I keep seeing Zionists claiming to be terrified at the Palestinian flag, or trying to say the phrase “free Palestine” is hate speech. Even now, when Gaza has been razed to the ground and hundreds of thousands are dead, the very words Gaza, Palestine, Hamas, intifada, etc are claimed to be intrinsically racist.
Do they actually believe this or are they just playing a silly language game? Like the Sartre quote about antisemites not believing in anything. How deep in the weeds does a Zionist have to be in to believe that the very existence of Palestinian people is comparable to hate groups like the klan? (Real comparison I’ve heard)
I know it’s probably complicated, like some believe this and some are just using it as a tool to terminate critique, but does anyone have any further insight?
Fascists don’t care if something is true, they care if it is rhetorically useful in the moment
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
They’re telling on themselves. They believe Jews need Zionism to survive because, without Zionism, the hoards will kill them all due to the inherent racial differences between Jews and non Jews. They do not believe in multiculturalism, they do not believe in equality, they sincerely believe in their race prejudice and a need for an ethnostate.
A lot of this sentiment stems from the antisemitic talking point that Jews could never really be European.
and they directly agree with that shit
…for a people without a land
i think that’s a good way to put it. whether or not the zionism is sincere doesn’t matter because the zionism always gives way to the underlying racism regardless.
never believe that the zionist is unaware of the absurdity of his own replies, etc
Zionism is very distincly Antisemitic
If the colonization of Palestine has been characterized by a series of depredations, we should take a moment to examine the attitude of the Zionist movement not only toward its Palestinian victims (to which we shall return), but toward the Jews themselves.
Herzl himself wrote of the Jews in the following fashion: “I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to ’combat’ anti-Semitism.” [76] The youth organization of the Zionists, Hashomer Hatzair (young Guard) published the following: “A Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.” [77] “The Jewish people,” wrote Jabotinsky in the same vein, “is a very bad people; its neighbors hate it and rightly so … its only salvation lies in a general immigration to the land of Israel.” [78] The founders of Zionism despaired of combatting anti-Semitism and, paradoxically, regarded the anti-Semites themselves as allies, because of a shared desire to remove the Jews from the countries in which they lived. Step by step, they assimilated the values of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism, as the Zionist movement came to regard the anti-Semites themselves as their most reliable sponsors and protectors.
Theodor Herzl approached none other than Count Von Plehve, the author of the worst pogroms in Russia – the pogroms of Kishinev with the following proposition: “Help me to reach the land [Palestine] sooner and the revolt [against Czarist rule] will end.” [79] Von Plehve agreed, and he undertook to finance the Zionist movement. He was later to complain to Herzl: “The Jews have been joining the revolutionary parties. We were sympathetic to your Zionist movement as long as it worked toward emigration. You don’t have to justify the movement to me. You are preaching to a convert.” [80] Herzl and Weizmann offered to help guarantee Czarist interests in Palestine and to rid Eastern Europe and Russia of those “noxious and subversive Anarcho-Bolshevik Jews”.
As we have noted, the same appeal was made by the Zionists to the Sultan of Turkey, the Kaiser in Germany, to French imperialism and to the British Raj.
the Hole Basis of the Ideology , the Fuel that powers it is the notion that Antisemitism is some sort of eternal force, a force the Forces the Jews into their “homeland” Israel … so the mananger of the homeland “israel” has tried to , will make sure that the “fuel” does not run out …
“Push and Pull factors”
Any time you ask yourself “does this person actually believe what they’re saying,” the answer is probably “no, but they feel like it’s the right thing to say”
Don’t forget the people who are outraged at being challenged on their politics, as they have a lot tied up in their sense of identity and self-worth on this despite not actually being particularly educated on the topic. The NYT-reading libs, etc.
These are people who will just repeat whatever talking points they have at hand, often those provided by pundits and so on in the last few months. It is a reactive thing, but it often presents as polemic, especially characterizing themselves as victims if it is in any way possible to do so.
Zionism works perfectly with this strain of liberalism. It is what hasbara is designed for.
Do they believe it? In the sense that they believe anything, yes.
It’s not easy for a movement to have beliefs that are different from its rhetoric. I’m sure there are individuals and organizations that are lying on purpose, but I think it’s safe to assume any movement actually believes the things it says, even if they are absurd and contradictory.
Furthermore, even individual beliefs aren’t really binary, people sort of half-believe things all the time.
There is a an alliance of sorts, between the State of Israel, and old school antisemites, to tie being Jewish to also being Israeli. Something that is basically endorsed by that government, because why wouldn’t they? It gives them free international influence, regardless of what the people included in the nationalist “we” think of it, and it’s not like they’re the only state to do it - and especially handy with how unpopular the great slaughter in Gaza has become.
Especially based on an ideological foundation of ethnic nationalism so strong to reach all the way to the fringe within the liberals (a.k.a. the demsoc left - peddling social democracy worldwide and pretending it’s Marx).
Criticism equals antisemitism, and if done by a Jewish person, then it’s basically being a “race traitor”, as other nationalists would say.
Of course there’s true believers, zionists have raised many children into it, and though the political operatives are by and large more cynical, some of them inevitably sample their own koolaid.
i think some do and some use it cynically
Obligatory elites-masses-and-rebels.
It is not a belief but moreso they go along with this. Edgelords are not naive dupes, but smug minions of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie get a loyal army and the bourgeois proletariats get paid an emotional salary that they’re safe, superior, and they can embrace every last of their wrathful vices.
