Just saw a friend post this and I was wondering if people have resources to counter some of these statements I can send their way.
Some highlights:
Do not claim that Jews are white: Portraying Jews as “white” is done to make them fit more easily fit into the narrative that Zionism is a “white colonialist” project. There are Jews of every skin color. Only 30% of Israelis are Ashkenazi (European) Jews. Almost 45% are indigenous Mizrahi Jews. There are many others, such as Maghrebi Jews and Ethiopian Jews. Almost half of Israeli Jews are ethnically mixed. Jews outside of Israel are diverse, too.
Avoid using the terms Zionist or Zionism to describe the Israeli Government or Jews: These terms have become pejorative and are too broad to be useful. A Zionist is one who believes Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel. That includes Jews of all political persuasions, most Evangelical Christians, and anyone who supports a two-state solution (such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia or China). Israel is a modern nation-state. Its people are simply Israelis, much as people in Australia are simply Australians. Rather than referring to “the Zionists”, refer to “the Israeli Government” or “the Netanyahu Government”.
Do not lie about Jews’ connection to Israel: This is a delegitimization tactic. Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. There have always been Jews in Israel, although they have rarely had sovereignty or been the majority. While some of Israel’s enemies accuse it of being colonialist, many Jews view Israel’s creation as decolonization (it was Jewish insurgents who drove the colonialist British out of Palestine). This historicity of Jews being from Israel does give them a claim to the land, but it does not mean Palestinians have no claim.
Do not call for Israel’s destruction: Racists have weaponized the Palestinian independence struggle, making anti-Zionism the new anti-Semitism. Claiming to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish is like saying you are not anti-Japanese, but just want to destroy Japan. It is anti-Semitic to say that Jews are the only people in the world without the right to a homeland. Calling for Israel’s destruction with rabid chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or “By any means necessary” is to call for the death of millions. That is disgusting. Calling for serious solutions is welcome.
The central thesis of those that make these arguments is: Palestinians are not people and that Israel is only a utopia away when Palestine and Palestinians are erased from history and memory as the indigenous peoples of North America were. They object to criticisms because it impedes Zionism’s progress in manifesting this grim vision, but adherents of this ideology can tolerate the liberal critique be more discreet about it. i.e: If you criticize us, criticize that we should be erasing and eradicating Palestine in slow motion.
If you must engage with these genocidaires, on the off chance they are speaking from ignorance rather than malicious approval, then you should focus on the apartheid nature of Israel ruling over 5m people in Gaza and the West Bank without any voting rights, legal rights, and civil rights. They can not file grievances against the state in courts, they can’t travel freely. They can’t press charges against individual abusers. e.g: Tiktoker IDFers posting their crimes live for the world to see w/o repercussion.
Then escalate to Palestinian current status as stateless and occupied people who are displaced and dispossessed of their homes, property, and freedom. Historically and in the very present. Then Proceed with “administrative detention”, explaining that this is imprisonment without trial.
If they use Judaism and being Jewish as an aegis against criticism, remind them that the Torah, the central religious text of Judaism, forbids the oppression of one’s neighbor. Forbids murder, theft, and cruelty.
Inform them Jewish people have a right to exist everywhere and anywhere, but a theocratic ethnostate that commits apartheid and genocide does not have a right to exist as it is. Flawed as it is, a secular liberal democracy with a presumption of assumed equality and liberty for all its citizens w/o privilege to ethnic and religious groups is better than a theocratic ethnostate with incentive to pursue genocide and apartheid, and an ideology to indoctrinate current and future generations into perpetuating this barbarism.
Israel is starving two million people to death in the name of the Jewish people, with plans to expel them into the Sinai as measure to spare their lives. The only other thing more anti-Semitic than that is European history.
These “solutions” aren’t welcome either. Israel rejected the two state solution. A compromise I believe the PLO was once willing to accept.
Whatever pretense of other parallel sub-ideologies of Zionism (Labor/Liberal Zionism, etc) has given way to Kahane’s Kach ideological successors. And they aren’t interested in “serious solutions” They are interested in dominance and destruction of Palestine. This status quo is the current state of Israel’s vision in fruition.
Bit of a rant here. It was always possible, after the establishment of the Israel, to have established a single unitary state and immediately granting Palestinians citizenship and a right of return in Israel too, solving the situation of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide but Israel would then lose its demographic majority and cease to be an ethnostate. A unitary Palestinian state could have been a refugee state for Jewish people facing systemic oppression and discrimination, as well as offering a path to immigration and citizenship in the same manner other countries have.
Wonderfully said!