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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Another day, another controversy about what is antisemitism and what is legitimate criticism of Israel.

This time, a German architecture prize was rescinded over the recipient signing a letter condemning Israel.

The Athens-based artist and author James Bridle, [...], was announced in June as the recipient of the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize, [...]

Bridle was informed in an email that the foundation’s committee had decided unanimously not to award them the prize because Bridle was among the several thousand authors who signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions.

Of course, the Guardian is not quite sure how the founder of the prize is called, oscillating between Schelling and Schilling:

The foundation’s prizes, which have been awarded since 1992, are named after the late German architect Erich Schilling.

The letter in question is here. Key passages:

the most profound moral, political and cultural crisis of the 21st century.

We still have 3/4 of that century to go, but good job being optimistic!

This is a genocide, as leading expert scholars and institutions have been saying for months.

This would at least be debatable.

Therefore: we will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.

Fair enough.

the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law.

That would be the the general right self-determination of peoples, as mentioned in the UN charter? Does this also apply to the Uighur, the Kurds, the Basques, the Catalans and so on?

Or is the relevant law the limited recognition of Palestine, or the Oslo Accords?

Was the Hamas rule before the Oct 7 a shining example of self-determination?

Personally, I am somewhat sympathetic to calls to stop the IDF from bombing the hell out of Gaza. I am also fine with demanding that Israel should stick to the Oslo accords in the West Bank and dismantle their illegal settlements.

But to demand political autonomy in the context of Gaza is where I get off the train. The force of political autonomy in Gaza is called Hamas. Their primary objective is to sabotage any peace process by murdering random residents of Israel. Asking for political autonomy for Gaza is like asking for political autonomy for Germany in 1946.

Overall, I don't think that the letter is plainly antisemitic. If the author had signed a similar pledge against Chinese institutions for the Uighur genocide, and also demanded self-determination for the Kurds, I would tend to call them a general advocate for oppressed people. If their only political topic is Israel, then that would be a bit dubious.

If, as the right (persuasively) argues, it is racist towards Anglos / French / Germans to flood these countries with migrants, ending their former status as (de facto) ethnostates, then opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is likewise antisemitic. The destruction of Japan by the arrival of a hundred million of the kind of tribesmen who lived there before the ancestors of the Yamato immigrated would be likewise transparently anti-Japanese behavior. I have no opinions on German policy in this area or the awarding of the prize. Nevertheless, advocating a people should no longer be a majority in their sole ethnostate is damning them in a way, whether it’s done to Gauls or Greeks, to Swedes or Serbs, and so on. The Arabs still have many homelands and there was no distinct Palestinian identity before Israeli independence.

If, as the right (persuasively) argues, it is racist towards Anglos / French / Germans to flood these countries with migrants, ending their former status as (de facto) ethnostates, then opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is likewise antisemitic.

I agree that anti-Zionism is fundamentally anti-Semitism, sorry to say to so many "anti-Zionists" who want to make the distinction, but you also need to decide if not supporting the Jewish state is the same as opposition. Does Israel give huge amounts of military aid to the US and England to preserve its ethnostate? Don't make me laugh. The thrust of Zionist influence in the West has been vehemently pro-mass third world immigration with organizations like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, of which our DHS Secretary was on the board...

There's also the argument that it's not "racist" to oppose a state that opposes me. Israel doesn't support my right to live among other White people, and Jews are likely, especially in the face of this election, the demographic and political force that is the most pro-mass third world immigration to the West in the entire world. Why is it racist for me to oppose them when they oppose me?

You just want us on the Right to be suckers, to support Zionism with no expectation of reciprocity. You want us to support them even as they throw all of their own economic and political and cultural influence on opposing us in the West.

If Zionists oppose keeping the US and Europe White the Right should not be suckered into political support for keeping Israel Jewish.

That comparison might make more sense if white people had been a minority in every country for c. 2,000 years, been treated as second-class citizens when tolerated, expelled whenever the majority needed a scapegoat, and then subjected to attempted extermination with everyone prescient enough to try to escape refused entry by every country they tried to flee to.

Unless and until that happens, I see no contradiction in asserting that Jewish people are entitled to a state in which they are a majority, while white people are not.

