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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13040 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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defended a member who stated "Zionists don't deserve to live",

This would seem to be evidence for anti-zionism, anti-zionism ≠ antisemitism.

Even if I accept your claim that "Zionist" was not being used as a codeword for "Jew", this rather clearly demonstrates that Macklemore is lying when he presents himself as a hippy-dippy peace-and-love dude who is simply innocently horrified by "genocide" and "apartheid". He explicitly supports (by name) groups that support violent resistance against Israel i.e. he is a crypto-Hamas supporter.

This "code word" stuff, er, codes as progressives. Very "dog whistle."

Dog whistles are meant to be un-noticed by those not their targets. The term "anti-Zionist" is merely the thinnest veil of plausible deniability in most cases.

Why does opposition to genocide require a "hippy-dippy peace-and-love" attitude?

The Nazis weren't stopped by hippies waving signs but by the Red Army tearing through East Prussia committing enough war crimes to make Hamas look like humanitarian organization.

If you think that Israel is committing a genocide then it logically follows that violent resistance is justified, assuming you aren't a full on pacifist.

I think any other direction has darker implications: to reverse your claim (which, to be fair, is factually accurate to my knowledge), those that would commit mass ethnic cleansing of Jews in the 1940s were stopped by making their cities look like Dresden. Why wouldn't "Never Again" mean turning cities (Rafah) to such in 2026 for the same reason? "Which river? Which sea?". I don't agree with it, but I can at least understand the position.

Ultimately, the cycle of violence is only broken when one side loses or admits defeat — the West Germans were to some extent lucky the Western Allies were more magnanimous than many other historical examples — or when "hippy-dippy peace-and-love attitudes" prevail. In most cases I can imagine, I'd prefer the latter.

I think any other direction has darker implications: to reverse your claim (which, to be fair, is factually accurate to my knowledge), those that would commit mass ethnic cleansing of Jews in the 1940s were stopped by making their cities look like Dresden. Why wouldn't "Never Again" mean turning cities (Rafah) to such in 2026 for the same reason? "Which river? Which sea?". I don't agree with it, but I can at least understand the position.

With the crucial difference that Rafah was demolished, whereas the antizionists are still a decade or so away from possessing the power to demolish Tel Aviv. I'm not inventing a new standard, just taking the existing one and applying it consistently.

Ultimately, the cycle of violence is only broken when one side loses or admits defeat — the West Germans were to some extent lucky the Western Allies were more magnanimous than many other historical examples — or when "hippy-dippy peace-and-love attitudes" prevail. In most cases I can imagine, I'd prefer the latter.

The "hippy-dippy peace-and-love attitudes" only came out after Germany was defeated. If the Wehrmacht had been greeted by a bunch of protesters waving peace signs instead of millions of heavily armed Red Army soldiers then the war would have gone very differently.

I'll grant that there is a range of actions that are more extreme than total pacifism and less extreme than Dresden but basically anyone who isn't a total pacifist is going to say that armed resistance to an ongoing genocide is justified.

With the crucial difference that Rafah was demolished, whereas the antizionists are still a decade or so away from possessing the power to demolish Tel Aviv.

Sure, but they demonstrably did a quite a bit to Be'eri.

And Dresden was largely carried out by American forces: no American cities were even modestly impacted by enemy violence during WWII. The total number of civilian casualties in the 48 states during the war is countable on a single hand. Even London with the Blitz wasn't hit anywhere near as hard as Dresden or other German cities. Does "the Germans were a decade away from possessing the power to demolish Washington" (roughly true) mean that FDR was the baddie there? I personally don't think so, but YMMV.

ETA: On looking, there were six civilians killed in the 48 states during the war, who died from a Japanese balloon fire bomb. Not quite one hand.

Sure, but they demonstrably did a quite a bit to Be'eri.

So did the IDF tank that responded to the ongoing hostage situation by opening fire on the hostages

And Dresden was largely carried out by American forces: no American cities were even modestly impacted by enemy violence during WWII. The total number of civilian casualties in the 48 states during the war is countable on a single hand. Even London with the Blitz wasn't hit anywhere near as hard as Dresden or other German cities.

