naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
We've been having an "honest" conversation about Zionism in the West for a long time
I don't think so. Keith's perspective is missing and most of the anti-Zionism in the West is typically very leftist. I think folks like Keith Woods bring the perspective that Zionism is responsible for instability and unrest in the Middle-East and thus brings floods of refugees to Europe. Jewish Zionists living in the West then shame White people to take them into our countries - even as they support ethno-nationalism for themselves. So nationalism when in Israel but liberalism in the diaspora. So far, I agree with Keith's analysis.
Where I differ with Kieth is that I think this is actually the common norm among most ethnic minorities. He makes it sound like Jews are outliers. I've often talked about Turks living in Germany, NL, France etc but there are many other examples.The main difference is not behavior per se but power. The Jewish diaspora is infinitely more powerful and influential than whatever little crumbs that Turks, Kurds, Armenians or any other Middle-Eastern group get off the table, despite often being far more numerous than Jews - at least in Europe.
In other words, it's White people who are abnormally non-tribal rather than Jews being unusually tribal. Jewish tribalism makes much more political and social impact because of relative power differentials favouring Jews compared to other ethnic minorities who are much less influential. But that doesn't mean those other minorities' fundamental patterns of behaviour are any different.
I don't think so. Keith's perspective is missing and most of the anti-Zionism in the West is typically very leftist.
Anti-Zionism is (in the US, at least), profoundly anti-establishment. The anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone until Trump walked down the escalator in 2016, and this is the first time since then that Israel-Palestine has been the current thing. But "why can Israel oppose immigration but the US can't" and "why can Israel play to win with the Palestinians when the US has its hands tied in Iraq" where both fairly common memes on the anti-establishment right back in the noughties. (Practically every commentator on the Unz review plus Moldbug)
Unlike the anti-establishment left, the anti-establishment right isn't consistently anti-Zionist, because it includes rabid Islamophobes who support Israel on enemy-of-my-enemy grounds, and wackjob Christians who support Israel in order to immanentize the escheaton. But the natural position of the anti-establishment right is that Israel is just another country and the US should not spend money defending them for the same reasons as Ukraine.
The left may not be consistently anti-Israel, but even when not actually anti-Israel, it's anti-a lot of things Israel does, including border walls. So the answer is "pretty much nobody who opposes limits on immigration in the US supports it for Israel".
I think folks like Keith Woods bring the perspective that Zionism is responsible for instability and unrest in the Middle-East and thus brings floods of refugees to Europe.
How many of the refugees currently in Europe are due to instabilities precisely provoked by Israel, though?
The biggest refugee movements to Europe in the past decade, if I've understood correctly, can be connected to the destabilization and war in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In case of Iraq, there's a direct argument to be made that Israel lobbied America to invade, though this was hardly the only factor leading to Bush admin to make this move.
However, in case of Syria, my understanding is that the primarly supporters of the anti-Assad rising that then became a civil war was not Israel - which of course hated Assad but didn't evince a particular wish for the opposition to take over either - but the Gulf States and, later, Turkey. One could argue that Israel preferred a destabilized, riven Syria to either party winning, but even then you'd have to make an actual argument as to how, exactly, Israel played its cards to make that happen, rather that a long civil war is simply what happens when you have two armies of roughly equal strength and also foreign countries (Turkey, Russia) willing to directly intervene to save their preferred side's bacon.
Insofar as Libya goes, my understanding is that Gaddafi had recently tried to make amends with Israel, and I don't think I've seen anyone in particular blame Israel for the Libyan Revolution (and its failure), and US war in Afghanistan - again, if my understanding is correct - was considered by Israelis a sideshow, a distraction from the more important cause of invading Iraq and Iran. Furthermore, IIRC even in case of Iraq, the initial refugee waves of the war in 2003 and the following breakdown of order went to the neighboring countries, and only the 2015 refugee wave triggered by breakdown of Syria and Libya led to a wider Iraqi movement to Europe.
Of course, if one thinks that there's literally nothing in the world that happens without the Jewish/Israeli hidden hand at play it's natural to blame Israel for all of these, but I'd really need to see a more comprehensive argument for major Israeli involvement in most of these cases.