Unless and until that happens, I see no contradiction in asserting that Jewish people are entitled to a state in which they are a majority, while white people are not.

I mean, you can maintain that position, but younger generations of Right Wingers are just going to not support Israel no matter how much you harp about Jewish oppression. The tap of Ecclesiastical support of Israel from the brainwashed Christian Right is going to run dry and you are going to be left with a generation of people wondering why we should support Israel when Israel doesn't support us. And your answer is far from convincing to us.

The US took in the Jews and didn't treat them as second-class citizens, but apparently that didn't earn the US any claim to maintain a White population in your mind? It certainly failed to earn the ethnic loyalty of Jews to White Americans. Loyalty is a two-way street, you can't demand loyalty and give none in return. The US just has to support Israel while accepting that Zionist Jews are going to agitate for demographic replacement in all the political and cultural institutions they control? No thanks. Oh, they need aid from the US? Pound sand.

That's not realistic in the short term, but younger generations are skeptical of Israel and this equilibrium consensus of "nobody question Israel" is going to change very fast, especially with growing pressure from the Right Wing along with the Left Wing from different angles of critique.

AOC recently tweeted about AIPAC. Taboos can fall fast and hard, and they are going to in this case. You can't cling to "you have to support us unconditionally because we're so oppressed" for much longer.

The US took in the Jews

Except for the ones on the MS St Louis.

and didn't treat them as second-class citizens

Except when they did.

but apparently that didn't earn the US any claim to maintain a White population in your mind?

No. You're not supposed to treat people as second-class citizens, just like you're supposed to take care of your children and not end up in gaol.

Furthermore, even if white Americans had shown supererogatory virtue, that would still not entitle them to an ethnic majority, because, in the general case, 'being entitled to an ethnic majority' isn't a thing. We make an exception in the case of Israel and the Jewish people due to their long history of being regularly persecuted, combined with the post-WWI implementation of modern border controls. (If I had a magic 'open borders, for everyone except horrifying predatory criminals [judged on an individual basis], in every country including Israel, I would at least be tempted to press it, knowing that Jewish people facing anti-Semitic persecution would always be able to leave any country which persecuted them. However, in a world in which countries claim a general right to refuse entry for any or no reason, it is anti-Semitic to expect Jewish people to bet their lives on the hope that the Nations will be feeling generous.)

It certainly failed to earn the ethnic loyalty of Jews to White Americans.

Ethnic loyalty? No, largely because Jewish people sympathetic to ethno-nationalism mostly live in Israel! Jewish Americans sympathetic to civic nationalism show loyalty to American ideals such as the Constitution.

'being entitled to an ethnic majority' isn't a thing. We make an exception in the case of Israel and the Jewish people

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception. "We" didn't do anything. I do not acknowledge your "exception" and young people are skeptical of it. The Right Wing shouldn't support a people that don't support them, and none of your "Jews are so oppressed" or "we made an exception" lines of dialogue are remotely convincing for why I should support Israel.

Ethnic loyalty? No, largely because Jewish people sympathetic to ethno-nationalism mostly live in Israel!

This is a hilarious lie, Jews are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel. If accepting them and handing them power failed to earn their loyalty to the ethnic stock that took them in, you should wonder why they were expelled so much throughout history. As if handing them the levers of power would have won them over- we know now apparently not. In fact, it's silly to even fathom that Jews would show loyalty towards the people that brought them in and gave them power.

The Right Wing shouldn't support a people that don't support them

Many Jewish people do support the right wing, at least the more idea-focused parts. More might have done so if they didn't get the impression (whether accurate or not) that "You support us, we'll support you" meant something along the lines of "You obey and agree with us in every way, and we'll grudgingly let you live in the crappiest parts of our land instead of leaving you to be slaughtered, as long as you acknowledge us as your superiors."

Also, not everything ought to be transactional. Sometimes, one should help people not because they have done or will do something for you, but because it is the right thing to do.

Jews are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel.

Sympathy is not the same as loyalty. Many Jewish American citizens have sympathy towards Israel, because they have relatives there whom they know personally, and because they need there to be a place where they are allowed to exist even if every Gentile doesn't want them.

(Also, some people complain that Jewish U. S. citizens don't have enough loyalty to Israel.)

