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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This time, a German architecture prize was rescinded over the recipient signing a letter condemning Israel.
Of course, the Guardian is not quite sure how the founder of the prize is called, oscillating between Schelling and Schilling:
The letter in question is here. Key passages:
We still have 3/4 of that century to go, but good job being optimistic!
This would at least be debatable.
Fair enough.
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.
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.
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.
Except for the ones on the MS St Louis.
Except when they did.
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.)
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.
There is a factual disagreement here that can be resolved: How common are influential Jews outside Israel that support Zionism but oppose White nationalism?
There is a difference between supporting Zionism because "we'd rather stay here, but just in case they decide they don't want us here..." and supporting Zionism because "the normal purpose of a country is as a home for a specific ethnic group; we were born with an un-changeable primary duty towards our group's homeland."
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