I went ahead and watched both videos, also watched Deculturation’s livestream from last year where he joined forces with a few other people to review the time he called into the Majority Report to call out Sam Seder and the crew for being liberal Zionists. It hit me that what Sam Seder had said, where he generalized the definition of anti-zionism to the point of absurdity and only then did he agree with it[1], he can’t just accept anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian liberation on its own merits, only when it’s framed as a Westernized liberal project. But it screwed with me, because this is exactly what Mamdani said on the mayoral debate and he got praise for it: Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights. I brought it up last month when he won that we were giving Mamdani a pass for a liberal zionist take (granted, in a mayoral debate that shouldn’t have anything to do with Israel) and I even got some pushback here.
if you’re not familiar, his formulation was “Really I think anti-zionism was invented by the Zionists. Because my belief is just in democracy and equal rights, which apparently is anti-Zionism” ↩︎
Hey yeah after I linked that video I bounced over to the Seder video and watched part of it as well.
I don’t think we need to deep dive on this, because you and I agree on the facts, but I’ll throw out a perspective.
I don’t think correctly criticising a view and “allowing a pass” are mutually exclusive. It needs to be in context, of course. For Zohran, this compromise can be allowed because he is a democratic socialist candidate running for election in an extremely right wing country; anglo socialists should want to see this guy win, imo. I don’t think he is pulling anyone to the right with his take, just doing what he can to placate both sides (such is electoralism). I also don’t think his statement reflects his genuine personal view, but that barely matters.
If it were a PSL candidate, I would hate to see any sort of “pass” offered, since the context is different. Sam Seder also doesn’t get to deliver any sort of take like that because he has nothing at stake. Not to mention the foreign policy views of a mayoral candidate don’t really matter at all.
Historically, revolutionary movements have had (and will have) to do much dirtier and uncomfortable things in order to win. In context, I see Zohran pacing the way for Zohran 3.0 to be fully and clearly anti-Zionist, but I think that it is not a stance he can officially adopt in 2025 and expect to win, he’s already far to close to being nuked from orbit.
I went ahead and watched both videos, also watched Deculturation’s livestream from last year where he joined forces with a few other people to review the time he called into the Majority Report to call out Sam Seder and the crew for being liberal Zionists. It hit me that what Sam Seder had said, where he generalized the definition of anti-zionism to the point of absurdity and only then did he agree with it[1], he can’t just accept anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian liberation on its own merits, only when it’s framed as a Westernized liberal project. But it screwed with me, because this is exactly what Mamdani said on the mayoral debate and he got praise for it: Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights. I brought it up last month when he won that we were giving Mamdani a pass for a liberal zionist take (granted, in a mayoral debate that shouldn’t have anything to do with Israel) and I even got some pushback here.
if you’re not familiar, his formulation was “Really I think anti-zionism was invented by the Zionists. Because my belief is just in democracy and equal rights, which apparently is anti-Zionism” ↩︎
Hey yeah after I linked that video I bounced over to the Seder video and watched part of it as well.
I don’t think we need to deep dive on this, because you and I agree on the facts, but I’ll throw out a perspective.
I don’t think correctly criticising a view and “allowing a pass” are mutually exclusive. It needs to be in context, of course. For Zohran, this compromise can be allowed because he is a democratic socialist candidate running for election in an extremely right wing country; anglo socialists should want to see this guy win, imo. I don’t think he is pulling anyone to the right with his take, just doing what he can to placate both sides (such is electoralism). I also don’t think his statement reflects his genuine personal view, but that barely matters.
If it were a PSL candidate, I would hate to see any sort of “pass” offered, since the context is different. Sam Seder also doesn’t get to deliver any sort of take like that because he has nothing at stake. Not to mention the foreign policy views of a mayoral candidate don’t really matter at all.
Historically, revolutionary movements have had (and will have) to do much dirtier and uncomfortable things in order to win. In context, I see Zohran pacing the way for Zohran 3.0 to be fully and clearly anti-Zionist, but I think that it is not a stance he can officially adopt in 2025 and expect to win, he’s already far to close to being nuked from orbit.