That's obviously a big issue as well (even moreso), I just wanted to comment on whether you can say that Zionism in even the narrow sense (ie. support for actual country of Israel, or the actual country of Israel's actions abroad) can be blamed on the conflicts leading to the refugee crisis in this way.
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Notes -
I don't think so. Keith's perspective is missing and most of the anti-Zionism in the West is typically very leftist. I think folks like Keith Woods bring the perspective that Zionism is responsible for instability and unrest in the Middle-East and thus brings floods of refugees to Europe. Jewish Zionists living in the West then shame White people to take them into our countries - even as they support ethno-nationalism for themselves. So nationalism when in Israel but liberalism in the diaspora. So far, I agree with Keith's analysis.
Where I differ with Kieth is that I think this is actually the common norm among most ethnic minorities. He makes it sound like Jews are outliers. I've often talked about Turks living in Germany, NL, France etc but there are many other examples.The main difference is not behavior per se but power. The Jewish diaspora is infinitely more powerful and influential than whatever little crumbs that Turks, Kurds, Armenians or any other Middle-Eastern group get off the table, despite often being far more numerous than Jews - at least in Europe.
In other words, it's White people who are abnormally non-tribal rather than Jews being unusually tribal. Jewish tribalism makes much more political and social impact because of relative power differentials favouring Jews compared to other ethnic minorities who are much less influential. But that doesn't mean those other minorities' fundamental patterns of behaviour are any different.
Anti-Zionism is (in the US, at least), profoundly anti-establishment. The anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone until Trump walked down the escalator in 2016, and this is the first time since then that Israel-Palestine has been the current thing. But "why can Israel oppose immigration but the US can't" and "why can Israel play to win with the Palestinians when the US has its hands tied in Iraq" where both fairly common memes on the anti-establishment right back in the noughties. (Practically every commentator on the Unz review plus Moldbug)
Unlike the anti-establishment left, the anti-establishment right isn't consistently anti-Zionist, because it includes rabid Islamophobes who support Israel on enemy-of-my-enemy grounds, and wackjob Christians who support Israel in order to immanentize the escheaton. But the natural position of the anti-establishment right is that Israel is just another country and the US should not spend money defending them for the same reasons as Ukraine.
The left may not be consistently anti-Israel, but even when not actually anti-Israel, it's anti-a lot of things Israel does, including border walls. So the answer is "pretty much nobody who opposes limits on immigration in the US supports it for Israel".
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How many of the refugees currently in Europe are due to instabilities precisely provoked by Israel, though?
The biggest refugee movements to Europe in the past decade, if I've understood correctly, can be connected to the destabilization and war in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In case of Iraq, there's a direct argument to be made that Israel lobbied America to invade, though this was hardly the only factor leading to Bush admin to make this move.
However, in case of Syria, my understanding is that the primarly supporters of the anti-Assad rising that then became a civil war was not Israel - which of course hated Assad but didn't evince a particular wish for the opposition to take over either - but the Gulf States and, later, Turkey. One could argue that Israel preferred a destabilized, riven Syria to either party winning, but even then you'd have to make an actual argument as to how, exactly, Israel played its cards to make that happen, rather that a long civil war is simply what happens when you have two armies of roughly equal strength and also foreign countries (Turkey, Russia) willing to directly intervene to save their preferred side's bacon.
Insofar as Libya goes, my understanding is that Gaddafi had recently tried to make amends with Israel, and I don't think I've seen anyone in particular blame Israel for the Libyan Revolution (and its failure), and US war in Afghanistan - again, if my understanding is correct - was considered by Israelis a sideshow, a distraction from the more important cause of invading Iraq and Iran. Furthermore, IIRC even in case of Iraq, the initial refugee waves of the war in 2003 and the following breakdown of order went to the neighboring countries, and only the 2015 refugee wave triggered by breakdown of Syria and Libya led to a wider Iraqi movement to Europe.
Of course, if one thinks that there's literally nothing in the world that happens without the Jewish/Israeli hidden hand at play it's natural to blame Israel for all of these, but I'd really need to see a more comprehensive argument for major Israeli involvement in most of these cases.
That's obviously a big issue as well (even moreso), I just wanted to comment on whether you can say that Zionism in even the narrow sense (ie. support for actual country of Israel, or the actual country of Israel's actions abroad) can be blamed on the conflicts leading to the refugee crisis in this way.
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