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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This time, a German architecture prize was rescinded over the recipient signing a letter condemning Israel.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.
IME young red tribe normies(far and away the most important demographic for determining what ‘younger generations of right wingers’ support) often don’t think the events of eighty years ago oblige us to pick any particular side, but usually have a superstitious terror of opposing Israel as bad juju/bringing the curse of God, or are prejudiced against Israel’s enemies, or support the outpost of capitalist democracy even if they don’t want to pay for its wars, or….
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