this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what Zionism is, so I just don’t talk about it, rather than saying something accidentally racist, and/or making an ass of myself.
Someone correct me if im wrong, but Zionism is Isreali radical nationalism, their primary goal is the creation of a Jewish ethno-state in current isreal and palestine.
The Youtuber Shaun has a great video going through the history of the conflict and Zionism: https://youtu.be/3xottY-7m3k
You are mostly there. One of the most important notes is that the project is settler colonial, and it is also helpful to point out that zionism is older than Israel, and it has been around for over 100 years.
+1 on that Shaun vid, it’s great
Yea sorry, the creation of an ethno-state in palestine through colonialism. I did not know that its older than isreal though, good to know.
And shauns vids are top tier lol.
Any kind of Israeli nationalism can be zionism, doesn't need to be radical.
I like this approach. I wish more people would be honest about the limits of their arguments instead of just saying whatever they think will help them 'win'.
Thank you. It’s the result of hard earned experience!
Zionism is basically the belief that Jewish people deserve to own Palestine/Jerusalem ("Zion") and that non-Jews should be ethnically cleansed from "Zion" (the Nakba)
The second part of your definition definitely isnt true for all forms of Zionism. Zionism is as broad of a political ideology as liberalism, conservativism or communism is. Some zionists will agree with that, some won't or "soften" it to "we'll let them stay as second class citizens lol"
Zionism is essentially the belief that Ethnically Jewish people deserve their own homeland. This usually translates to "Israel has a right to exist".
This does not necessarily mean endorsement of ethnic cleansing. That is not the core of Zionism, it is the core of what you oppose, and you have been convinced to casually refer to those things as Zionism.
Taking a hard-line against Zionism in this way is like saying "Catholicism is basically the belief that women should be brood mares". Sure, Catholics are largely against Abortion, but they aren't a monolith. You're going to find plenty of members of the group that don't tow the line on that.
In this sense, you are looking at the Israeli leaders that use Zionism as a justification for what they are doing to Gaza/Palestine et al, and deciding that everyone under the Zionist umbrella must be exactly the same. The problem here is that you're dead wrong about what Zionists actually believe and are alienating people that might otherwise be your allies, because they can't tell if you're arguing that Palestine should be free, or if their friends and families in Israel deserve to be displaced, oppressed, or even murdered in revenge for the Nakba.
Yeah no. Jewish Israeli people can live in Palestine, with the Arabs they're trying to displace, like Jews have for thousands of years before modern Israel existed. Israel is inherently, and has always been, an apartheid ethnostate and has no reason nor right to exist. Israeli nationalism is a bad thing and Israel's entire purpose is Jewish supremacy. If you remove the "ethnostate" aspect of Israel, you don't have Israel; there is no Israel without either apartheid or genocide of non-Jews.
Israel has no right to exist. No state really has any right to exist, but Israel's existence is especially bad. It should be dissolved. That doesn't mean displacement of the people that live there, that means the replacement of the Israeli state.
There are plenty of Israelis who were adults when Israel was founded, and participated in the extermination of Arabs during the colonial occupation, and cheered on the theft of their lands. They form the foundation of Israeli society, and most of the non-Arab Israeli populace still encourages the oppression and genocide of Arabs. I do not believe any individual who cheers on the genocide of the peoples their great-grandparents recently stole the lives of should have the "right" to live on the recently stolen land.
I don't really use the term myself because I find it too vague. People shift what they mean when they use it so I stick to the actual concepts I'm discussing. The existence of a state for Jews and apartheid settler colonialism are morally polls apart.
This is a point I wish more people understood. I know more than one self-identified Zionist who is against Israel's oppression of Palestine, and even refers to it as Genocide. They understand how Zionism motivated it, but they themselves are not in agreement with Israel even though they identify as Zionist.
It's like if the pro-choice movement were branded as an anti-Catholic, since Sectarian Catholic Christians are some of the most outspoken against Abortion. While there is plenty of blame that Catholicism deserves, making that your central message alienates pro-choice Catholics.
Or how Communism and Socialism are frequently equivocated with Authoritarianism because there were a handful of far-left dictators through recent history. Make that your central message and you alienate all the leftists that don't stand for that.
anti-Zionism might feel properly directed, but for Jews it always leaves the question of "what part of Zionism are you against?", Because Zionism is a more complex philosophy than "Oppress Palestinians". Making it your central message alienates Zionist Jews that are not in favor of the violent nationalism of the Israeli government.
That we even have to stop and remind people not to straight up blame Jewish people for what's happening makes it clear that the messaging here is questionable. Finding a convenient label to encapsulate everything you oppose in a situation may be rhetorically convenient, but oversimplified messaging can also lead to miscommunication and overly-broad statements of blame against groups that don't necessarily deserve it.