard arguments every nationalist movement made in every fight over state formation, and the cognitive dissonance is driving them crazy. - ThreadSky

goldwagnathan.bsky.social • 37 days ago

A big part of why 🇮🇱/🇵🇸 discourse is so insane is that most American Jews are cosmopolitan liberals so they don't want to believe that they're making the same bog-standard arguments every nationalist movement made in every fight over state formation, and the cognitive dissonance is driving them crazy.

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akhanukov.bsky.social•36 days ago

I’m still firmly nuanced about it all as one should be about a complex situation with me easy solutions.

williameburns.bsky.social•37 days ago

I think a significant part of the problem is the use of the term "Zionism" which sounds like something unique, as opposed to "Jewish nationalism."

arreffbee.bsky.social•37 days ago

Israeli nationalism, specifically

wormrunner.bsky.social•37 days ago

Would you say the same about Nazism as opposed to German nationalism? It seems to me that in both cases the genocidal nature takes it outside of simple nationalism and warrants a separate term. I recognize that others may disagree.

williameburns.bsky.social•37 days ago

The Nazis were a specific German political party that not all German nationalists belonged to or supported, so I think the distinction makes sense on that basis.

paulythegun.bsky.social•37 days ago

I think people are discounting how much public opinion has shifted among liberal Jews over the past 12 months. People who used to cluelessly babble at me about "both sides" have been radicalized. One way or the other. But mostly toward the Palestinians.

nitricacidbottle.bsky.social•37 days ago

The idea of Jews feeling supported and safe in their home countries is an existential threat to their project. It’s why Israel turns a blinds eye to Nazis abroad and plays nice with Christian nationalists.

urban-achiever.bsky.social•37 days ago

I think this is a particularly trenchant analysis. When American or British jews, to pick just two examples, feel welcome and safe in their countries of birth they feel less need to have Israel as a backup. I think Bibi's government in particular exploits this and the ADL's recent Elon hand wave

nitricacidbottle.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yeah, both places (as well as other Western Europe countries) spinned their antisemitism even right after ww2 claiming Jews should return to their ancestral homeland as their right rather then making sure they are safe and accepted as minority. Almost seems like low key victim blaming for fascism.

urban-achiever.bsky.social•37 days ago

demonstrates how this dynamic plays out.

alexremington.bsky.social•37 days ago

tbh it feels like the events of the past 12 mos have broadened and supercharged the trends that peter beinart was writing about a decade and a half ago

the generational and left/right fragmentation of american jews towards israel had begun; now it's nearly complete.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/06/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

dasdoak.bsky.social•36 days ago

The most vehement tend to firmly believe "When we said 'never again' we meant 'never again to us' and this is necessary for that."

Running into them leaves me wanting to yell "you do realize that killing people you think might be a threat to you makes people hate you and want to kill you, right?"

dasdoak.bsky.social•36 days ago

I get that antisemitism has a long and irrational history but, good god, you don't fight antisemitism by declaring that opposing a state's right to bomb civilians indiscriminately is antisemitic - if anything, that'll have the opposite effect.

telson.bsky.social•37 days ago

You don't even have to be Jewish to be driven crazy by Israel's behaviour.
It contradicts every aspect of our post - WW2 understanding of the world.

groot-the-rat.bsky.social•36 days ago

in as much as founding a settler colony in an era when most colonialist powers pretended to be against that, sure

but given that happened only 3 yrs after ww2, it’s been a feature of post ww2 world since the beginning

groot-the-rat.bsky.social•36 days ago

what it does is show that the concept of a post colonial era has always been a lie. they didn’t stop being colonial they just became sneakier abt it

secret coups to install a govt that allows ur countrymen to extract resources have the same effect as sending someone from ur country to govern

groot-the-rat.bsky.social•36 days ago

and when it was generally acceptable to maintain & support settler colonies more directly they just did that instead. when supporting genocides was feasible they just did that instead.

this isn’t unique in the post ww2 era. if it breaks ur understanding of it, ur understanding was wrong

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