The antizionists who will be destroying Israel aren't Palestinians but Americans and Europeans. I wasn't saying that Palestinians were going to somehow amass the power to obliterate Tel Aviv in a decade but that the political changes in developed Western countries caused by Israel's campaign in Gaza and the subsequent mess the Middle East has devolved into will ultimately lead to Israel's destruction.

At any rate, the original example I gave was of the Red Army in East Prussia where none of these differences apply. The point is that even a bloodthirsty, vengeful horde led by a brutal tyrant committing the worst atrocities imaginable can still be viewed as the lesser evil when they're up against a genocidaire. "Armed resistance" is far, far short of what Stalin's troops did to the German civilians who fell into their clutches.

Does "the Germans were a decade away from possessing the power to demolish Washington" (roughly true) mean that FDR was the baddie there? I personally don't think so, but YMMV.

Was Stalin "the baddie" in WW2? I personally don't think "the baddie" is a meaningful term; in the vast majority of wars you don't have a choice between the "good guy" and the "bad guy", you have a choice between the "bad guy" and the "worse guy". Stalin and FDR were bad guys (obviously FDR less than Stalin) and Hitler was the worse guy. If Israel is guilty of genocide then it follows that armed resistance is justified; that doesn't make Hamas the "good guy", it makes them the "bad" to Israel's "worse".

By this reasoning, claiming that you want to kill Jews who drink the blood of Christian babies at Passover is only evidence that you dislike Jews who drink the blood of Christian babies at Passover.

Not all Jews are zionist. There are many non-Jew zionists.

Yes, any Jew or non-Jew drinking the blood of Christian or pagan babies at Passover or outside passover should be put to death, after a trial.

The set of those I would put to death is larger but still inclusive of your set.

I'm not sure I really want to know the answer, but is "blood drinking" by itself a crime? I'd assume it depends on how you source the blood in question ("ethically sourced from local abortion clinics", ugh, still no).

Last I checked, the Catholics would testify that they drink literal blood regularly, but we've mostly settled the Protestant-Catholic animus over such things in the US.

Not all Jews are zionist. There are many non-Jew zionists.

Not all Jews drink Christian blood either. In fact, a lot fewer Jews do so than are Zionists. Yet Jews would still perceive that as an attack on them.

I’m sure there has, at some point, been a Jewish serial killer who drank the blood of Christian children. If you further clarified that you were referring to that guy, I think at least half of Jewish men would find the reaction of other Jews hilarious.

Yet Jews would still perceive that as an attack on them.

Feeling threatened by a call to try child killers when you aren't one is in-group bias doing you a disservice. Same with Zionism: it's a political ideology, held by plenty of non-Jews and rejected by plenty of Jews. Opposing Iran's theocracy isn't an attack on Muslims.

A rabbi, a Zionist Jew and an anti-Zionist Jew walk into a bar.

The barman says "we don't serve Jews here."

Do we really need to relitigate Weak Men Are Superweapons over the exact same example as the post?

The superweapon only splashes on you if you stay in the tent with the people it's aimed at.

That's why nobody lets Nazis into big tent politics. Scott's point holds for categories you can't leave, and Jewishness is one. Zionism isn't. It's a chosen political position, and anti-Zionist Jews are welcomed in anti-Zionist spaces, not targeted.

The fix isn't to defend Zionists in self-protection. It's to keep the Jewish/Zionist boundary sharp. Blurring it is exactly what Zionists want, since it lets political criticism get filed as bigotry. Antisemites blur it from the other side too, which is one more reason not to help them.

It's a chosen political position, and anti-Zionist Jews are welcomed in anti-Zionist spaces, not targeted.

Outspoken anti-Zionists are. Jews who are in no proactive sense Zionists but are insufficiently enthusiastic about denouncing the government of Israel, less so. I think there is a genuine and widespread anti-Semitism-based issue where Jews are assumed to be Zionists by default, and are called upon to furnish themselves with the appropriate anti-splash shibboleths if they want protection from the superweapon.

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