If accepting them

Grudgingly, when at all.

and handing them power

The Jewish people were not 'handed power' as a group. They were, in fact, often systematically kept away from power.

failed to earn their loyalty to the ethnic stock

Or don't consider an 'ethnic stock' to be a thing one can be loyal to.

you should wonder why they were expelled so much throughout history

My hypothesis is that a religion founded on arguing with G-d, and which has a big book consisting of centuries of arguments by its clergy over every minute detail of Scripture, is likely to be inconvenient for any person or group whose agenda relies on being able to say that black 0.4–0.7 μm albedo < 0.01 is white 0.4–0.7 μm albedo > 0.99 and have everybody reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears. This would explain the rise of anti-Semitism among the wokists SJWs PJFTMWTIAATUftSSaPCYDs.

However, I don't think it matters why they were not welcomed. What matters is that millions of human beings, each with hopes, dreams, feelings, people they loved, eyes, hands, organs, senses, dimensions, were denied a safe place to live, and sent back to be slaughtered.

That is why Jewish people are justifiably not confident that they are safe if they are a minority in every country; the same logic does not apply to white people.

You using the holocaust as a card to justify the extinction and mistreatment of whites who are currently hated and targeted give special treatment of the Jews at expense of other ethnic groups is precisely why what you are doing ought to be criminalized.

It should be a crime for people to use slavery, holocaust, colonialism, or "We are unique at being at threat of oppression" bullshit narratives to excuse a permanent boot to their ethnic outgroup's neck or their destruction, and for their favorite group to lord over others.

To the extend we need to protect people from malicious racists, we got it backwards, we need to destroy the disgusting racist holocaust lobby. Which includes creating an environment where people like you wouldn't have the opportunity to make these arguments. At least not for long.

Obviously the idea that whites aren't at threat of being treated rather badly when they become minority is preposterous. They are already mistreated and those who hate them have shown intensions to intensify things in the future. It isn't even true that multiple white ethnic groups haven't been victimized through genocide and mass murder. Including by Jews in eastern europe. Or blacks in Africa. Or by foreign ethnic nationalists such as Turkish nationalists and muslims as in Greeks who were subject to genocide in Anatolia along with other Christian groups.

Even subject to genocide by other Europeans and even by the Nazis. But even the Germans were also subject to genocide as well.

Even if someone did find a group that was historically more lucky than the Jews, which isn't the case here with all groups in white category in modernity, that wouldn't justify this repulsive argument. Being more lucky historically does not justify, OBVIOUSLY, this idea that you aren't at threat, or don't have a right to exist and should accept your own extinction.

It's why any distinction of what you are selling with the worst woke extremist is completely fake.

This idea that fuck whites, they have no right to not go extinct, or of national self determination because they can't be oppressed like Jews (and if you disagree with the narrative of Jewish oppression you are evil of course out to murder Jews) is obviously disgusting in general, but shouldn't be tolerated especially in any white society.

It falls completely under categories such as treason, genocidal racist extremist rhetoric, absurdly intense racist hatred, hypocrisy, etc, etc. And it threatening in a murderous way since currently Palestinians are defined by Jews as an illegitimate ethnic group while the Jews doing so are happy to support attrocities against them. If whites are not a legitimate ethnic group, and you deny any of their historical suffering, trying to greedilly concetrate all suffering just to the Jews, perhaps you are willing to support and are after for even worse things.

Perhaps you aren't sincere when you claim that whites won't be mistreated as a minority but you expect them to be mistreated, and are just out to support and deny it. The general concept of X ethnic group not existing of X group never having suffered, and not being capable to suffer, (especially when they demonstratably are and you are denying the truth) makes future mass violence towards such group a much more likely possibility.

This is the ethnic version of the Trotskyist idea that the people of the revolution can do no wrong and classifying other classes as oppressors that can't be wronged. There is no fixing this and no way to have a peaceful, prosperous world if this rotten ideology of genocidal antiwhite Jewish supremacy is not rooted out. Same applies to other versions of this disgusting ideology with a different ethnic group on top as the exception.

The idea of destroying other nations except the Jewish one is an insane megalomaniac ideology that ironically shares plenty with pop culture idea of Nazism. Albeit you are a bit more sneaky about it.

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